ABSTRACT
Myths are stories that explain who we are and how we got that way-the building blocks of popular culture. Traditional or legendary stories, they express the wishes of the people. In this sense, all myths are popular. They describe and iIlustrate deep structures of reality, using imagery to express the eternal in terms of the temporal. Mythology is transformed into history, history into folklore, folklore into literature and entertainment. The process continues, from one century and one age to the next. We all live by the mythology of our time. I
Myths spring from the realm of the unconscious-a repository of memories, impulses, and fantasies which relate to childhood. But myths go back further than this, to a deeper level of the mind, which Carl G. lung (1865-1961) called "the collective unconsciousness." Ideas here are inborn and universal variations, so do we possess a basic psychic structure which gives us typically human perceptions, responses, and insights. This collective unconsciousness is the seedbed of popular culture.
