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Coordinated by Sheri Byrd
July 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. "
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)
nitiation 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.”
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