​Self-Deception: The Mythology Paradox

 

Where belief becomes illusion, and fiction becomes the cage…Everyone claims to know a god.

 

Some whisper to tribal demiurges—entities chained to blood, soil, and forgotten banners. Others bow before the ineffable: a boundless creative force pulsing through the fabric of the cosmos. Still more cling to mythic patriarchs carved by empire, enshrined in national memory.

 

But these are not gods. These are mythos—narratives clothed in reverence, mistaken for truth. And therein lies the paradox. When myth is seen for what it truly is—fiction wrapped in metaphor—it inspires. It awakens. It elevates the soul. As Joseph Campbell reminds us in Creative Mythology:

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“The individual has had an experience of his own… which he seeks to communicate through signs; and if his realization has been of a certain depth and import, his communication will have the force and value of living myth—for those… who receive and respond to it…”

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Here, mythology becomes a mirror for inner evolution. It is the poetry of becoming. But when that same myth is taken literally, the metaphor collapses—and so does the soul that clings to it. Campbell warns again, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

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“Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed… temples become museums…”

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In that moment, myth ceases to liberate and begins to control. It becomes dogma. It becomes delusion. Herbert Fingarette wrote in Self-Deception:

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“Self-deception is not a problem of belief systems but rather an issue of identity; fractures, dissociations, and ‘disavowals’ related to one’s identity concept…”

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Indeed, when identity fuses with myth, fiction hardens into lived reality. We no longer believe the myth—we become it. The self dissolves into the story, and the story becomes the prison.As described in The Truth About Denial:

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“Self-deception is like this. It blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we're blind, all the ‘solutions’ we can think of will actually make matters worse.”

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Once blind, even our most noble intentions become pathways to destruction. The myth that once uplifted us now engineers the illusion of meaning. And yet—we cling. Why? Because, as The Mythomanias observes:

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“In acts of supreme self-deception… he has been willing to profess belief in the most incredible myths because of what they have promised him.”

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Comfort. Identity. Belonging. Certainty. These are the narcotics of myth when consumed as fact. But when mistaken myth masquerades as Natural Law, it mutates from metaphor into manipulation—from inspiration into pious fraud. This is no longer mythology. This is mass psychosis. As The Sacred Art of Self-Deception warns:

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“They chase after mirages… entrapped by the shackles of outdated beliefs and rigid systems… a realm of spiritual psychosis, where the boundary between reality and imagination blurs.”

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Thus, mythology is a double-edged sword: a map to transcendence or a mirror of madness. The difference lies in perception.

 

Will you see the myth as metaphor—and rise?
Or worship the symbol—and fall deeper into illusion?

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The choice, always, is yours.