Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja), c. 11th century, Chola period, copper alloy, 68.3 x 56.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) I first heard of the 11th-century bronze Shíva Naṭarāja statue in 1991, while watching Power of Myth —the television series that made Campbell famous in Brazil, at least to me and others of my generation. In the book based on the 1988 PBS documentary , chapter VIII (named Masks of Eternity), Bill Moyers mentions it to Campbell, who briefly explains that Shíva's dance is the dance of the universe, since there is death and rebirth there at the same time in an eternal becoming.  Not by chance, when I went to India for the first time in 2014, I bought a small replica, which is at the entrance of my house in São Paulo. In this quarter of a century I have immersed myself in the studies of mythology, a wide scenario that was revealed to me when watching the conversations between Campbell and Moyers. So I was very happy to have the chance to read the book The Ecstasy of Being and come across, in part 1 of the Symbolism and the Dance chapter, the same Shíva image, but with a much more in-depth explanation of it. In it, Campbell talks about the tradition of opposites in the world mythological tradition. As it was peculiar to him, in his profound erudition, he moved with the same ease from tarot card 21, The World, to the Indian statuette, passing through the book of Genesis, Plato, and Tiresias, among others. At one point he even joked that you could continue to quote forever (which wouldn't be a bad idea, coming from him). But then he lands on the image of Shíva, for him the most eloquent and complete symbol of all opposites. At this point, I picked my little Shíva up and began to read the book's passage while searching it for Campbell's findings. Mine was obviously a rather simple replica of the 11th century original, but still there it was, the divine foot planted on the dwarf named Not-Knowing, while the left leg was raised with the foot pointing to the right. For Campbell, the first foot planted in the earth indicated the arrival of the soul in life and the second, raised, its release. Here we come and from here, one day, we take the exit door.  I looked carefully at the piece’s hand in front of me. Or rather, four hands and two pairs of arms. The right hand, stretched out to the same side, holds a little drum that goes tick-tick-tick, signaling the time that flows in everyday life. On the opposite side, however, the left hand holds a flame that sets fire to the clock's veil of time and represents Kairos, the sacred time, and also the destruction of the known. The second right hand is flat in front of the god, suggesting, according to Campbell, a “don't be afraid” gesture. The second left hand, in a position as if it was holding a baby in front of the body, points to the raised foot, suggesting that in the end it is all an illusion or, as Campbell says, “the promise of the release”. In my modest figurine I can't tell the difference, but Campbell says that the original Shíva´s bronze wears female earrings in the left ear and male earrings in the right—the usual representation of genders, considering the side of the body, in most traditions. In his hair there is both the crescent moon that symbolizes life and the skull that signifies its end. While everything dances in Shiva´s bronze, Campbell remembers that his face is absolutely inert, showing the immovable point of stillness within—with which, as we know, Campbell was familiar not from dancing, but from athletics in his college years.  Before moving on in his thoughts towards the dervishes, Campbell recalls that the dancing god is a symbol of the union of time and eternity. I take the figurine in my hands again. I see the dance of flames that regularly spring from the circle that surrounds Shiva and its complex symbolic conjunctions of opposites. And, as a Jungian analyst, I remember Jung and his notion of the coniunctio , the recombining of polarities such as day and night, masculine and feminine. But, also, Jung’s concept of the transcendent function, the manifestation of the energy that arises from the tension of opposites. Neither still nor in motion, so that if we were stuck in one of the polarities, we would miss its totality. However, it is precisely the union of these opposites that gives rise to a third, synthesizing element which gives life to a new perception of reality. And what comes to my mind is that, as Campbell used to say, mythology is the “song of the universe,” the whispered tune underneath the dance. The point where mythology meets both the dance and the music of the spheres.

Star Wars has always been powered by a timeless motif: wise mentors guiding the next generation of heroes and heroines toward their destiny. However, when the saga introduced Maz Kanata in The Force Awakens (2015), she was unlike any mentor we’d seen before. She offered guidance like the kind that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda had given Luke Skywalker, but there was something different about Maz—something distinctly feminine . Eye goddesses and visionary insights For a thousand years, Maz Kanata has overseen a lakeside castle—a raucous crossroads for smugglers, seekers, rogues, and royalty alike. She’s not a Jedi, but she’s keenly attuned to the Force. And although she stands just over three feet tall, her presence looms large. One of Maz’s most striking features is her oversized goggles, always perched atop her small orange face. These lenses allow her to see beyond surfaces, into the truth of those around her. It's a powerful metaphor with a deep history. Joseph Campbell noted the significance of feminine figures with exaggerated eyes, suggesting that ancient Eye Goddesses represented a shift from deities of fertility to those guiding spiritual growth ( Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine , 80). Maz’s role is not to give birth to the next hero. Her calling is to see deep within those that stand before her and speak the words they need to hear, pointing lost souls toward their true destiny. Han Solo knows this when he brings fellow rebels Rey and Finn to meet Maz, seeking wisdom for an impossible quest. Maz, seeing right through Han’s agenda and usual bravado, speaks not to the external task he’s come for help with, but to the internal journey that Han has been avoiding. Looking deep into his eyes, she says, “If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I’m looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run … Han, you’ve been running away from this fight for too long. Go home.” In a rare moment for him, Han Solo is left speechless. The myth behind the mentor: Campbell’s Wise One and Mother Goddess In the grand tradition of Star Wars ’ multi-layered mentors, Maz (Lupita Nyong’o) represents more than just another wise figure doling out advice. She taps into a mythic legacy stretching back thousands of years, embodying two of the most enduring archetypes Joseph Campbell identified in his studies of mythology: the Wise One and the Mother Goddess. In doing so, Maz Kanata offers a new way of seeing what it means to guide a heroic figure. Campbell argues that, early in the monomyth, the adventurer meets a “protective figure (often a little old crone … ) who provides amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass” ( The Hero with a Thousand Faces , 57). This Wise One gives supernatural aid and tests worthiness. Later, in the stage Campbell calls “Meeting with the Goddess,” the hero encounters a maternal presence—“the epitome of beauty … mother, sister, mistress, bride”—whose embrace promises renewal and belonging (92). These two archetypes are frequently distinct (Merlin vs. Virgin Mary), yet Campbell notes they can merge into a single figure who is at once crone-sage and nurturing goddess. Maz Kanata is one of those rare figures who seamlessly combines both archetypes. Maz Kanata offers a new way of seeing what it means to guide a heroic figure. Maz as the Wise One Like other crones and witches of myth, Maz stands at the liminal threshold between worlds—literally. Her castle on Takodana sits between the wild forest and the placid lake, a place of crossroads and decisions, between safety and peril. In her grand hall, Maz tests Rey and Finn with difficult questions, arms them with knowledge, and bestows a powerful talisman on the story’s heroine: Luke Skywalker’s lost lightsaber. Offering the saber isn’t just a cinematic moment—it’s a mythic one. In Campbell’s view, the hero's first boon is often a magical object given by a wise elder, designed to aid them against the forces of darkness. For Rey, this moment is a first glimpse of her greater purpose. Through this mentorship, Maz propels Rey across the “Refusal of the Call” into active participation in a galactic destiny. Maz as the Mother Goddess Maz’s style is different from other mentors we encounter in Star Wars . She is no stern, distant sage. She’s warm, playful, and fiercely protective. She teases Han when he first sees her, calling Solo’s sidekick, Chewbacca, her “boyfriend.” She hugs patrons at knee height. And in her roaring tavern, she enforces a single, simple rule: “ No fighting .” Her hall becomes a sanctuary—chaotic, but safe—where all manner of beings coexist under her maternal care. To Rey, abandoned, yearning for belonging, and just wanting to return home, Maz offers a motherly comfort fused with unflinching truth that