At one extreme of its meaning, “myth” is fable, falsehood, or superstition. But at another, “myth” is a useful and fruitful image by which we make se… - Alan Watts

Thus in using myth one must take care not to confuse image with fact, which would be like climbing up the signpost instead of following the road

To succeed is always to fail, in the sense that the more one succeeds at anything, the greater is the need to go on succeeding. To eat is to survive to be hungry.

I well remember the first great hemp shop that was opened in San Francisco around 1976. It was essentially a long wooden bar with stools for the customers. On the bar itself were a few large crocks containing the basic and cheaper forms of the weed — Panama Red, Acapulco Gold, Indian Ganja, and Domestic Green. But against the wall behind the bar stood a long cabinet furnished with hundreds of small drawers that a local guitar maker had decorated with intricate ivory inlays in the Italian style. Each drawer carried a label indicating the precise field and year of the product, so that one could purchase all the different varieties from Mexico, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, India, and Vietnam, as well as the carefully tended plants of devout cannabinologists here at home. Business was conducted with leisure and courtesy, and the salesmen offered small samples for testing at the bar, along with sensitive and expert discussion of their special effects. I might add that the stronger psychedelics, such as LSD, were coming to be used only rarely — for psychotherapy, for retreats in religious institutions, and in our special hospitals for the dying.

What interests him, for instance, about the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ is whether and how it happened. These two questions are, however, much less important than why it happened, than the discovery of what it means.