Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 14 Coda

“Myth is not a destination but a journey — a living process of making and remaking meaning across time and space.”

As we close this series, it is vital to remember that myth is never a fixed corpus of stories or symbols. It is an ongoing journey of relational meaning — an active, collective process by which social formations phase, align, and reconfigure their realities.

Through the lens of relational ontology, myth reveals itself as:

• A symbolic infrastructure that scaffolds collective possibility,

• A technology of reflexive phasing that enables social formations to navigate complexity and change,

• A site of powerful negotiation and contestation over what counts as real and meaningful,

• A dynamic system that balances stability and transformation through symbolic recursion.

This perspective invites us to approach myth not as a relic of the past or an object of detached study, but as a living practice—a mode of symbolic engagement that shapes who we are, how we relate, and what futures we can imagine.

In this ongoing journey, the task is not to find final answers, but to participate creatively and reflexively in the co-creation of symbolic worlds — to embrace the openness, multiplicity, and emergent possibilities that relational mythos offers. 

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 13 Towards a New Mythos — Relational Ontology and Meaning

“Myth is the art of creating meaning that binds us to the cosmos and to each other.”

As we reach the culmination of this series, we turn to the profound task of crafting a new mythos — a symbolic horizon informed by relational ontology, capable of guiding meaning and being in a complex, interconnected world.

Why a New Mythos?

Traditional myths offered frameworks for understanding existence, identity, and purpose rooted in fixed symbolic orders. Yet, the accelerating flux of modernity and the plurality of contemporary life challenge these orders.

Relational ontology reveals that:

• Meaning is not fixed or universal but emerges through dynamic construal and alignment,

• Reality is a reflexive achievement, continually produced by collective symbolic processes,

• Our symbolic infrastructures must be flexible, inclusive, and open to transformation.

A new mythos is needed to reflect these insights — to inspire shared meaning without reifying fixed universals.

Features of a Relational Mythos

A mythos grounded in relational ontology would:

• Emphasise interconnection and interdependence over isolation or essence,

• Celebrate process, becoming, and emergence rather than static being,

• Recognise the plurality of symbolic worlds and the necessity of negotiation,

• Embed reflexivity at its core, encouraging continuous reinterpretation,

• Acknowledge the power dynamics inherent in meaning-making, fostering awareness and equity.

Symbolic Horizons as Living Systems

This new mythos envisions symbolic horizons as living, evolving systems — infrastructures that sustain collective meaning while allowing for transformation and adaptation.

Rather than seeking closure, it invites openness:

• Openness to difference, change, and emergent possibilities,

• Openness to dialogue across symbolic regimes,

• Openness to the unknown and the unbounded potential of meaning.

Mythos and Praxis

A relational mythos is not mere abstraction. It grounds praxis — guiding action, community formation, and cultural innovation.

It offers:

• Symbols and narratives that phase collective orientation toward shared goals,

• Frameworks for navigating crisis and uncertainty,

• Means for bridging divides across difference.

Conclusion

Crafting a new mythos grounded in relational ontology is both a challenge and an opportunity. It requires embracing complexity, uncertainty, and multiplicity — while affirming the power of symbolic systems to bind us together and shape our shared world.

As we conclude this series, the journey of myth continues — not as a quest for timeless truths, but as an ongoing, reflexive co-creation of meaning and reality.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 12 Symbolic Reflexivity and the Collective Production of Reality

“We live mythologically, and our myths shape the very fabric of reality we inhabit.”

Having charted the symbolic cosmos, we now examine how symbolic reflexivity enables the collective production and continual remaking of reality itself.

The Collective as Reflexive Construal

In relational ontology, reality is not given but constructed through collective construal — a shared symbolic process that phases alignment among diverse perspectives, practices, and materialities.

Symbolic reflexivity is the engine of this process, allowing collectives to:

• Observe and interpret their symbolic systems,

• Reconfigure alignments of meaning,

• Navigate tensions between continuity and change.

Reflexivity as Reality-Making

Symbolic reflexivity does not merely reflect reality; it produces it by:

• Establishing which symbolic alignments count as “real”,

• Enabling coordinated action based on shared meanings,

• Phasing collective identities and possibilities into being.

