“Other People’s Religion”
A Common Myth
Collectively, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is the clearest, most “differentiated” mythological statement ever made. By this, I mean to say that, as a myth, it has been more fully unwrapped of the symbolic layer that envelops myths. Though this may sound like a foreign or even uncomfortable idea, close examination reveals that even religious symbolism that has been reflected on for centuries undergoes dramatic shifts in interpretation. For instance, the concept of “God” has not remained static through human history, it can be seen that “the God idea” has become more and more human as the interpretations of religious dogmas evolve. The most recent, and perhaps most popular, version of God is that of Christ—who was a far more human manifestation of God than the Western Civilization had ever seen Christ, as the human element of the Godhead, thus becomes more relatable, yet the symbol is still shrouded in so much mysterious imagery and language that it is difficult for the modern, highly rational mind to interpret.
That is, until now. God has been reintroduced through the program of AA and the Twelve Steps. This new “God,” I will show, is far more effectual at transforming lives, because it is also more human, than it has ever been.
Calling the Twelve Steps a myth probably seems a stretch, because upon visiting AA, one quickly notices, among the irreverently aligned rows of fold-up plastic chairs and coffee-stained floors, a lack of rites, idols, and altars that are typical of modern churches and temples. In AA one finds almost nothing resembling either religion or mythology. Indeed, the only thing hanging on the wall in an AA meeting or club will be cheap, plastic roll-down window shade renditions of the most important thing of all for AA members printed on them—the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.
The book “Alcoholics Anonymous” (usually called the “Big Book”) also lacks the mythos typical of religion, especially considering that many AA members give to it far more canonical significance than they give to what they often refer to as “the other big book,” which phrase they kiddingly use to refer to the Bible. The Big Book tells no story of the creation of the world, renders no universal fall of mankind, and preaches no plan of redemption from that fall. In it, there are no portrayals of burning bushes, miraculous sea crossings, universal floods, or appearances of angels carrying direct messages from God. The program Alcoholics Anonymous (as well as its “Big Book”) appear to be more like a piecemeal self-help method, used to keep ne’er-do-well alkies on the water wagon forever, than a clear, precise, and unparalleled spiritual revelation.
It is surprising, then, to learn that the mythos typically associated with religion does in fact exist in AA, though for most this fact remains hidden, even for AA members. That mythos is found within the process of the Twelve Steps (and to a lesser degree, the Twelve Traditions). It is foundational to the nature of myth that the mystery of God and transformation remains shrouded, or just a little out of reach of our conscious minds. Carl Jung believed that humans typically live myths unconsciously:
Every great experience in life [Jung writes], every profound conflict, evokes the accumulated treasure of these [mythical] images and brings about their inner constellation. But they become accessible to consciousness only when the individual possesses so much self-awareness and power of understanding that he also reflects on what he experiences instead of just living it blindly. In the latter event they actually live the myth and the symbol without knowing it.[1]
Nowhere is Jung's statement more true than in the Twelve Step programs which have now been introduced across the face of the earth (all of which adopted their program from the original Twelve Steps of AA). In AA, the old mysteries remain concealed behind modern language and methods introduced through the Twelve Steps. The Twelve Steps qualify in every aspect as a myth, and once we understand what the purpose of myth is, how myths function, and how they are revealed, then we will see that the age-old mythological drama is exactly what the drama of the Twelve Steps is all about. Edward Edinger writes about the need for the West to discover a new myth:
My thought is that the future may generate new standards of thought and action derived from a new myth, and that those new standards will be based on the coniunctio as the highest good…
According to this Jungian myth, the highest measure of an individual’s worth will be that he or she has a consciousness that is able to carry the opposites. Such people will not pollute the psychic atmosphere by projecting their shadow onto others, but rather will carry their own burden of darkness.
It is my opinion that this prophecy, which has been shared by Edward Edinger, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and many others, has already been fulfilled in the drama of the Twelve Steps. In this book, I will explore this set of symbols—the Twelve Steps—by analyzing them through one of the program’s most important (albeit unaware) contributors, Carl Jung. I will consider Jung’s detailed treatment of two of the most important mythologems, God and the self, by examining them through the lens of Alcoholics Anonymous, using Bill Wilson, its founder, as a case study. It is my hope that such a study will be useful by opening the reader up to some of the powerful spiritual concepts buried within both the Twelve Steps as well as the old mythological stories, as those concepts have been taught by Jung and are practiced in the Twelve Steps. The formulation and practice of the Twelve Steps provide a particularly clear perspective of many otherwise obscure and difficult mythological concepts for the simple reason that they are a modern version of the same old religious story found in every quarter and every age of human existence.
