Sarah Iles Johnston How Myths and Other Stories Help To Create and Sustain Beliefs

CHAPTER 10
How Myths and Other Stories Help

to Create and Sustain Beliefs
Sarah Iles Johnston
Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of Religion,
Professor of Classics and Comparative Studies
The Ohio State University, Columbus
MYTHS: TRUE OR FALSE?
Before we can think about how myths help to build and sustain religious beliefs, we need to
think about what myths are. The word myth tends to be used in casual conversation as a
synonym for an incorrect opinion or even a lie. For example, someone might say that the
idea that Obamacare will improve the health of the average American is a myth, or
the assumption that women cant serve in combat positions is a myth. In both cases, the
speaker means that these opinions are incorrect.
For the people from whom we inherit the word myththe ancient Greeksit carried
no implication of either truth or falsehood. In fact, the ancient Greek word mythos originally
just meant something that was said; even a conversation about how to plan an expedition,
for instance, could be called a mythos. As time went on and the Greek language evolved,
mythos particularly came to refer to a story (as opposed to an everyday conversation), but
even then, the story wasnt usually assumed to be either false or true just because it was
called a mythos.
Its important to realize both that myths arent necessarily false and that myths
are usually stories because one of the issues that arises in this chapter is the way in
which the narrators of stories about religionwhether we call them myths, scriptures,
or something elseconvince their audiences that what the stories are saying is true.
To some extent, this challenge faces not only those who tell stories about religion but
also those who narrate any kind of story: even historians must convince their readers
that their representation of what happened in the past is correct. They typically do so by
using footnotes, which either refer to documents from the period they are studying (e.g.,
treaties, proclamations, declarations of war, marriage licenses, and all sorts of other
things that help to establish facts) or by referring to work done by other respected
historians who have published on the topic. In either case, the historian is using a form
of persuasion through authority. We use persuasion through authority in everyday speech,
too, when we say things such as, According to a news piece that I heard on NPR,
climate change is real.
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Chapter 10: How Myths and Other Stories Help to Create and Sustain Beliefs
STORIES AND INFORMATION
Many narrators who seek to convince us that something is true also do so with some form
of persuasion through authority, but they add another element. Let us consider how a new
medical drug comes to the market, for example. Scientists carefully collect and present
their experimental data about a new compound of ingredients, supporting it with facts
for instance, how many subjects in their experimental group reacted well to the compound
when it was administered to them, and how many in the control group reacted well to the
placebo. The reports of such scientists (which carry authority because the scientists
themselves carry authority) then may be cited by researchers at a pharmaceutical firm who
set out to develop a new drug based on the compound that the scientists tested. Once the
drug is ready, a writer hired by the pharmaceutical firm will create a pamphlet
summarizing the reasons that doctors should begin prescribing it. The references that the
pamphlet makes to authorities (the scientists and the pharmaceutical researchers)
persuades doctors to accept the story that the pamphlet is telling about the new drug and
to begin prescribing it to patients.
But the writer of the pamphlet also might help to create a television ad that is
intended to convey a message about the new drug to average people. In the ad, simpler
versions of the information originally gathered by the scientists and the pharmaceutical
researchers will be paired with images of healthy, happy people going about their daily
livesimages that tell a story that is meant to suggest to viewers that the new drug has the
power to make anyone who takes it healthy and happy, too. Some of the viewers start to
believe in the drugthat is, to have confidence that it will do what it claims to be able to
do. This will lead some of them to make appointments with their doctors to discuss
whether the new drug is right for them. They probably would not have been motivated to
do this if the ad had focused closely on only the scientists and researchers reports. The
scenes of healthy, happy people help to persuade the viewers through suggestion rather
than authorityin this case, the suggestion that anyone who takes the drug will be
healthier and happier.
For many people, having confidence in somethingwhether it be confidence in a
drug, in a politicians platform on health care, or in a religiondepends on hearing or
seeing something that either explicitly or implicitly tells a story about it that touches their
emotions as well as their intellects, persuading them that they will be better off if they add
that thing to their lives. Ideas, in other words, can be conveyed effectively to people if they
are delivered in the form of a story or alongside a story.
PURPOSE, INSTINCT, EVOLUTION?