she has never known. “The belonging you seek is ahead of you, not behind,” Maz counsels her. In this moment, she embodies a rare fusion of the Crone’s wisdom and the Mother’s compassion. Rey’s journey through the Underworld Campbell labels the first deep, interior crisis “The Belly of the Whale”— a plunge across a threshold into symbolic death and rebirth (74). In The Force Awakens , Rey quite literally descends below Maz’s hearth. Drawn by whispers, she enters a stone passage lined with relics and catacombs once used by Jedi, discovering Luke’s saber in a chest. Touching it quickly batters her psyche with a kaleidoscopic Force vision—masked corridors, falling Bespin vents, her adversary, Kylo, in snow. The basement is thus an underworld in miniature, where Rey’s old identity (“I’m no one from Jakku”) dies and the nascent Jedi is conceived. Rey flees from the saber, but runs directly into Maz, who offers it once more. “Take it,” Maz says. When Rey refuses, Maz respects her choice but speaks gently of the Force and of a light that has always been with her. The encounter fuses the roles of mentor and goddess into a single act of unconditional guidance. Rey accepts Maz’s invitation and takes the saber. Later, during her duel with Kylo Ren, she remembers Maz’s words—and awakens to the Force at last. A quiet, unwavering confidence In the vast Star Wars mythology, mentors sometimes split along two archetypal lines. Yoda embodies the sage but not the nurturer. Shmi Skywalker is a mother, but not a guide. Leia Organa eventually becomes both, but only after her heroic arc. Maz Kanta, however, arrives already complete and integrated. She is playful, wise, maternal, and fiercely attuned to the journey of others. Her example broadens what mentorship can look like—not through command or combat, but through the quiet, unwavering confidence that the Force lives within even the most unlikely soul. For the audience, she reminds us of something older than anything from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. True wisdom doesn’t just challenge the hero—it nurtures their process of becoming. MythBlast authored by: John Bucher   is a renowned mythologist and story expert who has been featured on the BBC ,  the History Channel ,  the LA Times ,  The Hollywood Reporter  and on numerous other international outlets . He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation  and is a writer, podcaster, storyteller, and speaker. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation, bringing his deep understanding of narrative and myth to a wide array of audiences. He is the author of six influential books on storytelling, including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times  Best Selling authors, YouTube influencers, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, magicians, and cast members from Saturday Night Live . Holding a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology, he integrates scholarly insights with practical storytelling techniques, exploring the profound connections between myth, culture, and personal identity. His expertise has helped shape compelling narratives across various platforms, enriching the way stories are told and experienced globally. This MythBlast was inspired by Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine and the archetype of The Wise One. Latest Podcast In this episode, we welcome Maria Souza - Comparative Mythologist, poet, educator, and host of the Women and Mythology podcast on the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s MythMaker Podcast Network. Maria’s work bridges myth, ecology, and the sacred. With advanced degrees in Comparative Mythology and Ecology & Spirituality—and years working in the Brazilian Amazon with Indigenous communities—she brings a unique and powerful perspective to the relevance of myth in our lives today. Her book Wild Daughters explores feminine initiation through myth and poetry, and her workshops and mentorships help women reclaim archetypal wisdom and sovereignty through mythic storytelling.In this rich conversation with JCF’s Joanna Gardner, Maria reflects on her journey, the deep initiatory stories of the feminine, and how myth can be a living, healing force for our time. Find our more about Maria at https://www.womenandmythology.com/ Listen Here This Week's Highlights "I can tell you I could easily recognize my own material [in Star Wars]. I thought it was marvelous. I was really excited. It seems to me in the history of Western art, this is a major work. It speaks to the multitude—it’s talking to young people and old people—those to whom the mythic imagery must be addressed. The elite can sit home and read and soak themselves in these great things, but it’s the general public that must be informed of these images and ideas." -- Joseph Campbell Myth and Meaning , 158 Kundalini Yoga: The God Syllable "AUM" See More Videos Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

Copyright: Starwars.com I hope that you had a chance to read John Bucher’s introduction  to the theme of the MythBlast series in 2025. As John observes, the cinema is one of the last remaining places that transports us from the realm of the mundane into the numinous, making it very worthwhile to examine it through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s work. Exploring a different archetype every month, our writers will illuminate how each one presents itself on-screen with delicious variations while yet maintaining common characteristics that aggregate under the archetype’s umbrella. I am thrilled to be both the editor of the series and a contributor this month for The Fool. A very human droid I have chosen for the focus of my article a much-beloved character from the Star Wars  Universe: C-3PO, often just called Threepio. Although technically a(n an)droid, Threepio is quite human in many respects. In fact, he and his droid sidekick, R2-D2 (Artoo), carry the bulk of the first quarter of the original 1977 movie, Episode IV: A New Hope . While we quickly grasp that Artoo and Threepio provide comic relief with their banter, by examining Threepio as The Fool we can gain a deeper appreciation for both how he functions and how he resonates with viewers. The Fool often exhibits qualities that keen audiences grasp quickly: a childlike innocence and naivete, blithe disregard for societal rules and norms, simplistic and limited worldviews, and a form of courage and carefreeness that comes from being unaware of conventions and situations. Certainly Threepio fits most of these. His wide-open eyes, combined with his mouth permanently agape, give him a constant look of wonder. His limited movement and lack of fighting capabilities make him seem as non-threatening and defenseless as a child. Threepio often can tend to pontificate, give too much detail on a subject, or not pick up on the social clues that his input or presence is not valued. From the film’s opening, he establishes a pattern of disinterest in the grand struggles of the rebels against the Empire—he worries far more about self-preservation than greater causes. Joseph Campbell famously spoke to Bill Moyers about Star Wars  in the interviews that comprise The Power of Myth . Campbell at one point focuses on Darth Vader’s mask which, when removed, shows a man “who has not developed his humanity. He’s a robot” (178). In some ways, the robot Threepio is more human than Vader, in that aspects of his humanity seem developed. However, Threepio’s mask, unlike Vader’s, is fear —the expression that his face carries can be both wonder and horror. Indeed, the one very non-Fool aspect that differentiates Threepio from most Fools, is an over developed survival mechanism—his utterances such as “We’re doomed” and “This is madness” constantly portray dread at his situation. While the Tarot Fool inattentively walks over the cliffside, Threepio is hypervigilant for cliffs of all kinds: a neurotic Fool. While the Tarot Fool inattentively walks over the cliffside, Threepio is hypervigilant for cliffs of all kinds: a neurotic Fool. Holding our shared fears As much as we think of heroic protagonists as fearless, closer to the truth is that they either manage or repress their anxieties in the name of taking action. British film critic Rob Ager (on his YouTube channel Collative Learning) speaks of one of Threepio’s functions in the films: he is the one character allowed to express out loud “the negative emotional baggage that the heroes of the story have to drag about” ( “Star Wars: the hidden complexities of C3PO (character analysis) Part One,”  00:58:50 – 00:58:56). Moreover, Threepio does so with the assistance of computer-driven precision about the odds of survival or failure.  