Paul F. McDonald ~ Aug 4 2001
Joss Whedon has cited Richard Slotkin's book, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860, as being a seminal influence on the creation of Buffy (although Star Wars and Joseph Campbell are undeniably in there too). Slotkin offers up a term known as "mythogenesis," defining it as the creation, "in both maker and audience, [of tales that are] mystical or religious, drawing heavily on the unconscious and the deepest levels of the psyche, defining relationships between human and divine things, between temporalities and ultimates."