Reality emerges through recursive symbolic operations: cuts, alignments, stabilisations, and transformations that constitute the social fabric.

Power and Reflexive Production

The collective production of reality is always entangled with power:

• Those who control symbolic infrastructures influence which realities are enacted,

• Marginalised groups contest dominant realities through alternative construals,

• Symbolic reflexivity is a terrain of struggle over meaning and being.

Reflexive Loops and Feedback

Symbolic reflexivity creates feedback loops that:

• Stabilise symbolic systems through repetition and ritual,

• Open systems to innovation and adaptation,

• Allow social formations to learn, self-correct, or transform.

These loops are essential to the dynamic maintenance of social reality.

Towards a Symbolic Cosmos of Possibility

By reflexively producing reality, collectives also open or close spaces of possibility:

• Some symbolic configurations enable openness, creativity, and pluralism,

• Others impose closure, dogmatism, or exclusion.

Understanding symbolic reflexivity highlights the contingent, emergent nature of reality, and the role of collective agency in shaping it.

Conclusion

Symbolic reflexivity is the heart of collective reality production — the ongoing, dynamic process by which shared worlds are made, unmade, and remade.

In the next post, we will explore how these ideas can inform a new mythos for meaning and being — a symbolic horizon that embraces relational ontology.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 11 From Symbolic Architectures to the Symbolic Cosmos

“The symbolic cosmos is not a given but an ongoing creation — a vast, evolving web of meanings that shapes human existence and possibility.”

Building on our exploration of symbolic architectures, we now turn to the idea of the symbolic cosmos — the expansive, layered symbolic universe that frames our reality and opens the space of what can be.

What is the Symbolic Cosmos?

The symbolic cosmos is the totality of symbolic systems, practices, and meanings that collectively constitute the horizon of meaning for a social formation.

• It includes mythic narratives, religious cosmologies, scientific paradigms, cultural traditions, language systems, and more.

• It is dynamic, continuously reshaped through reflexive processes and symbolic innovations.

• It forms the ontological horizon — the space in which meaning, identity, and possibility emerge and evolve.

Cosmos as Phasing Space

From a relational ontology perspective:

• The symbolic cosmos is a phase space of symbolic possibilities.

• It is structured by symbolic architectures that constrain and enable what can be meaningfully construed.

• Social formations navigate this cosmos by phasing alignments, cutting and recombining symbolic topologies to actualise new possibilities.

Layered and Multiscalar

The symbolic cosmos is:

• Layered: Different strata of symbolic systems interpenetrate — from local myths to global ideologies.

• Multiscalar: It operates across multiple scales — individual, communal, societal, planetary.

• Heterogeneous: It contains diverse, sometimes conflicting symbolic regimes, whose interactions produce tension and innovation.

Reflexivity at Cosmic Scale

Reflexive processes operate not only locally but cosmically:

• Societies reflect on their place within the cosmos through myth, science, and philosophy.

• The symbolic cosmos enables meta-reflexivity — reflection on the conditions of reflection itself.

• This meta-reflexivity opens possibilities for symbolic transformation at the highest scales.

Implications for Meaning and Being

Understanding the symbolic cosmos as a constructed, evolving space challenges assumptions of:

• Fixed, objective realities independent of meaning.

• Singular, universal cosmologies.

• Linear progressions of knowledge or culture.

Instead, it invites a view of reality as a plural, open-ended symbolic domain — one continually negotiated through the infrastructures and phase-shifts we have explored.

Conclusion

The symbolic cosmos is the ultimate horizon of relational ontology — the symbolic universe within which all meaning, identity, and possibility are phased and sustained.

Our next post will explore how this cosmos shapes symbolic reflexivity and the collective production of reality.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 10 Symbolic Architectures — Infrastructures of Reflexive Reality

“Symbols… give meaning and order to the flux of experience, allowing human beings to live within a world that is intelligible and meaningful.”

— Inspired by Joseph Campbell

Building on our discussion of symbolic reflexivity, we now explore the symbolic architectures that scaffold and sustain reflexive reality itself.

What Are Symbolic Architectures?

