Where there are human beings, there are myths. Myths surround us and permeate everything we do. Where we least suspect myths, they breed in greatest abundance. Science, for example, claims empirical and objective truth, but we know full well this is merely another narrative, another perspective, another myth retold in modern form; in this case, it is the myth of the great sorcerer equipped with talismans of “clearsight”, the wizard who subdues nature by virtue of knowledge.
Without myths, our lives would not only be dull, but we would also struggle to see our place in the universe. For better or worse, we are bound to our mythic narratives. They shape us.
Ted Hughes believed that at moments of crisis, “shamans” arise to give voice to the myth of their present time, to lead people through the darkness of uncertainty—perhaps when the old established myths have been too challenged and changed to be recognisable anymore. The prime example he gives is that of Shakespeare in the Elizabethan period. Shakespeare emerged at a moment of profound crisis of identity, where the twin polarities of Protestantism and Catholicism—held at bay only by the sheer force of Queen Elizabeth I’s personality—threatened to obliterate not only each other but Britain as a whole. Shakespeare’s first long-form narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, described the myth of his time—one of loss of soul, of transformation, and a Virginal Goddess—and in some sense rallied the British people to confront their own mythic crisis.
But what are the myths of our time?
In my opinion, our time is defined by two myths that are at once distinct and deeply interlinked. The first of these myths is The Voyage Home.
The journey home features heavily in mythic narratives. Jung would no doubt have a lot to say about this ever-present desire in our psyche. The Voyage Home reflects not merely a physical journey but also a spiritual and temporal one, for home is often located in the past, in a Golden Age of innocence that has to be found again.
The Odyssey, of course, is the prime and enduring example of this myth. The hero, Odysseus, having fought for ten years at Troy, must now get home to Ithaca, to his son Telemachos and his wife Penelope, the latter of which may be a metaphor for his own soul. But he is waylaid, transformed, and, when he finally arrives home, is almost unrecognisable. But this change proves good, for his pride has at last been humbled. His reunion with Penelope is all the sweeter for his travails.
It seems no coincidence that a slew of film adaptations of The Odyssey have emerged in recent years: The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes, and Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming movie spring immediately to mind.
But there have been other more radical takes on this mythic narrative, and I believe one in particular might be considered our very own Shakespearean, shamanic iteration—the supreme rendering of the myth for our time. I’m speaking, of course, of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return.
Twin Peaks: The Return is, as its name suggests, all about coming home, about returning to a past Golden Age that has been somehow lost or corrupted. Like The Odyssey, Twin Peaks: The Return takes us on a voyage in which our hero and his crew are beset by monsters—doppelgangers in particular—and trials. These tribulations are physical, emotional, and spiritual all at once. But unlike The Odyssey, the tragedy of Twin Peaks: The Return is that in the end it is not possible to find our way home. Lynch’s beautiful but also terrifyingly nightmarish vision is one that exposes perhaps the primary fear of our time: that things are only going to get worse (we might meditate on the title of the best-selling book by Eric Larocca, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, as a kind of emblematic catchphrase of our time).
Twin Peaks: The Return is about many forms of voyage home: a return to the town of Twin Peaks which represents an idyllic country America, a home that perhaps no longer exists; Dale Cooper’s return to reality, and his own body (another home), after years trapped in the Red Room; and, in the meta sense, the return of an old ‘90s TV show to television (the home where it belongs). Lynch, however, never relies on meta as a way out of meaning. His films work similarly to Shakespeare's plays in that they operate on multiple levels. They are self-aware but not to the extent that they are empty, just enough to remind us that “We live inside a dream” and “All the world’s a stage.”
Through the 18-part series, the increasing isolationism of the modern world is laid bare. Our heroes are those who try to keep the connection alive, but the price of lacking that connection is all-too-apparent. The series is at once a longing for a past time before the Fall—which Lynch seemingly locates in a black and white 1950s—and an Orphean warning of the perils of looking back, lest we not only lose the past but also destroy the future. Its final image is one of total confusion, despair, and uncertainty, in which our heroine Laura Palmer—the lost Penelope—can only scream.
While it may sound harrowing and negative, Lynch sincerely believed in the power of love. But he would not let that optimistic belief soften his warning to the world. Twin Peaks: The Return was Lynch’s last fully-fledged cinematic gift, an astonishing opus designed to shake its viewers out of the sleep into which they have been lulled by the forces of darkness. We must be grateful to him for it.
The second myth that defines our time is The Old Gods Returning.
The Returning King or God is a powerful myth that has existed seemingly since the dawn of time and will likely continue to exist until the ending of the world. It has found potent iterations in the myth of Osiris and King Arthur—the latter of which is still very much alive today in Glastonbury! Though echoed time and again across many cultures, the most powerful expression of this myth is almost undoubtedly the Christian story.
But what I now see emerging is a new variation on that myth. There has, in recent years, been a resurgence of Paganism. The Norse and Greek gods in particular seem to be finding currency again: in popular literature, movies, television series, as well as occult circles, New Age thought, and beyond.
A particularly striking example of this Pagan resurgence can be found in the film Mandy by Panos Cosmatos. In Mandy, Nicholas Cage plays the role of Red, who we slowly realise throughout the film is likely not human, but in fact a god living out a quasi-mortal life with the woman he loves (as the Greek gods were often want to do). He is described as “A Jovan warrior from the eye of the storm” (a line of pure poetry if ever there was one). Throughout, Red draws comparisons with Jupiter—not just the planet, of course, but also the Roman deity, the equivalent of the Greek Zeus. In one startling scene, Red sets a Christian church on fire to utterly destroy a hive of evil Christian evangelicals.
The symbolism is clear: the old gods have awoken again, and they are pissed.
The occultist Kenneth Grant predicted this resurgence when he founded the Typhonian Order of the Temple of the Orient—“Typhonian”, of course, referring to the horrific titan-beast Typhon who made war on the “new gods”. Those new gods are now themselves old, largely replaced not only by a monotheistic paradigm but also by technological and scientific narratives. However, it seems that the gods are not going to take their banishment lying down, and thus they move among us stirring new fantasies and creations. The Pagan gods are back for blood.
Understanding the myths of our time can help us to perceive the truth of where we are—and how to move forward. Lynch saw plainly that the way back is impossible. Pining for a fictionalised past, or worse trying to change the past (revisionism), will only cement our destruction and loss of soul.
Cosmatos, on the other hand, tapped into the current of Pagan resurgence that speaks to repressed animalities re-emerging with Freudian impetus to remind us of who we are at root. Both of these myths speak to the bitterness of nostalgia, the power of fear, and promise the upheaval of our reality. A new reality beckons, but it is not like the home we once knew; the gods have returned, but in new, more darkly wondrous forms than we ever imagined.
Be warned, then. If we are ever to find our way home, we first have to make peace with these old gods, these old demons, these lingering titans, whom we have tried and failed to exile from our world (and minds). If we cannot, then the result will be what Lynch described as the most frightening thing in the world: “The possibility that love is not enough.”