The stories of gods or heroes descending into the underworld, threading through labyrinths and fighting with monsters, brought to light the mysterious workings of the psyche, showing people how to cope with their own interior crises.
Karen Armstrong

Mythological images are the images by which consciousness is put in touch with the unconscious. That’s what they are. When you don’t have your mythological images, or when your consciousness rejects them for some reason or other, you are out of touch with your own deepest part.**
Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell’s contention is that
we need myths to connect us with ourselves and
with others,
The problem is that although the old myths no longer serve us, and so
we have discarded them,
We struggle to find their substantial replacements;
As story-making animals, we are not without our narratives to
make sense of our everyday worlds –
Worlds of finance, of work and occupation, of relationships –
But these struggle to recognise and understand the deeper and
more mystical parts of our being,
Not daring to speak of your great abilities and powers of creativity and forging
warm values in a cold universe.

*Karen Armstrong’s A Short History Of Myth;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss.