In the Dogon religion the masks they use in certain dances represent things, and a Frenchman by the name of Marcel Griaule was asking a lot of questions about their religion and getting some answers, and he was persistent and worked out what the masks meant, and the priests decided to actually answer his questions honestly and let him be initiated into their religion, which he was, and he published a book on it before his untimely demise.
Maybe some people literally believe what the Dogon priests say, but there's also the idea that there is hidden meaning behind the design of their granary and their alphabet and their rituals, and maybe also their myths.
So the masks represent things. Given that things can be used to represent other things, it's possible that myths are actually metaphors, like the book of Revelation(s?), given that there is at least some occulting of meaning in at least some cases. I've read somewhere that Marcus Aurelius said that the gods were metaphors, though I don't know what the primary source for that claim is.
In some Grimoires there's a bit where you take a black hen, during the night while she's sleeping, you take her by the neck so she can't say anything, and you go to a crossroad, and looking towards sunrise you behead her, or something like that. (Please don't actually do this)
There's the literal act of doing this, and then there's the possibility for figurative interpretation, like maybe the hen is married to the cockerel who represents the dawn, and she's black like night, and there's an esoteric meaning of being beheaded, and maybe east represents the right half of the brain, or something.
ps corrected subjective to figurative (edited)
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