📖The Hero with a Thousand Faces

#quote

Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names. —Rg Veda 1.164.46

Doctor’s (psychologist) role is precisely the same as that of Wise Old Man whose word assists the hero to find the sword to kill the dragon-terror with. This is the man to heal hero’s seemingly-deadly wounds. And he finally allows the hero back into the normal world. (p.6)

Many rituals are designed in a way to support and help people to pass thresholds

Dream is personalized myth, myth the personalized dream (p.14)

• While dream is obscured by personal turmoils, myths are directly applicable for all mankind.

p.18

where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

The standard path of monomyth: separation—initiation—return.

When hero refuses the call, his life becomes the opposite of the journey. The subject loses the power, walled in boredom and loses meaning.

If hero is to accept the journey, the first character he meets is a protective figure who provides traveler with an amulet against evil forces.

The world is bound as in the bubble, everything outside is unknown (think, edge of the Earth). Unknown is an empty space for projections of unconscious.

The first threshold guardian might be protective (“you know you shouldn’t cross the border”).

p.74

The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died.

This motif suggests that passing a threshold is a form of self-annihilation. The hero disappears to be reborn again.

p.77 #quote

Anyone unable to understand a god sees it as a devil and is thus defended from the approach.

p.77 #quote

No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist. —Ananda Coomaraswamy

Road of trials: the hero is presented with a series of trials which he must pass. He is equipped with amulet and helpers or may discover that nature sides with him and helps.

If hero is opposed by opposite vigilant, they are actually one being. They are two sides of one: black and white, good and evil. The hero must either conquer it or subdue (swallow or be swallowed)—this represents union of yourself.

• This deepens the problem of the first threshold: Can the ego put itself to death?

p.101

The mystical marriage with the queen goddess of the world represents the hero’s total mastery of life; for the woman is life, the hero is its knower and master.

When it’s brought to our attention that everything we do or think comes from our earthy flesh/body, not uncommonly, we are drawn from life, acts of life, organs of life, woman in particular (as the greatest symbol of life). These all become intolerable for the pure-pure soul. (p.102)