Hi Colin.

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

Whether or not you agree that a new, or any, mythology is necessary, that is the opinion of many significant thinkers I have mentioned in the articles: Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Alex Evans, Edward Edinger, Keiron Le Grice, Jonah Sachs. I address the question in this article.

When I say that a new mythology is what is needed to unite humanity, this does not have to be mythology in the same sense as we understand that of the Greeks, the Norse etc., rather a worldview, story, that everyone could accept. This is what I have been attempting to formulate in recent articles. However, since ancient mythological themes still have great appeal — Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc. — if this worldview could be expressed in stories and art similar to ancient myths, then this would probably be very helpful.

Although I accept that Nietzsche has some merits, I do not treat him as authoritative and am not a great fan — I find him far too full of his own importance, an inflated personality. On your specific point…

“mythology is given to a group of people who lack the freedom of will to decide (think upon) their own operating methodology”. I’m not sure ‘freedom of will’ is the best phrase to express his meaning — I’m assuming he means something like ‘sufficiently evolved consciousness’. That may indeed have been true in the past at the time when the original myths emerged.

“But as soon as a group of people, or a culture, has the capacity to dictate, through their thinking, their own spiritual directive, then they are no longer in need of the mythological approach as principle source for spiritual direction”. That may be true in principle, which might explain why myths like the old ones are no longer emerging. In practice, however, our dominant culture nowadays has completely lost its way and does not have the capacity to dictate its own spiritual directive. That was the theme of my articles in the series criticising Steven Pinker, David Christian, and Julian Huxley. They also agree that a new story (mythology) is necessary, but offer a false one, elevating so-called ‘science’ to a status far beyond its worth.

I am courageous enough to let others do the same. If they find the story compelling enough, and put it into practice, it should work.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘outside force’; I assume that myths are also ‘inside experience’.

I’m also not clear what you mean when you say that an individual’s inheritance is an attempt for freedom. Inherited from what? Freedom from what? If I understand you correctly, this attempt for freedom (death of God? A humanistic approach?) has in my opinion led humanity badly astray.