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Every person's memories are his or her own personal mythology. Personal mythologies undergo subtle variations and changes over time. George Bernard Shaw said, “We cannot change the future but we can change the past.” This is true, because we do change our recollections of the past.
Pascal has a saying, “Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas.” Or in approximate English—the heart has its reason, with which reason is not acquainted. In short, mythology and its inherent irrationalities are derived from the unconscious mind.
Here is a related vignette. I once treated a 3-year-old girl, Jane. Her mother, a successful businesswoman, was often away, and Jane suffered from intense separation anxiety. In my office, Jane would play with a doll she called “Skipper.” “Skipper,” Jane once told the doll, rocking it in her arms, “don't cry. I will come back tomorrow.” I said to Jane: “You also know your Mommy always comes back. And yet you still cry.” Jane told me something stunning for a 3-year-old. “Yes, I know. I know Mommy comes back. I know Mommy is coming back. But I don't feel it.”
Jane was expressing a common problem. She was expressing why people are frequently unhappy. Harmony is not just to feel what we know, but to know what we feel. It is in this space between heart and reason, between feeling and knowledge, where mythology resides.
In his book, Masks of God, Joseph Campbell notes that myths are universal phenomena (Campell, 1959). All peoples, in all cultures, believe in some type of mythology. Campbell suggests all people define themselves in terms of mythology regardless of whether they are aware of doing so. Myths and epics are cultural manifestations and explanations of spiritual, cosmological, and social reality. “Mythology,” Campbell said, qualifying