The story about healthy, happy people that the pharmaceutical writer created for a
television ad was crafted purposefully to deliver a particular message in a highly effective
way. A great deal of thought would have been given to decisions such as whether the
people in the ad should be male, female, or a mixture of the two; young or old; of differing
ethnicities, and so on. Would the message be best conveyed if they were shown playing
sports? If they were shown reading to their grandchildren? The writer would have been
helped in making these decisions by other professionals such as scriptwriters, casting
directors, and even media psychologistsindeed, at some point in the development of the
ad, these professionals probably took over the job from the writer.
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We would say that such a television ad was a story purposefully crafted to send a message
because the people who created it knew what effect they wanted it to have and how to create
that effect. Other stories are able to persuade their listeners to do something or to believe in
something because the person who is telling them instinctively knows what makes a story
effectivewhat tones of voice, facial expressions, and descriptive words, for instance, will
best convey a message. Perhaps the storyteller knows these things because he or she grew up
surrounded by older storytellers from whom he or she gradually learned the techniques.
Perhaps the storyteller was simply born with the talent to tell a good story. In many cultures,
particularly cultures with a strong tradition of communal storytelling, the techniques or
norms of storytelling evolve through timeperhaps stories about the gods come to be told
only around the fire in the evening, for example, or only by people of one gender, or by
religious leaders. Perhaps stories about the gods always must be told in poetic meter, or as
songs. Perhaps these stories are expected to use special vocabulary that is thought to be
appropriate only to themadjectives or turns of phrase that are not used in other speech,
for example. Such rules differ from culture to culture. The most effective storytellers master
the rules that have evolved within their group, but usually they add their own talents as
welltheir instinctive knowledge of what will make an audience pay attention and be
persuaded by what they are saying.
PROVING THAT INVISIBLE OTHERS EXIST

The phrase invisible others is a convenient way to refer to a panoply of different entities that
people may believe exist but with whom most of us do not interact through the usual five
sensesgods, angels, demons, and ghosts, for example. Most religions claim that these
invisible others exist; they may even make straightforward statements about them, such as
Athena is the daughter of Zeus, or demons lie in wait for those who sleep at midday, or
God created all the animals in the world. Some statements express doctrines of the religion,
that is, important points of belief that adherents are expected to accept as true, such as the
Buddha has been reincarnated repeatedly, in different forms, or Mohammed was the last
prophet of God, or thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Such statements have authority in and of themselves. In some cases, this is because they
have been passed down from generation to generationthey have the authority of age. In
other cases, it is because they are supposed to have been spoken first by a person of
authoritythou shalt have no other gods before me is said to have been spoken to Moses
by God himself, for example, and then included in the biblical book of Exodus, which some
people believe was composed by Moses. Such statements alone usually do not have enough
authority to convince people that the invisible others are really there, however. In contrast to
the scientists and researchers developing a new drug, who were described in the first part of
this essay, those who want to convince people to believe that these entities exist seldom can
produce hard evidence. Even when they do produce it, other people may challenge its
validity.
During the Victorian period, many spiritual mediums in Europe and America claimed
to be able to put people in touch with the ghosts of their departed loved onessome
mediums even were able to produce spirit photographs of ghostly forms whom they claimed
were those loved ones. Suspicious people (including the famous magician Harry Houdini
[18741926]) proved that many of the mediums were frauds, using clever tricks to deceive
their clients. Similarly, in the ancient Mediterranean world, certain priests claimed to be able
to make statues of the gods speak, so that the gods themselves could deliver words of advice
RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 143

to people who had paid for the privilege. Skeptical men, however, claimed that long, thin
tubes made out of birds windpipes had been threaded cleverly from the statues mouths
through the walls in back of the statues and into small chambers where collaborators stood
ready to whisper whatever the gods were supposed to say. Solid, unassailable proof that
invisible others exist always has been hard to obtain.
An important part of convincing people to believe in the tenets of a religion, therefore,
is telling stories about invisible othersusing persuasion through suggestion, in other
words, just as the story of healthy, happy people helps to persuade people to take a new
drug by suggesting that they will be happy and healthy, too. The rest of this chapter looks at
some of the ways in which stories most effectively can do this (see also Luhrmann, Chapter
8 in this volume). Most of our examples will come from ancient Greecethat is, they will
be what we usually call mythsalthough occasionally we will look at some stories from
other religious traditions, too, and even some stories that we wouldnt usually call religious in
a formal sense.
PARASOCIAL INTERACTION, PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
When we interact with each other, we create social relationshipsof friendship, of love, of
collegiality, of competition, and even of enmity. These are social interactions in the sense
that we are interacting with one another reciprocally as we pursue them. Each of us gives and
takes. In 1956, psychologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl coined the term
parasocial to describe interaction that, rather than being between two people, was between
one person and another person with whom the first one imagined himself or herself to be
interacting. A famous example comes from 1981. John Hinckley Jr. (1955) imagined that
he had a romantic relationship with actress Jodie Foster (1962) and attempted to
assassinate President Ronald Reagan (19112004) to impress her. Hinckleys relationship
with Foster was parasocial rather than social because Foster had never reciprocated by
interacting with Hinckleyshe had never replied to any of the notes he sent to her or to the
phone calls through which he tried to reach her.
Initially, the terms parasocial interaction (sometimes abbreviated as PSI) and parasocial
relationship (PSR), which refers to a PSI that is sustained over a long period of time, were
used only in connection with people who were considered to be mentally ill. As the decades
went on, psychologists discovered that most people who were considered to be mentally
healthy also had PSIs and PSRsalthough, when asked, these people stated that they knew
the relationships werent real. For example, many people have daydreamed about an
attractive person whom they have seen at work or at school but have never actually met,
imagining what it would be like to go out with him or her. And, many people have written
fan letters to a rock star or actor who doesnt even realize that the writer existssuch a letter
is just one among numerous letters that the stars secretarial staff receives and answers on
behalf of the star, if they answer at all. Each of these interactions can be described as
parasocial rather than social.
Psychologists also have shown, more recently, that it is normal to develop parasocial
relationships with fictional characters and that the thoughts and emotions that a person
directs toward a fictional character may be scarcely distinguishable, in terms of their
emotional and cognitive strength, from those that the person directs toward real people in
his or her life. J. K. Rowlings characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione

Granger have been the recipients of a great deal of parasocial attention in recent years, for
instance. Researchers have shown that more people develop PSRs with Harry that imagine
him as a friend rather than as a romantic partner, which tells us something interesting about
the characters appeal (see Giles 2002, Giles 2010, Schmid and Klimmt 2012).
PSI is far from new. During 1840 and 1841, when Charles Dickens (18121870) first
was publishing The Old Curiosity Shop as a serialized novel (i.e., when it first came out as
separate episodes, published sequentially in a magazine) his readers developed strong
attachments to a character named Little Nell. When Dickens killed her off, there were great
outcries of dismay in England and America. A member of Parliament, reading the fatal
episode while on a train, wept and threw his copy of the magazine out the window. It is
likely that, for as long as people have been telling stories, those who hear or watch them have
developed parasocial relationships with the stories characters.
THE CHARACTERS OF GREEK MYTHSAND OTHER STORIES

ABOUT INVISIBLE OTHERS
For many hundreds of years now, almost everyone who read or listened to Greek myths has
assumed that the characters in themZeus, Athena, Heracles, and all the restare
fictional. It has been conceded that the ancient Greeks believed that these characters really
existed, but once Christianity swept through the Western world, anyone who still believed
that these gods and heroes existed was considered either poorly educated, mentally
unbalanced, or both. Or to put it in terms of the psychological studies I discussed in the last
section, those who still believed in these gods and heroes, and thought that they had a
relationship with one of them (i.e., a relationship of worship), were understood to be
participating in a PSR with a fictional character.
But whether or not one agrees with this conclusion depends on where one stands. The
ancient Greeks themselves certainly would have said that they had social relationships with
their gods: they prayed to the gods and offered them gifts, such as sacrifices, and the gods
responded to those offerings by making the harvests grow and keeping cities safe, for
example. (Or, if the gods felt neglected by the humans, the gods would send a plague or
famine.) In other words, when we are considering the question of whether invisible others
are real or fictional, we need to remember two things. The first is that invisible others whom
believers consider to be real may be considered fictional by people outside of the religious
system that believes in them. The reality of invisible others is a matter of opinion, then,
rather than of fact. As with ghosts during the Victorian period, the existence of invisible
others as a whole cannot be proven nor disproven through traditional means accessible to
the five senses.
The second point is that, if, as work on PSIs and PSRs has taught us, interaction with
fictional characters can be just as cognitively and emotionally engaging as interaction with real
people, as long as the characters are presented in a persuasive way, then interaction with
invisible others can be as cognitively and emotionally engaging as those with real people as
well, as long as the invisible others are presented in a persuasive way.
WHAT GOOD NARRATION DOESBACCHYLIDESS STORY OF THESEUS

The stories that are told about invisible others are an important way of creating and
sustaining belief in them. Belief in invisible others is nourished much more by the persuasion
through suggestion that stories are good at, than by the persuasion through authority that
statements of doctrine are good at.

What makes myths and other stories persuasive? What makes their characters so
engaging that we continue to think about them after the story is over, and form
relationships with them (relationships that may be viewed as parasocial by those outside the
religion but as social by those inside the religion)? Many things can contribute to doing this;
we will survey just some of the most common.
All good stories vividly describe the situation that they narrate and the feelings of the
characters engaged in the action. Take, for example, the following excerpt from a narration
of the story of Theseuss voyage from Athens to the island of Crete, which was composed by
the Greek poet Bacchylides in the fifth century BCE (in ancient Greece, most public
narrations of myths took the form of poems). Theseus has just jumped overboard because
the wicked king of Crete, Minos, has challenged him to prove that he is the son of Poseidon
(the god of the sea and of horses) by retrieving a gold ring that Minos has thrown into the
sea. Theseus visits the palace of the sea-gods before miraculously returning to the ship again,
in spite of the fact that it has continued on its voyage:
Sea-dwelling dolphins swiftly carried great Theseus to the home of his father, the
lord of horses, and he entered the palace of the gods. There he saw the famous
daughters of the prosperous sea-god Nereus and felt afraid, for brightness shone like
fire from their splendid arms and legs, and ribbons spun from gold swirled through
their hair. They were dancing with feet as nimble as water itself, enjoying themselves
greatly.
And in that beautiful palace Theseus also saw the dear wife of his father, majestic
Amphitrite, who had eyes as large and lovely as a cows. She threw a purple cloak
around him and placed upon his curly hair a perfect wreath made from dark roses
the very wreath that Aphrodite, the goddess of love who delights in deception, had
given to Amphitrite long ago when she got married.
Nothing that the gods cause to happen should seem impossible to right-thinking
mortals! Theseus emerged again from the sea right beside the slender-sterned ship.
(Bacchylides 17, lines 97119; authors translation)
For the ancient Athenians who first heard this narrative, Theseus had long been dead but
was still active as a herothat is, as an invisible other who had begun existence as a human
being but who, after death, became something that was nearly as powerful as a god and was
able to help those who prayed to him. Hearing myths like this one about the remarkable
things that Theseus had done while he was still alive persuaded them that he could do
remarkable things as a dead hero as well.
But the narrative did something else as well. By vividly describing what Theseus,
Amphitrite, and the daughters of Nereus looked likeas well as the marvelous undersea
palace itselfand by describing Theseuss feelings as he saw all of this (both his fear and his
wonderment), the narrative makes it almost impossible not to engage with Theseus as a
character. In other words, as I have explored in greater depth in Narrating Myths (2015b)
and The Greek Mythic Story World (2015a), this passage and the longer poem from
which it is taken create and sustain belief in Theseus as someone who is real.
VIVID NARRATIONA NEW TESTAMENT EXAMPLE

Vivid narration helps other stories create and sustain belief as well. For many centuries, the
only English translation of the Bible that was widely available was the King James Version
(KJV), which had been commissioned by King James VI of England in 1611. In 1989, a
new translation of the Bible called the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) appeared.

The NRSV used modern, colloquial language. Compare these two translations of the story
of how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:3944). First, the KJV:
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto
him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto
her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of
God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And
Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. []
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he
that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was
bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
And now the NRSV:
Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him,
Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days. Jesus said to her,
Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took
away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, Father, I thank you for having
heard me. [] When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come
out! The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his
face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him, and let him go.
Each translation tells the same story, but when we hear it in language that sounds like what
we say every day, we are likelier to become fully engaged with what is happening to Lazarus,
his sisters, and Jesus.
POINTING THINGS OUT

Sometimes, narrators make a story more vivid by pointing out places or things that exist both
in the story and in surroundings from the everyday world that are familiar to their audiences.
By doing this, they subtly assert that the world in which the story takes place is just as real as
the everyday world because it quite literally is the same world. A famous example comes from a
passage in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, from the sixth century BCE. The Hymn was
composed to be performed at Delphi, a religious site that was sacred to the Greek god Apollo.
Just before this passage, the poet has told a story about when he was young. Apollo killed a
monstrous snake called the Python because she threatened the site of a new sanctuary that
Apollo was building at Delphi. As the Python lay dying, Apollo taunted her, saying, Now rot
away here, on the earth that nourishes humans! No longer will you be an evil danger to people,
who will eat the fruits of the nurturing soil and who will bring huge, excellent sacrifices here
[to this new sanctuary] (Homeric Hymn to Apollo lines 362363).
When the poet, standing at the sanctuary in Delphi, spoke the word here in the first
line, he would have gestured to a place nearby where people believed that the Python really
had rotted, long, long ago. When he spoke here for the second time, he would have gestured
to the entire sanctuary at Delphi, which, at the time of the poems composition and for
many centuries afterward, was a place of pilgrimage that attracted worshippers from all over
Greece and beyond. Both these uses of here and the poets gestures drew together the world
of the myth and the world of the poets audience and, by doing so, helped to make the myth
credible.
POINTING THINGS OUT IN RITUALS AND PAGEANTS

Scholars refer to such pairings of words and gestures as instances of deixis. In Greek, deixis
means pointing something out. People who tell stories about the early days of a religion