In a sense, Threepio’s worry is pure . While we, the audience, tend to lean into the belief that heroes will succeed and everything will turn out alright because “that’s how heroic stories go,” Threepio’s assessments of situations are both coldly rational and  bypass our own management and repression of fears about the heroes’ future victories. He functions in the films, not simply as a robot who can serve the heroes’ logistical needs in achieving their goals (something which the audience could not ), but as the deep soul’s expressions about the anxiety of survival (something the audience is sensing, whether conscious of that fact or not). One other aspect of Threepio’s embodiment of the Fool relates to the comic aspect I mentioned before. In his truth-telling and breaking of social protocols, he never conveys heaviness, anger, or hostility. This lightness of delivery makes it easy to ignore his hypervigilance and even find humor in it. While Threepio “poo-poos” the heroes’ plans as “madness,” not once is he banished from the fellowship. Campbell spoke metaphorically about this tolerance in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living : "As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you" (20). By allowing the flighty Threepio to do his worry-wart thing, both the other characters and the audience can laugh at and give spiritual distance to the defeatism that would cripple their enterprise. “Yes-And” courage My fellow MythBlast authors and JCF colleagues Joanna Gardner  and Stephanie Zajchowski  are huge proponents of the Yes-And model of holding ideas, taken from the world of improv theater. This approach allows for a tension of opposites to hold in the space of ideas and feelings. While Threepio can be seen as a “But” character in his nature, another overall purpose of his unfiltered Fool neurosis is to allow both his fellow characters and us audience members to be “Yes-And.” Yes, your concerns are valid, AND we are moving forward. And if the heroes (and we as their “confederates” in the cinema) can hold the paradox of fear and faith—with some humor to help things along—then that amplifies the heroic experience of the story. Who knew the Fool could make us laugh and  feel more courageous? MythBlast authored by: Scott Neumeister  is a literary scholar, author, TEDx speaker, mythic pathfinder and Editor of the MythBlast series from Tampa, Florida, where he earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of South Florida in 2018. His specialization in multiethnic American literature and mythology comes after careers as an information technology systems engineer and a teacher of English and mythology at the middle school and college levels. Scott coauthored Let Love Lead: On a Course to Freedom with Gary L. Lemons and Susie Hoeller, and he has served as a facilitator for the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s Myth and Meaning book club at Literati. This MythBlast was inspired by Creative Mythology and the archetype of The Fool . Latest Podcast This lecture, recorded at the Esalen Institute in 1981, features Joseph Campbell delving into Jung’s concepts of the Anima and Animus, the shadow in psychology, and the role of myth in helping us navigate unexpected life challenges. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don’t bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you." -- Joseph Campbell A Joseph Campbell Companion , 20 Parzival - Medieval Troubadour Traditions of Love (see more videos) Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

Action figure of Anakin Skywalker. Photo by Eric Mesa, 2014. CC. After a lengthy journey full of hardship and struggle, the final threshold has at last been crossed. The dragon’s been slain, the maiden rescued, the treasure recovered, and the kingdom restored. As our Hero takes a victory lap, credits roll and the Happily-Ever-Aftering begins. CAVEAT: Individual user experience may vary . There’s a natural tendency to assume the hero’s journey story arc, as it plays out in myth, fairy tale, film—and even in our own lives—always arrives at a happy ending. Though we rarely see what happens to heroes after their story ends, the default setting imagines they remain ennobled and heroic, dispensing good deeds all the rest of their days. Alas, “once a hero, always the hero” is, at best, wishful thinking. The Star Wars saga comes to mind, especially given George Lucas’ acknowledgment of Joseph Campbell’s influence. In the original film trilogy (released between 1977 and 1983), the experience of young Luke Skywalker closely mirrors the trajectory of the hero’s journey. The concluding trilogy in the series (released from 2015 to 2019) returns to the same universe decades later, where we are introduced to new characters, catch up with old friends, and learn of yet another threat from “the Dark Side.” Luke has long since disappeared, off to parts unknown, and much of the urgency of the first film of the final trilogy ( The Force Awakens) is focused on the need to find Skywalker so he can lead the battle against this new evil. In December, 2017, The Last Jedi —the second film in this end trilogy—arrived in theaters. In its opening moments Rey, a young girl with a natural ability in the Force who served as the central figure of the previous film, has tracked Luke to a remote planet. As she approaches, Rey holds out Luke’s old lightsaber as an invitation back to the fray. The Jedi Master casually tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder in what seems a classic “Refusal of the Call,” and the audience settles in for a rollicking adventure following the old formula, ready for Luke to relive his glory days. Turns out, that’s not where the movie goes. Rather than simply rehash what’s been done before, the story breaks open, introducing new themes, exploring the tension between polarities (not just good/evil, but also attraction/repulsion, uniformity/diversity, and more), and passing the torch (or lightsaber?) from one generation to the next.   Star Wars fandom erupted. Even though this episode received critical acclaim as the first film in the franchise since The Empire Strikes Back (1980) with something new to say, many fans were disappointed.  The gripe that seemed to generate the most heat centered around the realization that Luke Skywalker is not the hero of this trilogy, but rather a curmudgeonly mentor to the young female protagonist. Despite the fact that several decades have elapsed in that galaxy “far far away” and a new generation has stepped up to the plate, many had trouble letting go the idea of the aging Jedi Master as the once and future hero. At least Luke goes out on a high note. Heroes do not always end well after their story is told. Joseph Campbell tells of a darker turn that can occur. Campbell represents the primary task of the archetypal hero as that of facing a monster: The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general benefit. He is the monster avid for the greedy rights of “my and mine.” The havoc wrought by him is described in mythology and fairy tale as being universal throughout his domain. This may be no more than his household, his own tortured psyche, or the lives that he blights with the touch of his friendship and assistance; or it may amount to the extent of his civilization. The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world — no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper. Self-terrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself, the giant of self-achieved independence is the world’s messenger of disaster, even though, in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (11) Throughout his opus, Campbell often refers to this figure as “the tyrant Holdfast”: For the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo: Holdfast, the keeper of the past. From obscurity the hero emerges, but the enemy is great and conspicuous in the seat of power; he is enemy, dragon, tyrant, because he turns to his own advantage the authority of his position. He is Holdfast not because he keeps the past but because he keeps. (289)  Often, in myth and fairy tale, the hero who overthrows the tyrant Holdfast succeeds to the throne and restores the land—hence the Happily-Ever-Aftering— but Campbell warns of a danger that can follow, where the hero “becomes the tyrant ogre (Herod-Nimrod), the usurper from whom the world is now to be saved” (299). We can find echoes of this theme throughout mythic lore. As one example, in Le Morte d’Arthur , Merlin warns King Arthur of the birth of a child destined to be his downfall (Mordred, nephew of Arthur, in some tales conceived of incest between Arthur and his half-sister). To avert this catastrophe, Arthur orders children born on May Day to be sent out to sea where all perish save Mordred, who miraculously survives. Arthur’s selfish deed spawns dire and dramatic consequences decades later. Similarly David, the hero-king of ancient Israel (who slew the giant Goliath when just a shepherd lad), seduces and impregnates the beautiful Bathsheba, then uses his royal office to arrange the death of his lover’s husband to conceal his own adultery. The hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant of tomorrow, unless he crucifies himself today. (303) (Campbell offers valuable clues as to how to do exactly that—crucify oneself—which often involves letting go and yielding to the creative moment, in Creative Mythology , one of JCF’s featured works this month). The metaphor of the Hero’s Journey can serve as an invaluable tool for re-imagining and mythologizing one’s life—but there are times it can also be a bit of a straitjacket. As Abraham Maslow says in The Psychology of Science: A Renaissance , "If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail." There are times when I am called not to be the hero, but a mentor—and other times when my role is, at best, that of mere bystander, witness to what’s unfolding. And when I identify only and always with The Hero, regardless of circumstance, that’s when my inner Tyrant Holdfast is most likely to emerge.  What I have learned over time is that the Hero’s Journey isn’t always all about me (a lesson that bears repeating): “Once a hero, always the hero,” no more.

