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bittersweet_symphony 's review for:
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
by Joseph Campbell
I have been planning to read this for 12 years. A high school mythology teacher first introduced me to the concept of "The Hero's Journey". It inspired me to see her trace the archtypes and story arc through the epic movies and books I had grown up with: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Giver, and Christian scripture. I took note of the book and stored it away on my mind's shelf for another decade. A speaker during a seminar on organizational management referred to the entrepreneuer as "The Hero's Journey" and I recalled the stirring I felt when fist encountering the thoughts of Campbell (as more recently their connection to the work of Carl Jung).
Reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces has given me a new foundation to life, my place in it, and the meaning of the world. Campbell gives insight that brings me that much closer to the universal truth that belies all claims we make about the world.
Campbell expounds upon the monomyth, a group of archtypes and symbols which manifest in every culture and religion across time. Myth is the universal language. Stories are the vehicles of truth--truth is dynamic and contextual. The stories (epic, religious or mythic) are most true when they tap into the Monomyth.
Campbell's purpose in the book is to "uncover some of the truths disguised for us under the figures of religion and mythology by bringing together a multitude of not-too-difficult examples and letting the ancient meaning become apparent of itself." Quoting the Vedas, "truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names."
To glimpse the scope and grand sweeping claims of myth, Campbell says "it would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth."
He cites myths from all over the world to show the real diversity in how the myth shapes to fit communities in their own place and time: Eskimo, Ancient Egyptian, Norse, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Plains Tribes of NA, Aztec, Yoruban, Celtic, Siberian, Greek and Persian.
He aims to inspire each of us onto our own Hero Journeys. "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 find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."
Our nihilistic, and Postmodern world could find healing, and empowerment in the works of Joseph Campbell. I can only speak anecdotally, but there seems to be a recent revival of his work as more people move away from fundamental or orthodox religions. He talks about how the power of a religion lies not in its historical or literal claims (where more and more religions are losing ground to scientific and historical study) but in its mythological force (or, psychological empowerment); we shouldn't be so quick to throw the baby out with the bath water, forsaking religion only to lose the deeper insight that comes from mythological understandings.
Reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces has given me a new foundation to life, my place in it, and the meaning of the world. Campbell gives insight that brings me that much closer to the universal truth that belies all claims we make about the world.
Campbell expounds upon the monomyth, a group of archtypes and symbols which manifest in every culture and religion across time. Myth is the universal language. Stories are the vehicles of truth--truth is dynamic and contextual. The stories (epic, religious or mythic) are most true when they tap into the Monomyth.
Campbell's purpose in the book is to "uncover some of the truths disguised for us under the figures of religion and mythology by bringing together a multitude of not-too-difficult examples and letting the ancient meaning become apparent of itself." Quoting the Vedas, "truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names."
To glimpse the scope and grand sweeping claims of myth, Campbell says "it would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth."
He cites myths from all over the world to show the real diversity in how the myth shapes to fit communities in their own place and time: Eskimo, Ancient Egyptian, Norse, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Plains Tribes of NA, Aztec, Yoruban, Celtic, Siberian, Greek and Persian.
He aims to inspire each of us onto our own Hero Journeys. "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 find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."
Our nihilistic, and Postmodern world could find healing, and empowerment in the works of Joseph Campbell. I can only speak anecdotally, but there seems to be a recent revival of his work as more people move away from fundamental or orthodox religions. He talks about how the power of a religion lies not in its historical or literal claims (where more and more religions are losing ground to scientific and historical study) but in its mythological force (or, psychological empowerment); we shouldn't be so quick to throw the baby out with the bath water, forsaking religion only to lose the deeper insight that comes from mythological understandings.