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The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
(1949). MJF Books. New York

This book is a classic. It is also not an easy read. It is dense, sometimes ponderous, and other times mind numbing. Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung are neck and neck as far as density is concerned, and have been the answer to many a literate insomniac's prayers. They are also the intellectual precursors of both the mythopoetic men's movement, started by Robert Bly and Michael Meade and others, and the archetypal psychology movement started by James Hillman (who works with Meade and Bly). The mythopoetic movement and archetypal psychology turn off a great many men because they seem to take endless and roundabout ways to get to any point, wandering through literature, myth, fairy tales, legend and other "unrelated" stories. Men are also turned off by less than modern rituals, symbolized by drumming and storytelling.

The point of the mythopoetic movement and the psychology of archetypes is the same point that Campbell makes. Men and women today have no healthy cultural guidance in finding a righteous place in society and a peaceful place in themselves. Modern men and women are cut off from the psychological and spiritual lessons of the past.

The motive of the mythopoetic men's movement, following Campbell's lead, is to create new lessons for authentic living, which in the past were incorporated in myth and religious ritual. This direction is the result of Campbell's insight that "It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. In fact, it may well be that the very high incidence of neuroticism among ourselves follows from the decline among us of such spiritual aid." Campbell felt strongly that something must be done to find these lost lessons and upgrade them for modern man, "rendering the modern world spiritually significant." He saw the needed work as "nothing if not that of making it possible for men and women to come to full human maturity through the conditions of contemporary life."

I am reviewing this book because Campbell lays a strong foundation for the idea of how hardwired we are and how former rituals, such as initiation rituals, relate to what is still hardwired in us. He showed how the problem of pain is really the problem of the inevitability of change. Thus, transformation rituals, such as the initiation rites of any life stage, have always given guidance in negotiating change. He uses the insights of psychoanalysis (the predominant psychology of his time) to show how the need for people to mature through the psychological and existential life stages inevitably produces change. These stages are hardwired in us as potential and beg for completion. In other words, shit happens most often because we are programmed to grow and we fight it. Much of our neurotic pain happens because we are not able to face our existential pain, the pain of change.

The person who refuses to grow not only hurts himself but causes tragic consequences for the world. The mythical symbol of this intransigence is the tyrant or dark king, who uses his kingdom for his own gain rather than the good of his people. The modern symbol is the addicted man, addicted to money, sex, power, alcohol, who causes tragedy in his family, his business, his community. To the dark king an initiatory event, symbolized by the birth of the son or a divine child in his kingdom, is a threat and a tragedy. The dark king causes havoc by trying to eliminate his competitors, killing male children, and by holding on to his worldly gains in the face of healthy change. The addicted, patriarchal man does the same.

Campbell sees the healthy life as a psycho-spiritual journey to a place that psychologists would call maturity or self-actualization and a mystic would call heaven, nirvana, liberation. The difference from ancestral times is that the path is no longer into the wilderness of the forest or desert or even into the modern heavens, but into the mysterious wilderness the inner life. This inner life, sometimes called the psyche, sometimes called the soul, is where the answers to age old questions of inner peace and joy reside. As he said, "Not the animal world, not the plant world, not the miracle of the spheres, but man himself is now the crucial mystery."

The soul is the place where psychologists and mystics meet in their effort to understand and guide. Campbell understood this. And he understood the timeless aspect of the soul that responds to archetypal life situations. He used countless examples to prove the existence of what he called the monomyth, the healthy ways the psyche has responded over millennia to the major transitions of life. His idea of monomyth not only unites us with our ancestors in common search for life's answers, it also unites us with other men and women today who are striving to lead authentic lives. It was vital to him that all men saw themselves as brothers and sisters. It was vital to him that the mature person, the initiated one, the modern hero, bring that message to the world. As he said, "Indeed, wherever the mythological mood prevails, tragedy is impossible."

Campbell saw the hero as the updated version of the initiate. As he said, "The standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage -- separation-initiation-return -- which might be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth." He uses hero myths as examples of the healthy psychological journey. I use the example of the initiation archetype. They play off of each other. I believe the initiation archetype, especially in the role and symbol of elder, displays a fuller picture of the healthy psychological journey, just as I see more modern theories of psychology giving a picture more complete than psychoanalysis. But the similarities are what are most important. And the foundation that Campbell laid for the thoughts in my book, and for my understanding of the journey, is profound. He is one of the giants.

As a friend of mine said, "I just read a little at a time and take pieces to digest." He went on to say that a lot of Campbell's books didn't make sense until he went through his own mid-life crises. So I wish you the paradoxical grace of finding Campbell's relevance and warn you to take small pieces at a time.

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