Stephen Gerringer
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Thank you for sharing this link, Elena! Definitely post a follow-up whenever you schedule a conversation about myth and / or Campbell’s perspective.
FYI – we are pruning the forum categories in Conversations of a Higher Order, which includes closing down and deleting the Campbell in Culture forum. Since this question relates to Joseph Campbell’s published work, we have moved it into The Works of Joseph Campbell forum. You should be able to find it by following the link.
A fascinating topic, emrysmcsabre.
Though you know this already, thought I’d provide a little context for forum participants. Chris Terrio, who co-wrote The Rise of Skywalker with J.J. Abrams, has this to say about about that connection between Rey and Ben Solo:
Right from Episode VII, from the scene in which Rey is interrogated by Kylo Ren, it was clear that they have a connection, that they can understand each other, that they can literally read each other’s minds. They’re made uncomfortable by it and yet they’re both drawn to each other. What we wanted to do was complicate that and say actually their connection is deeper than that. we began talking about them as a mythic concept, which is in Joseph Campbell, which is the mythic dyad–that they’re two parts of the same whole.”
The full passage from The Hero’s Journey, when Bob Cockrell asks Joseph Campbell about marriage as a mythic event, sheds light on Terrio’s conception of Rey and Ben Solo:
CAMPBELL: My notion of marriage is that if marriage isn’t a first priority in your life you’re not married. It’s an extremely important decision, that of marriage, because it does amount to and require a yielding and the yielding has to be total to now being a member of a dyad and acting in relation to that twoness. As I’ve said to people who are worried about it, when you make what you call a sacrifice to the other person, that’s not what you’re sacrificing to. You’re sacrificing to the relationship. The relationship is the sacrificial field, where both of you are relating to the relationship and then you are, as it were, two together. Really like that yin-yang thing. (If you hang on to being the yin, or hang on to being the yang in this thing, as a separate unit, you don’t have a marriage.) Then everything in your life from then on relates to that relationship. And when judgments of actions and decisions at various times have to be taken in that sense, then you’re married.
The marriage has two stages. The first is what might be called the biological marriage—it yields the family. But then there comes what I would call the mystical marriage, or the alchemical marriage. . . . “
Joseph Campbell doesn’t use the term “dyad” much at all – in fact, I’ve only found one other instance in print – but he touches on the concept quite often, especially in the discussion of opposites coming together to form one whole (yin/yang, or the Hindu deity Shiva and his consort Shakti), and of specific couples (such as Krishna & Radha – though Krishna through multiple divine emanations is able to simultaneously make love to 10,000 Gopi cowherdesses, it is Radha who completes him).
In Mythic Worlds, Modern Words (a collection of Campbell’s writings on James Joyce), commenting on a reference in Joyce’s Ulysses to “Shakti Shiva” (written as if the name of a single unified being), he observes:
Śiva, joined to his Śakti, is the lord of that left-hand path. Śiva is the lord of eternal life, and as he lies prostrate, the goddess with her hands representing the life and the death principle is standing on him. She is, as it were, an emanation of his dream: the woman is the emanation of the man’s image of his universe. His fulfillment consists in comprehending her and enlivening her. The female is the other half, you might say, of the deity. This is the mysticism of the dyad, male-female as one. In Stephen’s case, the part of Śiva is to be played by Bloom, whose consort, Molly, is the Śakti of the book. Moreover, Bloom in his Tiresian fantasy was Śakti-Śiva, male and female combined.
Further: Śiva is the god worshiped throughout India in the form of a stylized male organ (the liṇgam), which is generally represented as though emerging from beneath the earth to penetrate a stylized female organ (the yoni) symbolic of the cosmic mother-goddess within whose womb (space-time: the Kantian “a priori forms of sensibility”) all creatures dwell.