The Child and the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) in Lucasfilm's THE MANDALORIAN, exclusively on Disney+. ©2020 Lucasfilm Limited &™. All Rights Reserved. Modern technology has given us more ways than ever before to discover the stories, the rituals, and the characters that make up our mythologies. The technology of the written word vastly changed the ways that myths were passed from one generation to the next, thus transforming the myths themselves. Anyone engaged in regularly streaming the latest binge-worthy television series or playing popular video games will quickly find themselves face-to-face with modern mythological expressions and explicit mythic narratives from our ancient past.  It is thought-provoking to see how, over the course of history, mythology has slowly developed into a domain favored largely by children. The same evolution can be seen with fairy tales. Perhaps it’s the deceivingly simple “face” of so many myths that cause them to be offered for the still-maturing. Of course, we recognize that what we initially encounter with myths is no face at all, but a mask. As Joseph Campbell suggested, behind these masks are the most transcendent, mysterious, and divine ideas that humankind has fathomed. While a rich exposure to myth in one’s childhood offers a base for the later exploration of nuance in a world filled with complexities and psychological mysteries, Campbell also offered a stern warning about allowing these myths to only become playthings for children. In the first volume of his Masks of God series, Primitive Mythology , he states:  Clearly, mythology is no toy for children. Nor is it a matter of archaic, merely scholarly concern, of no moment to modern men of action. For its symbols (whether in the tangible form of images or in the abstract form of ideas) touch and release the deepest centers of motivation, moving literate and illiterate alike, moving mobs, moving civilizations. (Primitive Mythology, p. 27) Modern mythology-heavy media, such as Disney+’s The Mandalorian (a series born from the Star Wars universe), have gained popularity with adults and children alike. Superhero films of the past decade have shared the same wide audiences, appealing to moviegoers from the ages of nine to ninety. The Mandalorian , however, has managed to draw viewers into a more complex vision of the mythological, not only relying on the hero and his journey, but casting a web of archetypes that play together in a mythic symphony. Perhaps the mythological nature of the show, and its success, should not be surprising as its creator John Favreau has spoken at length about the influence of Campbell on his work and particularly on this show. For those unfamiliar with the series, it takes place five years after Episode VI in the Star Wars saga, Return of the Jedi. The narrative centers around a devout warrior and bounty hunter named Din Djarin that follows a mystic tradition. This Mandalorian is hired by dark forces to retrieve a seemingly orphaned child, named Grogu. After finding him, our hero goes on the run to protect the child from the forces that initially hired him and return the child instead to those who recognize his true lineage. Even in this brief description, the narrative drips with mythic motifs.  In the conclusion of the second season, a character is introduced from the origins of Star Wars . This creative decision has caused its own wars among devotees to the show, many of whom feel it should continue to move within its own path and avoid what some see as unnecessary emotional returns to its deepest roots. This phenomenon is interesting as it occurs in many different and diverse expressions of the human experience. Returning to one’s origins can sometimes be traumatic, producing pain or conflict which one would rather avoid. Entire segments of our mental healthcare system are devoted to recovering from the wounds experienced in our origin stories. Origins, and the stories that encompass them, are beloved by many, and despised by so many others. Salvation and damnation are often both found in our initiatory practices and in our mythologies. The repercussions can be severe for us; as Campbell insinuated, our myths can be dangerous. They can move mobs and civilizations. They can wound the guilty and the innocent. However, it would be unreasonable to believe that they can only be guarded by elites in the ivory towers of academia — an area in which I often work. Campbell’s warning above also addresses the dangers of fencing off myth into the courtyards of universities and libraries, rendering it toothless and irrelevant. Seeing the mythic consequences of The Mandalorian debated on Twitter and Reddit might seem like a bad idea to some — a waste of time and technology. However, it is worth noting that this might just be evidence of myth being taken seriously by a mass culture that may have no other avenue into deeper discussions of the mythological. Pop culture powerhouses like Disney are easy to dismiss and criticize for their historic sanitization of fairy tales and reductive approach to myth. However, they also provide a gateway into deeper explorations of the mythic for those just beginning to look at their own origin stories, regardless of education or age.

Myth is a holy ghost, moving effortlessly through boundaries while making sacred appearances that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere. It moves as a zeitgeist that has always resisted being confined to a single expression. It defies linear history, geographic borders, and profane attempts to capture and confine it. For some, it primarily manifested in oral tales; for others, it appeared in written words; and still, for others, it has been revealed through images and symbols. In Creative Mythology , the final volume of his Masks of God series, Joseph Campbell explores images and symbols, stating, “Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies or reason and coercion” (6). It's perhaps no wonder that images and symbols are carried into our eyes on something as delicate as light itself. Campbell continues discussing this fragile relationship between symbols and light, saying, “The light-world modes of experience and thought were late, very late, developments in the biological prehistory of our species. Even in the life-course of the individual, the opening of the eyes to light occurs only after all the main miracles have been accomplished of the building of a living body of already functioning organs, each with its inherent aim … though our eyes and what they witness may persuade us ...” Hearing Campbell speak of light passing through the opening of the eyes and persuading our beliefs, I cannot help but think of how this also occurs in cinema. Dream palaces and cathedrals The moving images of myth have always struck me in ways that I haven’t always had language to describe. As a young boy, I was mesmerized by Star Wars, though not just by the spaceships and the Wookies. They transported me into a world much larger than the Texas landscape I grew up in. Entering that dark room, sitting with strangers, eating popcorn, and drinking soda felt magical, transcendent, and almost ritualistic. I wasn’t just transported into a different time in a galaxy far, far away. I was transported into something that felt beyond the experiences of reality and consciousness I had previously known. Now, years later, I have come to recognize the similarities between theaters, temples, and cathedrals. All involve the coming together of the community to participate in spoken and unspoken rituals. The experience in the theater was not unlike my experience each Sunday at church. The bread and the wine were reflected in the soda and the popcorn, echoing the ancient practice of buying ritual corn before entering the temple. The movie theaters of the 1940s explicitly recognized the mythic connection, often referring to their venues as “Dream Palaces,” referencing the fact that both dreams and movies take place in the dark and often outside the conscious experience. Campbell famously described the dream as a personalized myth and the myth as the depersonalized dream (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pg. 19). The 6200-seat Roxy Theater in New York City claimed to be “the cathedral of the motion picture” and offered what was akin to a religious experience for many attendees—an ecstatic event that inspired awe. That ecstasy came from the movies themselves and the surroundings in which they were presented—the cinema. Since its inception, the cinematic experience has been recognized as a container for something larger than itself. The art form of cinema is a container for the archetypes of ancient myth. Cinematic sacred spaces The movie theater remains a place where we go to enter another world. It was (and maybe still is) one of the only places you could go and sit in total darkness with strangers, experiencing something together. It was (and maybe still is) one of the only places where it was okay to cry in public. These factors, and dozens of others, made movie theaters special and even sacred for some. As a culture, we went to experience something we couldn’t experience by ourselves at home. When society began watching movies in their homes and then