Here are my notes on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, on the hero’s journey and myth.

  • I am every single mythical figure. (× Your Symphony of Selves)
  • Everyone has their own personal mythology. Everyone is going through their own hero’s journey.
    • We are not alone in our hero’s journey. Heroes of all time have gone before us – and heroes of our times are going through the same ordeals as we are, as we speak.
    • Myth is just another forgotten dimension of reality.
  • We are all copies of one another. Beneath the illusion of two-ness or multitudinous individualities dwells identity. We are all going through the same adventure.
  • Myths are vessels of universal wisdom.
    • Fairy tales are local; myths are global.
    • Dreams are particular; myths are universal. (in the solutions they offer).
      • Dream is personalized myth. Myth is depersonalized dream.
  • Dreams and myths share the same symbolic language. Likewise, dreams stage archetypes. The subconscious thinks symbolically.
  • Dreams are a call to adventure, point at unresolved tensions and oppose the security we have created for ourselves.
    • Dreams contain the keys to the discovery of one’s self.
  • The discovery of oneself is both desired and feared.
    • Self-actualization is hampered by fear of death. We fear for the destruction of our current self (self-preservation instinct at play at the level of a single “self”, × Your Symphony of Selves).
      • We fear losing ourself and the world we created. We fear not only the death of our self, but also of the world we have created, and in which it resides.
    • While in fact, destruction allows for and leads to wonderful reconstruction. We come out better, less fragmented and more whole. We die to the past to be re-born to the future. (shedding skin; after the deluge)
      • Self-actualization requires a leap of faith, seeing the ordeal not on its own but juxtaposed with the promise of a better future (× delayed gratification; sea migrants)
  • Memories are a recall to adventure, reminisce of what is possible, by means of an object-link.
  • By refusing the call to adventure, you become a victim to be saved.
    • Life becomes meaningless when not heeding the call to adventure. (× Psycho-Cybernetics, proactivity)
    • Do not miss the call to adventure, it often happens only once – seize it. “Dread the passage of Jesus, for he does not return.”
    • Regrets are illuminations come too late
  • Three parts to a hero’s journey: separation – initiation – return (each with their rite of passage) (× Psychedelics)
    • Rites of passage force a break in one’s behaviour patterns (× retreats, relocations, new chapters); mark the subconscious (× Psycho-Cybernetics).

Motifs

  • Motif: “The son against the father for the love of the mother.” (Oedipus)
    • Humans breast-feed for the longest time among mammals. Human children need their mother for their safety and survival.
    • Myth
      • Cronus overthrowing his father Uranus at the bequest of his mother Gaia
      • In turn, Cronus’s child Zeus overthrowing him aided by his mother Rhea
  • **Motif: “The son against the mother for the protection of the father.” (Hamlet)
  • Motif: “Losing a lover for lack of attention”
    • Myth
      • Minos & Pasiphaë; “busy securing trade routes”
  • Motif: “Amoral genius who will help for good or evil” (Daedalus)
    • Myth
      • Daedalus as a confidant to all parties.
        • Aiding Pasiphaë getting rammed by the bull
        • Aiding Minos locking the baby-Minotaur away
        • Aiding Ariadne (Minos’s daughter) devise a way out
      • A genius unattached to the purposes of his contraptions, serving the whole family indiscriminately.
    • (× Technology; tools; progress; Banality of Evil; IBM and the Holocaust)
  • Motif: “Reproducing parental patterns”
    • Myth
      • Minos/Pasiphaë/Europa: Europa (Minos’s mother) engendered Minos from a bull. Pasiphaë (Minos’s wife) cheated on Minos and engendered a monster from a bull.
    • Myth
      • Uranus/Gaia&Cronus/Rhea: Cronus overthrowing his father Uranus at the bequest of his mother Gaia; Zeus overthrowing his father Cronus aided by his mother Rhea
  • Motif: “Having a role in one’s misfortunes”(digging one’s own grave)
    • Myth
      • Minos asked for a bull as sign of his regency; didn’t kill it immediately when it arrived as promised. Chaos ensued.
  • Motif: “Making private profit from a public (divine) position” (× Debt; corruption; “king” vs “tyrant”)
    • Myth
      • Minos not killing the bull
  • Motif: “Pandora’s Box: a box filled with both good and bad things.” (× new chapters)
  • Motif: “Having the opposite effect”
    • Myth
      • Future Buddha: his father was trying ​to lead him to a life as world emperor by spoiling him; it had the opposite effect.
      • Future Buddha: his father was trying to hide the real world from him (keep him a child), whereas he was ripe for a rite of passage out of childhood.
        • One cannot hide the world away from somebody. Some things you are bound to see. (× world misery)
  • Motif: People don’t know what they want, what is good for them(careful what you wish for) (Midas)
    • Myth
      • Midas
  • Motif: Oversatiation precipitating the next stage of development. Doing too much of one thing (early on) lets you move on faster to the next stages.
    • Myth
      • The Future Buddha: exhausted early on with earthly pleasures (precipitated inadvertently by his father)
  • Krishna: “Worship the mountain”. Start by worshipping familiar objects; work your way up. Devotion must start with familiar, deeply respected objects (e.g. a mountain) – not remote, unimaginable concepts. (× Symposium)