However, though Campbell discusses this in terms of marriage, or, in the above instance, the relationship between Śiva and Śakti, this connection between male and female is symbolic of the deeper nature of the universe. To fully grasp that, it helps to step away from the romantic/erotic projections that accompany these images (indeed, apart from one kiss in an intense moment, one can’t definitively characterize the bond between Kylo Ren and Rey as a romance).
Which brings us back to Lucas’ concept of the Force as consisting of both a light and a dark side – which owes much to Campbell’s discussion of yin and yang:
“Behind this art lies a philosophy that is native to the Far East. This is the philosophy expressed in Chinese Taoism. Tao means, as we know, ‘the Way.’ This is the way of nature. The way of nature is the way in which dark and light interplay. There are two principles that combine in various modulations to constitute the world and its way, and these principles respectively are the yang and the yin. These words are sometimes translated as the male and female principles, respectively, but that is not their primary meaning. Yang and yin in their origin refer to the sunny and shady side of a stream; the yang is the sunny side, and the yin is the shady side. What is the situation on the sunny side? It is light, it is hot, and the heat of the Sun is dry. In the shade, on the other side, you have the Earth; it is cold without the Sun on it, and it is moist within. Moist, cold, and dark, and hot, dry, and light play in counteraction. Earth and Sun are associated respectively with the feminine and masculine principles and with the passive and the active principles. This is a very profound symbol.
There is no moral imperative here; this is not the battle of the sons of light and the sons of darkness that underlies Zoroastrianism and the biblical traditions. Light is not better or stronger than dark, nor is dark better or stronger than light. They are simply the two balanced principles on which the world rests: the light and the dark.
As I look out my window, I see light and dark, light and dark; wherever we look that is what we see. An artist can take a brush and put black on white and bring forth all of the inflections of the natural world. By using light and dark, he depicts the forms, which in their very essence are composed of light and dark. This is a wonderful thing. The outer form of light and dark is a manifestation of what is within. So the artist with his brush is manipulating the very principles that underlie the whole of nature, and the artwork brings out, as it were, the very essence of the world itself and that essence is the interplay of these two in many modulations. The delight of seeing this interplay is the delight of the man who does not wish to break through the walls of the universe but wishes to stay in the world playing with the song and inflection of this great duad, yang and yin.” (Myths of Light 84)
Note, by the way, the term duad, which seems congruent with Campbell’s usage of dyad, that pops up elsewhere in his writings when discussing such dualities. For example, two other passages from Mythic Worlds, Modern Words, this time discussing Joyce’s final work, the myth-fueled fever dream that is Finnegans Wake:
The great archetypal duad in the Wake is father/mother: Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (HCE) and Anna Livia Plurabelle (ALP).” (p. 195)
“Various forms of such dual relationship appear throughout the book, but as we’ve noted, the archetypal duad is HCE and ALP, father and mother, Father Ocean and his river goddess, Viṣṇu and his all-embracing consort, the dreamer and his dream. Here again, we remember that Ramakrishna said at one time, ‘Brahmā (the Creator) is brahman (the infinite) in its quiescent state, and Māyā is brahman in movement.’ He is the still state, and she is māyā, the active movement that brings about all of our involvement in the delusions in the world, and both are aspects of the same being.” (218)
I don’t know if any of the above is helpful to you, emrysmcsabre, but may shed some light on the source of this concept.
From my perspective as an audience member, the unfolding of the bond between Rey and Kylo Ren struck me as an amplification of and expansion on the bond between Luke and his father (one doesn’t just defeat the Dark Side and then everything is all Happy Happy Joy Joy – rather, the Force consists of both, in balance).
I’m also intrigued that a few of my friends who aren’t into Star Wars, but do happen to be mothers of children who are, were fascinated by the intensity of the connection between Rey and Ben, which for them helped elevate the final two films beyond just swords-and-sorcery-in-outer-space.