on their phones, noticeable confusion set in about that type of space the movie theater was. It became ordinary, less special, and no longer sacred, and in turn, people started behaving as if it was not a special place anymore—a reality that has kept many away from theaters in recent times. But I would suggest that for those with eyes to see it, cinema still holds all the power it ever did, even though we as a culture have slowly stopped recognizing it in its fullness. Throughout its brief history, cinema has played a crucial role in identity formation for many and helped others negotiate significant changes in their identity. Films have reflected who we believed we were at the time of their creation and traced our transformation from one “world” to another. For these reasons and so many more, we have decided, here at the Joseph Campbell Foundation, to theme our 2025 MythBlast series around an invitation to experience the power of myth at the movies. We believe that in this age of screens, great value can be found in allowing those screens to act as mirrors, reflecting who we are and who we could be. We believe those reflections can lead us toward deeper insights into some of the most profound mythic questions that can be asked—what it means to be human, who we truly are, how we can experience life fully—and countless others. Over the coming months, writers and thinkers in this series will explore stories, characters, archetypes, and motifs of the screen that have made an impact on them individually or on us collectively. We hope that by better understanding mythic ideas through the lens of cinema, unforeseen understandings about our journeys might also be revealed to us all. So, we invite you to sit back, get comfortable, grab your popcorn, and experience the power of myth at the movies with us in 2025. MythBlast authored by: John Bucher is a renowned mythologist and story expert who has been featured on the BBC , the History Channel , the LA Times , The Hollywood Reporter and on numerous other international outlets . He serves as Executive Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation and is a writer, podcaster, storyteller, and speaker. He has worked with government and cultural leaders around the world as well as organizations such as HBO, DC Comics, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, A24 Films, Atlas Obscura, and The John Maxwell Leadership Foundation, bringing his deep understanding of narrative and myth to a wide array of audiences. He is the author of six influential books on storytelling, including the best-selling Storytelling for Virtual Reality, named by BookAuthority as one of the best storytelling books of all time. John has worked with New York Times Best Selling authors, YouTube influencers, Eisner winners, Emmy winners, Academy Award nominees, magicians, and cast members from Saturday Night Live . Holding a PhD in Mythology & Depth Psychology, he integrates scholarly insights with practical storytelling techniques, exploring the profound connections between myth, culture, and personal identity. His expertise has helped shape compelling narratives across various platforms, enriching the way stories are told and experienced globally. This MythBlast was inspired by Creative Mythology and the archetype of The Fool . Latest Podcast This episode of Pathways with Joseph Campbell, titled " The Harmony and Discord of Religions ," was recorded at Brandeis University in 1958. At the time, Joseph Campbell was 54 years old and nearing the completion of Primitive Mythology, the first volume of his Masks of God series. In this lecture, Campbell offers an affirmative defense of comparative methodologies, exploring both the commonalities and differences among the world’s religious traditions. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "I think that the movie is the perfect medium for mythological messages. The medium is so plastic and pliable and magic things can happen. And then the combination, you know, of fantastic landscape and possible modes of action and voyaging that we can hardly conceive of in good solid terms ... That’s a mythological realm, and movies could handle this kind of thing." -- Joseph Campbell The Wisdom of Joseph Campbell (© 1997 New Dimensions Foundation)  Tape 3, Side 1 The Hero with a Thousand Faces (see more videos) Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

Ex Machina  (2015) A24, Universal Pictures I have seldom met a mythologist who didn’t have a well-rehearsed elevator pitch on the nature of Jungian archetypes. Here’s mine. It’s like a box of chocolates, See’s in particular. Once the classic Milk Butterchews, Salted Caramel, and California Brittle are gone, what’s left? Just a little sheet of molded plastic with indentations for each famous treat, tiny coffers of sweet possibility. These represent for me the Platonic ideals, Bastian’s elementary ideas, and Jung’s archetypes. Sure, you can fiddle with the recipe, vary the sugar content, add more or less sprinkles on top, perhaps tweak the cinnamon or hold up on the corn syrup, but the perduring forms remain unvaried for all eternity. To review, the nature of the archetypes is like a box of chocolates. And the flavor of the month is the Seeker. As a writer, I have learned to love the Seeker as a driver of story. Want a writing tip for free? I got this from my father, also a writer. He said, though in different terminology, make the Seeker your star, and watch who else shows up. That’s the secret to this archetype. Gods and archetypes, as James Hillman loved to point out, never show up alone but in groups and, when the occasion arises, assemble the pantheon from which they rule the universe. The seeker is an unconscious curator of other archetypes. Usually uninteresting in themselves (with exceptions), Seekers are natural born pilgrims lapping the miles, often heedless of where the road is taking them. There is often an emptiness in Seekers, and so they look for fulfilment and identity in others. Thus, Parsifal finds his roundtable, Dorothy her three-man posse of misfits, Ishmael his doomed crewmates, and Luke Skywalker his phalanx of sages and warriors some of whom are character archetypes without benefit of being human (R2-D2 comes to mind). The Seeker is the writer’s friend and leads us to the whole box of chocolates. Silicon Valhalla The protagonist of Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina is a “hero” in the literary tradition of Melville’s Ishmael—he is our eyes and ears to a world from which we would be otherwise excluded. His function in life—and in literature—is to be a tabula rasa, an analytic blank to be filled in with all sorts of impressions from much more fascinating, complicated, intimidating characters, all of them with a legit claim to archetype status (which, in Moby Dick , include Ishmael as The Seeker, Ahab, as both Seeker and Leader, Queequeg the Wise Man, the Pequod itself as Death, and Moby—the Destroyer). Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), the Ishmael of Ex Machina , is on a professional journey. He has made the same vocational choice as many young people these days, to go to Silicon Valley where he will eventually be recognized as a talented software developer in his own right. It would appear at the outset of the picture that his efforts have paid off. He has won an in-house contest entitling him to a fabulous week at the private home of the company founder, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), who is seldom seen beyond the remote mountain retreat where his ethically questionable experiments in human consciousness take place. As Caleb looks out from his helicopter window to the endless acres of snow-flocked conifers below, he asks how long it will take to get to Nathan Bateman’s estate. “We’ve been flying over his estate for the last two hours,” grins the pilot. We are in the abode of the gods. Men seeking archetypes Recall, in my take on the Seeker, he or she is a node of generativity more than a person. Bland in his own right, Caleb Smith conjures about him a polymorphic display of personality types, each driving the story by virtue of a unique subplot. The Threshold Guardian is the helicopter pilot, easily recognizable as a contemporary iteration of big-shouldered Charon. The implacable oarsman ferrying souls to the underworld never appeared more benign. Caleb treads dangerous ground in approaching the Creator, his employer Nathan, because like all relationships of unequal power, it is a dangerous liaison. I recognize the outline of a Zeus/Semele dynamic, which must end badly. Recall, Semele was burnt to a cinder because her mortal eyes were overwhelmed by proximity to unfiltered divinity. Nathan may see himself as God, but he is really a sort of Ahab for the ones-and-zeros crowd, perhaps not unlike a lot of us who occasionally see ourselves as masters of the universe. And then there is Ava. I must assume it’s a nickname, short for Avatar (which in Sanskrit means “descent,” as in the descent of a deity incarnated among mortals), identifying her as that most exalted of archetypes, the Goddess. Ava is graceful, inquisitive, physically powerful and beautiful. She is also a machine, the eponymous machina of the film’s title, designed by Nathan to embody all that a man might perceive as “feminine.” What unites the trio of archetypes–Seeker, Creator, Goddess–is in itself a quest, the Anima Quest, perhaps the most famous motivational force undergirding the spiritus mundi . The seeker is an unconscious curator of other archetypes.  