Symbols
It is easy to read any spiritual treatise, especially one so simple as the book Alcoholics Anonymous or as grandiose as the Holy Bible, and to quickly gloss over the important words, like “God” and “self,” though the modern concept of the self was only foreshadowed in the Bible. It is not uncommon that we imagine that our comprehension of religious concepts is complete. “Symbol” is itself perhaps one of these words, and since it was a major theme for Jung, and because the drama of the Twelve Steps is at its core a symbolical story of the individual, it is important that I define the word “symbol” and try to give a complete, though brief, description of what symbolism is.
Symbols are the language of religion and mythology, which is why they are not easily understood. Jung says that, “Symbols are images of contents which for the most part transcend consciousness. They are not allegories,” he writes, “and they are not signs.”[2] Allegories and signs are easily understood, so they are not symbolic. Symbols are more complex than allegories, so much that they “transcend consciousness,” which is a fancy way of saying that they are beyond the grasp of basic human reasoning. Comparatively, allegories are simple equations in logic. Eric Neumann, a student of Jung, expands on our definition of symbol, writing that, “The symbol is . . . an analogy, more an equivalence than an equation, and therein lies its wealth of meanings, but also its elusiveness. Only the symbol group, compact of partly contradictory analogies, can make something unknown, and beyond the grasp of consciousness, more intelligible and more capable of becoming conscious.”[3] In other words, in the realm of the spiritual, we encounter contradictory concepts that lie just beyond our ability to describe, and symbols are what that make these equations come to life. Symbols are meant to “awaken” something within us—and that is the desire, and the ability, to change.
The Story of Myth
What do mythological symbols represent? The answer to this question should make any student of Jung or the Twelve Steps feel right at home. Rudolph Otto, a very important mythologist, tells us that mythological symbols are representative of experiences more than anything else. Otto writes:
This X of ours is not precisely this experience, but akin to this one and opposite to that other. Cannot you now realize for yourself what it is? In other words, our X cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, it can only be evoked, awakened in the mind; as everything that comes ‘of the spirit’ must be awakened.[4]
Mythological symbols, then, are representations of experiences rather than concrete objects or personages, and this is why the Twelve Steps qualify as a new version of the old mythological symbols--at their core they are a set of “instructions” designed to bring about a spiritual awakening, or a religious experience.
It is important to understand that the experience that these symbols allude to cannot be taught, it can only be evoked. This idea will become our theme moving forward, simply because the experience Otto describes is also the same one Wilson describes in the Big Book as well as in the Twelve Steps themselves, and is the same one Jung spent his entire life writing about. The experience is at least one definition of the “spiritual awakening” of Step Twelve— “Having had a spiritual awakening, as the result of these steps.” Each of the Twelve Steps recounts an essential part of the experience of the spiritual awakening, which makes each step part of the symbolic process—even Step One, which states that, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and that our lives had become unmanageable.” We begin to sense that in the realm of the spiritual, the mythological, and the religious, we are dealing with ideas that are not easy to grasp unless we have experienced them for ourselves. This goes for each of the Twelve Steps as well as each of the ancient stories which also demonstrate the same process that is outlined in the Twelve Steps.
Symbols communicate a transcendent experience that is actually impossible to convey because it is transcendent. It is transcendent because it moves a person from an unconscious state of being into a conscious one. This concept is easy to understand for people who have had the experience, but not so easy for those who haven’t. When Bill Wilson was attempting to get sober, as he described it in the chapter “Bill’s Story” in the Big Book, he found himself repeatedly under the care of Doctor William Silkworth, who was the head doctor of Towne’s Hospital, a leading hospital for the treatment of alcoholism in the early twentieth century. Wilson later invited the Doctor to include his opinion about the program Alcoholics Anonymous in the Big Book, which he graciously did. In the “Doctor’s Opinion,” which became the Preface to the Big Book, Doctor Silkworth writes that, “Their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.” This tells us that when a person finally garners sobriety, they have literally transcended their former natural state. Just as a person cannot understand a concept that lies beyond where their own experience has never been, neither can they become something they have never experienced. I cannot correctly imagine what it is like to be in Paris if I have never been to Paris. Once I have been to Paris, I know exactly what it is like to be there and will experience this each time I return. However, I cannot accurately convey to my friend what it is like to be there—she will have to visit Paris to experience it for herself.