Symbolic architectures are the structured systems of symbols, practices, and meanings that collectively produce and maintain the coherence of social reality.

• They include myths, rituals, language, art, and institutional practices.

• They are not mere containers of meaning but active infrastructures that phase, constrain, and enable the flows of symbolic alignment.

• They form the ontological scaffolding upon which reflexive social formations emerge and persist.

Reflexive Reality as Infrastructure

Reflexive reality is not a given; it is constructed and continually reconstructed through symbolic architectures that allow collectives to:

• Align on shared meanings,

• Negotiate difference and conflict,

• Generate new possibilities for identity and social formation.

These architectures provide the topological space in which meaning circulates and evolves.

Components of Symbolic Architectures

Key components include:

• Mythic Systems: Narrative patterns and archetypal constellations that orient collective understanding.

• Rituals: Embodied enactments that phase symbolic realignments, renewing social bonds and ontological commitments.

• Language and Discourse: The primary medium through which symbolic meanings are negotiated and stabilised.

• Institutions: Organised social structures that regulate and reproduce symbolic systems across time and space.

Together, these components form a complex, dynamic web of symbolic infrastructures.

Dynamics of Symbolic Architecture

Symbolic architectures are:

• Reflexive: They include mechanisms for self-observation, critique, and transformation.

• Distributed: They exist across individuals, groups, and material environments.

• Multiscalar: They operate at local, regional, and global levels.

• Adaptive: They evolve in response to internal tensions and external pressures.

Implications for Social Formation

Understanding symbolic architectures as infrastructures reveals:

• How social formations phase and sustain their reality.

• How symbolic breakdowns lead to crisis or transformation.

• How power operates through the control and modulation of symbolic systems.

• How innovation occurs through reflexive reconfiguration of symbolic infrastructure.

Conclusion

Symbolic architectures are the foundations of reflexive reality, enabling the collective production and negotiation of meaning, identity, and possibility.

In the next post, we will examine how these architectures enable the symbolic cosmos — the expansive, evolving symbolic universe that shapes human existence.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 9 Symbolic Reflexivity and the Making of Mythic Worlds

“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth—penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words.”

— Joseph Campbell

Building on our previous exploration of mythic phase-shifts, we now turn to the role of symbolic reflexivity in the ongoing creation and transformation of mythic worlds.

What is Symbolic Reflexivity?

Symbolic reflexivity is the capacity of a social formation to observe, interpret, and reconfigure its own symbolic infrastructures. It allows collectives not only to live within a mythic system but to recognise and transform that system from within.

This reflexivity is both a source of stability and innovation:

• Stability, because it allows a community to maintain coherence by recognising and reinforcing core myths.

• Innovation, because it opens space for reinterpretation, critique, and the generation of new symbolic forms.

Reflexivity as a Myth-Making Engine

Mythic worlds are not fixed; they are continually made and remade through reflexive processes:

• Storytelling traditions evolve, adapting old myths to new circumstances.

• Rituals are reinterpreted, shifting their symbolic weight.

• Symbols gain, lose, or transform meanings through social negotiation.

Reflexivity enables symbolic systems to self-modify, preventing ossification and enabling responsiveness to changing contexts.

The Dialectics of Reflexivity and Myth

Symbolic reflexivity can produce tensions:

• Too little reflexivity risks mythic rigidity, dogmatism, and exclusion.

• Too much reflexivity can destabilise shared meanings, leading to fragmentation or loss of symbolic coherence.

Successful social formations negotiate this dialectic by balancing continuity with change—holding myths sufficiently stable to provide orientation, yet sufficiently flexible to remain relevant.

The Role of Agents and Institutions

Symbolic reflexivity is distributed but uneven:

• Some individuals and groups act as myth-makers and myth-transformers, mediating between tradition and innovation.

• Institutions (religious, political, educational) play critical roles in sustaining or challenging dominant mythic architectures.

Understanding reflexivity requires attention to these actors and their strategies within symbolic fields.

Reflexivity, Power, and Mythic Worlds

Reflexivity is not neutral—it is embedded within power relations. Who controls mythic transformation shapes which worlds can emerge or fade:

• Dominant narratives often reinforce existing power structures.

