Stephen Gerringer
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Wow, Andreas,
A blast from the past! It’s good to see you at this revival of Conversations of Higher Order (COHO); you should notice a few familiar souls (though not everybody has the same cybermoniker as before). James has been quite active, and Nandu is around more these days (he recently started an intriguing thread on “Why I Disagree with Joe Campbell”).
For several years JCF sponsored a discussion group of on Facebook (the Mythic Salon) as a place holder of sorts, as the old forums succumbed to an aging website. That group ballooned to over 13,000 members; as active and dynamic as that was, we are talking social media. No matter how profound the posts in a thread, exchanges proved fleeting, tending to scroll down the screen and out of sight in hours, or days at most. And then Facebook never sleeps; for moderators (Clemsy, aka Michael Lambert, and yours truly), it was truly exhausting.
So once the website was technologically advanced enough to support it, we shuttered the Salon and opted to create another iteration of The Conversations. The individual forums here are a bit different in their focus than you may remember, apart from the catch-all Conversation with a Thousand Faces. Folks tend to expect the Facebook experience, so there’s a little bit of culture shock to overcome – conversations aren’t automatically delivered to one’s newsfeed (in fact, I urge participants to check the “notify me of replies via email” box before clicking “submit” on a post), and you can’t click Like or Love and other sections. Nevertheless, momentum is slowly building.
As for this subject, I do recall a lively past discussion.
Your perspective on the myth of science (and maybe the science of myth) rings true for me – as does your Clemsy quote (“science can explain the how but it will never explain the why”). Pretty sure Joseph Campbell would be comfortable with that. Here’s an excerpt from a draft I’ve edited of a yet-to-be-published Campbell book, drawn from obscure interviews and unpublished Q & A sessions following lectures:
IS THERE THEN—OR SHOULD THERE BE—A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND MYTH?
Well, evolution is a scientific finding to which the mythology must adjust itself. If it isn’t adjusted to, there is a stress between the mythological (or religious) and the actual experience of the world.
I would say that all of our sciences are the material that has to be mythologized. A mythology gives the spiritual import—what one might call rather the psychological, inward import—of the world of nature round about, as understood today. There’s no real conflict between science and religion. Religion is the recognition of the deeper dimensions that the science reveals to us. You find all kinds of suggestions in the world of modern physics. And boy, you can translate them into Sanskrit without any trouble. The Hindus have the whole thing already!
Science deals with what in logic are called instrumental causes. But then there’s another order of causation, known as the formal cause, and that is very mysterious. Scientists are right at this moment running into the mystery zone. They’ve pushed right to the edge of what can be known, analyzed, and interpreted simply in terms of instrumental causalities, and are themselves recognizing this.
So Erwin Schrödinger, this great physicist, turns to Hindu imagery in his book: “Tat tvam asi” and all is Brahman! That’s what he ends up saying. Here is an intuitive insight that goes past the fields of time, space, observations, and realizes that the sphere of time and space is secondary to another.
What is in conflict is the science of 2000 B.C, which is what you have in the Bible, and the science of the twentieth century A.D. The mythic image does not fit the contemporary mind. So the message can’t get into the contemporary body. You’ve got to translate these things into contemporary life and experience. Mythology is a validation of experience, giving it its spiritual or psychological dimension. And if you have a lot of things that you can’t correlate with contemporary nature, you can’t handle it.”
Myth relates to narrative – the stories we tell ourselves. The scientific method, as Clemsy noted, focuses on the how – observable facts and results the can be replicated by others – where myth focuses on the why.
But those stories we tell ourselves shape what science finds, for good or ill.
For example, in the 18th century a commission of the French Academy of Sciences that included Antoine Lavoisier (“the father of modern chemistry”) conducted a study of a meteor, including a chemical analysis, that determined it was of earthly origin – a rock apparently struck by lightning – a conclusion arrived at in large part because everyone knows rocks don’t just fall down out of the sky. The peasants and farmers and other ordinary folk who had witnessed falling meteorites were a superstitious lot who no doubt misinterpreted what they saw.
As a result, museums in Dresden, Vienna, Copenhagen, Bern and Verone, not wanting to appear foolish or superstitious, purged their collections of meteors from two 16th century and four 17th century falls because, well . . . science! Within few years science caught up to reality and affirmed that meteorites do exist – but the opportunity to study the make-up and origins of those discarded samples was forever lost.
