Joseph Campbell and the monomyth

Early on in my metaphysical path I stumbled across a set of DVDs at the library I worked at called "The Power of Myth".  It was done by the highly respected journalist and minister Bill Moyers.  It was a series of six-1 hour sessions with a man named Joseph Campbell.  Having always loved myths of just about any kind, these DVDs became a weekly gift for myself.  And what a gift too!

I think everyone struggles with having a sense of belonging in the world.  When you start the study of Paganism, you are told about the interconnectedness of yourself to the world.  Admittedly it is a pretty abstract concept, how could I possibly be connected to someone who lives in India or Japan? Or even someone who lived so long ago? or to someone in the distant future.

Enter Joseph Campbell.  If you want a brief biography of him you can see one here.  The biggest impact he had on my philosophical was through that video series and two of his books; The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Hero's Journey. 

Joseph Campbell's monomyth, or the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Campbell held that numerous myths from disparate times and regions share fundamental structures and stages, which he summarized in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Campbell and other scholars, such as Erich Neumann, describe narratives of Gautama Buddha, Moses, and Christ in terms of the monomyth and Campbell argues that classic myths from many cultures follow this basic pattern. (Resource)

Of course, Joseph Campbell probably wasn't the first person to ask the question "Why does that sound familiar?" but he was probably the first person to actively explore and postulate on the reasons why myths from around the world sounded so familiar.  One of the reasons that I enjoy reading his work is that it is extremely easy to read.  His videos with Bill Moyers are easy to sit and listen to and really get lost in the information.  His style of teaching is very casual and he sounds more like a storyteller than a professor.

Joseph Campbell connects the dots for us.  Through his work we discover why so many stories sound familiar and in turn, why they are familiar to us.  They are familiar to us because they are OUR stories too.  Especially on this pagan path, who else can understand the calling to this path that befalls us, the teachers that come to us, the changes that overcome us as we walk this path.  Most importantly, we understand that we are a part of the monomyth, a part of the consciousness of the Universe and that we play a role in it.

Being on this path means that we are walking our own "Hero's Journey" and it will provide guidelines to us along that path to show us all the twists and turns that we can take.  Some we will take, some we won't take.  Learning which choices to make is part of the journey too.   But its' greatest strength is in showing us that people are the same no matter where they are.  Thousands of miles can separate two men yet they will go through and endure similar processes and feelings.  That is the magick in all this...realizing that we are all connected if not physically, then psychically.

Don't you feel a little less alone now?