• Subaltern or marginalised groups may engage reflexivity to challenge and reimagine mythic order.

Thus, reflexive myth-making is a site of contestation and possibility.

Conclusion

Symbolic reflexivity is the engine that makes mythic worlds dynamic, living, and adaptable. It is through reflexive processes that myths continue to function as ontological infrastructures, shaping the very conditions of possibility for social life.

Our next post will explore the symbolic architectures that underpin reflexivity and myth, connecting these ideas to the infrastructures of collective reality.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 8 Mythic Phase-Shifts and Social Formation

“Mythology is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.”

— Joseph Campbell

Myths are not static relics of the past. They are dynamic phase-shifters in the symbolic systems that constitute social formations. Viewed through relational ontology, myth functions as a mechanism by which societies rephase their symbolic alignment, enabling adaptation, cohesion, and transformation at scale.

Myth as Social Phase-Shift

Social formations — from small tribes to global civilisations — maintain their coherence through symbolic infrastructures that align collective meanings, values, and identities. Myth is one such infrastructure: a reflexive technology that modulates the topology of symbolic possibility across a social field.

When a society faces crisis — ecological, political, existential — mythic phase-shifts emerge to reconfigure construal, allowing new possibilities to appear and new collective alignments to stabilise.

• A ritual may enact symbolic death and rebirth.

• A foundational myth may realign identity and purpose.

• A prophetic narrative may open space for radical transformation.

In all cases, myth is less about content than about performing a rephasing of the symbolic order.

Reflexivity and Collective Alignment

Mythic phase-shifts rely on the reflexivity of social formations: the capacity to observe, critique, and reorient their own symbolic frameworks. This reflexivity allows myth to act as a systemic regulator, mediating tensions between continuity and change.

• Stability is maintained by repeating core myths and rituals.

• Change is accommodated through reinterpretation, hybridization, or new myth-making.

• Conflict arises when competing construals vie for symbolic dominance.

Thus, myth is a dynamic process, not a static text: it is an ongoing negotiation of symbolic possibility within a social field.

The Role of Power and Exclusion

Relational ontology foregrounds the distributed nature of construal, but mythic phase-shifts are never neutral. They embody power relations that shape who can speak, who is visible, and whose realities are phased into collective being.

• Dominant myths may exclude or silence alternative narratives.

• Marginalized groups may generate counter-myths that challenge existing alignments.

• Mythic rephasing is often contested, involving struggle over symbolic infrastructure.

Understanding mythic phase-shifts requires attending to these dynamics of inclusion and exclusion — to how myths serve both cohesion and differentiation within social formations.

Myth Beyond Modernity

Modernity’s promises of rationality and progress often sought to supersede myth as a mode of knowing. Yet, myths persist — in nationalism, consumer culture, environmentalism, and digital imaginaries — continually phasing new symbolic architectures.

Recognizing myth’s ontological role challenges the separation of myth and reason. It invites us to see myth as fundamental to the constitution of social reality, not its opposite.

Conclusion

Mythic phase-shifts are the symbolic mechanisms through which social formations reconstitute themselves in the face of change. They operate by cutting, aligning, and rephasing the symbolic field — modulating the collective possibility space.

In the next post, we will explore how mythic architectures interact with symbolic reflexivity, shaping not only what is possible but how possibility itself is constituted.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 7 Archetypes as Symbolic Topologies

“Mythology is a system of images that endows the mind and the heart with symbols by which man can live — and die.”

— Joseph Campbell

Campbell’s theory of archetypes draws heavily on Jungian psychology: the idea that universal figures — the Mother, the Shadow, the Trickster, the Hero — arise from a collective unconscious shared by all humans. But from the perspective of relational ontology, archetypes are not timeless inner forms. They are symbolic topologies: historically sedimented structures of construal that stabilise and phase meaning across a collective.

Archetype as Symbolic Configuration

Archetypes are not contents of thought but structured alignments of possibility. Each one is a relational cut that configures a pattern of roles, values, tensions, and transformational trajectories.

• The Mother is not a biological essence but a construal of nurturing relation, mapped onto both social role and cosmic order.