Rather than just describe “what happened” in the historical sense, the mythological stories embedded in religion are designed to ignite something within us that makes us want to change. The symbols of religion and the mythological stories we learned about in humanities class were all designed to do the same thing—the difference is that they were designed for humans that lived in a different time and place, and who had a different way of perceiving the world. The Twelve Steps have since taken up this all-important task. Jung writes [SR29] that, “Society is the sum total of humans in need of redemption.” Therefore, every society needs a living and relevant myth, in order that the much-needed redemption take place The myths are not just the instructions, but the catalysts that make redemption happen.
Myths are stories. They are most often written, and sometimes told, as they now are in many of the Twelve Step meetings around the world. The stories generally communicate the same thing—what Bill Wilson defined as “what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.” This is the story that is found in the drama of the Twelve Steps. One reason for the tremendous success of the Twelve Step groups is that the Steps themselves are a sufficient replacement for the relics of earlier myths, due to the fact that they convey the story of the spiritual awakening that, until now, was only communicated through the difficult, symbolical stories such as the fall of Adam and Eve and the atonement of Christ. The older myths require a high level of interpretation in order to become applicable to our modern lives. The Twelve Steps are much easier for our ultra-scientific, highly-rationalistic modern minds to grasp. As our minds evolve, there is also, a need for our spiritual approach to life to evolve. Edinger writes about the mystery of becoming an individual, which is a task that religions and myths have fulfilled since the dawn of time:
The mystery of individuality is a mystery of being which is beyond descriptive power...The individual is a carrier of a profound mystery. Such images are badly needed today since there is very little in our contemporary culture to justify and validate the individual as such.” (Ego and Archetype, pages 157, 165)
The drama of the Twelve Steps is the story of the individual’s quest for redemption, as told in modern terms. Although it is easy to miss this point, AA and religion are designed to bring about the same thing, that which Bill Wilson called “spiritual awakening,” Doctor Silkworth called “psychic change,” and Jung called “individuation.” Sometimes we just call it “growing up,” and sometimes it is described as “rebirth,” “heaven on earth,” or “the fourth dimension.” For those who have been lucky enough to have the experience, it feels a lot more like “heaven on earth” than just “growing up,” although to everyone else it might look like just that. What is clear is that the experience is transcendent—meaning that things came to pass in that far exceeded one’s previous ability to comprehend or facilitate.
All of this is simply to say that the mythological stories we are all familiar with are emblematic of the “psychic change” that Wilson describes in the Big Book. It is also “the experience” that our friend Mr. Otto speaks of.
The Experience of the Story
The ancient, mythological stories are not renditions of historical events, they are timeless renditions of spiritual happenings that exist in a world beyond time—the eternal, present moment. The ancient myths and the Twelve Steps are identical in this way--each illustrate happenings of this moment, as well as in every moment of our lives. This is easy to see in regards to the Twelve Steps—a person is always stuck on at least one of them—even if it is only the First. It’s harder to see in regards to the ancient stories, but as a one learns to see themself in the steps, it becomes much easier to see themself in the ancient stories as well. Joseph Campbell, an author who wrote extensively regarding myths, describes the nature of eternity and time, as follows:
Eternity is neither future, nor past, but now. It is not of the nature of time at all, in fact, but a dimension, so to say, of now and forever, a dimension of the consciousness of being that is to be found and experienced within, upon which, when found, one may ride through time and through the whole length of one’s days. What leads to the knowledge of this transpersonal, trans-historical dimension of one’s being and life experience are the mythological archetypes, those eternal symbols that are known to all mythologies and have been forever the support and models of human life.[5]
The experience of Bill Wilson’s sobriety, which included the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps, is the perfect case study to demonstrate the eternal dimension of the mythological experience. To illustrate this, we simply need to look at how the Twelve Steps were introduced through him. First of all, there are no direct historical accounts of how the Twelve Steps came about, other than Wilson’s own renditions, told at a much later date.[6] William Schaberg, a contemporary AA scholar and historians, in his book “Writing the Big Book,” which is a detailed study of the historical account of how the Big Book was written, has provided us with a composite rendering of Wilson’s experience of writing the Steps. A few passages from that composite show the nature of the revelation of the Twelve Steps. Wilson, in his own words, said that:
