From the interview of Bill Moyers with Joseph Campbell, an American writer and professor of comparative mythology and religion
Since the earliest days of human history, we have encountered mythical stories. They are found at the root of every nation, every culture. In them, people found guidance, advice, guidelines for their own path in life. A path that was supposed to lead them to the discovery and realization of the meaning of life, to a great unity with themselves, with other people, and with nature as a whole. These stories are not given such importance in the life of today’s man.
Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987), an American writer and professor of comparative mythology and comparative religion, brought mythology back to the spotlight with his work. In his honor, the “Joseph Campbell Chair of Comparative Mythology” is established at Sarah Lawrence College where he taught for almost forty years.
His classroom was always full of students who were “captivated” by his lectures. He spoke how these are not ordinary stories around the campfire, but powerful guides of the human spirit. He showed how mythological stories from all over the world, no matter how different they may seem, are essentially the same. Their universal truth is the same, but it is told in different ways in different historical periods.
Joseph Campbell’s work influenced many of his students, as well as scientists, writers, musicians, artists, and filmmakers. One of them is his friend George Lucas, who, inspired by Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, made his famous masterpiece Star Wars.
George Lucas and Joseph Campbell became good friends after the director announced that he owed much of his work to Campbell’s research, he invited the scientist to watch the Star Wars trilogy. During that visit and while enjoying the heroics of Luke Skywalker, he was enlightened as he spoke about how Lucas made “the latest and most powerful twist” in the classic hero’s story. “And what is that?” he asked. And then journalist Bill Moyers. “That’s what Goethe said in Faust, but what Lucas dressed up in modern clothes – the message that technology will not save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We must rely on our intuition, on our true selves.”
“Isn’t that an insult to reason?” asked the journalist. “And, as things stand, aren’t we then quickly retreating from reason?”
“No, that’s not what the hero’s journey is about. It’s not about denying reason. On the contrary, prevailing over dark passions, the hero symbolizes our ability to control the irrational beast within us. And Luke Skywalker was never more rational than when he discovered within himself the character abilities that allowed him to face his own destiny.”
In one of his lectures, Campbell said: “The goal of the hero’s journey is not to identify oneself with any of the characters or any of the powers that they have experienced. The ultimate goal of seeking must not be either the mere refusal or the mere acco liberation is not one’s own ecstasy, but wisdom and the power to serve others. One of the many differences between a famous person and a hero is that the former lives only for themselves, while the latter acts to redeem society.”
The animated film “The Lion King” by Walt Disney was also inspired by Joseph Campbell’s book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”
Joseph Campbell died suddenly in 1987, after a short battle with cancer. In 1988, a popular television series called “The Power of Myth” with American journalist Bill Moyers introduced millions of people to Campbell’s ideas. It was a six-part series filmed during the last two years of Campbell’s life. This series also became a book titled “Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myths with Bill Moyers.” On this occasion, we highlight a part where participants discuss myth and the modern world.
MOYERS: Why myths? Why should we pay attention to myths? What is their connection to our lives?
CAMPBELL: My first response would be that myths are not just ancient stories. They are symbolic manifestations of our collective experiences and a way to understand the deeper truths of our existence. Mythology provides us with a lens through which we can make sense of the world and find meaning in our own lives.
response: Oh, live your life, it’s a good life – you don’t need mythology. I don’t believe in being interested in something just because that something is considered important. I believe that certain things simply captivate a person in one way or another. It can happen that with the proper introduction, mythology can also captivate us. And if that happens, if it captivates us with its truth, how does it then affect us?
One of the problems that we face today is a lack of knowledge of spiritual literature. We are interested in daily news and the problems of our time. Once upon a time, universities were a kind of hermetically sealed spaces where daily news did not disturb the attention focused on inner life and the magnificent heritage of our brilliant tradition – Plato, Confucius, Buddha, Goethe, and others who speak about eternal values that give direction to our lives. When you become more mature and fulfill the main needs of life, and you turn to inner life – if at that time you do not know where or what inner life is, you will regret it.
Greece, Latin Once, the Norse and biblical literature were part of general education. Today, since they are no longer, the entire Western mythological tradition is lost. These stories used to be alive and present. And when a story lives within you, you recognize its meaning in relation to something happening in your own life. It allows us to better understand what is happening to us. We have truly lost that because there is nothing to replace this loss. Those fragments of ancient knowledge that supported human life and built civilizations and religions over millennia actually relate to deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner steps that need to be taken, and if the signposts along the path you are on are unknown to you, you have to discover them yourself. But once it captures you, whether from this tradition or that tradition, you feel a sense of deep, rich, and vital knowledge that you do not want to stop engaging with. (…)
MOYERS: Are myths the keys?
CAMPBELL: Myths are the keys that lead us to uncovering the depths. The main potentials of human life.
MOYERS: Of what we are capable of knowing and experiencing within ourselves?
