The research questionnaires suggest that the mythopoeic writers, and to a
lesser extent the readers, have an almost mediumistic gift of detecting what is
playing itself out and forming in the soul of the collective, shining through from
another world. I t has a historical lineage, a lineage with the deeply mythic sense
that there are certain secrets, which, if discovered, reveal the nature of real or
decentred-self, and actual or elsewhere-place. SC is an established fact and, as
suggested earlier, may well be identified in its complete nature as an emergent
element of quantum physics. I ts more recent manifestation has presented itself in
the form of the neo-shamanism of the psychoanalyst, such as Jung, Hillman and
even Freud, and the shamanovelist, such as Mircea Eliade, Carlos Castenada, Paulo
Coelho and the like, and the mythopoeic writer, such as those cited in the research.
What also emerged clearly from the empirical research was that the
richness, import and substantiality of the imaginal realm becomes more apparent
when we participate in the imaginative creativity of others. I t is as if an archetype
is constellated, as von Franz suggested:
... wherever known reality stops, where we touch the unknown,
there we project an archetypal image (von Franz, 1972:3).
The beauty in the works of Malouf, Keneally and McCullough and others
could not speak to readers as it does if there was not richness and complexity
within us with which it can resonate. This observation leads to the interesting
realization that, in order to see what is going on in the inner world, one needs to
project that inner world in some way onto the outer world of place, or to bring
something of the outer place into the inner realm. This confirms the archetypal
nature of mythopoeic literature and the symbiotic relationship of the mythopoeic
reader and writer. They participate in each other’s creativity, and in so doing
expand consciousness, individually and collectively.
(h) Elsewhere-place and the De-centred Self
The questionnaire responses when considered together with the extended
textual research, describe a place within place which seemed to be dependent
neither on sensory perception nor on ordinary cognition. I t may be apprehended in
certain altered states of consciousness that destabilize ordinary perceptual
modalities and cognitive systems. David Malouf illustrates it in the Changi section of
The Great World and also in An I maginary Life. Thomas Keneally provides many