In between the strict rationalism of the scientific fatalist and the elusive, esoteric musings of gnostic spiritualism, and as a necessary alternative to both, is “Myth.” Clyde S. Kilby writes,

We intellectualize in order to know, but paradoxically, intellectualization tends to destroy its object. The harder we grasp at the thing, the more its reality moves away.

So what is to be done? Man finds himself a third characteristic called imagination, by which he can transcend statements and systems. By some magic, imagination is able to disengage our habitual discursive and system-making and send us on a journey toward gestures, pictures, images, rhythms, metaphor, symbol, and at the peak of all, myth….

Myth is necessary because reality is so much larger than rationality. Not that myth is irrational, but that it easily accommodates the rational while rising above it. (Forward to Christian Mythmakers)

Note the place of imagination in discovering and comprehending truth. While no strict definition can be given to this process, for it defies it, this is as it should be, for the world defies strict categorization. It is, as Chesterton said, “as wild as an old wife’s tale.”

This is why people are drawn to myths and fairy tales. More than ethical lesson, which are important, is a philosophy of the world which helps our minds shape our existence. Kilby notes Lewis’s belief that “enchanted trees give all ordinary trees a measure of enchantment.”

So, too, fairy tales and myths give our world a measure of enchantment that we forget is there in our clock-ordered, bottom-line ruled daily existence.

“Myth is vision,” Kilby writes. Indeed. I’d point you once again to John Granger’s work, especially chapter 5 of The Deathly Hallows Lectures. This is why King’s Cross is so important. It is both physical and spiritual – indeed, the perfect restoration of both – and Harry can see without his glasses.

Imaginative literature is the path of this transformed vision, as Mr. Granger has argued, and imagination is, as I have argued, the way between two worlds, the way of making sense of this world and the ways in which Faerie both overlaps and is distinct from this world.

Tagged as: Christian myth, Clyde S. Kilby, Fairy Tales, Harry Potter and Imagination, Imagination, King's Cross, myth, mythology