A primer into the fundamentals of Joseph Campbell.
In this episode, I survey the work of Joseph Campbell and explore his definition of myth and its four functions.
Links to the pop culture references: www.alanwatts.com, and www.celticmythpodshow.com.
Contact info: Web: www.mythicthinking.org (for now at least)
e-mail: mythinginaction at gmail dot com.
The music is “Song #9″ by Avagadros Number. I found them in podsafemusic and they are totally awesome.
And I haven’t thought of an answer yet, but I offer it for consideration:
So Robert Johnson and Joseph Campbell both suggest that the Grail romances are the myths for the modern era, specficially for the male psyche. I argue along the same vein that the myth for the female psyche is “Pride and Prejudice.” The question is this:
What if the modern American myth is linked to
Peter Pan and the myth of never growing up?
Please leave me your thoughts in the comments.
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Whew! Sorry about that. I somehow managed to screw up my website by a simple “<”. I’m not sure why they can’t make “complicated website formatting for dummies” available on a google search, but far too many websites are targeted for someone who has a sense of what they’re doing.
So, we’re back up and running again. Episode 2 of “Mything in Action” should be out later this week.
Greetings and Salutations! Something for your listening pleasure while I still learn how to podcast.
In this episode, I introduce myself, Mythic Thinking, and Mything In Action. I talk about Harry Potter a little bit, but mostly set the framework for the future of the show.
Contact info: Web: www dot mythicthinking dot org (for now at least)
e-mail: mythinginaction at gmail dot com.
The music is “Song #9″ by Avagadros Number. I found them in podsafemusic and they are totally awesome.
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Oops! It just came to my attention that my “About Priscilla” and “RoundTable pages aren’t working. I am working on it and hopefully it will not take too long to fix.
The intro epigraph to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight is a quote from Genesis that links the apple on the cover of the book with the fruit of knowledge that Bella’s journey is about to lead her to. But here’s another reading of the apple:
What if the apple were actually the Apple of discord of the goddess, Eris? I know, it’s not Meyer’s intention to read it thusly, but let’s do a small exercise in archetypal mythologizing here:
When Bella moves to Forks, she instantly stirs dischord in the small community. Everyone knows her, and everyone wants to get to know her - she’s essentially fresh meat in a stale little Washington state town. She is profoundly attracted to Edward Cullen, so they launch into a relationship. And Bella’s adventure just starts there:
- she sows discord between the Cullens and the small travelling band of vampires, because James decided he wanted a snack.
- she sows discord amongst her high school classmates by just being who she is.
- she sows discord between herself and the Quelutes by choosing Edward.
- she sows discord between herself and the Cullens by spending so much time with Jacob.
- she sows discord between Jacob and Edward by - essentially - leading them both on.
- she sows discord between the Cullens and the Volturi by being human.
- she sows discord between the Cullens and Victoria by having been the reason for the death of James.
I know these aren’t in order, and I’m offering them mostly as an alternative. Based on this, I expect Breaking Dawn to be an even further set of events the sow discord. I’m sure the saga will have some sort of happy ending, but only after a serious degree of chaos first.
As a reminder, the Apple of Discord was thrown into a party by the snubbed goddess Eris to be given to the most beautiful goddess. Athena, Aphrodite and, I think, Artemis fought over who was the most beautiful, but Paris of Troy gave it to Helen and started the Trojan War. Bella is the Apple of Discord. Jacob and Edward fight over her. And there will be some sort of epic war before to wrap up the werewolf/vampire versus the Volturi story line. We’ll know on Saturday.
(Eventhough I plan on attending a midnight release party, I have no intention to read the entire book right away. It’s not Harry Potter.)
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I’m attending summer quarter this week and we had our first earthquake since I started at Pacifica. It was a 5.8 and centered about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. I’m located about 20 minutes south of Santa Barbara and we felt a relatively mild shaking. No one was worried, so I’m not either. It was kind of cool.
But the really mythical part was the conversation we were having when it occurred. We were discussing the need for imagination and practices that ensoul the world, and, also, the American practice of identifying the self with the car. It almost seemed as though the earth was agreeing with our conversation. The soul and psyche of each individual and culture is linked directly with Nature, with the soul of the world. Both will be equally unhealthy, but both can heal with mutual support. By identifying so strongly with material objects, we place a need on the Earth’s resources. The material objects block our inner soul work while also draining the Earth of what She has to offer. The archetypal argument suggests that if we tend to our inner soul and step away from materialism, identifying with the archetypes that link us with the numinous, then the world will also be restored.
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Somehow, I made it my entire life without seeing a Batman movie. I used to watch the old 60s reruns of the show, with the cheesy “pows” and Robin’s silly exclamations. And I used to watch one of the animated series. But that all changed this weekend. Prompted by conversations with co-workers, the Hubs decided he wanted to see The Dark Knight while it was still in the theaters. So we rented Batman Begins and saw The Dark Knight in the theater. Not on the same day.
