The Monomyth: Why Campbell has never been entirely satisfying

[Sunny C.]

Off the Beaten Path

Sunny, Here's a blog I think you might find interesting. It's extremely well-written. Check out Angels in the Architecture.

luna

I like it! And I agree with most of what this guy is saying. Actually all of it but with a couple of qualifications. I'm still thinking about how to write about that. Words don't come easily for me. I'll get to it...

Thanks again!

Sunny

 

[lunamoth]

I like it! And I agree with most of what this guy is saying. Actually all of it but with a couple of qualifications. I'm still thinking about how to write about that. Words don't come easily for me. I'll get to it...

Thanks again!

Sunny

Glad to point you to something you find interesting. ;-) I really love what he has to say about Love, Courage, Grace. He used to post here.

 

[Sunny C.]

Glad to point you to something you find interesting. ;-) I really love what he has to say about Love, Courage, Grace. He used to post here.

That would account for the Walled Garden references?

 

[lunamoth]

That would account for the Walled Garden references?

Lol! I don't know!

 

[Sunny C.]

we create imaginary gods to protect us, give our lives meaning and reinforce our decisions to root ourselves in the illusory world of language and division rather than listen to the still small voice of compassion, that "law of love" written on our hearts. We imagine these gods as beings "out there" (even though every mythology tells us they are "in here"). These gods can then be misappropriated by human social institutions to control our thoughts and behavior. Sometimes these gods go by ungodly names - "Communism," "Patriotism," "Democracy," "American," "Iranian" - but that doesn't change that they are idols we have created with our own art and now have chosen to worship - to subjugate our connection to divinity to in our fear and folly.

To deny these idols is to regain one's courage and awaken the creative Logos, the Word of God, within in each of us to redeem the world. That Word is Love, as in compassion, and it cannot be heard over the clamoring of praise we serve up to our idols. But that requires overcoming our fear, stepping out in the name of love and compassion, and risking that those who still live huddled behind their walls will destroy us because we threaten their illusions of being and their sense of power and entitlement. This journey beyond the life of comfortable illusions, into the valley of the shadow of death to emerge a new person with new eyes to experience the Kingdom of God in the here and now.

That requires a quest. And people who imagine they already have what they want don't go on quests. As Joseph Campbell explained, the myths are the starting point for an individual journey of self discovery and growing up into and claiming responsibility for one's creative power. When the myths themselves become the end, and the purpose becomes belief and certainty rather than uncertainty and growth, the myths meant to help us find the Way become just another brick in the wall that keeps us in - and prevents the development of spiritual character.

Pow!!!

Once we have embraced enough uncertainty to let go of the world of appearances, and accepted not knowing so as to take the quest, we can accelerate toward enough escape velocity to soar above the atmosphere and glimpse the world from the divine perspective. With practice one can even learn to transcend this world of appearances using any culture's mythological signs, or even just through direct and un-mediated experience of a great poem, a novel, a work of philosophy, the wonders of science and mathematics, a great painting or a song.

OK, here's my qualification: If we are going to truly embrace uncertainty and abandon the world of identity driven appearances, we have to also become aware of the mechanisms of power and control that place the programming into us in the first place. "embracing uncertainty" can very easily become a mantram for avoiding the final steps in freeing ourselves. We're abandoning ego attachment, but we've got to make sure we're not just trading in one security blanket for another because there is another more subtle dogma driven power structure that lures us with the notion of selflessness in order to render us docile. That structure masquerades as the solution to the other overt power structure. So I'm very wary of those who propose that we abandon ego identity in order to place ourselves in the service and at the disposal of some transcendent spiritual structure which also,if more subtly, requires embracing a systematic approach. If we want to truly break free we should abandon the idea that anything, any system, any structure holds truth. Only we ourselves, divorced of outside influence, and acting solely on our own initiative and intention, can break out.

That sounds pretty obtuse, sorry. It's the best I can do right now.

 

[lunamoth]

Pow!!!



OK, here's my qualification: If we are going to truly embrace uncertainty and abandon the world of identity driven appearances, we have to also become aware of the mechanisms of power and control that place the programming into us in the first place. "embracing uncertainty" can very easily become a mantram for avoiding the final steps in freeing ourselves. We're abandoning ego attachment, but we've got to make sure we're not just trading in one security blanket for another because there is another more subtle dogma driven power structure that lures us with the notion of selflessness in order to render us docile. That structure masquerades as the solution to the other overt power structure. So I'm very wary of those who propose that we abandon ego identity in order to place ourselves in the service and at the disposal of some transcendent spiritual structure which also,if more subtly, requires embracing a systematic approach. If we want to truly break free we should abandon the idea that anything, any system, any structure holds truth. Only we ourselves, divorced of outside influence, and acting solely on our own initiative and intention, can break out.

