Martin Shaw

Writer and mythographer Dr Martin Shaw argues we live in a myth-impoverished age and invites us to allow the oldest stories in the world to reshape our own.

Shaw says the lack of myths leaves us vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well. Ancient myths provide a road to wholeness, maturity and connection. Shaw explains how to read a myth the way it wants to be read, provides retellings of tales that have the power to carry you through life’s travails and demonstrates how to gather and re-shape your own thrown-away stories. Shaw recounts how working with ancient myths led him unexpectedly to the ‘true myth’ of Christ.

Shaw is a writer, mythographer and Christian thinker and author of 17 books. He is a visitor at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, fellow of the Temenos Academy, founder of the oral tradition and mythic life courses at Stanford University and director of the Westcountry School of Myth. He played in punk rock bands in his youth and spent time fasting in a tent on a Welsh hill before completing a PhD in patterns of metaphor within rites of passage, specifically working with Irish and Siberian folklore.