LOGOS AND MYTHOS

"We have previously mentioned two common modes of human knowledge, the Logos and the Mythos. The former is the pattern structure of the divine archai, or first creative principle, over which the mind of God formed the universe. The Mythos is man's own expression of truth, the dynamic and living vesture he fashions to clothe the archetypal noumena and thus make them accessible to all men. The primary language devised for this purpose was imagery drawn from nature, since nature itself was the living embodiment of the divine ideation, the epiphany of the Logos. As Patanjali, the Hindu sage says: 'The universe is wholly pervaded by the Supreme Being. There is therefore no aspect of the universe which cannot be used as a means for attaining the realization of the divine.'

"Ancient thought had cultivated and sometimes achieved a kind of genius that could intuitively perceive the relationship between nature and divine mind. It had developed the art of representative ideography to a high degree of subtlety. The great Egyptian, Greek, Persian, Indian, even biblical myths and allegories remain inscrutable to the modern mind; the mysteries of old are still mysteries. The scriptures are mostly great tomes of undiscovered wisdom and hidden truth.

"There was a prospect of some awakening to the true nature and value of myth and symbol when modern psychology discovered what it calls the 'unconscious' area of the psyche; C.G. Jung especially showed the possibility of communication between an inner self hidden in this unconscious region and the outer conscious personality. Psychoanalysis revealed the fact that this hidden side of the individual conveyed its messages to the conscious mind by means of the same general but multifarious code of symbols and images used by the authors of the scriptures and the myths of antiquity."

P.211, A Rebirth for Christianity, "The witness of allegory," by Alvin Boyd Kuhn (2005)