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OUR
HEROES AND HEROINES
Coordinated by Sheri Byrd 7/9/2000
This summer, the Bridgers
and Youth are participating in Dungeons and Dragons role  playing
game called “The Hero’s Journey,” loosely based on Joseph
Campell’s mythological outlines for self discovery and development
as presented in his famous work, The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
In this book Campbell says:
“The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call
and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny
to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast
off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding.
"Live," Nietzsche says, "as though the day were here."
It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely
the reverse. And so, every one of us shares the supreme ordeal -- carries
the cross of the redeemer -- not in the bright moments of his tribe's
great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.”
"We have not even to risk the adventure alone , for the heroes of
all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have
only to follow the thread of the hero path , and where we had thought
to slay another we shall slay ourselves.Where we had thought to travel
outward we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we
had thought to be alone , we will be with all the world. "
READING
by Sheri Byrd
At the Maricopa Center
for Learning & Instruction in Phoenix, Arizona, in conjunction with
the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute, students
can take a course which leads them through Campbell’s “Hero’s
Journey” step-by-step. Students are encouraged to apply the steps
to either fictional characters, or their own lives, leading to the self-fulfilling
stages described by Campbell:
"The whole sense of the ubiquitous myth of the hero's passage is
that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women, wherever they
may stand along the scale. Therefore it is formulated in the broadest
terms. The individual has only to discover his own position with reference
to this general human formula, and let it then assist him past his restricting
walls. Who and where are his ogres? Those are the reflections of the unsolved
enigmas of his own humanity. What are his ideals? Those are the symptoms
of his grasp of life."
-- (Campbell, 121)
The formula follows 3 states: departure, initiation and return. Each
stage has several steps, with a total of 17. The following is from their
curriculum.
Departure stage, step 1. The Call to Adventure
The call to adventure is the point in a person's life when they are
first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know
it or not. Campbell says:
"This first stage of the mythological journey - which we have designated
the "call to adventure" - signifies that destiny has summoned
the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the
pale of his society to a zone unknown… The adventure may begin as
a mere blunder... or still again, one may be only casually strolling when
some passing phenomenon catches the wandering eye and lures one away from
the frequented paths of man. Examples might be multiplied, ad infinitum,
from every corner of the world."
--(Campbell 58)
Departure stage, step: 2. Refusal of the Call
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This
may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of
inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person
in his or her current circumstances. Campbell says:
"Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative.
Walled in boredom, hard work, or 'culture,' the subject loses the power
of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His
flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless
- even though, like King Minos, he may through titanic effort succeed
in building an empire or renown. Whatever house he builds, it will be
a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his
minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the
gradual approach of his disintegration." (p. 59)
Departure stage, step 3. Supernatural Aid
Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously,
his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known. Campbell
says:
"What such a figure represents is the benign, protecting power of
destiny. The fantasy is a reassurance - promise that the peace of Paradise,
which was know first within the mother womb, is not to be lost; that it
supports the present and stands in the future as well as in the past (is
omega as well as alpha)... Having responded to his own call, and continuing
to follow courageously as the consequences unfold, the hero finds all
the forces of the unconscious at his side. Mother Nature herself supports
the mighty task."
-- (Campbell 71-72)
Departure stage, step: 4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of
adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing
into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not
known. Campbell says:
"The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil
of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are
dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence
and courage the danger fades"
-- (Campbell 82)
Departure stage, step: 5. The Belly of the Whale
The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero's
known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person's lowest
point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning
between worlds and selves. The experiences that will shape the new world
and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience
which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening.
By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo
a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself. Campbell says:
"This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage
of the threshold is a form of self-annihilation...Instead of passing outward,
beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward, to be
born again. The disappearance corresponds to the passing of a worshiper
into a temple - where he is to be quickened by the recollection of who
and what he is, namely dust and ashes unless immortal. The temple interior,
the belly of the whale, and the heavenly land beyond, above, and below
the confines of the world, are one and the same. That is why the approaches
and entrances to temples are flanked and defended by colossal gargoyles:
dragons, lions, devil-slayers with drawn swords, resentful dwarfs, winged
bulls. These are the threshold guardians to ward away all incapable of
encountering the higher silences within… The devotee at the moment
of entry into a temple undergoes a metamorphosis. His secular character
remains without; he sheds it, as a snake its slough. Once inside he may
be said to have died to time and returned to the World Womb, the World
Navel, the Earthly Paradise...Allegorically, then, the passage into a
temple and the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale are identical adventures,
both demoting in picture language, the life-centering, life renewing act"
-- (Campbell 91-92)
Initiation stage, step: 1. The Road of Trials
The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person
must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or
more of these tests. Campbell says:
"The ordeal is a deepening of the problem of the first threshold
and the question is still in balance: Can the ego put itself to death?
