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2- This tendency represents an unrealized but extremely powerful mystic impulse, an instinct common to all cultures and peoples, which is now seeking a new mode of expression in the modern world.

According to neurobiologists Eugene D'Aquili and Andrew Newberg in their pioneering work The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience, the human brain is structured in such a way as to make the generation of myth essentially inevitable. "Human beings have no choice but to construct myths to explain their world... this constructive orientation is inherent in the obligatory functioning of the neural structures of operators we have described."

According to D'Aquili and Newberg, a mythic story represents a "deeply felt existential problem" for the society that creates it, generally involving a seemingly irreconcilable pair of opposites. Our minds are predisposed by their own underlying structure to create mythic stories, reconciling the opposing forces we encounter in the world into a more fundamental unity. The creation of such myths is not optional- it is automatic; part of the structure of the mind itself. That is why mythmaking is a universal, present in all eras and in all societies. (It would perhaps be more cautious to call it a near universal, although the very few potential exceptions may very well turn out not to be exceptions at all upon closer study.)

Even atheists have their myths as well, though masquerading as something else. Carl Sagan's Cosmos presents one such myth, re-imagining history as a heroic battleground between the forces of reason and those of superstition, in which the progress of reason and human progress march hand in hand. Here we have the opposing dyad of good and evil, represented this time by reason and superstition. The war continues, but good will triumph in the end and evil will fade, ushering in a new golden age defined by scientific progress. The new Zoroastrianism!

It is my contention, however- and one that D'Aquili and Newberg do not dismiss, despite their rigorously scientific approach- that this universal impulse to generate myths is not exclusively neurobiological, but is the mind's reaction to or interpretation of something else- the magic at the heart of the world. As this magic has always existed, the mythic impulse has as well, resulting in the classical myths of the ancient world, as well as the still-extant mythologies of the great religions. Myth in this context is a social phenomena, representing the worldview of an entire culture. Much of the modern world, however, is secular and fragmented, expressed not by a single viewpoint but by a multiplicity. The broken mirror of the modern world shows us dozens of faces when we try to look into it, and no easy way to reconcile them into a meaningful unity. For better or for worse, most of us cannot connect with any tribal identity, or lay claim in any organic way to the mythology of a people. Even those who have such a connection are too often alienated, unable to feel themselves as belonging to their own point of origin.

Myth still flourishes in this strange new world, but it manifests differently- in fantastic fiction, in personal gnosis, and in private visions. The mythology we are creating today is intensely personal, manifesting in a thousand forms, and constantly fluid. What we need to do now is to recognize it for what it is- a new vision of spirituality for a new mode of life, drawing on the most primal sources and yet completely distinct.