myth is neither allegory nor philosophy but identification

Within myth, the faithful hardly believe in anything; they simply and unself-consciously respond to the world they perceive with the aid of the myth, a world, moreover, that they see as real. The beliefs we observe in others are, for the insiders, invisible and taken for granted. The fan does not believe the Red Sox are the best team; he knows it. The devout don't believe Jesus is the Christ; they encounter Jesus directly as the Christ. The myth implicitly presents the world as it is, not as it may possibly be.

When the believer says, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet,” he is bearing witness, to the facts as he sees them, as realities in the universe not belief in his mind.

Myth can convey meaning and purpose, but it does so with a price and a danger. That’s what it looks like from the outside. But from the inside, it doesn’t look that way. From inside of myth, we become more authentic, and life gains greater significance and meaning, the more we identify with the mythic tale.

What constitutes a worthwhile life?—cannot be asked while we are living mythically. From inside myth, the question of meaning never arises. All myth can do is tell compelling stories. To ask critical or abstract questions of a myth—how the stories are related or what ideas they represent, for example—is already to violate the mythic mind. Myth is neither allegory nor philosophy but identification. The most important thing about myths is not the depth of ideas they contain— remember, I said they calm the mind precisely by staying on the surface of things—but whether they are compelling. To remind a companion who emerges in tears from a viewing of The Last Picture Show or some similarly sad movie that "It's only a story; it's not real" is both to miss the point and to misunderstand the compelling nature of, and total identification with, myth.

We begin to ask why and what for when faith and myth become self-conscious. Mythic thinking breaks down whenever we become reflective or self-conscious. Meaning is the price we pay for self-consciousness.

Faith over belief: "People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we are seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance with our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's finally all about."

- Joseph Campbell