The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell Part 1 — Myth, Archetypes & Transformation

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Speaker 0 (0s): <inaudible> welcome back everybody. It's so nice to see you, at least as nice to close my eyes and imagine that you guys are having a good day. I love you are welcome back in the podcast. You know, we are doing today. Do you guys know what we're doing today? We're moving back to an old classic, a little spot law it on to law school with Joseph Campbell, we were working on what it means to be a hero.

Well, working on the heroes journey. Everybody are you on that? Journey if you're listening to this, you've probably on that journey. Lets face it. You have probably already hero. I mean, if were being honest with ourselves, you guys are probably thinking, you know what? George you're a hero podcast is a hero.

C'mon let me do it. This guy that sounds kind of creepy. Might have to turn this thing off. Don't do that. Don't turn it off and done being crazy at at least for a minute or two truth is we're going to get into some Heroes stuff. Right? What is a hero? Here's a quote from mr. Dr. Martin Luther King jr. For 1963. A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

How about this idea of a hero Otto rank declares that everyone is a hero in birth or he undergoes a tremendous transformation from the condition of a little water creature, living in a realm of amniotic fluid, into an air breathing mammal, which ultimately will be standing. How about a woman who gives birth giving birth has definitely a heroic Dede in that it is the giving over of oneself to the life of another.

How about the old Prometheus's? The fire theft is a universal mythic theme. Promethium brings fire to mankind and consequently civilization. There is a one of my favorite books by a Miguel Servantez. Does anyone really think Miguel Servon wrote donkey Hodie in the 12 hundreds. I have

Speaker 1 (3m 0s): You guys read that book. It reads like it was written today. Something going on there, Don Quixote rode out to encounter giants, but instead of giants, his environment produced windmills. This mechanistic environment is no longer spiritually responsive to the hero, but Don Quixote was a hero. Nonetheless. How about Daedalus and Icarus people talk more about Icarus than about Daedalus as though the wings themselves had been responsible for the young astronauts fall, but that is no case against industry in science.

Poor Icarus fell under the water, but Daedalus who flew the middle way. Succeeded in getting to the other shore. Moses Moses is a sens, the mountain he meets with Yar away on the summit and he comes back with rules for formation, have a whole society. That That is a typical hero act departure, fulfillment returned.

How about the Buddha? The Buddha follows the path very much like That of Christ only of course the Buddha lived 500 years earlier. You know, you can match these two, save your figure's right down the line, even to the role and characters of their immediate disciples. Do you guys know that? Where do you think so far? You've got some Heroes that you're thinking of. You got somebody in your life. That's a hero. I think it was Plato who said the soul is a circle.

I drew a horizontal line across the circle to represent the line of separation of the conscious and the unconscious, the.in the center of the circle below the horizontal line represents the center from which all our energy comes above. The horizontal line is the ego represented as a square. That aspect of our consciousness that we identify as our center, but it's very off center.

We think this is what is running the show, but it isn't so good.

Speaker 2 (5m 19s): Is this new escape don't make me destroy yourself to the dark side.

Speaker 1 (5m 27s): What about Darth Vader? What do you guys think is Darth Vader or a hero or is Luke Skywalker? The hero? Are they both are heroes? What do you think? Okay my friends without any further ado, let's get into this idea of the hero's journey, the hero's adventure with Joseph Campbell. So mr. Joseph Campbell, why are there so many stories of the hero in mythology, Joseph Campbell, because that's, what's worth writing about even in popular novels, the main character is a hero or heroine who has found or done something beyond the normal range of achievement and experience.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. So in all of these cultures, whatever the local costumed, the hero might be waring, what is the deed with Joseph Campbell? Well there are two types of deed. One is the physical Dede in which the hero performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life. The other kind is the spiritual Dede in which the hero learns to experience the super normal range of human spiritual life.

And then comes back with a message. The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken or who feels there's something lacking in the normal experience is available or permitted to the members of his society. This person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life giving elixir.

It's usually a cycle, a going and a returning, but the structure and something of the spiritual sense of this adventure can be seen already anticipated in the puberty or initiation rituals of early tribal societies through which a child is compelled to give up its childhood and become an adult to di you might say to its tile, personality and psychi, and come back as a responsible adult.

This is a fundamental psychological transformation that everyone must undergo. We are in childhood, in a condition of dependency under someone's protection and supervision for some 14 to 21 years. And if you're going on for your PhD, this may continue to perhaps 35. You are in no way a self-responsible free agent, but an obedient dependent expecting and receiving punishments and rewards to evolve out of this position of psychological immaturity, to the courage of self-responsibility and assurance requires a death and a resurrection.

That is the basic motif of the universal hero's journey, leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature conditions. So even if we happened not to be Heroes in the grand sense of redeeming society, we still have to take that journey inside ourselves, spiritually and psychologically Joseph Campbell that's right.

Otto rank in his important little book, the myth of the birth of the hero declares that everyone is a hero in birth where he undergoes a tremendous psychological as well as physical transformation from the condition of a little water creature, living in the realm of amniotic fluid, into an air breathing mammal, which ultimately will be standing and controlling his own life. That's an enormous transformation.

And had it been consciously undertaken, it would have been indeed a heroic act. And there was a heroic act on the mothers part as well, who has brought this child in to the world. Then you are saying Heroes are not all men, Joseph Campbell. Oh no, not, not even close. The male usually has the more conspicuous role just because of the conditions of life. He is out there in the world.

And the woman is in the home. But a...