Book Review: The Hero with a 1000 faces

So in my course of study on becoming a man and maturity, every single source seems to lead back to this fucking book.

The Hero with a thousand faces by joseph campbell is about mythology, and specifically how all myths have a basic theme and structure that they follow. This relates to maturity and manhood as the major function of myths is to act as a way of relating the human experience using a complex series of metaphors and characters to represent the journey of a lifetime.

The general structure of the adventure of a hero is:

Departure
Initiation
Return

Furthermore the specifics applicable to growing up are
Departure: The call to adventure, Refusal of the call
Initiation: The road of trials, The meeting with a goddess, Atonement with the father,
Return: Refusal of return,

Here's some quotes I liked from the book,

The passage of the mthological hero may be overground, incidentally;fundamentally it is inward-into depths where obscure resistances are overcome, and long lost, forgotten powers are revivified, to be made availible for the transfiguration of the world.

The godly powers sought and dangerously won are revealed to have been within the heart of the hero all the time.

From this point of view the hero is symbolical of the divine creative and redemtive image which is hidden within us all, only waiting to be known and rendered into life.

The two the hero and his ultimate god, the seeker and the found-are thus understood as the outside and the inside of a single self-mirrored mystery, which is identical with the mystery of the manifest world.

Blunders are not the merest chance. They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs.

One is harrassed day and night by the divine being that is the image of the living self locked within the locked labyrinth of one's disoriented psyche.

It is only by advancing beyond those bounds, provoking the destructive other aspect of the same power that the individual passes either alive or in death into a new zone of experience.

The agony of breaking throughpersonal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy and ascetic disciplines are the instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into the spheres of ever-expanding realization.

For the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned in favor of the self scattering of the wakened state.

The hero adventures out of the land we know into darkness; there he accomplishes his adventure, or again is simply lost to us or imprisioned, or in danger; and his return is described as a coming back out of the yonder zone. Nevertheless-and here is a great key to the understanding of myth and symbol-the two kingdoms are actually one. The realm of the gods is a forgotten dimension of the world we know. And the exploration of that dimension of the world we know. And the exploration of that dimension either willingly or unwillingly is the whole sense of the deed of the hero.

The indiviual through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annhilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of the truth, and so becomes ripe, at last for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes that is to say an anonymity.

The goal of the myth is to dispel the need for such a life ignorance by effecting a reconcilation of the individual conscioussness with the universal will. And this is effected through a realization of the true relationship of the passing phenomena of time to the imperishable life that lives and dies in all.

Man in the world of action loses his centering in the principle of eternity if he is anxious for the outcome of his deeds, but resting them and their fruits on the knees of a living god he is released by them as by a sacrifice from the bondages of the sea of death.

The mighty hero of the extraordinary powers-able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe-is to each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within.

Over all I really enjoyed this book, though it took me way too long to read it. The writing style jumps around a ton, but the overall idea that mythoogy is a subconscious manifestation of the drives, and struggles of people in ancient times and a parable to the future and the way to self actualization were great concepts. If this is something that interest you I highly reccomend picking this up. If not then i would suggest sticking to the stuff based on the works contained within.

S