I’ll give Chris Terrio the final word:
That was a great gift of ‘The Last Jedi,’ in that their relationship seems very intimate and specific. There’s a way in which, in ‘The Last Jedi,’ Rey and Kylo Ren interact, and they just seem like they’re part of the same whole, that spiritually, they’re really one person. That really helped us in thinking about Rey and Kylo Ren, which is to say that we wanted to elaborate on the idea that Snoke bridged their minds in ‘The Last Jedi.’ But what we wanted to say is that there’s something deeper there, and leave it to debate about at which point they became this dyad in the Force, where they were really two, or were they one, whether that was a mistake that Palpatine made by bridging them and therefore creating this thing. But regardless, their relationship is extremely interesting and complicated, and it was one of the things that J.J. and I loved about ‘The Last Jedi’ that we luckily inherited and could build.”
A poignant and potent reflection, Sunbug. Thank you for sharing some of your mother’s story with us.
Jane Goodall entered my consciousness sometime around 1965. Scientists, to this eight year old, wore white lab coats and were male. Miss (not Dr., back then) Jane Goodall was no scientist – at least, not in that mold; she was something more, something magical – for me, the embodiment of wonder.
Facts have their place, but are only part of the picture. Science without imagination, without soul, is data.
We owe much to your mother and Jane Goodall and a growing number of other impassioned thinkers and seekers who are doing so much to restore soul to science.
Thank you for reminding us of that, and drawing our eyes to the horizon.
Thank you for this reminder, Elena, that art is sensual, appealing to the senses – which need not be limited to vision and hearing.
However, it hadn’t occurred to me to consider fragrance an artistic medium until I read Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume (the first novel he published after returning from a tour of Mayan and Mexican cultural sites with Joseph Campbell). On a few occasions in the decades since I’ve had the opportunity to experience immersive settings where scent is as significant as lighting and sound.
Your insights about using fragrance to create a safe space resonates as well. To this day, just walking through Chinatown, the blended aroma of steaming tea and incense can transport me forty years back in time to mornings at the Zen Center, seated on zafu and zabuton, mind empty (more-or-less), feeling one with everything no matter the turmoil of daily life.
I’m curious – are your clients troubled when they seek you out? Is it safe to assume you work in the healing arts (which covers a lot ground – everything from psychology to shamanism)?
I was on the road for Bloomsday, Robert (first overnight excursion in the age of Covid – thank goddess for that vaccine!). Good to see you here, though – it’s been far too long since you’ve haunted these virtual halls . . .
🙂Shaheda – thanks indeed for that thought-provoking post. My wife and I have been away for several days being anything but silent – our first excursion away from home during the pandemic, to visit both of our siblings – joyous indeed to press the flesh with real live human beings.
But your post and John’s response brought to mind one other instance of silence Joe mentions, in his discussions of the syllable OM – or rather, AUM:
According to the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the world of the state of waking consciousness is to be identified with the letter A of the syllable AUM; that of dream consciousness (heaven and hell, that is to say) with the letter U; and deep sleep (the state of the mystical union of the knower and the known, God and his world, brooding the seeds and energies of creation: which is the state symbolized in the center of the mandala) with M.65 The soul is to be propelled both by and from this syllable AUM into the silence beyond and all around it: the silence out of which it rises and back into which it goes when pronounced—slowly and rhythmically …as AUM—AUM—AUM.” (from The Flight of the Wild Gander)
And then, from The Power of Myth:
“‘AUM‘ is a word that represents to our ears that sound of the energy of the universe of which all things are manifestations. You start in the back of the mouth “ahh,” and then “oo,” you fill the mouth, and “mm” closes the mouth. When you pronounce this properly, all vowel sounds are included in the pronunciation. AUM. Consonants are here regarded simply as interruptions of the essential vowel sound. All words are thus fragments of AUM, just as all images are fragments of the Form of forms. AUM is a symbolic sound that puts you in touch with that resounding being that is the universe. If you heard some of the recordings of Tibetan monks chanting AUM, you would know what the word means, all right. That’s the AUM of being in the world. To be in touch with that and to get the sense of that is the peak experience of all.
