Stephen Gerringer
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Over the years I have heard from more than a few persons claiming to be Joseph Campbell’s successor (which to me is a major red-flag). Ironically, there are quite a few individuals furthering Campbell’s work in the fields of mythology, comparative religion, depth psychology, the creative imagination, self-development, and more – but none of those doing the heavy lifting are claiming to be the new Joseph Campbell. They are simply following their passion.
I am reminded of something Joe’s friend and colleague, Professor of Comparative Religion David Miller, said during a conference in 1992 titled “A Fire in the Mind: An Evaluation of Joseph Campbell’s Creative and Intellectual Influence”, that begs repeating:
. . . as one reflects on Joseph Campbell’s work, the question becomes: Who is the true follower of Joseph Campbell? Jesus preached the Kingdom and got the Church. Jung proclaimed the soul and got the Jung Institute. Campbell told us to follow our own bliss . . . it would be an extreme irony if, in attempting to follow his advice, we ended by following his bliss!
The question – Who is the true student of Joseph Campbell? – is like a Zen question. It is a bit tricky. One should not imagine too quickly, if ever, that one knows the answer to it. Is the true follower of Joseph Campbell the one who follows Joseph Campbell, or is it the one who follows his or her own true self?
You can find a print edition of Miller’s remarks here
“Conversations of a Higher Order” was chosen as the name of the original forum on the JCF website a couple decades back for several reasons. In part it points to discussions beyond what one often finds on bulletin boards and social media (rather than post pictures of cats and what one had for breakfast, we’re here to discuss what transcends, or is beyond, the normal order of perceived consensus reality – mythology pointing to a “higher order” beyond that of the mundane world where we spend most of our time fighting over sandwiches).
But the name itself also conveys an expectation – conversations of a “higher order” are not given to innuendo, brawling, flame wars, name-calling, or ad hominem arguments. Joseph Campbell himself provides the example: our emphasis is on civil discourse, as laid out in the Forum Guidelines.
I really appreciate your detailed recounting of Amaterasu’s primary myth. Campbell believes her story pre-dates the Bronze Age. Here are some of his thoughts on the subject, excerpted from an interview with Cate Miodini from 1986 in Anima: An Experiential Journal:
The earlier tradition, so far as my findings go, is the one where the sun is feminine and the moon masculine. The moon is the image of the sacrifice that dies and is resurrected. The moon dies in the light of the sun, and is again born from the light of the sun. And so the sun is the mother of the moon.
That makes the sun feminine. The fire of the sun and the fire of the womb that converts seed into life are equivalent. Also the fire on the sacrificial altar consumes the victim. These are all associated with a mythic consciousness that dates at least from the early bronze age. Here there is a deep sense of the melancholy and tragic quality in life, since the moon, the symbol of life’s death and resurrection, carries its own shadow within itself, as we all do.
You can see something of the influence of myth on language when you consider the Indo-European family of languages. Here nouns have genders, but it’s strange how these change. In German they have a masculine moon and a feminine sun: der Mond, die Sonne. This accords with a myth that extends all the way from the River Rhine to the China Sea, where in Japan the goddess Amaterasu is the sun, her brother being the moon god. Then there’s a myth about the moon brother and sun sister that is known to practically all the circumpolar peoples of the North.
Thanks, Mars, for the term “thri-bhuvana-jayi” and the rich meanings you shared with us. I had not come across this before. Your post, and Nandakishore’s, underscores the value of tracing words back to their origins to uncover embedded meanings, which often have their source in the mythic imagination.
I keep close at hand two different etymological dictionaries for exploring the origins of words we use in English. Even though we may not be conscious of all the multi-layered meanings as we speak, those veiled origins and associations still exert an influence in shaping our thoughts and how we engage the world around us..
I wish my parents had been that conscious and aware when they named me. My first and middle names are Stephen Lawrence. My older brothers are named after relatives, but there is no Stephen in our family – not sure how they settled on that. The “Lawrence,” on the other hand, comes from Lawrence Welk, a big band leader and adept accordion player my mother adored.
