What is the Purpose of Storytelling?

In the blog The Mythology of Humanity, “jessaslade” recently mused about the purpose of storytelling and listed: To achieve immortality, of deeds and for the storyteller To explain otherwise senseless phenomena To entertain/educate To moralize/terrify To beta test new versions of reality To exorcise* the imagination To land a movie deal (*Is that really “exorcise,” or it it “exercise?”) It would be easy to add many items to this list, but my tendency is to go the opposite way and red