Thinning Quotes

“A common trope in fiction, especially fantasy fiction, is the ‘thinning’ of magic. Magic is fading or has been banished from the land, which is in deathly decline—caught, perhaps, in a perpetual winter—and the hero is called upon to rescue and restore the life-giving forces of old. There is, of course, a glaring parallel with our own world, in which magic has been slowly driven out, first by religion, which over the centuries became increasingly repressive of magic, and more latterly by science, which, for all its advantages, struggles to meet our emotional needs. But when we read or watch fantasy fiction, it is for the side of the old magic, always, that we root, for a golden age when the world, when life, had a meaning in and of itself. Science is the antithesis of myth, which is the epitome of art, for what is the function of art if not to return magic and meaning to the world?”
― Neel Burton, The Meaning of Myth: With 12 Greek Myths Retold and Interpreted by a Psychiatrist