sometimes engage in large-scale, more extended forms of pointing things out, which
similarly persuade people that the stories took place in the real world. For example, religious
rituals that reenact things that were done by gods or heroes many years earlier sometimes are
performed in the very spot where the actions are believed to have first taken place.
The Eleusinian mysteries, a festival that was dedicated to the Greek goddesses
Demeter and Persephone, were held each year in the city of Eleusis, which lay fourteen
miles outside of Athens. Myths said that Demeter had lived among the people of Eleusis
temporarily while she searched for her lost daughter, Persephone. While she was there,
Demeter taught the citizens rituals that would ensure that they received her blessings
while they were still alive (given that she was the goddess of grain, her blessings most
prominently included agricultural success). She also promised that the rituals would
ensure the blessings of her daughter, Persephone, who as the wife of Hades, the king of
the dead, played an important role in deciding whether ones soul would be rewarded or
punished after death.
Those who wished to be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries were required to do
some of the same things that Demeter had done while visiting the people of Eleusis, while
they stood or sat in the very spots where she was believed to have stood and sat so long
ago. For example, each initiate consumed a special drink that she had consumed. The
initiates also watched a dramatization of Demeters and Persephones stories that was
performed in the very place where those stories had actually happened long ago. For the
initiates who immersed themselves in the myth in these ways, the world in which the
narrative unfolded and the world in which they lived their own lives were powerfully
bound together.
Similarly, each July on a hill called Cumorah in upstate New York, stories about the
establishment of Mormonism, some of which are believed to have taken place on Cumorah
in the 1820s, are reenacted for audiences. Some people in the audience are Mormons who
have come to see these foundational moments for themselves, as a means of renewing their
faith. But most are not membersand the Mormon Church hopes that the vividly dramatic
stories will lead them to convert. In either case, performance of the stories in the very place
where they happened heightens their persuasive power.
EPISODIC NARRATION
Stories can be told in either of two ways: all at once, from start to finish, or in episodes that
are separated from one another by periods of time. Sometimes stories partake of both modes
of narration: each movie in the Star Wars saga is complete in itself but simultaneously is an
episode in a larger story that all of the movies tell together. Similarly, the Harry Potter books
each tell their own story but build toward a larger conclusion in the seventh book, which
means that each book could be considered an episode in a longer story.
When a story is told in episodes, audience members continue to think about the story in
between installments. During these periods, audience members begin to ruminate about the
characters personalities and behaviors and build hypotheses about how the plot will develop.
They begin to wonder what a favorite character is going to do in the next episode or even what
that character would do in a situation that is not related to the story. For instance, what would
Harry Potter do if he attended my elementary school instead of Hogwarts and were confronted
by the bully in my class? How would he handle that challenge?

Thinking about the characters this way gives them a life that is independent of the
narrative and its creator and binds them more tightly to those who are doing the thinking.
Sometimes the episodes of such a narration end up being consumed out of order. Once all
of the episodes are available (as books, on video, as television reruns, or as downloads),
people may not see the story unfold as its authors meant it to. Nonetheless, people who
consume the story episodically still experience much the same reaction: they wonder about
what makes the characters tick and why their stories came to the conclusions that they did.
GREEK MYTHS AND EPISODIC NARRATION

Greek audiences almost always consumed mythic narratives in an episodic way. They
listened to a traveling performer recite part of the Odyssey, for exampleperhaps the ninth
book of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus confronted a terrible Cyclops. Or they listened to a
chorus of singers perform Bacchylidess story of Theseuss trip to Crete, from which the
earlier excerpt was taken. These audiences might not hear another part of either heros story
for quite some time afterward; they might instead hear other poets or choruses perform parts
of other gods and heroes storiesApollos battle with the Python, or Athenas argument
with Poseidon about who would rule a newly created city.
Most Greek listeners brought to these experiences a knowledge of the gods and heroes
larger histories; they knew that Odysseus eventually would get home and that Theseus
would land on Crete, defeat the Minotaur, and then become king of Athens. They knew
that Apollo would defeat the Python and establish a sanctuary that would become one of the
most famous in the world and that Athena would win her argument with Poseidon,
becoming the leading god of what we now call Athens. In this sense, the episodes that
audiences heard were not so much out of order as they were focused on a discrete, gleaming
moment in a larger divine or heroic career.
Consuming episodes in this way brings certain rewards. If the single episode is well
composed and engaging, it prompts people to think more carefully about the characters and
why their longer stories ended in the way that they did. Did the skills and self-control that
Odysseus used to defeat the Cyclops early in his adventure prepare him for later challenges?
Did Theseuss remarkable visit to the undersea palace of his father, Poseidon, foreshadow
the role that Poseidon would later play in Theseuss fraught relationship with his own son,
Hippolytus? When Apollo killed the Python, was that the beginning of the end for older,
darker forces that previously had lurked at Delphi?
EPISODIC NARRATION AND CREATIVE FREEDOM

The expectation that the story of a character would not be told in a proper chronological
order freed poets to narrate episodes that either were not widely known or were the
invention of the poet. No one was bothered about the addition of such new episodes as long
as they were interesting and more or less suited what already was known about the character.
The Greeks assumed that the Muses (goddesses who oversaw creative processes, such as
those of storytelling) might reveal new stories to a poet at any time; similar ways of justifying
new stories within a canon exist in most religious traditionsand for that matter, within
narrative traditions more generally. Some of these new stories become understood as what
we now call prequels and sequels. Some are understood as what narratologists (scholars who
study how stories are narrated) call midquelsstories that are set in the middle of a
characters career but that, according to their authors, simply have not been told before.

