The Cry for Myth (38 page)

Read The Cry for Myth Online

Authors: Rollo May

BOOK: The Cry for Myth
4.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Held, John, Jr., 126

Helen of Troy, 221, 228-230, 242, 244-245, 246, 247-248

hell:

descriptions of, 99, 22;, 230, 254

wisdom gained in, 165–166, 273

helping professions, 269

Hemingway, Ernest, 139

heroes, 53-59

American, 54-56, 95

astronauts as, 298

celebrities vs., 55

community values embodied in, 53-54

of French Resistance, 41

gangsters as, 100

misuse of, 54, 56

as role models, 56-59

Hesiod, 70

Hesse, Hermann, 261

Highet, Gilbert, 39

Hill, James J., 131

Hinduism, 293

Hiroshima, bomb dropped on, 271

history:

American contempt for, 103

European sense of, 99–100

mythological influence on, 91–92

Hitler, Adolf, 54, 256, 257-258, 260
n
, 264, 265, 271

Holy Communion, 51

holy days, 50

Holy Spirit, 220

home, sense of, 52-53, 60–61

see also
community

homelessness, 60–61

Homer:

Odyssey
, 104-105,166, 273, 295-297

Oedipus myth and, 28

on Sisyphus, 145

homicide rates, 100

homosexuality, 225

Horney, Karen, 102

Hoyle, Sir Fred, 300

hubris, 34n, 231-232

humanism:

of Goethe, 235, 255

Renaissance, 227

humanities:

decline of, 57

in education of therapists, 153

human role, limitations inherent in, 231-232

Hussell, P. 300
n

hymen, flower as symbol of, 206

Ibsen, Henrik:

background of, 169, 170

Doll’s House
, 289

psychoanalytic revolution and, 183

on trolls, 177-178

see also Peer Gynt

Icarus, 222, 265

id, 233

identification, 201

identity:

case histories on, 31–37

heroism as reflection of, 58

myth used in search for, 26, 30

names and, 47

Oedipus myth and, 28, 30

personal background and, 47, 48

psychotherapy and, 16

identity confusion, 289

“I Don’t Understand” (Yevtushenko), 168
n
, 170

illness:

creativity derived from, 262-263

cultural decline as, 260–261

immigrants, American, 48, 49, 95–96

immortality, 293

I’m O.K., You’re O.K
. (Berne), 268

impotence, 180

individualism:

American belief in, 108–10

collective guilt vs., 265

as left-brain principle, 288

narcissism and, 112, 114, 177

in
Peer Gynt
, 175-177

psychological depression and, 122-123

in religion, 109-–10

in Renaissance thought, 220

success and, 11;, 117, 119

industrialism:

alienation of labor through, 242

Enlightenment values and, 235, 236, 250

masculinity of, 288

patriarchal power of, 246-247, 250

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
(Green), 17-21, 98

infant sexuality, Freudian theories of, 65

Inferno
(Dante), 39, 154–155, 156, 160–162

inspiration, 276

instincts, 72

intentionality, 208

International Society for Astrological Research, 22
n

Interpretation of Dreams, The
(Freud), 74

intuition, 163, 246

Ireland, nineteenth-century emigration from, 48

Isaiah, Book of, 42, 271-272

Ishmael, 277

Ismene, 81,82, 85

I-thou relationship, 193

Jacob, 42

James, Jesse, 95

James, William, 51
n
, 115

Jazz Age, 125-–26

carelessness of, 133–134

daily monotony denied in, 145

Fitzgerald and, 127, 128,135

Lindbergh’s heroism in, 54–55

loneliness in, 137

romance of, 128

self-pity and, 139

Jeffers, Robinson, 39

Jensen, Wilhelm, 164

Jesus Christ:

birth of, 38, 50

in Christian trinity, 220

crucifixion of, 50,166, 233, 280

in desert, 94-95

on guilt, 83

Lucifer’s jealousy of, 34
n

salesmanship and, 126

Joan of Arc, Saint, 284

Job, Book of, 34, 236-237, 281

Jocasta, 75, 78, 80, 205

Johnston, Moira, 119
n

Jonah, 278

Jones, Ernest, 73, 74–75

Jones, Jim, 23, 274

Joseph and His Brothers
(Mann), 31, 73

Joyce, James, 154,162

Judaism, 39

Jung, Carl:

Answer to Job
, 237

on collective unconscious, 38, 171

on conscious vs. unconscious, 225

evolutionary theory and, 201
n

on Haggard, 165

on mythlessness, 63

on poetic perception, 37-38

on preconscious psyche, 37-38

“shadow” concept of, 27, 271

kairos
, 92, 205, 206, 208, 209

Kaluli, 122

Kant, Immanuel, 236

Kennedy, John F., 102

Kepler, Johannes, 220

Kernberg, Otto, 112
n

Key, Francis Scott, 127

Kierkegaard, Søren:

on being vs. choosing, 179

cultural influences of, 74, 170, 171

on meaning of existence, 15

modern alienation and, 207

purity of heart defined by, 132

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 57, 58

King and I, The
(Rodgers and Hammerstein), 195

King Lear
(Shakespeare), 23

Kirkpatrick, Jeanne, 291

Kissinger, Henry, 97-98

Kluckhohn, Clyde, 51
n

knowledge:

lust for, 220-221, 224, 231

magic linked with, 220-221, 222, 267-268

Kohut, Hans, 112
n

Kunta Kinte, 48,49

labor, alienation of, 242

Laing, Ronald, 52

Laius, 75, 78
n
, 79,80

language:

myth and, 23

rationalistic, 26

Lasch, Christopher, 112

Last Supper, 50

left-brain activity, 25, 288

Lennon, John, 98

Leonardo da Vinci, 246

Levin, Jennifer Dawn, 59-61

Levine, Arthur, 56

Levi-Strauss, Claude, 38

Leviticus, Book of, 52

Le Vot, Andrew, 129, 132, 139, 141, 142

Lewis, Sinclair, 27

Life
, 27

Lifton, Robert, 104,105

Lincoln, Bruce, 290

Lindbergh, Charles, 54-55

Listening
, 24
n

“Little Gidding” (Eliot), 70

Lives in Progress
(White), 115
n

Lives of the Engineers
(Smiles), 250

Lives of the Painters
(Vasari), 250

Loman, Willy (fictional character), 43,117, 137, 141

loneliness:

in America, 48, 96–101,106

of death, 294

in
Great Catsby
, 135–137

myths as sharers of, 17, 21

reaction-formation and, 98

violence and, 100

Lonely Crowd, The
(Riesman), 97
n

Lone Ranger
, 96–97

lotteries, 119–120, 124

love:

as community, 164, 165

death vs. 76-77, 294

forgiveness and, 255

myths of, 39

see also
Eros

Love and Will
(May), 27, 61, 135
n
, 250
n

Lovell, Jim, 298

Lucifer, 32, 34,139, 223, 272-273, 380

see also
devil; Satan

luck, 117, 118,119-120

Lucretius, 16

“Luke Larkin’s Luck” (Alger), 115–118

Great Gatsby
vs., 129

publication of, 115–116

stranger in, 116,117

western redemptive theme in, 95, 116–117

Luther, Martin, 220, 260, 272

Macbeth
(Shakespeare), 42, 152, 282

McCartney, Paul, 98

Machiavelli, Nicolò, 52

Maclntyre, Alasdair, 69

MacLeish, Archibald, 22-23, 297-298

Marshall McLuhan Institute, 301

McPherson, Aimée Semple, 126

Magellan, Ferdinand, 300

magic, knowledge as, 220–221, 222, 267-268

Magic, Science and Religion
(Malinowski), 15, 30

Magic Mountain, The
(Mann), 256, 260
n

Mailer, Norman, 42

Malinowski, Bronislaw, 15, 30,60

Manichaeanism, 32, 271

manifest destiny, 94,100

Mann, Thomas:

Hitlerism and, 256–258, 264

on myths, 27, 31, 50,73

on psychologists, 260, 266

writing process of, 258, 264

see also Doctor Faustus

Man Nobody Knows, The
(Barton), 126

Man’s Search for Himself
(May), 208
n

Mardi Gras, 50

Mariology, 288

Marlowe, Christopher:

background of, 222

see
also Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus

Mary, Christian trinity and, 220

Maslow, Abraham, 294

materialism, 56, 218

Mayflower
, 92

Meaning of Anxiety
(May), 51
n

Medea, 155

medicine, progress in, 260–261

meditation, 145

“me-first” philosophy, 56

Melville, Herman, 277-284

memory:

creativity and, 68
n
, 70-71

earliest, 64, 65, 66–67, 68–70, 74–75

mechanical models of, 67-68, 70

reality of, 65

three facets of, 68

men, left-brain activity associated with, 288

menstruation, 200, 203

mental telepathy, 163

Mephistopheles:

in Goethe’s
Faust
, 34, 23;, 236, 237–423. 245–246, 248, 240–252, 254. 255. 272-273, 280

in Marlowe’s
Doctor Faustus
, 223, 225, 226, 227, 228, 231, 232

see also
Satan

mercy, 134

Merton, Thomas, 91

Merwin, W. S., 1o6

Meyer, Adolph, 69

Meyer, Michael, 169
n
, 170

Michelangelo, 209

Middle Ages, prominence of divinity in, 222

migraine, 259-260

Milken, Michael, 124
n

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 128

Miller, Arthur, 42-44, 261-262

Milton, John, 34, 274

Minkowski, Eugene, 203
n

Mirandola, 220 Mnemosyne, 71

Moby Dick
(Melville), 34, 277-284

money:

as escape from depression, 238
n

ethical acquisition of, 131

U.S. emphasis on, 48, 56, 60, 106, 11;, 119, 123–124,131

monotony, 145, 146,147

Moonies, 22
n

morality:

education in, 28-29

individualistic view of, 110

international, 298

mythlessness and, 31, 59–60

passion vs., 161

see also
ethics

mortality, 293-297

Moses, birth of, 38

motherhood, feminine abilities symbolized by, 243, 246–247, 291–292

motivation, 61

Mount Olympus, divine conflicts on, 278, 283

movies, 18, 26–27

Movers, Bill, 123–124

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 218, 236, 297

Muktananda, 22
n

Muller, Max, 25

murder, 100

Murray, Henry, 25
n
, 34, 271-272, 277
n
, 278, 279n, 282, 283-284

Musgrave, Susan, 66

music, artist decline and, 262

mystery, myth and, 31, 73, 300

myth(s):

archetypal patterns manifested in, 37-38

art vs., 28

aspirations derived from, 61

astrology as, 22
n

of care, 250
n

catharsis of, 221, 232-233

as celebration, 50-52

of change, 102-106

consciousness vs., 37

cults and, 22-24

as cultural necessity, 15–16

death and, 39, 217, 219

denial of, 24-25

of Eros, 39, 76-77, 134

eternal values represented in, 26-29, 39–40, 59, 60,196, 297

fairy tales vs., 196

as falsehood, 23, 24-25

of Faust, 217-222, 229–230, 253

four functions of, 15–16, 30-31

of freedom, 95

Greek,
see
Creek myths

healing power of, 81, 82, 84–87

Hebrew, 28, 42

history preceded by, 91-92

individual identity and, 16, 26, 30, 31-37

lack of, 21,63

language and, 23

of love, 39

Mann on, 27, 31, 50, 73

memory transformed into, 67–68,70

modern deterioration of, 15, 19

mystery and, 31, 73, 300

of newness, 101-104

of Oedipus, 28, 37, 38, 43, 72–73, 75, 78
n
, 81, 82, 84–86,180–181, 284

poets and, 106

progressive vs. regressive functions of, 86-87

in psychotherapeutic process, 15–21, 31–37

ritual vs., 38–39,50-51, 290

science as critique of, 25

of Sisyphus, 39, 144-147

societal interpretations of, 254

of success, 115, 117–119, 131, 132

for women, 289, 290

myth(s), American:

of change, 101-106

community asserted through, 45-46

of freedom, 95

of frontier, 93-98, 127

heroes of, 54-56

of individualism, 108–110

loneliness in, 96–101

loss of, 122, 141–142

of New World, 91-93

paucity of, 48, 59, 99

radical transition in, 126, 127

of success, 115–119

see also
American culture

Myth of the Birth of the Hero
(Rank), 38

“My Wild Irish Rose,” 206

Nagasaki, bombing of, 218–219, 271

names, of slaves, 47

narcissism, American psychotherapy and, 69

narcissistic personality, 112-114, 177

in
Peer Gynt
, 177, 190

Narcissus, myth of, 110–111

narcotics, 23

National Institutes for Mental Health, 121

Other books

Murder Plays House by Ayelet Waldman
Ruin Nation by Dan Carver
Sailors on the Inward Sea by Lawrence Thornton
Revenge by Delamar, Dana
Violent Exposure by Katherine Howell
Summer of Supernovas by Darcy Woods
Bone Deep by Randy Wayne White
Alexandra Waring by Laura Van Wormer
Deadly Gamble by Linda Lael Miller