This example is one of many cited by Joseph Campbell and his fellow authors of Changing Images of Man (a futuristic study compiled in the mid-1970s for the Stanford Research Institute, a think tank now known as SRI International), noting that what science discovers is often limited by the collective image of humanity dominant in a given period – those background myths that shape our understanding of the universe. This is part of a case they made advocating scientific study of many things considered unscientific or superstitious at the time: biofeedback, dreaming, meditation, clairvoyance, telepathy, psychedelics, altered states of consciousness, yoga, etc.
Indeed, since then the science surrounding many of these (particularly the effects of yoga and meditation on well-being, the benefits of psychedelics, biofeedback, etc.) has opened up.
Of course, we don’t generally see an active myth as myth, but simply what is (“rocks don’t just fall down out of the sky, you know”), which can affect what science finds. So, while I would not identify science with myth, the two are entwined, whether we acknowledge it or not.
Good to see you back, Andreas!
Thanks Norland!
Rumor has it Michelangelo did know a little something about creativity and art. His poem not only adds clarity, but brings to mind a parallel observation by Campbell:
There’s that wonderful picture of Death playing the violin to the artist, by a Swiss painter named Böcklin. The artist is there with the palette and brush, and Death is playing the violin. That means that the eyes should be open to something of more cosmic import than simply the vicissitudes and excitements of your own petty life. Hearing the song that is beyond that of your own individual life cycle is the thing that opens you to wisdom. You can hear it in your life, interpreting it, reading it, not in terms of the calamities or boons of your individual existence, but as a message of what life is.”
“Mythic Reflections: an interview with Joseph Campbell,” by Tom Collins, which appeared a little over a year before Campbell’s own passing.
Neither Michelangelo nor Böcklin had the benefit of psychoanalytic theory; they derived their understanding of the relationship of creativity to death from their own experience. Though Freud may have supplied the terms, the libido and the death drive (aka todestrieb / thanatos / mortido / destrudo, depending on what theorist one references) did not originate with him, but are inseparable from the human experience.
We do seem to live in an endlessly creative universe. One difference between humans and other species, however, would seem to be that we are conscious of (or, perhaps, self-conscious about) the fact that we are going to die.
I’d like to toss into the mix another little nugget from Campbell, excerpted from a yet-to-be-published manuscript I’ve been editing. Asked where myths come from, he responds:
It’s the experience of death that I regard as the beginning of mythic thinking—the actual seeing of someone dead who was alive and talking to you yesterday—dead, cold, beginning to rot. Where did the life go? That’s the beginning of myth.
That’s what happened, I think, in the Paleolithic caves when burials came in. “I thought that was all you were, but now, my gosh, there’s another dimension to this.” And if that can be recognized after death, well, to have it recognized before death, look what it does!
In The Flight of the Wild Gander, that’s what I called the mythological dimension. It’s a little shift of focus, so that you and I sitting here, we are in the foreground of something. Back behind us one life is living in both of us, isn’t it? And consciousness—otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to talk. That’s what’s taken for granted somehow, but in mythology it isn’t taken for granted. The accent goes there, and then all of life takes on new perspective.
It is intriguing that those Paleolithic caves Campbell mentions mark the beginning of a creative explosion, one that continues to propel the human experiment to this very moment.
Another question comes to mind for you. For those of us who may not be artists or mystics, of what practical use is this knowledge? What possible difference does it make to know this? Hearkening back to the beginning of your essay, how does this dynamic relate to one’s personal life experience? Or to the culture at large?
Is this where psychology enters the picture?
Good question, Shaheda.
A bibliography suggests an article that’s being shared (whether yours or someone else’s). If the references in the bibliography are to web pages, feel free to go ahead with the raw links. Just be aware it might not post immediately, as that will require manual approval, and I’m not always on online. In fact, I’ve had tech issues that sidelined me most of the past 24 hours, though that seems to be resolved now (sometimes a laptop update simply goes awry).
Unfortunately, every day our website is probed for vulnerabilities by automated hackers, and our first priority has to be security. Our tech team recently changed and strengthened our security plug-in, and I’m still trying to get a handle on that. Seems that even hyperlinks are now requiring approval. As posts and participants continue to increase, I hope we can move beyond having to manually approve each such post, which makes me a choke point slowing the spontaneous flow of conversation.
As we grow, we’ll likely add other active moderators, which should speed that process, but we don’t have the traffic to justify that yet.
