Joseph Campbell, who spent a lifetime studying world cultures, showed that myths and stories inhabit our psyches, become motivating forces and explain universally shared experiences. They define what is sacred, what is moral behaviour, and reveal ways to negotiate the various passages in our lives. Each culture develops its own variations. Pinocchio, Jonah and the Whale, Cinderella, Gilgamesh, the Frog Prince: myths about origins, death, brave rescues, demons that haunt, princes and princesses, holy grails. Now that we live in a technological, electronic era, reflecting on these myths may seem irrelevant to where we find ourselves in the postmodern world. Now we get to pick and choose, or refuse, or create our own myths.
