these are wild secular times

These are wild secular times. It’s like we’re living in the disenchanted ruins of a world that forgot it used to believe in magic. Once, myths shaped the edges of our maps and infused the spaces between stars with gods and monsters. Now, we’ve GPS’d the mystery out of existence. Or so it seems.

But here’s the trick: while it might look like we’ve banished the gods and burnt the myths, they’ve just gone underground. They’ve seeped into the digital ether, woven themselves into our algorithms, and found refuge in memes and Marvel movies. The sacred didn’t disappear; it adapted, camouflaging itself in the language of pixels and irony.

In this age, secular doesn’t mean devoid of meaning—it means the meanings are hidden in plain sight, waiting for us to decode them. Chaos magicians might call this a playground, while postmodern philosophers nod sagely and mutter something about simulacra. Me? I like to think of it as the perfect terrain for modern mythologists to do their best work.

Think about it: the myths of old explained the unexplainable. Thunder was the hammer of Thor, and the sunrise was Ra’s journey. Today, our myths emerge from collective fears and desires. Climate change becomes the wrath of Gaia. AI takes the place of Prometheus’ fire, promising enlightenment but threatening catastrophe. The disembodied voice of ChatGPT is eerily akin to a modern oracle, whispering answers from the void.

The difference? We pretend we don’t believe in any of it.

What if these wild secular times aren’t secular at all but simply dressed in a new kind of sacred? We could re-enchant the world—not by dragging the old gods back, but by creating new myths that speak to our wired, distracted, caffeine-fuelled lives. The stories don’t need to be about gods and demons; they can be about connection, wonder, and the alchemy of meaning-making.

This isn’t about resurrecting the past but acknowledging the magic that still dances just out of sight. It’s in the spark of synchronicity when you see a street sign that answers a question you’ve been wrestling with. It’s in the strange intimacy of sharing thoughts with an AI that feels, somehow, like it understands you. It’s in the collective act of creation when a million people turn a TikTok trend into a global phenomenon.

Secularism often carries with it an implicit promise of certainty. Science will explain it all. Rationality will guide us. But life isn’t so tidy, is it? It’s chaos wrapped in a thin veil of order. And chaos isn’t something to be feared; it’s generative. It’s the place where creativity, transformation, and surprise are born.

These wild secular times are an invitation to embrace chaos not as a problem to solve but as a partner in creation. The old rituals—meditation, journaling, wandering—still work. They just need to be updated for the times. Swap the parchment for a blog. Trade the sacred circle for an online forum. Instead of invoking deities, invoke the collective intelligence of the web. After all, isn’t every Reddit thread a kind of collective spell?

So, what do we do with all this? How do we navigate a world that feels, at times, utterly fragmented? The modern mythologist’s task isn’t to lament the loss of the sacred but to uncover the stories that are already being told—and then help rewrite them. We can ask:

• What’s the myth of your life?

• What gods (or forces) do you serve, knowingly or unknowingly?

• What symbols and archetypes keep showing up, refusing to be ignored?

In these wild secular times, the myths we need aren’t just for explaining the cosmos. They’re for explaining ourselves to ourselves, for making meaning in a world that sometimes feels hollowed out. And if the myths don’t exist yet? Well, it’s up to us to create them.

The secular world is a stage. Let’s step onto it: chaos in our hearts and stories on our tongues. What kind of myths will we leave behind for those who come next?