This freedom to innovate upon gods and heroes biographies enabled poets to create
stories that did a particularly good job of showcasing qualities that made those gods and
heroes engaging characters. Many of these stories underscored the message that the gods and
heroes would be able to help worshippers when they needed it. Heraclesprobably the
greatest Greek hero of all, who was worshipped at many places throughout the ancient
Greek worldseems to have had countless adventures in which he conquered monsters and
wicked, barbarous people. The myths that narrated these exploits helped to sustain the belief
that, as a powerful entity after his death as well as before it, Heracles would be able to ward
off other kinds of evil creatures, such as the demons who could bring illness and death to
people. Many homes in ancient Greece had small signs over the front door that said,
Heracles who is beautiful in victory lives here! or Heracles who wards off evil lives here!
The signs were meant both to frighten the demons away from the house and to invite
Heracles to visit it. They were a way to ensure that those abilities of Heracles that the myths
told about in thrilling detail also would help the worshipper who put up the sign.
HERACLES AT OLYMPIA
A story about Heracles that first was told by the fifth-century BCE poet Pindar articulated
another aspect of Heracless duties to his worshippers. According to Pindar, Heracles
noticed that there were no trees in a recently finished sanctuary to Zeus where the newly
established Olympic games were to be heldthe sun beat down blazingly upon the naked
earth, leaving no shade in which the athletes or onlookers could relax. Heracles journeyed to
the distant land of the Hyperboreansfabulous people who lived so far north that they
were beyond the cold and the storms that usually were associated with that part of the world.
Heracles convinced them to give him some of their olive trees, which were especially
beautiful and lush thanks to the balmy climate. Heracles carried these trees back to Olympia
and planted them there, where they provided not only shade but also leaves out of which
wreaths for the Olympic victors were woven. Pindar connects this story to a better-known
myth about Heracles: how he had captured a marvelous golden-horned doe as the third of
his twelve labors. Pindar claims that Heracles first saw the Hyperboreans olive trees while
on his long trip to capture the doe. In other words, Pindar ties the new episode in Heracless
biography to another, familiar episode, which helps persuade the audience to accept it.
But this new myth does something else as well that is subtle but powerful. Young
athletes in Greece prayed to Heracles for support both while they trained (statues of
Heracles graced most ancient gymnasiums) and when they competed in contests such as the
Olympic games. Pindar was paid to compose the poem in which Heracles plants the olive
trees at Olympia by a rich and influential man named Theron, who had won the chariot
race at the Olympic Games in 476 BCE. Theron wanted the poem to celebrate, and thus
further glorify, his victory.
By choosing to tell a myth about the early days of the Olympic games and about
Heracles, a hero who was important to the games both during their earliest days and in
Therons own day, Pindar insinuates two things: first, that Theron has approached the level
of greatness that Heracles achieved when he was still alive, and second, that Heracles had
chosen to help Theron win the race in which he competedwhich was an honor in itself.
When it was first performed as part of Therons victory celebration, the poems listeners,
who were men or boys with athletic careers or aspirations of their own, were told how great
Heracles had been when he was alive and how important a patron of athletes he continued
to be after his death.

After Pindars poem was first recited at Therons victory celebration, passages from it
would have been recited by men when they got together to drink and talk. (In a culture in
which listening to poetry was a major form of entertainment, many people developed an
ability to memorize and repeat passages from poems.) In the context of these later
recitations, the myth that Pindar had composed about Heracles and the olive trees
continued to remind men that it was important to worship Heracles if they wanted to
succeed as athletes.
New stories can be added to the biographies of famous figures in other religious systems
as well. To take just one example, the group of stories known as the Jataka Tales tell about
things that happened during the many lives experienced by the soul that eventually was
incarnated as Gautama Buddha (c. 583 BCE), the founder of Buddhism. In some of these
tales, that soul dwells in a human body and in others it dwells in an animal body. Whatever
the form of its incarnation, in every story, the soul exhibits an important virtue. One
especially famous tale tells about how a human incarnation, upon meeting a starving tigress
who could not produce enough milk to feed her hungry cubs, offered his own body to feed
her.
The more than 500 stories that now are included among the Jataka Tales developed
between about 300 BCE and 400 CE. The Buddha, like Heracles, was a figure who could
be used to say many important things in many different ways that engaged audiences.
PLURIMEDIALITY
Plurimediality is a word coined recently by narratologists. It comes from two Latin roots:
pluri, which means many, and media, which in this instance refers to the methods through
which stories are told. Storytelling media include longstanding methods, such as books,
songs, and dramatic performances; more recent methods, such as cinematic film and
television; methods that may not use words, such as the visual and musical arts; and some
methods that might be surprising at first glance, such as toys and theme parks. Some
scholars use the term transmediality instead of plurimediality; the slight difference in
meaning between the two terms is unimportant for the purposes of this essayfor
clarification, see Shane Densons Marvel Comics Frankenstein (2011) and Henry
Jenkinss Convergence Culture (2006).
When scholars say that a character is plurimedial, they mean that his or her story is told
by more than one medium, and usually more than just two. We can return to Harry Potter
for an example: his story is told through the books written by Rowling; through the
illustrations in the book drawn by Mary GrandPr, the first artist to illustrate the tales, and
those by Jim Kay, the artist who recently created new illustrations for the books; through
the movies in which Harry is played by the actor Daniel Radcliffe (1989); through Harry
Potter action figures, which allow children to act out the stories themselves; and by
Universal Orlandos theme park The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where people can
dine at a replica of the Leaky Cauldron pub and otherwise immerse themselves in places that
have been built to evoke the story-world in which Harry and his friends exist.
Many characters in myths and other sacred stories are similarly plurimedial, not
surprisingly: if members of a religion believe that a character once existed and made an
important contribution to the religion (or, in the case of an invisible other, continues to
exist and to influence the world), then his or her story ends up being told frequently and

