The Power of Myth
"All that Shakespeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself." --Emerson, History
I never got the Ph.D. It takes courage to do what you want. I did. I went into the woods and read for five years.
—Joseph Campbell
All Joseph Campbell had to do was finish his stupid thesis that he didn’t care about so he could get the Ph.D. he didn’t want. The evil SYSTEM could then assign him the pre-programmed room of his own and then he could go on to tepidly teach future youngsters who also couldn’t give a damn because when they look at all the successes they see Thoreau’s huddled masses of quiet desperation.
The words of Thoreau and William Blake must have weighed heavily on Campbell.
Arise you little glancing wings, and sing your infant joy!
Arise and drink your bliss, for every thing that lives is holy!
William Blake
Rather than do what society expected of him, Campbell performed the revolutionary act of doing what he wanted to do and that little rebel managed to win his first victory against the SYSTEM. That victory was following his bliss which involved moving to a cabin in the middle of the woods and reading about Native American mythology. The money was so tight that he had to write to publishers to send him free books—which they did. Reminiscent of Thoreau in act and in philosophy.
Thoreau was once turned away at a library for not being part of the community he was vagabonding in. When he got a hold of the branch manager he argued that trains had done away with the idea of a local anything and that he as the chief consummate enjoyer of books both in the text form and in nature form—was the proper custodian of said books. He may or may not have procured his identification as the Chief Inspector of Snowstorms and Rainstorms. The library corrected their gross error and sent the Inspector away with books in hand.
Campbell’s love of Native American mythology morphed into a love of all mythology during his five-year period of wooden solitary study. When he was done he produced The Hero with a Thousand Faces a book of comparative mythology that boils down all myths as a call to adventure. The book would go on to be the birth of his career as a Professor of Mythology. George Lucas liked it so much that he decided to make a movie about it called Star Wars and it works as the perfect metaphor to describe the Hero’s Journey.
In Star Wars there is a group of Japanese samurai monks who gain their power as allotted by nature. They follow a form of natural Orphic wisdom called The Force which can be seen as the logos or prajñā—an intuitive understanding of the nature of things.
They are opposed by the Sith, the same type of warrior monk but ones that seek to gain more power than nature gives by creating an artificial system. This system promises absolute power through technology and empire-building. They hope to make nature obsolete by putting death in stasis and the creation of an unnatural permanence.
The good guys are seen as noble princes and princesses and look to overthrow the evil Empire or SYSTEM. While the evil dudes are nazi tech-autocrats. Involved in this conflict is the nephew of a desert farmer who in no way is secretly kingly himself if he would only open his eyes. He repeatedly refuses the call to adventure by a Wise Old Man and is only forced to go on the hero’s journey when the Empire kills his family.
He journeys with the old man, crosses the threshold of the known at an alien bar, receives proper training from the Wise Old Man, slays the dumpster dragon of his subconscious in a trash compactor, rescues the Princess, loses the Wise Old Man to a mechanically kept alive Cyborg, and blows up the evilest weapon ever by rediscovering his mentor’s confidence which was in himself all along and also by not trusting an externalized targeting system. Now he can return and teach all the youngsters about his newfound wisdom and not have his legacy slaughtered by the Marvelization of cinema (another evil SYSTEM that rivals the DEATH STAR)—basically, Campbell’s hero’s journey.
In Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, we also have a Counterforce (no matter how full of schlemiels they may be there must always be a Counterforce) that seeks to oppose the THEY/ARCHON/SYSTEM. The rusting steel, peeling paint, and trash-strewn lots are the detriment of an artificial system that fails to renew itself. This is opposed to the reality of a living, conscious, Earth from which all blessings flow and Gravity recalls dispensations in a benevolent cycle of renewal.
The Jedi and the Counterforce are the agents of Gaia, a natural way of living that recognizes The Force/Logos/Tao of the world and sees the epistemologies of the world’s inhabitants as expressions and vehicles of the ultimate power but not the ultimate power itself.
With The Hero with a Thousand Faces being Campbell’s first breaching of his own philosophy (like Schopenhauer) he would spend the rest of his life developing and smoothing over the work he presented to the world. Star Wars and his later massive collections of the world’s mythology The Many Faces of God saw the continued imbibing of his words on myths.
I saw Campbell speak for the first time about his work on the PBS-produced show Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. Seeing Campbell laugh and dance around his personal but impersonal synthesis of the world’s myths, religions and philosophies made me think of another similar and eccentric weirdo William Samuel.
Words are symbols of symbols. They are finite and manmade, yet, in the hands of an inspired storyteller who knows what he or she is doing they can do marvelous things in our world. Can you imagine the world without the written word? Yet, the art of writing has only been around for a few millennia. Before that, the story teller was the shaman. The shaman was the story teller to whom everyone turned when they wanted to know something about the events over the mountain and across the river. Writing is still the same thing.
William Samuel
It is a delight to see the journalist Bill Moyers talk with Campbell. He plays the devil's advocate, pretends to not know what Campbell is pointing to so the viewer can play catch up. But even better is when the conversation goes so deep that all pre-text is dropped and Moyers becomes like the watcher. A fresh-faced kid on the eve of Christmas listening to the Wise Old Man speak absorbed in every word not knowing what gift is coming next.
If you have any interest in learning more about the virtually unknown William Samuel check out a post I made a while back covering him
Thanks for reminding me to read Campbell. I've had a few of his books on my list for some time. I'm ready.
I haven't seen the show, but I have read the book... and I felt like the"fresh-faced kid on the eve of Christmas listening to the Wise Old Man speak".