Carl Jung on the Greatest Creations of Mythology

“Only the greatest creations of mythology proper could hope to make clear to modern man that here he is face to face with a phenomenon which “in profundity, permanence, and universality is comparable only with Nature herself (F.W.J. von Schelling: Philosophie der Mythologie, Collected Works, II:136).” If we want to promote a real knowledge of mythology, we must not appeal at the outset to theoretical considerations and (not even to Schelling’s). Neither should we talk overmuch of “sources.” The water must be fetched and drunk fresh from the spring if it is to flow through us and quicken our hidden mythological talents.” (Carl Gustav Jung, Karl Kerényi: Science of Mythology, Essays on the Myth of the Divine Mother, pg. 1, 1985 ed.)