CAMPBELL: Yes.
MOYERS: You have changed the definition of myth from “searching for meaning” to “experiencing meaning.”
CAMPBELL: The experience of life. The mind deals with meaning. What is the meaning of a flower? One Zen story speaks about how Buddha, addressing a group of people, simply picked up a flower. Only in the eyes of one man did he see understanding. Buddha himself is called “the one who is.” There is no meaning. What is the meaning of the universe? What is the meaning of a fly? They simply exist. And that’s it. Even your purpose is to be. We are so consumed with achieving something externally that we forget that inner values, the joy of living, are the only important ones.
MOYERS: How can we reach such an experience?
CAMPBELL: Read myths. They teach us to look within and then we begin to understand the message of symbols. Read myths from other cultures, not those tied to your own religion, because we tend literally interpret religion – if you read myths from other religions, you begin to understand. Myth helps us connect the mind with the experience of living. It tells us what that experience is. (…) Today’s world has lost its connection to the mythical. What we learn in schools is not life wisdom. We learn technologies, we gather information. It is interesting to see the hesitation of teachers to mention the life values of the subjects they teach. In today’s science – which includes anthropology, linguistics, history of religions, etc. – there is a tendency for specialization. And when we know how much a specialized student must know to become a competent specialist, we can understand this tendency. In order to study Buddhism, for example, you must be proficient not only in all European languages in which there are sources about the East, especially French, German, English and Italian, but also in Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan and a few other languages. And that is truly a very extensive task. Such a specialist truly cannot undertake I would ask about the differences between the Iroquois and the Algonquin.
Specialization aims to limit the number of problems that a specialist deals with. However, a person who is not a specialist, like myself, a generalist, notices something here that they learned from one specialist, and something there that they learned from another – without either of them questioning why that something appears both here and there. Therefore, a generalist – by the way, for academics, that is a derogatory term – enters the field of problems that are, let’s say, more generally human than specific to a particular culture.
MOYERS: You have seen what happens to primitive societies when they are disrupted by the civilization of the white man. They lose their internal balance, they disintegrate, they become sick. Has the same thing happened to us after our myths began to disappear?
CAMPBELL: Of course it has. (…) Just read the newspapers. There is complete confusion. On this immediate level of life and structure, myths offer models of living. But these models must be appropriate. In the times we live in, our time is changing so fast that what was appropriate fifty years ago is no longer so today. The virtues of the past are now vices of the present. And much of what was considered vice in the past is now a necessity. The moral order must keep pace with the moral necessities of real life in this time, here and now. And that is something we do not do. Religion as it once was belongs to another time, to other people, to another set of human values, to another universe. By going back to the old ways, we lose touch with history. Our children lose faith in the religions they were taught and seek answers within themselves.
MOYERS: Often with the help of drugs.
CAMPBELL: Yes. It’s about artificially induced mystical experience. I have participated in a series of conferences in the field of psychology that dealt with the whole issue of the difference between mystical experience and psychological breakdown. The difference is that the one who experiences a breakdown drowns in the waters in which the mystic swims. a. You have to be prepared for such an experience. (…)
MOYERS: So that’s why it’s a psychological crisis if a person is drowning in water in which…
CAMPBELL: … in which he should know how to swim, but is not prepared for that. At least that applies to spiritual life. The transformation of a person’s consciousness is a terrifying experience.
MOYERS: You talk a lot about consciousness. What do you mean by that?
CAMPBELL: It is an integral part of Cartesian thinking to consider consciousness as something exclusive to the brain, to see the brain as the organ from which consciousness originates. That is not true. The brain is an organ that directs consciousness in a certain direction, towards a certain purpose. But consciousness also exists in the body. The entire living world is permeated with consciousness. I have a feeling that consciousness and energy are somehow the same thing. Wherever life energy is prominently visible, there is also consciousness. (…) Attempting to interpret consciousness purely in technical terms is bound to fail.
MOYERS: How to transform consciousness?
CAMPBELL: This It depends on the direction in which you are inclined to steer your mind. And that is what meditation is for. We spend our whole lives in meditation, although mostly unintentionally. Many people spend most of their lives meditating on how to acquire money and how to spend it. If you have a family to raise, your concern is focused on the family. These are all very important concerns, but they are mostly of a physical nature. And how will you transmit spiritual consciousness to your children if you don’t possess it yourself? How can you achieve that then? Myths serve to raise our consciousness to a spiritual level. (…)
MOYERS: How can we then live without myths?
CAMPBELL: Each person must find an aspect of myth that they can connect with their own life. Myth essentially has four functions. The first is the mystical one – the one I spoke about, where the role of myth is to make us realize the wonder of the universe, the wonder of ourselves, and to experience awe in the face of this mystery. Myth opens up the world to the dimension of mystery, to the realization of the mystery that lies beyond. and all forms. Without it, there is no mythology. If mystery is expressed in all things, then the universe becomes, so to speak, a sacred image. Namely, our approach to the transcendent mystery is always conditioned by the circumstances of the world in which we live.