But apart from the need to authorize posts, one good reason for hyperlinking is that the person posting the link can click on the gear icon and select the option for the link to open in a new window. Especially if you have multiple links, it’s then easier to refer to the original post while checking out the link in a new window, rather than being pulled off site and having to continually navigate back and forth between the link and the post.
However, we are still feeling our way, trying to figure out the smoothest flow, so for now just do the best you can, using whichever method works, and be patient with me.
Thanks!
5. “Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions. And then being unexpectedly called away before it ends.”
Some places where this appears on the Internet list the source as Creative Mythology (the fourth and final book in The Masks of God tetralogy). Not sure how that happened – hard to imagine any volume where this line would be more out of place! Nor does it sound like something Joseph Campbell could relate to as, after talkies came out, he pretty much gave up going to the movies (apart from serendipitously catching 2001 Space Odyssey on a fluke when it came out in 1968 – which Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke have admitted was influenced by Campbell’s work – and then nothing until invited by George Lucas, sometime after Return of the Jedi was completed in 1983, to view all three films in the initial Star Wars trilogy at once).
JCF has been trying to track the source of this quote since at least 2004. At least with “Love is a friendship set to music,” we were able to determine who actually said it (E. Joseph Cossman), but no such luck here. It’s difficult proving a negative (how do you prove someone never said something?), but after 16 years of combing through Campbell’s published work, audio and video lectures, and multiple interviews, we have found no evidence that supports crediting Joseph Campbell with this humorous observation.
Chris,
Thank you for bringing up Eliot’s “Burnt Norton” – a compelling poem. You may be aware Joseph Campbell quotes the same lines as you, and a little more, in his discussion of the Still Point in The Inner Reaches of Outer Space (I find myself capitalizing “Still Point,” as if to emphasize the archetypal aspect of this image, congruent with the axis mundi).
From a couple other replies, seems I’m not the only one to appreciate your post.
What a deep dive, Marianne! Even though the YouTube video is no longer available, your detailed description makes up for that. What’s more, I was completely clueless about the origins of The Nutcracker Suite in a 1918 short story by E.T.A. Hoffman!
So many wonderful references in your piece. I especially appreciate the following:
Clara’s dolls that come to life are, like the doll in the story of “Vasilisa the Beautiful” (von Franz, 1995, pp. 192-96), symbolic of a young girl’s inner self, inner knowing, inner strength. Clara’s dolls assembled upon the shelf resemble her own life upon a shelf.”
Vasilisa in all her incarnations is one of my favorite figures from Russian fairy tales. The doll motif especially speaks to me; I taught junior high for years, and regularly introduced 7th grade students to Willim Gibson’s play, “The Miracle Worker,” where Helen Keller’s doll plays a similar role.
Thank you for sharing!
Wonderful resources, Shaheda. However, I don’t think Kenneth is seeing your comments, as he doesn’t have notifications enabled for this post. However, he asked this specific question in the Works of Joseph Campbell forum, and his notifications are enabled there, so you might want to copy and paste these to that conversation, which can be found here.
Blissings to you!
FYI – Shaheda has posted the complete essay excerpted above in the Share Your Work Corner of The Conversation with a Thousand Faces forum; you’ll find it here.
Nandu writes:
I have come to the conclusion that the caste system is endemic to India. It’s not an aberration; it’s what defines society. And it’s spread across all religions – a Dalit is a Dalit, whether Hindu, Christian or Muslim.
Joseph Campbell observes, “in the old agrarian societies there were primarily four classes of human beings: four social strata” – but only in India has this solidified into so rigid a structure. He believes this might be related to the concept of reincarnation. However, as you note, Nandu, the caste system is not confined to any one religion, but is how society is organized.
What do you think is the difference between the Indian subcontinent and the civilizations of Sumer, Akkad, and so many others that shared essentially the same social divisions?
James writes
But more and more I keep finding myself questioning: ‘is what I’m saying and thinking a reflection of what I truly think and feel; or are these things echo’s from Joseph’s influence?'”
When I first read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and even more so when I viewed the six episodes of Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers, my mind was blown. I would find myself enthusiastically nodding in agreement – not because Joseph Campbell announced new truths I had never heard before, proclaiming “This is the way; walk ye therefore in it!” (like the the biblical dogma pounded into me as a child).
My wonder and joy and agreement wasn’t because what Campbell said was received with the force of revelation; rather, I was enraptured because here was someone clearly and concisely saying what I had long held to be true, understandings I had arrived at on my own and held inside. Joe’s gift is that he was able to articulate what I knew to be true but had so far been unable to put into words – which seems a sentiment shared by many many many Campbellophiles.
