No sooner do we graduate from diapers to duds, and start playing with the kids next door than we begin the process of molding our personality to fit in with our peers., We see ourselves reflected in the eyes of others and strive to be acceptable, popular, admired.

By subtle means, the myth of gender is superimposed over our bare biology. We learn that real (heterosexual) men, like Clint Eastwood or the Marlboro Man, stand tall, don't cry and are prepared to fight and kill the enemies of the moment. By contrast, good women are expected to be warm and helpful and, until the advent of feminism, were not encouraged to compete for power.

Since the centrality of economics in human affairs is the dominate myth of our age, we believe money makes the world go round and our worth is measured by wealth. Consequently, getting a job(and credit card) is the new rite of passage that mark the transition from childhood to adult status. Once employed the marks of success and status are well defined - Fords for workers and Ferraris for CEO's.

Our uncritical belief in the myth of progress leads us to believe that technology and expanding markets will solve the worlds problems, all the while ignoring the environmental crisis created by our carelessness of nature.

Sports, which are ritualized forms of combat, teach us that life is a matter of competition and the world is divided between winners and losers. Being Number 1. is the goal of life.

Even our diet is determined by an elaborate mythology that tells us what we may eat--- deer but not dog, pork but not beef (or vice versa)., and, above all, fast food because time is money.

A million advertisements for beauty aids and miracle drugs condition us to expect we can be young forever or at least cure what ails us with makeovers and pills.

The dominate technology of any age shapes its consciousness; the medium becomes the message. In the last decade, computer literacy has replaced print literacy ( created by the Gutenberg Press) as the most important cultural skill. Currently, our infatuation with information technology, computers and the internet is leading us to replace immediate experience of the physical world with virtual experience. Increasingly, we live in a mediascape rather than a landscape. You will notice, for instance , that you are not exploring your myth and telling your story to a group of friends sitting around a fire, but are participating in a virtual community.

Welcome to the new myth, the new world

It is easy to identify other people's myths but very difficult to identify our own. We consider ourselves enlightened, reasonable and pragmatic. Our myth is: we have no myths. We think of myths as imaginative stories told by ancient civilization because they had no scientific explanations for phenomena and were at the mercy of nature. Science gives us knowledge of our world and technology gives us control.

But, look more deeply and you will see that we act in ways that are both irrational and destructive. We place uncritical faith in technological progress, the global economic marketplace, and military power. Our lives are governed by ideologies that offer no vision or promise of transcendence: nationalism, consumerism, individualism, and militarism. Our myths condition us to believe: success is measured by wealth; weapons make us secure; the natural world exists for our exploitation.

Because we absorb the myths, values and world-views of our family and culture with our mother's milk, we may go through a lifetime without realizing we have been unconsciously following someone else's script. At a personal level, if we do not become conscious of the myths we have inherited we repeat the past and routinely follow what we have been taught by the authorities - parents, teachers, priests, politicians, pundits and CEO's. At a communal level, remaining unconscious of the shadow side of our modern myths has led us to ignore the disastrous consequences of the population explosion, unjust distribution of wealth, escalating production of weapons of mass destruction, global warming and environmental destruction.

The process of separating the myths and ideologies that have informed and misinformed us from the unique story that is the source of our bliss requires us to set out on a heroic journey, an adventure in consciousness.