through many different methods. Heracles is again a good example. His adventures
frequently were narrated by poets who composed many different types of stories about him
that were performed on many different occasionsHomer mentioned that he had
journeyed to the Underworld to capture the three-headed dog Cerberus; the tragedian
Euripides told of his maddened murder of his family; and Pindar described not only his gift
of olive trees to Olympia but also, for example, his defeat of the terrible man-monster
Antaeus, who had the habit of challenging visitors to a wrestling match and then killing
them. He was portrayed constantly in Greek artthrough brightly painted statues that
graced public areas of cities, on vases that held provisions such as olive oil, and on coins that
served as currency and passed from hand to hand (see Heracles images in this chapter; see
Figures 11.3a and 11.3b in Chapter 11).
Similarly, Jesus and his disciples are plurimedial, even if the canonical versions of their
stories still are understood to be those related by the books of the New Testament.
Particularly notable are the numerous visual portrayals of Jesus and his disciples that began
to be produced as soon as the stories began to circulate: every artistic medium from clay to
oil paint to stained glass has been used to convey the stories over the past two millennia.
Sculptures (c. 490 BCE) from the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina, Greece, showing Heracles (center;
originally holding a bow, now lost) and other heroes besieging the city of Troy. Heracles is an example from Greek myths of a
plurimedial character: his adventures were frequently narrated by poets who composed many different types of stories about him for various
occasions, and he was often portrayed in Greek artthrough statues, on vases, and on coinsin varying ways. PHAS/GETTY IMAGES.

Dramatic enactments, such as medieval passion plays, were also important. We now see the
stories of Jesus and his disciples performed on television and in the movies.
PLURIMEDIALITY AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

Each time that Heracles (or Harry Potter, or Jesus) is portrayed in any medium, he is
slightly different in appearance, in behavior, or in both. Heracles sometimes drinks too
much and sometimes loses his temper, but on other occasions, he acts in a way we probably
would call virtuous, rescuing maidens from monsters and killing evil kings. Although visual
representations almost always show him wearing his lion skin, sometimes he wields a club
instead (a rather primitive weapon), sometimes a bow and arrow (higher-tech weapons), and
sometimes he appears with the shield and spear or sword that typically are associated with
the hoplite (a highly trained Greek soldier).
Characters who are plurimedial are easier to engage with, and easier to believe in, than
nonplurimedial characters for two reasons. The first reason is that they are experienced more
frequently: they seem to be everywhere. But the second, and more important, reason is that
the many, slightly different portrayals of the character that are available compel each person
to create his or her own version of that character. Consciously or unconsciously, each person
must choose among the different traits and build his or her own Heracles (or Harry, or
Jesus). This prompts a deeper level of engagement with the character than a single, uniform
Vase (c. 520 BCE) from Caere, Italy, showing Heracles presenting Cerberus, the dog of the
Underworld, to King Eurystheus, who hides in a large pot because he is afraid of Cerberus.
Each time a plurimedial character is portrayed, he is slightly different in appearance, in behavior, or in
both. Although visual representations of Heracles almost always show him wearing his lion skin, his
weapon might be a club, a bow and arrow, a spear, or a sword. PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES.

method of portrayal can prompt. Your version of Heracles really is yours and mine is really
mine. The cognitive and emotional bonds that are forged during the process run deep.
UNOFFICIAL RELIGIOUS NARRATIVES

