Sir, – Manchán Magan writes beautifully about links between Ireland and India in stories, lore, and language (“Ireland and India: the ties that bind”, Books, November 9th).
Carl Jung wrote about a “collective unconscious” and argued that “myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings”. It is little wonder that commonality lies beneath every surface, reflected in stories, myths, and language.
In 1962, in “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”, Jung wrote that the “mythopoeic imagination” had “vanished from our rational age”. The death of myth at the hand of godless technology is an archetypal human worry, but a groundless one: we regenerate myths continually, ranging from the origin stories of ancient religions to contemporary movie superheroes.
The same tales are told in each generation, recast in the likeness of our gods.
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Jung wrote that it can appear “to be a risky experiment or a questionable adventure to entrust oneself to the uncertain path that leads into the depths of unconscious.” Still, we go there often, when we dream, when we tune into the collective, and when we wake anew. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN KELLY
Professor of Psychiatry,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