Of course I went through a phase of unqualified acceptance; truth be told, I still have a tendency to believe most criticism of Campbell comes from those not fully familiar with his work, and so my default setting when it comes to criticism is to try to understand what the specific criticism is and what prompted it, then plumb Campbell’s work to see if the way his work is being portrayed is what he actually believed, or a projection from his critic (e.g., those who, like Brendan Gill, believe “follow your bliss” is a prescription for lazy hedonism, rather than advice to engage in the difficult of work of discovering who one really is and what one truly seeks).
Over time, I have found areas where Campbell and I are not in complete agreement – such as his original conception of what the mythological role of women should be today (at the same time, I do understand where he is coming from, and acknowledge that his perception evolved and matured over the course of his life).
But most areas of disagreement are in areas outside the field of myth. I disagree with his stance as WWII erupted that this war was no business of ours – but then, today we have the advantage of knowing facts not in evidence to him at the time (such as the horrors of the Holocaust); similarly, I disagree with his support of Richard Nixon’s actions in Cambodia (which, especially the secret bombings, I view as an impeachable offense) and his opposition to protests of the Vietnam War, his animus toward the New York Times, his dislike of Democrats in general, and what I feel is an unfortunate misreading of the emergence of the counterculture in the Sixties and early Seventies.
But all those are personal peccadilloes and political stances; what is refreshing is how much of that he managed to keep separate from his work in the field of myth.
I’d like to thank Dr. John Bucher for spending time with us this last week in Conversations of a Higher Order. Your commitment of time and generosity is much appreciated, John.
Two take-ways for me is how the discussion here focused on both the practical aspect of mentoring and how it manifests in our own lives, as well as the underlying archetypal dimension (mythologization remains an ongoing process, ever in play). Though John must move on, the conversation continues . . .
Robert – as usual, I appreciate your contribution to the discussion. Of course, I’m not so much preaching, as agreeing with you – and providing a little insight for those who might read this thread and assume all criticism is automatically negative.
There is no dearth of hagiography and hero worship attached to Joseph Campbell – indeed, that is one aspect that dissuades some academics from taking him seriously. Part of our task at JCF, as his literary heir, is to dispel that lilac fog, which made Joe extremely uncomfortable during his lifetime. (That’s one of the reasons he shied away from biography and was reluctant to discuss his own life; he did not want to be viewed as a guru, but preferred the material to speak for itself.)
In general, the first works published after a maverick thinker and philosopher passes from the scene are primarily hagiography (e.g. the Larsen’s bio, A Fire in the Mind: though it contains a wealth of details about his life, the authors are hardly objective – not to diss Robin and Stephen, who did their best to take a balanced approach; nevertheless, works created by disciples tend to present their subjects in the best possible light, glossing over or explaining away any character defects and/or flaws in reasoning). Heck, even The Power of Myth tends to place Joe on a pedestal.
The next phase after a popular author/thinker passes are works that draw back the curtain to challenge his/her approach and position in the pantheon of greats; often these critiques, too, are far from objective, focused more on deflating the subject’s reputation.
And then, over time, more objective and comprehensive works appear that examine and take into account positive as well as negative evaluations. That seems the phase we are moving into now. Hence the value of Nandu’s honest assessment of his areas of disagreement with Campbell’s approach; Nandu doesn’t throw Campbell out, but qualifies his embrace of Joe’s mythological perspective through the lens of his own experience and understanding. It does my heart good to know he (and, I hope, others) feel safe enough to share their honest criticisms here in COHO.
(Not to suggest we do away with hagiography and hero worship; though I, too, strive to be objective, there’s no doubt I’ve drunk the Kool-aid myself.)
As to the name Joseph, there is much to unpack there (not the least of which is the mythological figure of Joseph the Dreamer in scripture), though that should probably take place in a different thread than one discussing areas of disagreement with Campbell’s ideas.
Namaste
Robert,
Yes – if Campbell’s ideas are to be taken seriously, criticism is essential, as opposed to hagiography and hero worship.
Of course, in popular usage the word “criticism” carries a negative connotation, given its relationship to the verb “criticize,” which suggests complaint and negative judgement (“How dare you criticize my choice/beliefs/appearance!”) . . . but that’s not how Campbell and his colleagues in the academic and literary worlds read the word: for them, criticism takes the form of a critique – an analysis, overview, or evaluation of a work that includes good points and bad, and places the work within a larger picture.