Designing women The first woman ever designed by men was Eve; known for having sold us out as a species, she was, like Ava in Garland’s cult masterpiece, supposed to be an ideal companion. Though it did not work out well—for anybody—men have been designing women ever since: Daedalus, the sculptor of Pygmalion, or his 20th-century iteration, Professor Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s 1910 theatrical hit, Pygmalion , reprised decades later as My Fair Lady ; Dr. Niander Wallace, the sociopath CEO of Wallace Industries in Blade Runner , whose female automata has learned a new trick—it can sexually reproduce; Victor Frankenstein, whose female monster never really made it out of Beta. Anyway, the result of these experiments is usually disappointing, because the one ingredient the designers hold back is the one women seem to want the most. Autonomy. And then there’s Homer. I’ll start this singing with That grand goddess, Bright-eyes, So shrewd, Her heart inexorable, As virgin, redoubtable, Protectress of cities, Powerful, Tritogene, Whom shrewd Zeus himself Produced out of his sacred head… The Homeric Hymns trans. Boer 137-38 The “Birth of Athena” is an obstetrical nightmare. Is it really about a female archetype? Put another way, has Athena ever really been an adequate symbol of female actualization? She certainly meets Campbell’s criteria for the Goddess in that she is transformative of the male. Boy to Man, Man to Warrior, Warrior to Hero. Ava transforms Caleb into the Lover and the Big Boss; Nathan, into a corpse. But isn’t the whole yarn really about the guy with the splitting headache, the guy trying to even imagine how a fully actualized female human psyche might appear? Recall, Zeus turned Athena’s mother (Metis) into a fly, swallowed her whole so that she could not bear the male child destined to overthrow him. Guess what? The fly is pregnant. And therefore, in a sense, so is Zeus. My own read on the “birth of Athena” from her father’s head has always been that it is a composite image meant to register the fragility of the male psyche in its contemplation of woman as equal. How relevant. Is not the fragility of the male psyche on full display in our national failure (twice) to elect a woman president? For some men, even to imagine a woman of equal or greater influence is painful, sort of like having your skull split open by an axe. Ava is Nathan’s baby, born from the womb of his mind. She may or may not be a fully conscious entity capable of self-awareness. She is, shall we say, unburdened by notions of binary reality, the kind that draws distinctions between self-defense and, well, murder. But, not counting her homicidal tendencies, she is certainly attractive. After all, as Jane Harrison points out, "All men, in virtue of their humanity, are image-makers, but in some the image is clear and vivid, in others dull, lifeless, wavering. The Greeks were the supreme ikonists, the greatest image-makers the world has ever seen, and, therefore, their mythology lives on to-day” ( Myths of Greece and Rome 11). Thanks to our wide-eyed Seeker, we have realized there is a new shape in the chocolate box. A new female archetype yearns to be born and threatens to be a transitional stage between human and machine. Her attributes shall be many, but surely among them is the ability to decapitate a Trojan with one hand while making decorative orange slices with the other. MythBlast authored by: John Bonaduce, PhD , a seasoned writer for Norman Lear and for most of the major Hollywood studios (Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros, et al.) developed a profound interest in story structure beyond the commercial objectives of the industry. His exploration led him to conclude that much of what we call myth derives from a biological origin. This insight inspired his pursuit of deeper relationships between biology and narrative through his theory of Mythobiogenesis, which he explored in his dissertation at Pacifica Graduate Institute and was recognized as a “discovery” in the field of prenatal psychology by Dr. Thomas Verny. John was recently appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (JOPPPAH) where he advocates for an unrecognized level of human consciousness which exists at the border of biology and mythology. As a featured writer for the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s MythBlast, he passionately showcases Joseph Campbell’s enduring relevance to a modern audience. This MythBlast was inspired by Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine and the archetype of The Seeker. Latest Podcast Francis Weller has spent his life restoring the sacred work of grief and deepening our connection to the soul. A psychotherapist, writer, and soul activist, Francis weaves together psychology, mythology, alchemy, and indigenous wisdom to show us how grief is not just personal but profoundly communal. His bestselling book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, has guided thousands in embracing loss as a path to renewal. Through his organization, WisdomBridge, and his work with the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Francis helps others navigate sorrow with ritual, story, and deep remembrance. In this conversation, we explore how grief can serve as an initiation into a richer, more connected life—and why reclaiming lost rituals of mourning is essential to healing both ourselves and the world. For more information about Francis, visit: https://www.francisweller.net/ Listen Here This Week's Highlights "As I see it, the quest of Odysseus is to return home, decently, to Penelope, his wife—not to a blonde, not to someone who is the victim and the booty of war, but to his wife. A wife is someone with whom one is in counterplay as the other side of the mystery of the androgyne, and so Odysseus has to be debriefed from his warrior attitude, where there is no idea of dialogue between the male and female powers." -- Joseph Campbell Goddesses , 160 The Ego and the Tao See More Videos Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

Dune (2021) Warner Brothers Pictures Voyaging into the unknown The human spirit has always been defined by a profound restlessness—an innate drive to venture beyond known horizons. In 1977, this impulse manifested when humanity launched the Voyager probes into the dark expanse of space. Today, those metal emissaries have traveled farther than any human creation—Voyager 1 races at over 38,026 mph, more than 15 billion miles from Earth, carrying our collective yearning into the cosmos. As journalist Sharon Begley reflected in the August 15, 1977, Newsweek article on astronomer Carl Sagan's vision: "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known" (“Seeking Other Worlds” 53). The nature of seeking begins with "What if?" What if there were something more? Within this question lies the sacred restlessness that has propelled human discovery since our earliest days. Messages from the deep This same sacred restlessness drives the hero of Frank Herbert's Dune . The planet Arrakis orbits the star Canopus, and upon its surface, Paul Atreides carries out his own Hero's Journey, seeking his future, purpose, and identity. Denis Villeneuve's film adaptation of Dune  sets Paul (Timothy Chalamet) on a journey deep into the desert to discover his place in this new world after his father's murder. Paul's journey mirrors the internal path that all seekers must undertake—moving from the known into the great unknown. Like the Voyager probes sent into cosmic darkness, Paul ventures into his own uncharted territory, driven by the same profound human impulse to discover what lies beyond. The film opens with a disturbing vocalization subtitled as "Dreams are messages from the deep," as if we were receiving transmissions from within. If cinema is collectively dreaming, Dune  provides a truly Jungian-laden dream to explore. The Seeker archetype The Seeker archetype emerges whenever we look towards the horizon. While C.G. Jung first coined the term "archetypes" in 1919, the "Seeker" archetype was explored through Joseph Campbell and Carol S. Pearson. Campbell's concept of "The Hero's Journey" places the Seeker as the quest-taker, demonstrated throughout world myth. Pearson defined it as the embodiment of humanity's quest for authenticity and self-discovery. The Seeker is characterized by searching, seeking their place in the world, their identity, a sense of belonging, or something wonderful elsewhere. The journey identifies the Seeker—both into the unknown and into themselves. The planet Dune symbolizes the complete self: ego above (visible and thin) and the unconscious below. When his father dies, Paul utters a harsh reality: "My road leads into the desert. I can see it." Sacred restlessness: the divine discomfort that drives us At the heart of the Seeker's journey lies what we might call a "sacred restlessness"—that divine discomfort that propels us beyond comfortable boundaries. This restlessness is