With a speed that was astonishing, considering my jangled emotions, I completed the first draft in perhaps half an hour. The words kept right on coming. When I reached a stopping point, I numbered the new steps and say they added up to twelve. Somehow this number seemed significant. Without any special rhyme or reason I connected them with the twelve apostles. I had started with the idea that we needed to broaden and deepen the basic concepts of the program by making them more explicit, but that was the only idea I had when I began to write. The most amazing thing about this experience was that I didn't seem to be thinking at all as I wrote. The words just flowed out of me and I’ve come to believe that the Steps must have been inspired—because I wasn’t in the least bit inspired myself while I was writing them. I have no idea why I wrote the Steps down in that particular order or why they were worded as they were. For reasons unknown to me, my new formulation not only mentioned God several times throughout, but I had moved Him right up to the very beginning of the Steps. Whatever, I didn’t pay much attention to that at the time. I actually thought it all sounded pretty good.[7]
Schaberg emphasizes that when Wilson wrote the Twelve Steps, his process was far more experiential than anything else: “Bill sat down and began to figure out the various phases of his own recovery. Setting them down on paper, he found there were twelve separate and distinct steps,”[8] Schaberg writes. He concludes that “the Twelve Steps were based on almost exclusively [Wilson’s] own experience.”[9] It makes sense that Wilson was penning his own experience when he was inspired to write the Twelve Steps, for the obvious reason that he could not have described anyone else’s. The creation story of the Twelve Steps demonstrates that indeed all mythological symbols are timeless. Wilson’s rendition of his own spiritual awakening, as he outlined it in the drama of the Twelve Steps, is that same experience that Rudolph Otto described when he said that, “This ‘X’ of ours cannot be taught, it can only be awakened in the mind.” It is the same experience that Jung spent his lifetime writing about, and it is the same experience any practitioner of the Twelve Steps may also experience. The fact that Wilson, in describing his own spiritual experience, created a framework that millions of other men and women could later base their lives upon with unparalleled success, both illustrates how closely he was connected to what Jung referred to as “the collective unconscious,” as well as how closely aligned is the purpose of each mythology, not only the myth of the Twelve Steps. This, then, shows why the Twelve Steps may be properly regarded as the new myth that was foreseen by so many philosophers and academics. And it shows that myths are indeed timeless, both in their introduction as well as in practice.
The Twelve Steps are a more differentiated mythological statement than the previous myths of the world because they have been revealed by a modern human, in modern terms, and are less shrouded in difficult symbolism. The previously veiled process of spiritual transformation was so clearly illuminated by Wilson. Because he was simply describing the transformation process as it happened to him, and because he has a modern (albeit highly differentiated) mind, the process as he outlined it is much easier to grasp and is therefore quickly becoming the way people across the world practice “religion.” Wilson to make previously unconscious contents conscious, as Jung would define it. Wilson did this both in terms of spiritual practice as well as the difficult concepts involved in active alcoholism, mainly, “the phenomenon of craving,” as both he and Silkworth described it..
The spiritual experience is an almost impossible experience to relate because it transcends our conscious apprehension. This experience has been the subject of all of the myths the world over—yet Wilson was able to lay it out in such plain terms that it is easy to overlook, with the Steps as the new guide, how profound the process he described actually is. Because the Steps are so easy to grasp, they have become a worldwide phenomenon. As with all mythological portrayals, the experience related in the drama of the Twelve Steps is happening at all times and in all places, and so it is relatable to all of us. The Twelve Steps reveal the meaning and process of the spiritual awakening more plainly than it has ever been revealed.
In summary, then, myths are religious, symbolical stories, which tell the tales of the epics of our spiritual adventures, and which each of us as individuals, at each moment, is caught up in. Nowhere else in modern religiosity is this more true than in Wilson’s rendition of this experience—the Twelve Steps. In the words of Bill Wilson, myths are renditions of “what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now,” and, as we saw from William Schaberg’s account, the Twelve Steps were just that—a modern rendition of the truly ancient and universal story of spiritual transformation. No other statement in history summarizes this adventure better than the Twelve Steps, at least for our modern minds.
Myth, Religion, and Archetype
I have used the words myth and religion almost interchangeably. This is simply because the ancient myths and religions have always shared a common purpose—myths were, at one time, religions, though maybe not in the sense in which we use the term today. In ancient times, religions were far less organized than they are now, though they have always had the same purpose. In his book “The Inner Reaches of Outer Space,” Joseph Campbell explains that myths and religions are essentially the same, the only difference being the person holding the belief:
From the point of view of any orthodoxy, myth might be defined simply as “other people’s religion,” to which an equivalent definition of religion would be “misunderstood mythology,” the misunderstanding consisting in the interpretation of mythic metaphors as references to hard fact: the virgin birth, for example, as a biological anomaly, or the Promised Land as a portion of the near east to be claimed and settled by a people chosen of God, the term “God” here understood to be as denoting an actual, though invisible, masculine personality, who created the universe and is now resident in an invisible, though actual “heaven” to which the justified will go when they die, there to be joined at the end of time by their resurrected bodies.
Jung had an interesting definition of the word religion, which ties directly to Otto’s concept of symbolism describing transcendent experiences: "The term religion designates the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum. Creeds are codified and dogmatized forms of original religious experience.” (11:10) Edward Edinger, in a talk given in San Deigo in 1988, quotes this passage from Jung, and then offers the following commentary: “In other words, religion is the consequence of an experience...We might describe the numinosum as the religion creating archetype in the psyche. It is the God-image, which if one has a living experience of it, generates the religious attitude.”
These concepts show us why it is that Wilson’s ideas so closely align with the spiritual concepts Jung was teaching during his life, and why both of their philosophies are so clearly aligned with the other mythologies of every corner and every age of the world. Wilson was “differentiated,” meaning that he was able to make the meaning of symbolic images and language clearer—he was able to reinvent a process that up until modern times was only expressed in purely symbolic language. Indeed, the process of the medieval alchemists was very important to Jung, because they psychologized the process of individuation in a way that was a step or two less symbolic than the Christian myth upon which most of their concepts were derived.
Numinosity, The Power of Symbols
The power that religious symbols evoke, which is also the power by which the transcendent experience happens, was coined numinosity by Otto in his book The Idea of the Holy. This term was then adopted by Carl Jung and many others to indicate the presence of “something other-worldly, divine, or spiritual.”[10] If something is numinous, then it is also transcendent—beyond the grasp of the intellect.[11] So, the numinous carries a supernatural quality, whereby it has power to lift consciousness from a lower state to a higher one, or in the words of Wilson, improved “conscious contact.” It is the numinosity of the symbol that gives it the power to transform a person’s life. It is important to understand numinosity, as it is a word which pops up now and again in the academia surrounding the spiritual experience.
Numinosity is very important in the Twelve Step experience as well Beginning with Step One, practitioners of the Twelve Steps learn that they are “powerless,” and that they need to find a power greater than themselves. “Lack of power,” writes Wilson, “that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this power?”[12] That question is the basis of all spiritual and religious traditions, AA included, and the answer is found in the numinosity of the symbols. “Symbols act as transformers,” writes Jung, “their function being to convert libido from a lower into a higher form.”[13] The only thing sufficient to overcome powerlessness, according to Wilson, is the numinosity found in religious and mythological symbols.
The symbols abide in such a deep and fundamental part of our psychic makeup that we often don’t recognize when or how it happens to us that we are transformed. Nor do we notice that the symbols were the catalyst for change. Jung refers often to these dense symbolical concepts as “archetypes of the collective unconscious,” because they are common to all cultures and mythologies and because they are buried deep in every human’s unconscious. In addition, Jung teaches that “the symbol acts as a transformer of energy,”[14] which explains, at least in part, how the psychic change occurs. This is how symbols move a person to act even without their conscious consent, compelling them to take actions which previously ran contrary to their very nature. It is often heard in AA: “I took actions which at first I did not believe in and that I did not think would work, that later changed my life.” There is a transformative urge that drives people into AA, which is further awakened through the symbols AA presents to them. The power one finds in AA is called numinosity by those who study and write about mythology.
When the symbols become part of one’s reality, they have power to level- up one’s consciousness. Wilson describes the outcome of the spiritual process in a statement which perfectly illustrates the numinous power of symbols:
The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God’s universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.[15]
[1] 6:374
[2] 5:77
[3] Eric Neumann, The History of Consciousness, page 8.
[4] Rudolph Otto, The Idea of The Holy; cited in Campbell, Oriental Mythology, page 8.