• The Shadow is not the unconscious “dark side,” but the symbolic topology that holds the disaligned or disavowed aspects of the collective.

• The Trickster is not merely chaotic, but a phase-shifter — a symbolic operator who renders construal unstable so that new alignments may emerge.

Archetypes thus function as symbolic operators in the reflexive system: each offers a way of holding together (or pulling apart) particular configurations of meaning, identity, and world.

From Archetype to Topology

If we move from psychological metaphor to ontological structure, archetypes are better understood as topological features in the landscape of symbolic possibility.

• They are not universal, but recurrent — emergent from the constraints and affordances of social construal under certain historical pressures.

• They are not stable forms, but configurational potentials that can be activated, morphed, collapsed, or recombined in the symbolic field.

• They are not “within” the individual psyche, but part of the symbolic infrastructure that individuals and collectives alike traverse and actualise.

This means that when a culture draws on an archetype — whether in ritual, narrative, or metaphor — it is engaging a symbolic topology that phases reflexive orientation across a system.

Symbolic Recurrence vs Ontological Essence

The mistake of both Jung and Campbell was to read recurrence as essence. But repetition does not imply universality. It signals that certain symbolic configurations are particularly effective at managing phase-transitions — especially at the boundaries of birth, death, initiation, betrayal, loss, and transformation.

Archetypes are symbolic technologies that:

• Coordinate social alignment in moments of crisis,

• Phase and rephase construal through narrative form,

• Make the unknown habitable by embedding it in symbolic structure.

Their power lies not in their “truth” but in their relational function: they enable the symbolic system to endure and adapt, to hold coherence while traversing collapse.

Construal, Myth, and the Topology of the Possible

A myth does not “contain” an archetype. It enacts a topology — a pattern of symbolic cuts, phase-transitions, and alignments that renders a form of life intelligible.

To speak of archetypes in this light is not to invoke primordial images but to trace the symbolic geometries of meaning-making as they recur, fracture, and transform over time.

In short:

• Archetypes are not mirrors of an inner self,

• They are not universal structures of the psyche,

• They are topological condensations in the symbolic field — patterns of reflexive construal that scaffold how meaning phases, aligns, and persists.

Campbell saw archetypes as universal symbols. But what makes them enduring is not their universality — it is their symbolic reusability within a system that must continually traverse the boundaries of its own coherence.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 6 The Hero’s Journey as Symbolic Cut

“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experiences available… The call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration.”

— Joseph Campbell

Campbell’s “monomyth” — the so-called Hero’s Journey — has become a cultural cliché, used to template everything from Hollywood blockbusters to personal growth seminars. But beneath its formulaic popularity lies a deeper function: not the transmission of timeless narrative, but the symbolic cutting of a reality system into phase.

From a relational-ontological standpoint, the Hero’s Journey is not a tale to be told but a symbolic operation: a cut in the topology of construal that enables new alignments of meaning, identity, and possibility.

The Cut: From Stability to Instability

Every symbolic system maintains a coherence — a reflexive alignment between collective values, ontological assumptions, and lived practices. The Hero’s Journey begins when that coherence is ruptured.

• The Call to Adventure signals a phase-shift: a destabilisation of the current construal.

• The Departure does not represent literal movement but the symbolic unbinding of alignment — the dislocation of self from the coordinates of the known.

• The Threshold Guardians and Initiatory Ordeals figure the forces that resist or reconfigure the symbolic architecture of the self-world relation.

At each turn, what appears as narrative sequence is actually the enactment of symbolic instability — a traversal of construal that puts the social ontology itself into motion.

The Journey: Traversing Possibility Space

As the journey unfolds, the hero undergoes transformation — but not as an individual alone. What is transformed is the phase-relation between collective construals.

• The Road of Trials sequences the traversal of alternative symbolic construals — each trial a perspective, a cut, a provisional alignment.

• The Abyss marks the limit of symbolic coherence — a point where reflexive orientation collapses, and the possibility of rephasing becomes both necessary and uncertain.

• The Revelation is not a truth discovered but a new symbolic topology — a shift in alignment that reconfigures the system of meaning itself.

