The Myth as an Empty Form

We have shown that myths provide utopias with materials, images and symbols which – in a certain selection – are taken up, that essential impulses of utopia come from myth, and that in some cases utopia ties in directly with myth (e.g. with the myth of the new beginning). It is therefore obvious to understand myth as a historically ‘earlier’ form of expression of human interpretation of the world and, from a psychological point of view, analogous to the developmental psychology of the individual, as the childhood of humanity. Myth would then be the psychogenetic precursor of utopia and, as a collective interpretation or collective wish, would be related to the daydream of the individual, although in myth the “subjective raptures” would be generalized and transformed into a “wish-fulfilling idea”.