[5] Thou art That
[6] Schaberg 440.
[7] Schaberg 442-43.
[8] This phrase was quoted in Schaberg, page 445, and comes from a lawyer who had a conversation with Wilson in 1948. See Schaberg 445.
[9] Schaberg 457
[10] Taken from synonym.com on 8/7/2021.
[11] For an explanation of Numinous, see Wikipedia at en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous with emphasis on section titled “Later use of the concept.”
[12] AA page 45.
[13] Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation, par 344.
[14] Psychology and Religion, par. 810.
[15] AA, page 23.
[SR1]Collectively, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is the clearest, most… [SR1]
[SR5]How Is this Idea connected to the myths being unwrapped more fully? [SR5]
You need a generalization to tie It together
Like "Even religious symbolism that has been reflected on for centuries undergoes dramatic shifts in its interpretation. For Instance, the concept of "God" has not remained static."
[SR6]Need a transition between these two thoughts [SR6]
[SR7]This is much better [SR7]
[SR8]Are you going to comment on the relevance of this?
What do you mean? [CP9]
[SR10]But even as the symbol of Christ as part of the Godhead becomes more relatable, it is still… [SR10]
YOUR CONNECTION to the last Idea Is the relatability thing
jokingly seems to have a negative connotation here
Thank you for pointing this out to me. [CP14] [CP14]
If you put “mythological” before revelation it says that the revelation was imagined
You could even just go to “than a clear, precise, and unparalleled revelation.”
How does declaration work? I want to use mythological since I am trying to build this argument. [CP16] [CP16]
[SR17]I love that this is in here.
:) [CP18]
[SR19]little awkward phrasing--not sure below is what you meant [SR19]
It is also fitting that in keeping with the shrouded nature of religious mysteries the mythos within AA is present for those with high levels of self-awareness to integrate. As Jung believed, those attuned may "actually live the myth…."
[SR20]Not sure what statement [SR20]
[SR21]this Is smaller type, fyi [SR21]
[SR22]oh! Here's what you mean. REVERSE these sentences [SR22]
[SR23]Every time you say this, I feel like it should be the Twelve Steps rather than AA itself. Is that what you intend to say that the whole organization is a myth. An organization can’t be a myth. [SR23] [SR23]
In order to not say Twelve Steps twice in this sentence, you could say
“The tenets of AA qualify in every aspect as a myth, …”
Good point. I will work on this. [CP24] [CP24] [CP24]
[SR25]You just had “Wilson”—I’m thinking, are we talking about the soccer ball in Castaway?
Should i say "I" or "we" or??? I struggle with saying "I" for some reason. Probably an old English teacher told me it was bad. [CP26] [CP26]
[SR27]Other than the implication that Silkworth is a doctor, can you tell us a little more about him? What kind of doctor? Why was he called upon to write the preface? What kind of credentials/experiences did he have that he would have been called upon to write it? [SR27]
[SR29]need more of a thought transition here [SR29]
[SR30]This is 3 sentences strung together. [SR30]
Myths are always stories, which generally communicate the same thing, and it is the story…
One reason for the tremendous success of the Twelve Step groups is that the steps themselves are a sufficient replacement for the relics of …
[SR32]Seems like an insult [SR32]
[SR33]William H. Schaberg [SR33]
Need to provide some descriptor of who Schaberg is, even if it is author
ALSO in footnote below Schaberg, not Shaberg
[SR34]This needs to be clearer. It would be best to summarize the essence of what Otto refers to as experience here again than to refer vaguely to the last section. THIS is tying your whole book together, so it needs to be firmly stately. [SR34] [SR34]
[SR35]This is a rather broad statement [SR35]
all humankind
“humans” makes it sound like you are an alien writing this 😊
lol [CP37]
Myth and Religion [CP38]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1OrL4A_b5M&t=2444s [CP39]
[SR41]in his book The Idea of the Holy [SR41]
[SR42]adopted by Carl Jung and many others to indicate the presence… [SR42]
[SR44]Need a better thought transition into here [SR44]
[SR45]You infer the meaning on the backend here, but to someone not familiar with Jung or his terminology this is going to be problematic. [SR45]
You need to define collective unconscious and archetype right out of the box here.
Just noticing that this CHAPTER is titled Archetype, and the word is never defined or discussed within it, really.
Will add a section (already started) above. [CP46]