This is why myths of descent, death, or dissolution feature so prominently. They are not tales of suffering alone, but symbolic mechanisms for transitioning between incompatible construals of reality.

The Return: Rephasing the Collective

The final arc of the journey — the Return with the Elixir — completes the symbolic operation. The hero does not bring back “knowledge” or “power” in a literal sense, but a new alignment of the collective symbolic field.

• The Return is a symbolic re-entry into the shared system of construal.

• The Gift is the new reflexive phase: a reconfiguration of self, community, and cosmos that can now be lived.

• The Master of Two Worlds embodies the capacity to mediate between incompatible construals — to sustain coherence through symbolic reflexivity.

In this light, the Hero’s Journey is a collective symbolic cut — a traversal and rephasing of social ontology that allows for the reconstitution of meaning.

Myth as Reflexive Infrastructure

Campbell interpreted the Hero’s Journey as a map of psychological transformation. But through a relational lens, it is better understood as symbolic infrastructure for reflexive re-coordination.

It is:

• A mythic technology for shifting alignment.

• A recursive traversal of the possible.

• A symbolic system for phasing the collective into a new ontological topology.

Not every culture has heroes. But every culture faces moments when the symbolic fabric begins to fray — when coherence gives way to ambiguity, and the real becomes unliveable.

The Hero’s Journey is a mythic grammar for such moments. Not because it resolves them, but because it allows a system of meaning to cut, collapse, and reconstrue itself — all while keeping the symbolic infrastructure intact.

That is the true power of the monomyth: not its archetypes, but its function as reflexive topology in motion.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 5 Myth and the Symbolic Coordination of the Real

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.”

— Joseph Campbell

Campbell’s provocation is not without merit. History, as typically construed, operates within the coordinates of what was — a linear procession of facts, names, and events. Myth, by contrast, shapes the coordinates themselves. It does not recount what happened; it orients what can happen — and, more deeply, what counts as real.

Through the lens of relational ontology, myth emerges not as fiction or allegory, but as symbolic infrastructure for coordinating the real.

Myth as Symbolic Coordination

In a relational ontology, there is no reality independent of construal. What is “real” is not a pre-existing domain waiting to be discovered; it is a relational achievement — constituted through the symbolic alignment of perspectives, practices, and possibilities.

Myth participates in this achievement. It functions as a symbolic coordination mechanism, phasing collective experience into a shared topology of meaning. In this view:

• Myth is not a passive reflection of the world, but an active participant in its construal.

• It does not merely explain the real; it coordinates what reality means and how it can be lived.

• It scaffolds the symbolic architectures through which communities align, imagine, and transform.

Beyond Explanation: Myth as Phase-Alignment

Unlike theory, which seeks to explain, or ritual, which seeks to enact, myth phases construal. It allows a social formation to shift its alignment with reality by offering symbolic cuts that reconfigure the relationships between self, world, time, and possibility.

Myth does not simply tell a story. It realigns reflexivity:

• It displaces individual meaning into collective coordinates.

• It synchronises private experience with shared symbolic forms.

• It phases ontological transition — from crisis to coherence, from origin to destiny.

In this way, myth is not an “expression of belief.” It is a technology of symbolic coherence, a system for navigating the collective dimensions of becoming.

Myth and the Reality Function

Where Campbell sees myth as the pathway to personal transformation through archetypal integration, a relational lens reframes myth as the symbolic mediation of social alignment. It is not the hero who transforms reality. It is the system of construal — the symbolic infrastructure — that makes the hero legible in the first place.

Thus, myth functions as a reality system: a symbolic configuration through which experience is ordered, values are phased, and the possible is delimited.

This system:

• Selects and aligns construals of time (e.g., cyclical, linear, apocalyptic)

• Coordinates symbolic figures (e.g., ancestors, deities, tricksters, founders)

• Phases space and territory (e.g., sacred/profane, centre/periphery, exile/return)

• Aligns moral structure with ontological topology (e.g., cosmic justice, divine order)

These construals do not reflect reality. They constitute its terms of coherence.

