Spontaneity and the Logic of the Myth

When adopting a particular way of describing reality, the mind often is guided by appealing features of a Myth and rarely analyzes the spirit of that system.

At the same time, any Myth, as a form of being’s existence in the mind, is governed by the binary that determines the possibilities for the mind’s development within that description — logic–spontaneity binary.

On the one hand, as we have said repeatedly, a descriptive system formalized in a Myth is stable only when it is systemic and has internal regularities governing its functioning.

Yet it often happens that the mind willingly accepts some elements of a Myth and resists others that logically follow from the Myth’s construction. A common cause of mental suffering and inefficiency is precisely its conflict with the hidden yet necessary manifestations of the Myth in which it exists. A typical example is social Myths, which are extraordinarily appealing due to their linear structure of construction (for example, family–work–home; work–summer-house–mistress, etc.), giving a sense of clarity and solidity, but at their very core tend to make people consume each other. By accepting such a Myth, a person usually unconsciously signs a “licensing agreement” in which the appealing aspects of “ordinary” life are written in large letters, and below — in small print — the clause: “I agree to suffer for a long time.”

To be fair, this situation is also characteristic of Magical Myths — very often a person joins a particular Current of Power on the basis of a first impression of it, and later, when they discover manifestations of that Myth that clash with them, they find themselves in a difficult situation requiring either a significant restructuring of the mind to fit the Myth’s logic, or a change of the Myth itself.

And although restructuring the mind is usually a necessary element in improving its effectiveness, it is important that this restructuring happen through one’s own internal resources, arising from an internal need, and not simply because the Myth was unconsciously accepted at the outset.

Thus, the analysis of the Myth undertaken by the Magus both at its threshold and at each turning point of movement should aim not so much at analysis of the “body” of the Myth, its letter, as at probing the Myth’s spirit — at recognizing the regularities by which the mind that exists within this Myth must function.

The second element of the binary governing the life of mind in the Myth is the need for spontaneity.

A harmonious Myth is not a rigid, ossified system, strictly prescribing the actions and movements of the mind — it is a living, bubbling stream in which the mind not only develops but expands its freedom.

In fact, ultimately, the mind moves from illumination to illumination — and to Enlightenment.

When the separate elements accumulated by the mind in evolutionary systemic expansion within the Myth enter into resonance with one another, they suddenly, without any visible reason, jump to a higher level, joining and synthesizing, acquiring new qualitative properties, so that from time to time “evolution” inevitably gives way to “revolution.” Such revolutionary changes can be constructive, when the system ascends to a new level of synthesis, or destructive, when the system suddenly collapses to open the way for a new stage of the Way.

Thus, the development of mind within any Myth is subject to the action of two forces — on the one hand the organizing, systematizing logic of the Myth, ordering the mind, and on the other the transformative force that provides the “leaps” — transcensuses — of mind.

The Magus must take both of these forces into account and understand, on the one hand, that by accepting certain elements of a Myth he must also accept the other elements that logically follow from them to use that Myth effectively, and on the other hand be ready for change and sudden transformative leaps of mind.