In an earlier version of this website, we included a Joseph Campbell Amazon aStore, with over a thousand titles: we included a section of works by authors and thinkers who influenced Campbell’s development, another section for works Campbell referenced in his writings, and so on – and we made sure we had a separate category for Campbell Criticism – which included Robert Segal’s and Robert Ellwood’s books, among others. Far from bashing Campbell, most of these authors highlight more than just disagreements – they also log positive contributions from Campbell, and note areas where they wish he had been more clear.
Some critiques resonate more than others with me, but even those where I feel the author misses the mark (much of Robert Segal’s analysis, which may be because there wasn’t that much of Campbell’s work available at the time, so he missed much that is explained or amplified in posthumous publications), I find them generally worth the read.
Can’t say the same though for Brendan Gil’s accusations of anti-Semitism, which proved petty and personal. The link you provide to “Bashing Joseph Campbell” does a good job of illustrating how thin Gil’s charges are (especially the absence of evidence or examples, not to mention how Gil, for someone who claimed to know Campbell well, demonstrates ignorance of what “follow your bliss” means and other key elements of Joseph’s mythological perspective), and how that alleged anti-Semitic streak isn’t borne out in Campbell’s work (quite the opposite: respected Cormac McCarthy scholar Rick Wallach, who began his career assisting Joseph Campbell back in the 1960s, and also happens to be Jewish, noted in a personal communication that Campbell wrote the four volumes of The Masks of God as his response to the horror of the Holocaust). Gil’s tantrum is not criticism (not in the academic or literary sense), but simply a personal attack designed to hurt Campbell’s reputation.
Nandu,
Now I’m having fun! Thank you for your amplification – and for adding one more title to my reading list (Ms. Figueira owes you a commission). Your review of Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths of Identity should definitely be part of this conversation. All inspire further thoughts and questions, as well as a deeper dive into Campbell’s material on Hinduism (timely, as this summer I devoted many hours to reviewing the text and endnotes of Oriental Mythology in detail, providing a bit of a copy-editing assist to David as prepares the text to publish a new physical edition of this volume during the coming year).
I too will take some time to absorb your words, letting them and the thoughts they evoke simmer on the back of my brain, before I respond, but I love the idea of discussing this in greater detail. (For example, just tossing out a nugget: Campbell didn’t view Raja Rammohan and the Brahmo Samaj as Hinduism per se, but as a semi-Christian, semi-Hindu monotheistic movement, though one that did influence Hinduism).
I can see this conversation bifurcating – I wonder if we should perhaps devote a thread to a critique of Campbell’s perception of Hinduism (what he got wrong, what he got right), and another to the mysticism criticism; if we try to juggle both those balls here, those arriving later to this conversation might have trouble sorting out all those tangled threads. If you don’t mind, I’ll look into admin options to see if maybe we can branch off into a separate thread.
Of course, my intention isn’t to change your mind on either subject, but to expand our individual understandings through the mutual exchange of ideas (already, your follow-up response has altered my reading of your original post). One area where believe we clearly agree (as, I suspect, would Campbell) is how “the Vedic myth” is hijacked by Hindu politicians, to ill effect.
Thanks again for airing these areas of disagreement.
James,
You write
I keep coming back to the role archetypes play in the different influences the mentor makes in it’s appearance in our lives whether as teacher or mythical advisor.”
Thank you for returning to this subject; indeed, the Mentor is itself a potent archetypal figure, grounded in myth – and we ignore an archetype at our peril.
This, for me, is the central passage in John’s essay:
However, the mentorship process has become complicated in some corners of American culture. Many potential mentors are still focused on pulling their own swords from various stones. Others doubt they have achieved the valuable wisdom they assume necessary to pass on to those further down the path. Many young people have not yet discovered they need mentorship or rebel against the concept altogether. The overabundance of information we are exposed to online and in the media has many convinced that any wisdom that can be acquired is available with only a click of a mouse. In the midst of great progress, we can forget the value of experience and the important role that those who’ve acquired it play.
This does ring true. Archetypal energies will not be ignored. In the absence of a society that has space and place where such energy is observed and honored, what form might this dynamic then take? (I think of some mighty strange helpers and guides who have emerged the past couple years, initiating many, including a few of my friends and relatives, into strange shadowy worlds.)
How, then, do we properly honor this archetype? What I take away from John’s essay is that we do so not just through being mentored, but when we step up to the plate, actively acknowledging, embracing, and giving life to the Mentor born of our own experience and life wisdom.
