It is a common enough rhetorical opening to declare that a book explores uncharted territory. Raphael Falco’s project in Charisma and Myth is “to explain how certain narratives and certain other forms of discourse are managed charismatically so that the groups sharing and experiencing those discourses are maintained as coherent social units over extended periods of time” (5), an area of intersection which has been unexamined. In Falco’s analysis, charisma is transferred from an original, individual authority to a social structure with the aid of a charismatic myth. In other words, the charisma of the individual must be transferred to institutions that can endure beyond the individual, and this is possible through the creation of a myth. Myth thus makes charisma part of a group’s quotidian existence and sustains the charismatic movement.
Charisma is the product of group interaction. Here, Falco follows the work of Max Weber. Charisma is what happens when people come together and are stirred toward the same sentiment or action. Furthermore, charisma is symbiotically and dialectically related to myth; the two develop together and support each other. For this to be so, according to Falco, the group’s dynamic must exist in a state of mild entropy (he uses the phrase “dissipative structures”), whereby the myths—which exist in a state of flux as they are reinterpreted by leaders—are used to support the ongoing authority. This is an important facet of Falco’s conception of myth because it informs the examples he uses throughout his book. Early on, he reveals that he places his own study in the context of exploring Malinowski’s idea about finding the context of living faith as primary in importance in understanding myth; yet there is little of this in evidence in this book. When he does keep his attention on this sort of context, the book shines: the best examples are his analyses of Milosevic and of the effects that confronting the Japanese population had on the image of Emperor Hirohito after World War II. For Falco, myth becomes an expression not of some sort of truth, but of adherence to charismatic authority. Groups cohere around that authority because of an emotional bond.
Myth has a political context that is of paramount importance to Falco. Folklorists, however, might wish that a more performance-centered perspective had been employed. Performance and charisma seem ideally suited to a joint venture in the understanding of how myth operates in group dynamics. Yet no performance of a myth is ever examined. Likewise, almost no myth is examined, only the abstracted (and barely summarized) myths as used in specific situations, often literary in nature; there are analyses of The Tempest and 1984, for example. These analyses look at the texts themselves rather than at their uses, which is a rather odd inversion of the idea of looking at living myth. These texts, of course, have living contexts: Shakespeare still lives on the stage, and perhaps more importantly, in classrooms, where students are confronted with the texts of the plays in the context of the potentially charismatic teacher.
For Falco, myth is a discursive instrument by which authority can be maintained because of its inherent adaptability. People can alter myths to fit new situations. There is much of value here, including a look at the processes of routinization—how revolutionary ideals are transformed into a new status quo. Falco is downright folkloristic in his commitment to the constant state of flux in which myth must exist as a living phenomenon. But his choice to devote an entire chapter (“Authority and Archetypes”) to the way archetypes—as formulated by Carl Jung and Mircea Eliade—can be seen as charismatic, is a curious digression. Archetypes are indeed a potent force in the popular concept of myth (though much less in the academic discourse), but the chapter itself devotes too much space trying to figure out what the term means.
Falco’s book, written as it is from the perspective of a literary scholar, relying on sociology and stemming from a desire to expand our conception of an idea broached in anthropology, could use an infusion of folkloristics. When Falco writes that “Anthropologists, scholars of religion, sociologists, even literary critics all acknowledge that myths have a living quality, but few have attempted to define how this living quality functions in social life” (2), folklorists could perhaps be excused for wishing that he had read more books from their field. Folkloristic fieldwork enables folklorists to take it for granted that myth lives in the quotidian habits as well as in the sacred duties of those with whom they work. Falco’s reliance on the printed word (he analyzes portions of 1984, The Tempest, and the Bible) blinds him to this fact; the folklorists’ attention to performance makes it obvious.
That said, folkloristics could learn from Falco’s emphasis on charisma as a function of group dynamics. It is a valid perspective to take to the field. In some sense, we have it already, in the attention paid to “star” performers. In this way, it has already been critiqued as a method of folkloristic research. But it has not been fully integrated, and especially not with attention to myth. Folklorists have studied many situations where myth could be examined in this light—preaching and political oratory come to mind. To put it this way is essentially to affirm Falco’s basic premise and many of his conclusions. Charisma has an intriguing relationship with mythology.
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[Review length: 899 words • Review posted on May 19, 2011]