The Ancient Greeks (before Plato) recognized 2 equally important ways of thinking:

LOGOS: the voice of reason
MYTHOS: the conjunction of the imagination and the felt life

Then came the Greek "enlightenment", the era when reason defeated myth. The prose, the legends, the poems, and other imaginative forms of expression were suddenly seen as false, almost barbaric. With the rise of physics, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and other branches of knowledge, mythos lost their power.

Interestingly, in most ancient texts, the term logos was used to mark a speech of women (the soft, charming, deceiving nature of the weaker [insert an eye roll], and mythos was, by contrast, seen as manly, warrior-like, powerful, performative, worthy.

Whereas logos is the words, mythos is also the act, the way of pronouncement, and a deeper context. The Greek theatrical work is so well known because so much of value was placed on mythos, which was at its core.

Gradually, mythos became a myth and lost its original meaning which went way beyond fable and tales.

We've gone from the pre-Socratic philosophers proudly exclaiming: "hear my mythos!" to attributing a totally different meaning to the derivation of mythos - myth, and giving it one single oversimplified meaning: historic fiction.

What if we gave mythos its essence back? What if we welcomed holistic perception, creative thinking, and synthetic thinking back with open arms?

Playful mythos naturally dominates early childhood over logos, but instead of coming to an equilibrium with logos, logos is systematically placed into society to overpower it. Later in life, usually with coming of age or with one's Saturn return, the core components of mythos naturally resurface: intuitional thinking, symbolic imagination, mythical and poetic awareness, emotional sensitivity, emotional depth, moral passions, wisdom, and development towards values or spiritual development. We usually define that as an "existential crisis," but in reality, it is our mythos stepping in to help us problem-solve.

Mythological thinking taps into mythos. It is an integrative process that holds the potential to help modern society which is a prisoner of its rational mind. Over-intellectualization can be the poison of people, who (ironically) praise thinking out of the box, being innovative, and being artistically expressive.

The poetic, abstract, pictorial, metaphorical, and vast landscape of possibilities of imaginal thinking is what can help us heal from hardships. All we have to do is to reopen the portal to the forgotten creative liminal space (e. g. re-narrating psychotrauma using therapeutic fantastic reality cards, art therapy ...).

Utilizing mythos (creativity, fantasy, archetypes, imagination, myths, symbolism, poetry, dream language, occult, art ...) and using it as a tool to create, learn, grow, and heal, has done wonders for myself and the people I know.

It has even helped me deal with some deeply traumatic memories, and in the field of business, it is now one of my core tools in conscious brand building.

As kids, we were taught to close the door to the fantastic worlds, but I believe it's time to reopen them.

The era of caged daydreamers is over.

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Masha Mazi is a business consultant specializing in brand-building and brand storytelling. Her work is a unique mix of contemporary practices (marketing, strategy, user experience, service design, learning experience design, graphic design ...), regenerative leadership, and earth-based wisdom infused with mystery (human design, pathworking, spiritual ecology, archetypal work, mythmaking, ecosomatics, and deep psychology).