Christain Bale as Batman
I have always liked Batman, or The Batman as aficionados will remind me. I
But blah blah blah.
Batman is a creature of the night. His whole schtick is emulating a bat. So, he fights bad guys only at night. What does the night represent? The shadow side of the unconscious. It is the aspect of the psyche that holds all the psychological manifestations that we choose, consciously or unconsciously, not to incorporate into the ego as we go through identity formation. (How’s that for jargon?) I like to picture the psyche as a ball, or an egg. When we come into the world, our ball is complete, fully round, or oblong, and perfect. But, as we go through identity formation, the ball is broken into hemispheres, and thoughts, behaviors, ideas, dreams that try to surface in the hemisphere of light and are rejected get pushed into the dark hemisphere. I should post my thoughts on the Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean film, Mirrormask. That film explains what I’m talking about in a really entertaining fashion.
What’s awesome about Batman, like I said, is that his persona is a bat. The bat is usually a feared creature, because it’s a little ugly, makes funny noises, and only comes out at night. (Unless you live in Austin, an entire city bat-ophiliacs, having dedicated a shrine in the form of Congress St. Bridge to house Texas bat populations.) Bats associated with Halloween, vampires, and all sorts of goulish things that go bump in the night. So when Bruce Wayne becomes the Batman, he becomes a shadow creature that usually awakens fear. But he wants to do good in a city that is overrun with the bad. So he dons the mask of the shadow and plunges into the realm of the shadow to “fix” it. And what does he find? The Joker, the shadow run amok. There are other Bat-villains, but I did just see The Dark Knight. The Joker’s mission is to create chaos through fear. It’s not that he’s any smarter than other villains, or even smarter than Batman, but he poses quiet the adversary because the heroes have to sort through the rubble in the wake of Joker’s chaos in order to figure out where to go next.
At the end of Dark Knight, Batman and Gordon deliver a beautiful soliloquy about why Batman is the hero Gotham deserves, rather than the one Gotham needs. Most importantly, Batman is willing to accept whatever image of him the public chooses. If they need a scapegoat, he’ll be Gotham’s scapegoat; or if they need a masked hero, he will be the masked hero. When digging into the shadow, it’s important to react to the shadow’s whims. The shadow is likely to change face quickly, and it’s important to change along with it.
Shifting gears a little, now that I’ve seen the movie, it’s safe to read an article posted on The Hog’s Head, comparing The Joker with Voldemort.
I initially picked up this book, because the title sounded interesting and because iTunes offered it as a free audio book download. Since I’ve been studying alchemy lately, I figured the title couldn’t lead me anywhere but in a good direction. If that makes any sense.
So, in a nutshell, the story is about a shepherd who needs to go “find his personal legend” in the form of finding a treasure he dremt about. This personal quest leads him from his home in Spain to Tunisia, across the Sahara to Egypt, and more, but I don’t want to spoil the ending. Along his way, he meets people who help guide him closer to his goal, including a gypsy who interpreted his dream, the King who gives him the tools he needs to read good omens, the thief who robs him blind, the crystal shop owner to dreams of going to Mecca, the Englishman looking for the Alchemist, and the Alchemist.
I don’t know if Coelho did this intentionally or not, but his approach to alchemy is akin to the often-critiqued Jungian approach. The Alchemist teaches the shepherd, who has already learned to read the unspoken language of the world, how to utilize that skill for what is essentially personal alchemy. When asked why most alchemists didn’t “get it,” the Alchemist responds that they were too focused on turning lead into gold, rather than on what that process means to them as individuals. Essentially saying that the goal of alchemy isn’t the philosopher’s stone in and of itself, but, rather, the journey one undertakes to get to the philosopher’s stone. Furthermore, the Alchemist teaches the shepherd to rely on his experience, rather than teaching him what he needs to know from the get go. The “treasure” the shepherd is seeking is paralleled with the “treasure” he is unlocking within himself by undergoing the quest.
One of the critiques against Jung is that he internalizes alchemy. I think this book demonstrates that the internalization comes as a result of the experience, and that the two must work in conjunction to produce the philosopher’s stone, which I interpret (and Jung too) to represent the Self, capital S, which is the ultimate archetype, the archetype that links the psyche of the individual with the numinous psyche of the world, which leads me into a discussion of the semantics that Jung is often criticized for and which I will leave alone at this time.
The book isn’t one that took my breath away, but I still highly recommend it. It is not a primer into alchemy, so I do suggest a little dappling into the subject before reading the book to appreciate it on that level. Otherwise, it is a really good mythic story. A couple sources on alchemy that I have read are both source texts, but they deliver the subject in a way relevant to the Western reader are: Alchemy by Johannes Fabricius and Jung on Alchemy, but I forget the name of the editor just now.
Okay, I really had NO idea that getting a podcast launched could be such a headache! The good news is that I learned how to use Audacity and recorded a Coming Soon. Tomorrow’s project will be exporting and maybe uploading.