Browsing the archives for the Modern Myths category

Flower Crowns: Ancient & Modern

The interwebs are an ever-changing culture, and the blooming trends of today will have withered by next week. Nevertheless, the recent fad of Photoshopping “flower crowns” on popular figures from TV, film and other media has caught my eye. It’s a consciously ironic way of claiming ownership of a cultural icon, expressing devotion while showing […]

Androids, Electronic Sheep, Psychology and Mythology

Many science fiction authors have written about androids — robotic humans simulating human intelligence with powerful software — and as usual, science fiction (20th century mythology) is becoming reality. The term “android” was popularized, I think, by prominent science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick, whose Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? short story was one […]

Secret Service Code Names: The Power of Names in Politics

U.S. Secret Service code names have been used to refer to the president and VIPs since the Truman Administration. I find them fascinating, because they are a modern expression of a very old mythological theme, the Magic Name or Secret Name. Names have power in both mythology and psychology. In many mythologies, speaking a name […]

The Ritual of the Gift

A Time magazine article this week notes that traditional ink-and-paper paper books are seeing a surprising spike in sales this year, as they did last year, despite the meteoric rise in popularity of ebook readers. The article flails for causes: “The holiday spike may reflect this year’s partial lifting of economic gloominess.” If that’s true, why was there one […]

Rapture vs. Ragnarök: A Pagan Apocalypse

While the earthquakes of Harold Camping’s apocalypse failed to roll around the globe at precisely 6PM (God has apparently modernized enough to observe human time zones), I spent the day reading The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology. I suppose I find modern mythology more appealing when presented as such. Of course, […]