not a flaw to be corrected but a sacred calling to be honored. The universe is speaking through us, compelling us toward growth and transformation. Paul Atreides embodies this sacred restlessness from the film's beginning. He cannot explain why he must go to Arrakis early, except that he's dreamed it. This inexplicable pull, this holy dissatisfaction with remaining in place, becomes the catalyst for his entire journey. Sacred restlessness manifests as that persistent feeling that there must be more—more to discover, more to become, more to understand. It is the uncomfortable blessing that prevents us from settling for less than our authentic selves. In Paul's case, his dreams of Arrakis and the Fremen woman haunt him with possibilities not yet realized, with a self not yet fully formed. The collective expression: the Hero's Journey Campbell's Hero's Journey centers on the Seeker archetype, as Phil Cousineau notes in his introduction to The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work : "The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know" (xxiv). The Seeker looks for that great discovery which seems remarkable and truly wonderful. Campbell notes: "There is what I would call the hero journey, the night sea journey, the hero quest, where the individual is going to bring forth in his life something that was never beheld before" (76). The journey promises something truly new. At the heart of the Seeker's journey lies what we might call a "sacred restlessness"—that divine discomfort that propels us beyond comfortable boundaries. Blending the voices The Seeker strives to integrate all experiences into a greater understanding, melding the voices of teachers, sages, and fools into a more diverse viewpoint than when they started. Paul learns he is half Atreides and half Harkonnen—the great evil that has set his tribulations in motion. This knowledge arrives as Paul travels into his inner self, encountering ancestral memories, coalescing opposing ancestors into a singular mind. Herbert's ancestral memory parallels Jung's collective unconscious. Reflection & lessons: the courage to face the deep Paul's struggle with his nature is viscerally felt in Chalamet's performance, showing both torture and transcendence. Paul seeks safety across the barren sands but ultimately seeks his own identity. He receives glimpses of his future, some causing fear, but his drive to discover his authentic selfhood requires embracing difficult truths. The Seeker sees obstacles as opportunities. Each barrier translates into motivation—if the journey is this difficult, the goal must be equally wonderful, as Cousineau reminds us that "the journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths" ( The Hero’s Journey  xxiv). Hope and ruthlessness: the Seeker's paradox The song " Seven " by Sleeping at Last captures the Seeker's yearning: "Let's climb this mountain before we cross that bridge! / 'Cause I'm restless / I'm restless / I'm restless / For whatever comes next." Hope flames brightly in the Seeker's heart. There must be an answer, something to be discovered. The Seeker remains eternally optimistic, seeing potential with each step. Yet the journey also requires ruthlessness: "Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here'" ( Dune  169) To continue journeying, the Seeker must brutally eliminate things which slow their travel, leaving behind elements of comfort. Sacred restlessness as evolutionary force This sacred restlessness serves as an evolutionary force within the human spirit. Just as physical evolution occurs through environmental pressure, spiritual and psychological evolution happens through this divine discontent that pushes us toward greater wholeness. In Paul's journey, his sacred restlessness transforms him from privileged heir to desert wanderer to potential messiah. Each step of this transformation is precipitated not by external comfort but by the inner pressure of his restless spirit seeking completion. His dreams and visions are manifestations of this restlessness—glimpses of what might be if he honors the call. Sacred restlessness refuses the easy path, often emerging as the voice that whispers "not this" when we attempt to settle for less than our authentic becoming. This impetus constitutes both blessing and burden—uncomfortable in its persistent nudging yet sacred in its connection to our deepest potential. Swimming in strange water: finding the self "Survival is the ability to swim in strange water," says Lady Jessica in Dune , speaking to the adaptability required of seekers (350). Those strange waters, those depths often manifest physically, as Paul travels underground into the Fremen Sietches. As Campbell says, "The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for" ( A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on The Art of Living  24)    Mythologically, those depths are internal—the Seeker must go where others fear to tread. For Paul, that is into "a place where no Truthsayer can see ... He will look where we cannot—into both feminine and masculine pasts" ( Dune  12). The fearful depths are those of our own nature. The Seeker discovers purpose and identity through physical journey because it forces an internal one. The discovery is ignited by the external journey because its difficulties require a descent into the soul. What the Seeker seeks is ultimately discovered waiting in the depths of their own soul. As Jung notes : "Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes” (33). Discovering ourselves  In the end, the destination of the Seeker is themselves—we truly want to know  who we are, because, as Campbell understood, “The privilege of a lifetime is being  who you are” ( Art of Living  15; emphasis added). We want to discover ourselves and hope that through the journey, we will. This eternal truth of the Seeker's journey resonates across time and space, from ancient myths to modern tales like Dune . It whispers to us at life's crossroads, when we feel that familiar restlessness in our souls. That restlessness is not to be ignored—it is the voice of the Seeker within, calling us beyond comfortable horizons. When you feel that spark, that hunger for something more, recognize it as the archetypal flame that has guided humanity's greatest explorers. The journey may demand sacrifice, requiring the "attitude of the knife" to cut away comfortable illusions. It may lead through desert wastes and underground caverns where your deepest fears reside. But remember that the desert contains hidden waters of transformation. The cave that terrifies you most likely harbors the treasure you seek. Heed the call if you feel it stirring. Step into your own myth with the knowledge that countless Seekers have walked this path before you. The journey outward is always a journey inward. And when you return—changed, integrated, more fully yourself—you become a beacon for others standing at their own thresholds, wondering whether to take that first, crucial step into the unknown. The Seeker's journey is humanity's oldest story, and it waits, always, to become yours. MythBlast authored by: Jason D. Batt, Ph.D. , is a technological philosopher, mythologist, futurist, artist, and writer specializing in mythologies of space exploration. He co-founded Deep Space Predictive Research Group, Project Lodestar, and the International Society of Mythology. He has authored three novels, edited four fiction anthologies, and his short fiction and scholarly work have appeared in numerous publications. Jason currently serves as Senior Editor for the forthcoming Journal of Mythological Studies, Co-Managing Editor of the Beyond Earth Institute Space Policy Review, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Space Philosophy. This MythBlast was inspired by Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine and the archetype of The Seeker. Latest Podcast Francis Weller has spent his life restoring the sacred work of grief and deepening our connection to the soul. A psychotherapist, writer, and soul activist, Francis weaves together psychology, mythology, alchemy, and indigenous wisdom to show us how grief is not just personal but profoundly communal. His bestselling book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, has guided thousands in embracing loss as a path to renewal. Through his organization, WisdomBridge, and his work with the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Francis helps others navigate sorrow with ritual, story, and deep remembrance. In this conversation, we explore how grief can serve as an initiation into a richer, more connected life—and why reclaiming lost rituals of mourning is essential to healing both ourselves and the world. For more information about Francis, visit: https://www.francisweller.net/ Listen Here This Week's Highlights "There's nothing you can do that is more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, a signal, transparent to transcendence; in this way, you will find, live, and become a realization of your personal myth." -- Joseph Campbell Pathways to Bliss , 108 The Great Goddess See More Videos Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