A-U-M. The birth, the coming into being, and the dissolution that cycles back. AUM is called the “four-element syllable.” A-U-M—and what is the fourth element? The silence out of which AUM arises, and back into which it goes, and which underlies it. My life is the A-U-M, but there is a silence underlying it, too. That is what we would call the immortal. This is the mortal and that’s the immortal, and there wouldn’t be the mortal if there weren’t the immortal. One must discriminate between the mortal aspect and the immortal aspect of one’s own existence.”
This description of Silence is very different than in the usual sense of simply the absence of noise; rather, this Silence contains All, is the source of All, and is that to which All will eventually dissolve and return. Neither my mother, nor, in my youth, myself, consciously understood that – but I suspect on an unconscious level silence suggested the silence of the grave – which may explain the compulsion to fill that silence with words.
In the decades since I have been learning how to tend the Silence, beginning with the practice of meditation. With each passing year I am more and more comfortable with silence – a perspective enhanced by Campbell’s description of Silence as the immortal aspect of one’s being.
Hello Kenneth,
I’m curious if the thoughts and quotes posted here helped with your research. Did you complete what you were working on – and were you able to find what you needed from Campbell’s work?
Norland
What a thoughtful, clear, and truly profound response – it takes tremendous time and energy to draw all this together and express it with such clarity!
I especially appreciate this passage:
For he [René Girard] makes quite clear that rather than being exhausted, we simply take for granted, in a thoughtless way, the extent to which our ideological habits and attitudes, our deepest values and sympathies, have been thoroughly penetrated by the Christian myth.”
That is a key realization – whether we embrace or reject it, Christianity is not just the default setting of our culture (at least in the United States), but an invisible filter through which we experience life.
Thank you so much for your generosity of time and attention addressing these questions arising from your essay – putting flesh on the bones, so to speak.
Thank you, Juan!
Feel free to add any works you have found helpful as well. It might help to include here a list of Spanish titles published since Campbell’s passage in the field of mythology and/or psychology that you feel are significant, as a resource for Spanish speakers.
On the one hand I’m sorry you removed it, Lee – I did appreciate your account (though I was slow to comment on it). However, you are the author; it’s your decision alone to determine what is ready to share and what isn’t.
I do hope though that you will join in other conversations here, and share your work in this corner whenever you feel is appropriate.
Derrick – there are many works as well that have been written since Campbell’s passing. One of the best, from my perspective, is Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World (a truly delightful read). Another is the elegant and profound The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, from David Abrams. I also highly recommend Anne Baring’s and Jules Cashford’s The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image – a well-researched, comprehensive look at how the mythic image of the Goddess has morphed from the period of the paleolithic stone figurines on down to the present, very much in sync with Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and James Hillman – this specifically speaks to your mention of the Goddess in your initial post – it’s a thick volume, but well worth it. And then The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony is an amazing “novel” (it’s ever so much more than that – fluid and dreamlike) encompassing the whole of Greek mythology, from the pen of the creative Florentine author, Roberto Calasso.
These four volumes have been game-changers for me.
Are there any works you have used in class that you would recommend, Derrick?
Norland,
Thank you so much for your response. It’s refreshing to hear someone speak up for Christian mythology, which generally doesn’t get as much attention from Cambellophiles as the seemingly more exotic traditions. I actually enjoy and am well-versed in Christian theology, but for me it’s pretty much an intellectual exercise – I find no support for my experience and understanding of the mystery of transcendence within Christianity, as practiced in my community.
I do appreciate your recognition of “a God who is left without a God at the height of his crucifixion,” which is an exquisite understanding that fosters compassion and is indeed key to the Christian revelation (in theory more than practice, considering what Christianity has set aflame over the millennia). Of course, to quote Campbell, “There are as many gods as there are people thinking about God. When Mrs. Mulligan and the Pope are thinking about God, it is not the same God” (A Joseph Campbell Companion, 162); even many within the Christian tradition who embrace that understanding add a lot of extra baggage.
