c. 2004 Religion News Service

ATLANTA _ A wildly eclectic lineup of more than 140 speakers and a vast range of activities _ from early-morning ecstatic dance sessions to a late-night rock opera concert _ drew more than 1,000 people, including artists, teachers, psychologists, religious leaders, game designers, and the just plain curious for a four-day exploration of myth and mythology.

The June 4-7 Mythic Journeys conference, marked the centennial birthday of pioneering scholar Joseph Campbell, and was the first major undertaking of the Atlanta-based Mythic Imagination Institute. Michael Karlin, president and founder, says he launched the institute to bring Campbell’s ideas about myth to a wider audience.

Over a 50-year teaching and writing career, Campbell collected and closely examined core stories from religions and cultures around the world. In one of his best known works, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” Campbell reported and traced deep similarities among stories of Jesus, the Buddha, Ulysses, Apollo, and others. He argued the myths should be mined for their wisdom, not for literal accuracy.

“These stories can be true even though they’re not factual history,” Karlin said. “It’s a new way of looking at religion. I think this gives us an opportunity to re-embrace our faith in a new way, a much more honest way.”

During the four-day multidisciplinary program, psychologist James Hillman, writer Joyce Carol Oates, folk musician Janis Ian, religion scholar Huston Smith, theologian Matthew Fox, and artist Meinrad Craighead all made multiple appearances.

Scott Livengood, CEO of the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation, spoke about the influence of Campbell’s work on his company’s mission and culture. Game designers, whose work spanned board games to worldwide online communities, debated the merits of role-playing and simulated violence.

On Friday night, hundreds turned out to hear poets Robert Bly and Coleman Barks read selections of their works accompanied by musicians Eugene Friesen and Arto Tuncboyaciyan.

And at least one conference attendee found himself an inadvertent panelist. Floyd Striegel traveled from Ojai, Calif., to personally thank Hillman and Bly for their work. But in the middle of a Saturday afternoon session called “War,” featuring four speakers with no firsthand war experience, Striegel, a Vietnam veteran, was invited onstage. He reluctantly joined the panel and spoke with some anguish about his life before, during and after Vietnam.

Inspired by Hillman, Bly, and other mentors in myth, Striegel plans to study mythology in graduate school.

“They’ve been great graces, healing forces, in my life, that pulled me through where nothing (else) seemed to reach,” he said.

The war panel, which also included philosopher Sam Keen, Barks and scholars Eddie Gamarra and Gregory Schrempp, fielded questions from the audience and offered some of their own: “Do we really want there to be no war?” “Are there any just wars?”

The topic at hand quickly veered toward criticism of the Bush administration, the war in Iraq and how to respond to the crisis.

Reflecting on the session, Barks said, in light of today’s violence among religions and nations, no one seems to be able to imagine a world without war.

“All religions are just bets, or guesses, at what the mystery is that we’re living inside,” he said. “They’re gorgeous, beautiful mythologies and attempts to say true things about mystery. And they all fail.

“We don’t need to kill each other over our failed strategies of trying to say what God is,” he added.

On Saturday, a crowd packed into a small room for a session entitled “Grief Ritual,” led by Sobonfu Some, author and spiritual teacher. Accompanied by drums and group singing, participants made their way to an improvised shrine at the front of the room and deposited slips of paper inscribed with the name or source of grief in their lives. Many wept and embraced as they returned from the shrine. Some wailed and others danced to the music.

The Grief Ritual was adapted from a practice in southwest Burkina Faso, says Some, where participants understand grieving for deceased loved ones as not only healthy but necessary. Weeping, they believe, creates a river that carries the deceased to the “next destination.”

“I really believe that the foundation of religion is myth,” said Some, “and that just because of myth, there really is an aliveness within religion.

“People without myth,” she said, “are basically lost, left to be swept away like a dead leaf that has nothing to hold on to.”

The institute is currently making plans to host Mythic Journeys (http://www.mythicjourneys.org) on an annual or biennial basis.

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