mythopathic

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not in OED.

"Arising from a psychopathic compulsion or tendency to lie or dissemble:
(hence) given to, tending toward, or embodying the invention of a myth or
story; mythopoeic."

1912 A. F. Chamberlain in _Journal of Religious Psychology_ V 459: [In]
_pathomimia_...the mythopathic simulations of diseases, etc., amount
sometimes to a veritable "folie ope'ratoire."

1920 T. A. Williams in _Proceedings of the American Medico-Psychological
Association_ (?Baltimore, Md.: American M.-P.A.) 259: Mythopathic activity
is often unconscious and involuntary, but also works with the help of
conscience and will, especially at the beginning of the fabulation.
a1963 in C. S. Lewis _God in the Dock_ 67:  If God chooses to be mythopoeic
— and is not the sky itself a myth — shall we
refuse to be _mythopathic?_  For this is the marriage of heaven and earth:
Perfect Myth and Perfect Fact....

1977 Michael Herr _Dispatches_ (rpt. N.Y.: Random House, 2008) 42:
Mythopathic moment: _Fort Apache_, where Henry Fonda ...says to John
Wayne..."We saw some Apache as we neared the Fort," and John Wayne says, "If
you saw them, sir, they weren't Apache."

1996 Robert Detweiler _Uncivil Rites_ (Champaign,Ill.: U. of Ill. Press)
164: It is a mythopathic moment, a double _sparagmos_ that is intended to
cleanse.

2002 J. Lilly _The Last Carnival_ (Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse) 151: But I
understand, I'm a little mythopathic myself.

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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