Magic and Myth

     One of the challenges faced by anyone who has passed through studies in philosophy is that one is led eventually to set aside magical explanations of the world and to try to figure things out rationally. The task is not solitary but each one has to do the work him- or herself. The set of explanations that have been handed on to us are called before the tribunal of reason to be weighed in the balance. This does not allow a whole lot of room for romance!

     As I grow older I find less and less place for the magical fables that abound today and that lead us to escape from the real world into fantasy. 

Paradoxically, I also find myself increasingly drawn to the territory of stories and myths as bearers of the deeper meaning of the human quest. The paradox is only apparent. Stories and myths are filled with images and imagination but are far from fantasy and magic. The stories of Noah and of the Wise Men are anything but magical explanations of the world; they are full of meaning without falling into magic or fantasy – unless of course as far too many people are prone to do, they are interpreted literally. At that point they become quite fantastic and magical. They also lose all meaning – at least for me.

     Religion is, of course, a goldmine of myth and story. For those so inclined it is also an abundant source of magical explanations of the world that render life utterly superficial, however reassuring.

     All of us who were introduced to religion as children clearly embraced the world of religion and its stories in a profoundly magical mode. This is both inevitable and understandable. The world of the child does not distinguish, yet, between myth and fantasy and it normally takes years of patient inquiry to arrive at the point of making the distinctions. Most don’t bother: they continue with childish fantasies or throw the whole bucket out the window. Neither leaves much room for profundity in the grasp of the challenges of life.

     So, the move from child to adult is a move that distinguishes, discerns, between the explanations that are magical and those that offer some grasp of reality that push us to engage with the deeper dynamics of life. The prosaic explanations of academics are seldom sufficient nourishment and history would seem to indicate that those who go the deepest and the furthest are those whose discernments are rooted in stories and myths that move us to a profound engagement with reality without abandoning the search for—though perhaps not the achievement of—rational explanation.

     This means that those adults who want to make some sense of religion inevitably much make an arduous journey through the religious stories they have heard as children in order to arrive at an understanding of their deeper significance. This cannot be done without the harrowing rejection of their magical interpretation.

     Catholicism is particularly filled with all sorts of stories open to magical interpretation that can hide their deeper meaning. The list is long: the Garden of Eden, the original sin, the story of the flood, of the exodus of Moses, of the birth of Jesus, of the shepherds, the wise men and their star, the multiplication of the loaves and finally the resurrection of Jesus, his ascension and then the Pentecost.  The sacraments are in general a rich source of magical interpretations that hide their real meaning: the mark of Baptism, the descent of the Spirit in Confirmation, the consecration in the Eucharist, the forgiveness in Reconciliation.

Ultimately the very notion of Church that and of God, of heaven, hell and finally of salvation are called forward for re-examination. God and Church itself are “put on trial” without any predetermined outcome. The same is true for the celebrated notions of heaven and of hell.

To affirm that many of the explanations of these stories and rituals have magical tones is to open a veritable can of worms especially in the current context of Church politics and theological thinking. Yet the only way into adulthood and the only possible future for religion today is to engage it as adults with all the risk and effort that this implies.

     I remember having the thought, when I was studying theology, so many years ago; that there was something they weren’t telling me. Now, some fifty years later, I think what I didn’t catch was that everything they were saying was a code for telling me, “There is something important here, but you will have to figure it out for yourself.” We are not alone in doing so; many theologians are working feverishly at it. Still, in the end, only we can do it for ourselves.