Thus far, we have discussed narratives that most people would be comfortable describing as
religiousGreek myths, the New Testament, the Jataka Tales, and the performances staged
at Eleusis and Cumorah, for instance. We have looked as well at some narratives that we
dont usually call religiousthe stories about Harry Potter. We also need to acknowledge
that many narratives are hard to put into either category. Although they are not explicitly
attached to a particular religion, such narratives articulate spiritual worldviews that affect
audience members ideas about invisible others and influence their ethical and moral values.
Because these narratives are not attached to a specific religion, they often can make freer use
of the techniques that this chapter has reviewed and are able to convey their ideas even more
persuasively than many formally religious narratives can.
In fact, the stories about Harry Potter are a good example of this sort of narrative. The
world in which Harry exists includes good people who battle against evil and eventually
triumphalthough they do so at the cost of companions who sacrifice their lives to the
cause. Other familiar narratives of this kind are C. S. Lewiss The Chronicles of Narnia,
which are built around a long battle between good and evil in which human characters and
their decisions play important parts; the Star Wars saga, in which, again, a battle of good
versus evil is waged that sometimes requires personal sacrifice; and even Game of Thrones,
the plot of which hints at an apocalypse that will purge corruption from its story-world.
Media critic Lynn Schofield Clark and other scholars have shown that these unofficial
religious narratives influence young peoples spiritual and ethical beliefs more strongly and
enduringly than we might expectin part because they are so effectively narrated. Clark
argues in From Angels to Alien (2003) that newer forms of spirituality, built from the bricks
provided by narratives like these, are slowly but surely replacing the traditional religions with
which the western world is familiar.
Summary
We started this chapter by looking at everyday examples of how people are persuaded to
believe something new, contrasting persuasion through authority, such as scientists wield,
with persuasion through suggestion, such as people who create advertisements use. We noted
that it is easier to get people to believe in things that they cannot experience through the
normal five senses (such as invisible others) by means of persuasion through suggestion than
by persuasion through authority and that a significant means of persuasion through
suggestion is the telling of vivid, engaging stories. Vivid, engaging stories lay the
groundwork for audience members to form relationships with the stories characters that can
be just as cognitively and emotionally satisfying as relationships with real people. Indeed, as
the discussion of PSI and PSR showed, in many cases, the answer as to whether a given
relationship is real or imaginary depends completely on whom you ask: a believer will give a
very different answer from a nonbeliever.
One of the things that makes stories vivid is lively description of the stories characters,
their actions, and their feelings, as was exemplified by an excerpt from Bacchylidess story of

Theseus and by Johns story of the raising of Lazarus. Another is deixispointing to things
or places that link the world of the story to the real world in which audience members exist.
Instances of deixis can be momentary, as when the poet of Hymn to Apollo points to the spot
where the Python rotted, or extended and embedded in longer ritual or performative
contexts, as in the cases of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the pageants each year at Cumorah.
We also looked at two other traits that help to make stories and their characters vivid and
engaging. One was telling the story episodically, which prompts people to think about its
characters in between installments, filling in parts of their histories and personalities that the
story itself did not offer (here we looked at myths about Theseus and Heracles for some of our
examples). The other was plurimediality, a situation in which severalperhaps many
different versions of a character are offered to audience members (here we looked at Heracles
again, as well as Harry Potter and Jesus). The choices that each audience member consciously
or unconsciously makes among the different versions of a character creates yet another version
of the character that is uniquely his or her own, and therefore especially meaningful.
All of these methods, and others that could not be discussed in this short survey, help a
talented narrator make parts of the world that are not easily accessiblethe realm of the past
and the realm of the invisible others, for examplecome alive for an audience. Myths, and
stories more generally, can contribute significantly to the creation and sustenance of
religious belief.
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CHAPTER 10

How Myths and Other Stories Help

MYTHS: TRUE OR FALSE?

STORIES AND INFORMATION

PURPOSE, INSTINCT, EVOLUTION?

142 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

PROVING THAT INVISIBLE OTHERS EXIST

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 143

PARASOCIAL INTERACTION, PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

144 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

THE CHARACTERS OF GREEK MYTHSAND OTHER STORIES

WHAT GOOD NARRATION DOESBACCHYLIDESS STORY OF THESEUS

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 145

VIVID NARRATIONA NEW TESTAMENT EXAMPLE

146 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

POINTING THINGS OUT

POINTING THINGS OUT IN RITUALS AND PAGEANTS

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 147

148 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

GREEK MYTHS AND EPISODIC NARRATION

EPISODIC NARRATION AND CREATIVE FREEDOM

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 149

150 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 151

152 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

PLURIMEDIALITY AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 153

UNOFFICIAL RELIGIOUS NARRATIVES

154 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

RELIGION: NARRATING RELIGION 155

FI L M A N D T E L E V I S I O N Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Dir. David

156 MACMILLAN INTERDISCIPLINARY HANDBOOKS

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