However, there is an unintended resonance between the meanings of both my names. “Stephen” is from the Greek name Στέφανος (Stéphanos), derived from the Greek word στέφανος (stéphanos), meaning “wreath, crown” and, by extension “reward, honor, renown, fame” (from the verb στέφειν (stéphein): “to encircle, to wreathe” – related to the tradition of crowning winners of contests (whether athletes or poets) with laurel wreaths.
My middle name, Lawrence, is a form of the Latin Laurentius, which can mean a man from Laurentium, a town south of Rome, but also a laurel wreath! It is derived from the Latin laurus, for laurel tree or laurel wreath (which is why English-speaking nations honor a poet by designating him or her a poet laureate).
Not sure what that portends, other than that all should bow down and honor me (which I’m sure is obvious to everybody no matter what my name – lol), but I have to appreciate this unintended serendipity on the part of my parents.
Joseph Campbell did not speak in soundbites. It’s not easy finding little snippets of video, absent the larger context, to highlight on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and elsewhere – but JCF’s team is doing a wonderful job of posting segments that inspire poignant reflections and prompt passing viewers to delve deeper.
Once every week or two I visit that link and randomly click on a link, just to re-boot my mentality with a two to five minute dose of Joe . . .
Joseph Campbell did not speak in soundbites. It’s not easy finding little snippets of video, absent the larger context, to highlight on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and elsewhere – but JCF’s team is doing a wonderful job of posting segments that inspire poignant reflections and prompt passing viewers to delve deeper.
Once every week or two I visit that link and randomly click on a link, just to re-boot my mentality with a two to five minute dose of Joe . . .
True indeed, Mars – this is the trajectory of the Hero’s Journey reduced to its core – but that simple structure allows endless variations (all those “missing pieces”), which makes these motif so useful for writers.
Love your reference to poets and writers on folklore and fairy tales, Mary. I have been inspired by a number of writers on related themes since Campbell’s passing. Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art, David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, Ann Baring’s and Jules Cashford’s stellar The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, and Ray Grasse’s The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our Lives are among my favorite nonfiction authors on the subject from the decade following Joe’s death.
Howard McCord has been completely off my radar – so thanks for the personal recommendation!
Thanks for sharing, Don. The sample Amazon provides does a good job of encapsulating the four primary functions Joseph Campbell ascribes to myth. (Little bit of trivia – there is also a fifth function and a sixth function, mentioned in Changing Images of Man – a futurist study Campbell collaborated on with several others for SRI, the Stanford Research Institute think tank, back in the 1970s – very hard to find today, apart from libraries. These were minor functions – the “editorial” function, and the “magical” function – compared to the four primary functions Campbell identifies).
Johanna writes
Beyond Jung, it has been helpful to read the conversations and pieces contributed to these forums in understanding myths from wider perspective.
Jung is always a good place to begin – as Campbell notes, “Jung gave me my best clues” as to how to read myths. I don’t throw out Jung, but I add to him, by exploring the perspective of post-Jungian (e.g., James Hillman) and non-Jungian (Walter Burkert, Marina Warner, etc.) writers on myths and fairy tales.
I completely agree with your sentiment, Johanna, that “there is something in the myths of ancient times and the literature that followed , that can be integrated into what kind of new myth we might create today.” In fact, I think it’s inevitable. I am just not sure how conscious it will be. Campbell observed that you can’t determine ahead of time what the new myth will be any more than you can decide exactly what you are going to dream tonight; both emerge from the unconscious psyche.
But I do believe we see many of these themes emerging in literature. I especially appreciate your approach to works like Beowulf, guiding students into looking beyond the surface to the depths that Jung helps open.
I know your emphasis is on medieval literature. It does seem the emphasis in popular culture today is shifting from written text to films and carefully crafted television series. I am curious as to your thoughts on whether some of these have a place beside lasting works of literature, or are they all simply fleeting ephemera?
Stephen Larsen, Joseph Campbell’s biographer, practices neurofeedback and has authored a book on the subject. He’d most likely be able to answer your question.