The second is the cosmological function, the dimension that science deals with – the role of myth is to show us what the universe looks like, but again in such a way that the mystery that lies behind it comes to the fore. Today, we are inclined to believe that scientists hold all the answers in their hands. However, the great ones among them say, “No, we don’t have all the answers. We can tell you how something works – but what is it really?” You light a match, but what is fire? They can talk about oxidation, but that doesn’t tell me anything.
The third function is sociological – myth supports and confirms a certain social order. It is precisely in this dimension that myths vary tremendously from place to place. Thus, at the same time, we can have a whole mythology related to polygamy and a whole mythology related to I am in favor of monogamy. Both are completely fine. It only depends on where we currently stand. This sociological function of myth has become dominant in today’s world – and it does not correspond to the present time at all.
MOYERS: What do you mean by that?
CAMPBELL: Ethical laws. Laws that prescribe how life should be in a good society. All those countless pages about what clothes to wear, how to behave towards each other, and so on – in the first millennium BC.
But there is also a fourth dimension of myth, and I think everyone should connect with it today – the pedagogical function, where myth speaks about how to live life as a human being under any circumstances. Myths can teach us that.
MOYERS: What do our souls owe to ancient myths?
CAMPBELL: Ancient myths were designed to align the mind and body. The mind can wander off and desire things that the body does not want. Myths and rituals were means through which one could harmonize the mind and body. harmoniziranju uma i tijela, usklađivanju načina života s prirodnim zakonima.
MOYERS: So these old stories live within us?
CAMPBELL: That is indeed the case. The stages of human development are the same today as they were in ancient times. As children, we grow up in a world characterized by discipline, obedience, and dependence on others. All of this must be overcome in maturity, so that we no longer live a life dependent on others but with a strong sense of self-responsibility. The inability to transcend this stage is the foundation of neurosis. The next critical moment we must overcome occurs when we have to relinquish the world we live in – the crisis of separation.
MOYERS: And ultimately death?
CAMPBELL: And ultimately death. That is the final separation. Thus, myth must serve two purposes: to initiate a young person into the world they live in – that is the purpose of folk tales – and then to separate them from it. Folk tales reveal the fundamental idea that leads us to our own inner life.
MOYERS: Why are stories about harmony so present in mythology? heroes?
CAMPBELL: Because it is something worth writing about. Even in popular literature, the main character is a hero or heroine who has initiated or done something beyond the ordinary range of human achievements and experiences. A hero is someone who has dedicated their life to something greater than themselves. (…)
MOYERS: What is the purpose of all these trials, tests, and hardships that the hero goes through?
CAMPBELL: If we talk about goals, the temptations are designed to show whether the one destined to become a hero truly deserves to be a hero. Is he really up to this task? Can he overcome the dangers? Does he possess enough courage, knowledge, and abilities to serve? (…) When we understand the real problem – forgetting oneself, giving oneself to a higher goal or person – then we realize that this is the ultimate trial. When we stop thinking primarily about ourselves and our self-preservation, then we undergo a true heroic transformation of consciousness. And what it encompasses is All myths deal with different types of transformations of consciousness. Until now, you have been thinking in one way, from now on you must think in another.
MOYERS: In what way can consciousness be transformed?
CAMPBELL: Either through the very trials or through enlightening revelations. It’s all about trials and revelations. (…)
MOYERS: So, does heroism have a moral goal?
CAMPBELL: The moral goal is to save people or an individual, or to support an idea. A hero sacrifices himself for something – that’s where the morality of heroism lies. Of course, from another perspective, it could be said that the idea for which he sacrificed himself was not worth respecting. But that is just a judgment made from that other perspective, which does not undermine the basic idea of heroism through which the act was performed.
MOYERS: Why did you name your book The Hero with a Thousand Faces?
CAMPBELL: Because there is a certain typically heroic sequence of actions visible in stories from all over the world and from different historical periods. Basically, It could even be said that there is a single archetypal mythical hero whose life is constantly revived in a unique way among many nations in many countries. The hero from legends is usually the founder of something – a new era, a new religion, a new city, a new way of life. In order to start something new, a person must leave behind the old and embark on a search for the initial idea, the germ of an idea that has the potential to bring forth something new.
Joseph Campbell left us with his life philosophy summed up in a single sentence that he repeated whenever the opportunity presented itself: “Follow your bliss!”
His writings state: “It is important to live life with experience and thus, the knowledge of the mystery that lies in it and within ourselves. This gives life a new passion, a new harmony, a new grandeur. Thinking in mythological frameworks helps us accept the inevitabilities that this world and its trials bring us. Let us learn to recognize the positive in seemingly negative moments…” “The question that arises is whether we will be able to courageously embark on this adventure, given the challenges and aspects of our lives.”