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"Joseph Campbell, a professor and lecturer on comparative mythology and author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, found that danger exists when the social order requirements of social institutions such as religion and political interpretations “…press on people mythological structures that no longer match their human experience”. Furthermore, the symbol or metaphor which expresses the societal mythology must possess a “spiritual aura” signifying a living spiritual core of awakening. If mythological symbols are “…reduced to the concrete goals of a particular political system of socialization”, they lack the “connotative meaning of metaphoric imagery” that leads to a realization of transcendence. This type of concrete symbol merely denotes a localized ethnic meaning caught in a static historical context devoid of universal spiritual significance."

http://www.planetshifter.com/myth/2478