That sounds pretty obtuse, sorry. It's the best I can do right now.

I think I know what you are saying and I agree. And he agrees too. I think you'll see that if you get a chance to read further down in his posts.

It's a difficult path, I think.

 

[Sunny C.]

I think I know what you are saying and I agree. And he agrees to. I think you'll see that if you get a chance to read further down in his posts.

It's a difficult path, I think.

I know Brendan gets it. I like what he's saying so much think I'm going to invite him over to my house! He'd fit in great with our little conversation group.

I think what we're really talking about is gaining perspective. We need to be able to separate what we know from what we don't know. We need to be able to use myth for what it's good for, and quit being dragged around by the nose by it. We need to get all selfish about it and disconnect our personal interest from the Corpo-Media mythomatic machine. You know, the world is just as immense as it ever was. It's not a small world, even after all. Television makes us think we know everything, but we don't know squat. To gain perspective we need to got off the arrogance that makes us believe that the TV world is the real world. TV was invented to get women to buy stuff. We're absolutely saturated with TV mythology, and every entity with a vested interest in manipulating us for gain knows it. We've got to shrug that off, and it's really hard to find and dig out all those little tendrils and find our own real mythological capacity- the thing that Joseph Campbell was talking about.

 

[lunamoth]

I know Brendan gets it. I like what he's saying so much think I'm going to invite him over to my house! He'd fit in great with our little conversation group.

Lol...I bet he'd like that.

I think what we're really talking about is gaining perspective. We need to be able to separate what we know from what we don't know. We need to be able to use myth for what it's good for, and quit being dragged around by the nose by it. We need to get all selfish about it and disconnect our personal interest from the Corpo-Media mythomatic machine. You know, the world is just as immense as it ever was. It's not a small world, even after all. Television makes us think we know everything, but we don't know squat. To gain perspective we need to got off the arrogance that makes us believe that the TV world is the real world. TV was invented to get women to buy stuff. We're absolutely saturated with TV mythology, and every entity with a vested interest in manipulating us for gain knows it. We've got to shrug that off, and it's really hard to find and dig out all those little tendrils and find our own real mythological capacity- the thing that Joseph Campbell was talking about.

You certainly know how to turn a phrase Sunny. I think you should start a blog of your own. I sometimes think that if you really were able to pull off all the layers and erase the imprints...well, what would be left? If you are a Buddhist the answer is Nothing. To me the answer is Christ. But, we are meant to be made up of these imprints...it's not bad to be us. It is, as you say, a matter of who exactly decides what those imprints are. I don't think we can fully control that, but we can become aware of it and take some of the control back. Actually, that's what a lot of Christian paths today are about, I think. Taking some of that control away from TV-land and the marketers, and giving it back to God.

Anyway, as long as we are humans we are going to have these individual imprints that project to the world, and to ourselves, as me. Brendan thinks that the mystical experience is when you let go of all of those imprints, and he may be right. But, as for me, I have to (and want to) function in my day to day mundane life with my family and friends. I need to make some concession to those imprints to do that. I can't live in the One. "I" cease to exist in the One.

But, the next life is an interesting thing. If we really do retain our individuality as Christianity teaches, then we take some of those imprints with us. But, that takes us into a different conversation.

 

[Sunny C.]

Anyway, as long as we are humans we are going to have these individual imprints that project to the world, and to ourselves, as me. Brendan thinks that the mystical experience is when you let go of all of those imprints, and he may be right. But, as for me, I have to (and want to) function in my day to day mundane life with my family and friends. I need to make some concession to those imprints to do that. I can't live in the One. "I" cease to exist in the One.

Well, I think that as we gain perspective we can put entertaining things like TV in their place. Use them for our pleasure when and how we want. I want to live large in the world. I just don't want it shagging me.

 

[lunamoth]

Well, I think that as we gain perspective we can put entertaining things like TV in their place. Use them for our pleasure when and how we want. I want to live large in the world. I just don't want it shagging me.

Master of your domain. Yes, I think perspective as you call it, or awareness as Brendan calls it, it the key to live life now, authentically, and to the full. To BE.

 

[Sunny C.]

First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position.

There is an Eastern tale which speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently ofen wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.


At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.



And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.



This tale is a very good illustration of man's position.

- G. I. Gurdjieff -Quoted by P. D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous, 1949. (p. 219)

Sunny