At the same time, the primary tradition I’ve practiced for decades is grounded in compassion and has no need of “a God who is left without a God,” as not just the Gods, but all the practitioners are “left without a God” in the traditional sense. That may be why there is so much overlap between the esoteric understanding of a Jesuit priest like Teilhard de Chardin, a Trappist monk like Thomas Merton, or even a defrocked Catholic-turned-Episcopalian priest like Matthew Fox, and Buddhism as practiced by a Thích Nhât Hanh.
Though I am content and fulfilled following my own traditions, I am moved by Christian imagery sans the theology. In Italy three summers ago, I was much affected by the many beautiful renderings not just of the Crucifixion, but even more of the Pietà (Gerardo Dottori’s 1927 “Crocifissione” hanging in the Vatican, and Michelangelo’s Pietà at St. Peter’s, both below, are two examples that particularly arrested me in person – such is the numinous power of a mythic image).
Your cautions about kuṇḍalinī Yoga are well-taken. From your answer above it seems as if you are suggesting those not raised within a tantric tradition should steer clear – but in your MythBlast essay you write:
Placed in the same phenomenological order, kuṇḍalinī yoga becomes a powerful visualization of the individuation process as a profound transformation of our whole being in time. This is what makes yoga relevant to the West. Rather than pertaining solely to a subjective experience, kuṇḍalinī can become an authentic mythic perspective into the objective archetypal processes and structures of the encompassing psyche, the so-called collective unconscious, into which every individual consciousness is embedded. The road to enlightenment as the ascent of the kuṇḍalinī serpent through the chakras of the human spine works as the activation of the ‘transcendent function,’ which is the beginning of the individuation process, as a process of rebirth and regeneration in time.”
I’ll admit some confusion. Here you seem to suggest this form of yoga does have a place, as long we aren’t seeking an “experience” when we practice it? Or are you saying one shouldn’t practice it but approach it as a thought exercise – read about it, embrace the imagery but interpret / integrate it in terms of the relatively recent Western tradition of depth psychology, much as I do the Christian communion?
Would you mind clarifying and expanding on that a bit? How do we engage kuṇḍalinī as “an authentic mythic image?”
(On a tangential note, the state of Alabama just days ago lifted its longtime ban on yoga in public schools – as long as there is no meditation, and the poses all have English names. Though that many people who practice yoga as low-impact calisthenics scoff at Alabama’s concern that people might be lured away from church into a demonic cult, as your essay and your post above make clear, there are real hooks on which those projections are able to catch and snag.)
Here’s a place to start. Campbell has been discussing the four functions of mythology, and arrives at what he calls the cosmological function:
The myth has to deal with the cosmology of the day and it’s no good when it’s based on a cosmology that’s out of date. And that’s one of our problems. I don’t see any conflict between science and religion. Religion has to accept the science of the day and penetrate it to the mystery. The conflict is between the science of 2000 B.C. and the science of A.D. 2000. And that’s what we’ve got in the Bible, which is based on a Sumerian mythology.” (The Hero’s Journey 192)
And then a few pages later,
What I’m trying to say is that the structuring of a mythology is conditioned by the science at that time. There’s no use in constructing a mythology based on an archaic science. I wouldn’t know what to do with an atom, but I do recognize that when we had a Ptolemaic cosmology there was a whole interpretation of the relationship of the earth to the different planes of the universe that was mythologized. What happened to that was it was given an ethical and moral value, the stages of a ladder of the heavens represented the stages of the psyche.
Well, anyhow, the myth has to deal with the cosmology of today and it’s no good when it’s based on a mythology or on a cosmology that’s out of date. And that’s one of our problems. I don’t see any conflict between science and religion. Religion has to accept the science of the day and penetrate it—to the mystery. The conflict is between the science of 2000 B.C. and the science of A.D. 2000.” (ibid, 194)