Myth as Ontological Infrastructure

The power of myth lies not in its content but in its function. Myths endure because they stabilise ontological possibility — making collective alignment thinkable, feelable, liveable. They are infrastructures of reflexive resonance.

That is why myth cannot be replaced by data or supplanted by theory. It does something theory cannot: it phases symbolic matter into collective coherence.

Campbell’s genius was to glimpse the structuring role of myth. But in romanticising its content, he mistook its mechanism. A relational view shifts the focus from mythic narrative to symbolic system, from archetypal form to collective phasing, from psychological meaning to ontological coordination.

To study myth, then, is not to uncover hidden truths about human nature. It is to trace the symbolic architectures through which social formations make reality reflexively liveable.

Myth as an Ongoing Journey of Relational Meaning: 4 Archetypes and the Illusion of the Universal

“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.”

— Joseph Campbell

Few concepts are more seductive — and more philosophically unstable — than the archetype. Campbell draws heavily on Jung to frame myths as expressions of collective archetypes: universal patterns rooted in the collective unconscious, resurfacing in different forms across time and culture. This claim gives myth a kind of timeless authority — as though the symbolic structures that shape meaning today are merely new expressions of ancient, transhistorical truths.

But through the lens of relational ontology, this view begins to dissolve.

There is no “unconscious” outside the symbolic systems through which experience is construed. There are no “archetypes” prior to the symbolic alignments that render them legible. And there is no “collective” except as a phase-shifted coordination of construal.

What we call archetypes are not universal forms. They are symbolic regularities in perspectival alignment — patterns of construal that have stabilised across time, scale, and social formation.

From Archetype to Alignment

The temptation to posit archetypes as metaphysical constants — mother, hero, shadow, trickster — emerges when we mistake construal for structure. If a pattern recurs across different myths, it is not because it expresses a fixed inner form. It is because certain symbolic infrastructures are repeatedly re-used to phase social transformation, maintain collective coherence, or open new ontological possibilities.

• The “hero” is not an archetype. It is a relational cut that phases disruption and realignment.

• The “mother” is not universal. It is a symbolic node for organising nurture, origin, and continuity.

• The “trickster” is not innate. It is a symbolic instability — a pressure point for reconfiguring alignment.

These figures persist not because they are timeless, but because they serve functional roles within symbolic systems that scale, mutate, and reflexively stabilise over time. They are recurring construals, not underlying essences.

The Danger of the Universal

To treat archetypes as universal is to erase the specific social formations that produce them. It detaches symbolic function from context, strips myth of its infrastructural role, and re-mystifies meaning as something derived from psychic depths.

This manoeuvre reintroduces metaphysical idealism through the back door: a claim that meaning is grounded in a timeless realm of forms, rather than emerging from the ongoing coordination of construal in collective life.

Relational ontology insists otherwise:

• There is no “source” beyond construal.

• There is no “form” prior to phasing.

• There is no “unconscious” beneath the symbolic.

There is only alignment — of matter, meaning, and possibility — and the infrastructures that scaffold its construal at scale.

Archetype as Symbolic Shortcut

That said, we need not discard the concept of archetype entirely. Instead, we can reconstrue it as a symbolic compression mechanism — a shorthand for phase-patterns that have stabilised into reusable templates.

In this sense:

• Archetypes are not containers of meaning, but triggers of alignment.

• They do not express deep truths, but constrain reflexive possibility.

• They are symbolic economies of scale, not psychological facts.

When mythic systems deploy archetypes, they are not invoking universals. They are strategically reactivating phased alignments that still hold symbolic currency — and in doing so, they reflexively reshape what is possible to mean, to feel, to become.

From Symbol to System

In Campbell’s hands, archetypes hover between psychology and myth. But from a relational standpoint, they anchor neither. Instead, they instantiate the phase-space of a symbolic system. Their recurrence is not proof of timeless truth, but of the limited pathways available for aligning symbolic transformation at scale.

We do not find the same archetypes everywhere because they are universal. We find them because the infrastructures of construal are themselves constrained — by history, by materiality, by collective reflexivity.

To study archetypes, then, is not to excavate eternal forms. It is to map the infrastructures that organise symbolic reality — and the pressures, cuts, and alignments that keep them in motion.