The Hero with a Thousand Faces

As I mentioned before I have been studying "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. Basically it is a book about the most widely recognized and well-known literary theory: The Heroic Journey.


This book has been a marvelous experience for me, and as I finish it I feel like I've completed my own journey. It's a book that requires dedication, focus, and a lot of help from outside sources to understand it. It's a hard book.

But, next to the scriptures I have never read a book that has affected me like this book.

Let me impress upon you how much that statement means to me. I have read some great literature. I have read books that have brought my spirit to tears for it's beauty and power of speech. I have read books that have elevated my thoughts to new levels. I have read books that have created entire worlds of beauty and magnificence in my mind. I have read books that have made me a better man. And, this book is better than anyone of them.

Campbell's theory is basically (and I do mean very basic) that the purpose of myth is to help bring about maturity and growth. Look back to the Greeks, Egyptians, Hindus, Aztecs, etc and you will see that each of their myths were designed to teach the hearers and the readers something. They were written to create opportunities for us to grow and become better.

Campbell teaches the three major phases of the hero as follows: Departure, Initiation, and Return. The Departure is when the Hero is called to go and accomplish something great. When he is asked to leave the comfort of his home and travel far away to gain something of value for his people. The call to adventure is really the call to die as to the self.

The Initiation that follows is the set of trials through which the hero must pass, but also the most important aspects he must face. The Hero must become one with "the Goddess," a mystical female figure that represents life, and rebirth. He must avoid the temptress, who represents those same powers abused and misused for power. Then he must atone with the Father, which directly proceeds Apotheosis: The act of becoming just like the Father.

The Return is how he comes back to the society from which he has left. He not only returns, but he brings power with him. He brings "renewal in his wings." The entire purpose of the Heroic Journey is to renew the world around him. Every hero brings renewal to his world. Even heroes in video games. Take just about any video game and you can find a hero who has renewed his world in some way.

Link brings back the princess and restores order and happiness to Hyrule. Any Final Fantasy hero saves the world and brings about an era of peace and happiness unlike any other. Even games about war such as Modern Warfare show a renewed world. Even Brütal Legend, a game featuring JACK BLACK of all people as the hero. This game is about a world of rock and roll that receives a roadie savior who helps them put on concerts and fight against the wicked demon, Deviculous. Seriously?

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

I bet you're probably bored by now, but if you've made it this far, bear with me I'm condensing 391 pages of very strong, powerful prose into a single blog post, it's bound to be less powerful coming from me.

I stated before that this book has done more for me than any other save the scriptures, and I'm getting to that reason right now. This entire book has focused on people, and heroes that are so far beyond anything we mere humans can hope to ever attain. This book talks about Achilles, Buddha, Christ, and so many others that people around the world will always look to for inspiration.

"The mighty hero of extraordinary powers-able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe-is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within" (Campbell 365).

"Live," Nietzsche says, "as though the day were here." It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal-carries the cross of the redeemer-not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silence of his personal despair" (Campbell 391).

This entire semester Brother Allen, my professor, has taught us that this Journey is applicable to each and every one of us, but when I read those two quotes this morning it resonated within my very core that this knowledge is true. I found something that to me is magnificent. Something that to me, is powerful.

Something that has created within me a new soul.

And, that my dear friends, is precisely the point.