This is short notice, as it’s today, but the Atlanta and North Georgia JCF Mythological RoundTable® Groups on Sunday, May 31 at 4:00 pm E.T. are hosting an online meeting about the Mythic Imagination with Dr. Stephen Larsen. He will share stories of his friendship with the late Joseph Campbell and wife Jean Erdman who recently passed on May 4 after living to be 104! Stephen will also discuss the necessity of conscious myth-making and the ancient lineage of mythology by way of the shaman and the Hero’s Journey. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of his presentation.
You must register to gain access to the Zoom link, which can be done here. The sponsors suggest donation of $20 so that they may honor their guest’s time. However, if this is outside of your means, please email mythologyATL@gmail.com in order to reserve a scholarship spot.
Happy Day, Drew!
Welcome to Conversations of a Higher Order, where you clearly bring so much to the table! I enjoyed poking around your website, and appreciate the blend of modalities you use – and especially the recognition that myth is written in our bodies.
Myth and the body. Myth and nature. Our mind makes myth not from its own rational programs, but in response to suggestions from the body as to what’s needed.
Joseph Campbell, in Myth & the Body: A Colloquy with Joseph Campbell, by Stanley Keleman
More audio lectures have been added over the last three years, by the way. Joe left behind roughly a thousand hours of lectures, many on cassette tapes from the seventies and eighties, many on reel-to-reel tapes from the the late 1950s and 1960s, and even some wire spool recordings from earlier. Can’t just feed those into a computer; heck, for hundreds of hours of lectures the equipment to play them is difficult to find, much less digitize them – along with the difficulty of finding audio wizards with the skills to know how to use that equipment.
Most of those have been digitized now, which proved an expensive and time-consuming process; though only a small quantity (maybe a touch over 10%) have good enough quality for commercial release (and even those have to carefully mixed), the rest are available, states and hisses and all, in the Joseph Campbell Collection at the Opus Archives and Research Center on the campus of the Pacifica Graduate Institute. If you’ve listened to all the audio lectures that were up on Spotify or Pandora, you do indeed have a pretty comprehensive grasp of the depth and breadth of Campbell’s mythological perspective. (Over the last three years I believe lectures in Series II, Volume 6 and Series III Volume I have been released).
I’m so glad you are here. Feel free to jump into any ongoing conversation, or start a topic of your own. The FAQ, which opens with an overview of how to navigate the forums, is pinned to the top of each forum category (along with forum guidelines) for easy reference.
Namaste!
Happy Day, Drew!
Welcome to Conversations of a Higher Order, where you clearly bring so much to the table! I enjoyed poking around your website, and appreciate the blend of modalities you use – and especially the recognition that myth is written in our bodies.
Myth and the body. Myth and nature. Our mind makes myth not from its own rational programs, but in response to suggestions from the body as to what’s needed.
Joseph Campbell, in Myth & the Body: A Colloquy with Joseph Campbell, by Stanley Keleman
More audio lectures have been added over the last three years, by the way. Joe left behind roughly a thousand hours of lectures, many on cassette tapes from the seventies and eighties, many on reel-to-reel tapes from the the late 1950s and 1960s, and even some wire spool recordings from earlier. Can’t just feed those into a computer; heck, for hundreds of hours of lectures the equipment to play them is difficult to find, much less digitize them – along with the difficulty of finding audio wizards with the skills to know how to use that equipment.
Most of those have been digitized now, which proved an expensive and time-consuming process; though only a small quantity (maybe a touch over 10%) have good enough quality for commercial release (and even those have to carefully mixed), the rest are available, states and hisses and all, in the Joseph Campbell Collection at the Opus Archives and Research Center on the campus of the Pacifica Graduate Institute. If you’ve listened to all the audio lectures that were up on Spotify or Pandora, you do indeed have a pretty comprehensive grasp of the depth and breadth of Campbell’s mythological perspective. (Over the last three years I believe lectures in Series II, Volume 6 and Series III Volume I have been released).
I’m so glad you are here. Feel free to jump into any ongoing conversation, or start a topic of your own. The FAQ, which opens with an overview of how to navigate the forums, is pinned to the top of each forum category (along with forum guidelines) for easy reference.
Namaste!
