Robert Segal

Abstract. The topic of the March 2011 symposium in Zygon is “The Mythic Reality of the Autonomous Individual.” Yet few of the contributors even discuss “mythic reality.” Of the ones who do, most cavalierly use “myth” dismissively, as simply a false belief. Rather than reconciling myth with reality, they oppose myth to reality. Their view of myth is by no means unfamiliar or unwarranted, but they need to recognize other views of myth and to defend their own. Above all, they need to appreciate the grip that any belief aptly labelled myth has—a grip that holds at least as much for a false belief as for a true one

The history of the modern study of myth can be divided into two main categories: that which sees myth as the primitive counterpart to natural science, itself considered overwhelmingly modern, and that which sees myth as almost anything but the primitive counterpart to natural science. The first category constitutes the nineteenth-century approach to myth. The second category constitutes the twentieth-century approach. Tylor and Frazer epitomize the nineteenth-century view. Malinowski, Eliade, Bultmann, Jonas, Camus, Freud, and Jung epitomize the twentieth-century approach. The question for the twenty-first century is whether myth can be brought back to the physical world, but in a way compatible with science. The case of the myth of Gaia will be considered as a possible way of doing so

Scholars in religious studies, or “religionists,” often mischaracterize the social‐scientific study of religion. They assume that a social‐scientific analysis of the origin, function, meaning, or truth of religion either opposes or disregards the believer's analysis, which religionists profess to present and defend. I do not argue that the social sciences analyze religion from the believer's point of view. I argue instead that a social scientific analysis is more akin and germane to the believer's point of view than religionists assume. I single out seven mischaracterizations of the social sciences typically held by religionists.

. On the one hand Jungian John Sanford criticizes Carl Jung for underestimating the importance granted evil by at least some strains of Christianity. On the other hand Sanford follows Jung in assuming that psychology is entitled to criticize Christianity whenever it fails to grant evil its due. Like Jung, Sanford contends that he is faulting Christianity on only psychological grounds: for failing to cope with evil in man–the shadow archetype. In fact, Sanford, like perhaps Jung as well, is also criticizing Christianity on metaphysical grounds: for failing to acknowledge not just psychological but also ontological evil. Whether Sanford is thereby using psychology to assess Christian metaphysics is the issue

Like Clifford Geertz and Mary Douglas, Victor Turner considers religion the key to culture and ritual the key to religion. Like them as well, he interprets religion the way believers purportedly do: as beliefs, as beliefs about the cosmos, yet as cosmic beliefs compatible with modern science. Ritual serves to express those cosmic beliefs–not for the scientific purpose of explaining or controlling the cosmos but for the existential purpose of giving human beings a place in it. Ritual serves simultaneously to express beliefs about society–not only for the functionalist purpose of keeping human beings in their social place but also for the existential purpose of giving them a social place.

The 'Vocabulary for the study of religion' is an interdisciplinary endeavor that offers a unique overview of critical terms in the study of religion. This is the first dictionary in English to cover such a broad spectrum of theoretical topics used in the academic study of religion, including those from adjacent disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, historiography, theology, philology, literary studies, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political sciences. The Vocabulary contains over 400 entries written by experts with a background in a variety of disciplines.