Mythology,
Joseph Campbell, and
Sacred Stories We Live By
Synopsis
Myth, archetypal psychology, and the hero journey after joseph campbell and carl jung. Interview with Mythic Scholar and author Dr. Jonathan Young on the meaning of myth, the hero's journey of mythology and everyday life. Dr. Young worked with Joseph Campbell and is the Founding Faculty member of the Mythic Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara
Extract
Why do you think greek myths and mythology has suddenly become so popular - all of his books have been re-released. Popular movies like star wars, the phantom menace and the matrix all draw on these themes.
It is interesting. His best known book, The Hero with a thousand faces was a bestseller in 1949 when it was first released. Which was odd because at first publishers said no one is interested in greek myths and mythology, this tradition, this ritual - this is the age of science. Again and again The Hero with a Thousand Faces surprised the people that thought they knew what the public wanted. It was a bestseller in 1949, and again in the 1960s when the psychedelic crowd discovered mythology as a road map to the inward journey. Then a bestseller again when power of myth series was aired.
He said myths and mythology wasn't to give meaning to life but to give us an experience of life, an experience of vitality in being alive.
There are a couple of elements in that comment. He didn't talk about abstractions, he talked about embodied experience. It is physical, it is in a life -- everyday. Which means he isn't just talking about a collection of myths or stories, or a set of texts. He is talking about a perspective, a way of looking at something. 'Mythology' or 'myths' suggests books and it is in those books -- but the essence is something hovering beyond books.
In Power of Myth he talked about suffering. There are all of these things happening in the world and what do you do? How do you say 'yes' to vulgarity and cruelty?
You have to say 'yes' but that doesn't mean being passive. It is accepting life and the world and avoiding the temptation to see in pairs of opposites, to fall into dualistic thinking. This is good, that is bad; this is mine, this isn't mine; this is masculine, this isn't masculine. As Joseph Campbell put it, to be between the pairs of opposites is embracing the range of life. Psychotherapy is about that, and wise political leadership is about having a larger vision. What do we do with these seemingly unbridgeable differences that must be bridged? We may have to say yes to the things we find most unacceptable. That is the individual's big challenge, there are things in us that we consider garbage. We say, that's not me. But if you say that it doesn't go away, it just goes unconscious.