For many headed is this surrounding Hydra; one head cut off, two more
appear - unless the right caustic is applied to the mutilated stump. The
original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning
of the long and really perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments
of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers
passed - again, again, and again. Meanwhile there will be a multitude
of preliminary victories, unretainable ecstasies and momentary glimpses
of the wonderful land"
-- (Campbell 109)
Initiation stage, step: 2. The Meeting with the Goddess
The meeting with the goddess represents the point in the adventure when
the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the
all-powerful, all encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant
may experience with his or her mother. It is also known as the… sacred
marriage, the union of opposites, and may take place entirely within the
person. In other words, the person begins to see him or herself in a non-dualistic
way. This is a very important step in the process and is often represented
by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely.
Although Campbell symbolizes this step as a meeting with a goddess, unconditional
love and /or self-unification does not have to be represented by a woman.
Initiation stage, step: 3. Woman as the Temptress
At one level, this step is about those temptations that may lead the hero
to abandon or stray from his or her quest, which as with the Meeting with
the Goddess does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. For
Campbell, however, this step is about the revulsion that the usually male
hero may feel about his own fleshy/earthy nature, and the subsequent attachment
or projection of that revulsion to women. Woman is a metaphor for the
physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often
tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.
Initiation stage, step: 4. Atonement with the Father
In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds
the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this
is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is
the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving
in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this
step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity,
it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power.
For the transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been
must be "killed" so that the new self can come into being. Campbell
says:
"The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to pen his soul
beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how
the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are
completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life
with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the
source. He beholds the face of the father, understands - and the two are
atoned"
-- (Campbell 147)
Initiation stage, step: 5. Apotheosis
To apotheosize is to deify. When someone dies a physical death, or dies
to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites
to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a
god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife.
A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest,
peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return. Campbell says:
“Those who know, not only that the Everlasting lies in them, but
that what they, and all things, really are is the Everlasting, dwell in
the groves of the wish fulfilling trees, drink the brew of immortality,
and listen everywhere to the unheard music of eternal concord".
-- (Campbell 167)
Initiation stage, step: 6. The Ultimate Boon
The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is what
the person went on the journey to get. All the previous steps serve to
prepare and purify the person for this step, since in many myths the boon
is something transcendent like the elixir of life itself, or a plant that
supplies immortality, or the holy grail.. Campbell says:
“The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments
and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves
the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse
with them us therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e.,
the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance
and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities
who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is
the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme
Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by
the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate
illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only
to the duly proven"
--(Campbell 181-2)
Return stage, step: 1. Refusal of the Return
So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we
have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its
cares and woes? Campbell says:
“When the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to
the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal,
personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting
trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero
shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden
Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where
the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the
planet or the ten thousand worlds.
But the responsibility has been frequently refused. Even the Buddha, after
his triumph, doubted whether the message of realization could be communicated,
and saints are reported to have passed away while in the supernal ecstasy.
Numerous indeed are the heroes fabled to have taken up residence forever
in the blessed isle of the unaging Goddess of Immortal Being"
-- (Campbell 192)
Return stage, step: 2. The Magic Flight
Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that
the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and
dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.
Return stage, step: 3. Rescue from Without
Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest,
oftentimes he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them
back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened
by the experience. Or perhaps the person doesn't realize that it is time
to return, that they can return, or that others need their boon. Campbell
says:
"The hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure
by assistance from without. That is to say, the world may have to come
and get him. For the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned
in favor of the self-scattering of the wakened state. "Who having
cast off the world," we read, "would desire to return again?
He would be only there." And yet, in so far as one is alive, life
will call. Society is jealous of those who remain away from it, and will
come knocking at the door.
-- (Campbell 207)
Return stage, step: 5. Master of the Two Worlds
In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like
Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between
the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent
in both the inner and outer worlds. Campbell says:
"Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the
perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and
back - not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other,
yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other - is the
talent of the master. The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not
rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from
one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at
a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest"
-- (Campbell 229)
"The meaning is very clear; it is the meaning of all religious practice.;
The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up
completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies,
hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite
to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last,
for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved,
he no longer tries t live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to
pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity. The Law lives in
him with his unreserved consent"
-- (Campbell 236-7)
Return stage, step: 6. Freedom to Live
Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the
freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment,
neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past. Campbell says:
"The hero is the champion of things becoming, not of things become,
because he is. 'Before Abraham was, I AM.' He does not mistake apparent
changelessness in time for the permanence of Being, nor is he fearful
of the next moment (or of the 'other thing'), as destroying the permanent
with its change. 'Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater
renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there's nothing perishes
in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.' Thus the
next moment is permitted to come to pass."
--(Campbell 243)
Campbell concludes:
“The way to become human is to learn to recognize the lineaments
of God in all of the wonderful modulations of the face of man.
With this we come to the final hint of what the specific orientation of
the modern hero-task must be, and discover the real cause for the disintegration
of all of our inherited religious formulae.
Not the animal world, nor the plant world, not the miracle of the spheres,
but man himself is now the crucial mystery. Man is that alien presence
with whom the forces of egoism must come to terms, through whom the ego
is to be crucified and resurrected, and in whose image society is to be
reformed. Man, understood however not as "I" but as "Thou":
for the ideals and temporal institutions of no tribe, race, continent,
social class, or century, can be the measure of the inexhaustible and
multifariously wonderful divine existence that is the life in all of us.”
[Readings from contributors to this service have not yet been submitted.]
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