The days of myth and lore are long gone, but the lessons they taught and their meanings span generations and are as important today as they were then. Legend has provided answers to unsolved questions, when the shape of the earth was unknown, images of a flat plane surrounded by cosmic nothingness served to ease our minds. The evolution of science has diminished the effect of myth, things have been proven to be, and the corresponding legend has been reduced to fiction. Herein lies the mistake, science does not, and cannot, pretend to be the "truth" in any absolute sense. What is really important, as Carl Jung's theories describe, is a dialogue between our modern consciousness and our inner dreams.
In his book “Myths to Live By”, Joseph Campell offers the notion of maintaining a balance between science and tradition. He attributes the rapidly rising incidence of crime and violence, among other problems, to the unsettling of our old mythologically founded taboos by our own modern sciences. It has always been on myths that the moral orders of societies have been founded, and since the impact of science results inevitably in moral disequilibriation, we must seek to understand myths on a psychological level, to discover their source and nature.
Psychiatrists such as Sir James Frazer and Sigmund Freud judged the worlds of myths and religion negatively, as errors to be refuted, surpassed, and ultimately supplanted by science. Despite this belief, Freud recognized a link, describing myths as being of the psychological order of dreams. Jung believed myths keep us in touch with our inner selves, while science establishes our outside world. Without myths, we would be helpless in the face of an imprecise science, our souls stripped of their security. Throughout history there are instances of primitive communities unsettled by civilization having their old taboos discredited, thereafter immediately going to pieces and disintegrating.