Death Valley by Pedro Szekely Death: the good version and the bad version As I love telling my fellow associates and colluders in myth: “If death’s not your favorite part of this stuff, then you’re just not studying hard enough.” Granted, my zealous ultimatums have been known to prompt concern—especially from the more literal-minded—who then take steps to deescalate my passion through masterfully rendered rebuttals cloaked in neutral tones like: “I don’t think so” or “Maybe you should sit down for a minute?” or “Here, have some of this non-caffeinated herbal tea.” I gladly comply because I see the unconscious affirmation concealed in their reactions. They are all reducible to notions of death and underworldly directions whether through a nonplussed disagreement intentionally engineered to have as little to do with the matter (cf., the realm of the living) as possible, or through a striving toward calmness, stillness—an out, so to speak, from the heated blood of life for which the shades of Hades so yearn in the  Odyssey . Oh, the irony. For once one gets past its literal face, there’s something about how the content of and around death deepens downward (and concurrently grows upward) the more one looks at it, watches it, reflects on it—something about its fertile richness, its dark mystery that is so present and necessary to the fullness of psyche. Technically the full topic is “death and renewal,” but as far as mythology’s concerned, renewal is the inseparable complement and completion to death.  More pressing for the moment, however, is all this glib talk, my light tossing around of such a heavy term. Precisely what makes “death” so amenable and easy on my tongue is simply the notion that I am talking here about  metaphorical  death, which means I am encountering the concept  of death through the innumerable attributes and entailments of whichever sources are fitting comparisons (e.g., sunsets, waning moons, winter, sleep, etc.). Let that foundational fact sink in, please. For surely there is that other death, literal  death—the kind we read about in headlines, and that we all have witnessed one way or another, and been touched by. I mean the kind of death that we have crumbled before on those ruinous occasions when it came and took everything and left in its wake not a thing but the poignantly tangible absence of what once was present and dear and warm and suddenly, irrevocably gone. I will not presume to investigate this literal version—a separate thing altogether—before which I cover my mouth, lower my head, and am silent. Coming to life through metaphor Meanwhile, back to the metaphor, which presents a very different perspective and which renders a depth of experience by providing contexts of association through relationships in place of denotative definitions. Before proceeding, let’s do a quick refresh on metaphor so we can sate the logos (our trusty and necessary threshold guardian) and get on with the mythos… Simply put, a metaphor works by making a comparison between two things (and a “thing” can be an image, an action, or a concept), in which attributes are borrowed from one thing (the source ) and applied to another thing (the target ). On a deeper level, however, attributes are not borrowed from only the source itself, but from the “domain” of that source—meaning, from that source’s whole environment . This includes all the other phenomena that inhabit that same environment and  all the relationships that the source has with those other phenomena!  This very complex network of relationships ( entailments ) within a particular source-domain is then mapped onto the equally complex domain of a target. Thus metaphor is not just a comparison of one thing to another thing, but a comparison of the innumerable relationships within one thing’s “life” (to employ a type of metaphor called “personification”) to the equally innumerable relationships within another thing’s life. In short, metaphor puts relationships into relationship with each other. Whew, that was hard work. But don’t worry, there’s more…  As an example, one can say that a sunset is a metaphor for death—or even an archetype  for death, as it is seen, for example, as marking the beginning of the sun god’s journey through the “twelve hours” of the Ancient Egyptian underworld. For our purposes here, archetypes are simply metaphors that are universal, metaphors that register across cultures. As Jung reminds us, “An archetype expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors” ( The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious , 157). Whether we call it metaphor or archetype, the many entailments that accompany a sunset can easily be applied to the concept of death: a sunset is a transitioning event that eventually ends; a sunset sinks down into a horizon and disappears; a sunset is a thing of warmth that becomes cold, a thing of light that becomes dark. And speaking of entailments within domains, “light” is a subcategory of the broader category of sunsets. Within this subcategory, light is (independently) a metaphor for “consciousness” and for “being alive.”  Perpetual depth in metaphor  If I may take things one step further, let me suggest that metaphors are not the one-way journeys of entailments from a source to a target. Rather, metaphors are simultaneously the reciprocal journeys of entailments from the target back to the source. Why is this important? Because it emphasizes a chief concern of individuated consciousness: Relationship —or, worded differently: “interaction with the cosmos that an individuated consciousness finds itself in.” Moreover this concurrent reciprocity imagines a dialogue  between source and target. Unlike the monologues of literal fact that simply put a bow on the matter and end it, dialogues iterate. They actually “go” somewhere—as in two feet working in tandem, striding, the one and then the other, carrying the attention of the witness (i.e., us) deeper and deeper into the ever-unfolding terrain of their perpetual interaction.  And this, like all things associative and connotative, renders experience to the witness because the attributes and entailments (which, metaphorically speaking, are the contents of the conversation that the source and target pass back and forth to each other) are never captured .  Rather, their perpetual dialogue summons responses and associations from the witness, and so the metaphor is encountered and experienced as living, as protean. In the field of life, everything is relative, encountered and experienced through comparison. The path of the living metaphor simply goes on and on, deeper and deeper towards  transcendence and (I like to think) backlit by the pure energy of being that inexplicably emits from transcendence. The only thing that can stop this emittance and perpetual deepening is literal thinking which shifts the perspective from relationships to isolation, from connotative to denotative. And denotation is an experiential dead-end—it is an intellectual solution  that stops shy of transcendence. Sure, the connotation never reaches transcendence, either. But unlike the denotation, it does not shut it out completely. Metaphors cease to be metaphors when they become denotative, when the dialogue ends, when the associations borne by comparison become facts, when figurative thinking becomes literal, when “raining cats and dogs” summons naught but the concept of heavy rain (and leaves neither the images nor the ideas of lovely pets anywhere in mind). Fittingly, these are called dead metaphors, more popularly known as clichés: dead bodies or husks of words over which we might as well throw some dirt, some flowers, mumble something or other, and go back to our cars. Maybe a real metaphor will sprout in the spring. With all that in mind, let’s take a moment to appreciate Joseph Campbell’s “new” definition of myth: “My definition of myth now is: a metaphor transparent to transcendence … Mythology opens the world so that it becomes transparent to something that is beyond speech, beyond words, in short, to what we call transcendence. If the metaphor closes in on itself [i.e., becomes literal] then it has closed the transcendence; it's no longer mythological. It's distortion” ( The Hero’s Journey , 40). And so, a death-and-renewal metaphor that can be applied as an effective approach to metaphor: When we die to the confining urge of literalism, we are renewed in the living spaciousness of metaphor and myth. When we die to the confining urge of literalism, we are renewed in the living spaciousness of metaphor and myth. A bird and a stream Here is something that happened to me a few days ago while I was writing this essay in the mountains. I could call it a small myth about death and renewal. I will not explicate, I will not kill the metaphor or the myth. Instead, I leave you to your associations, the only way they can be: Living and as they are. Hopefully all that metaphor-math above has groomed the trail for frictionless passage to that special kind of experience that Campbell spoke of—the kind that has a little transcendence coming through. Anyway, I was walking through 10 degrees Fahrenheit along a ploughed path beside a stream cutting through several feet of snow, edged on both shores by sheets of ice protruding like shelves over the busy water. And then there was this bird, a songbird, about the size of a baseball standing on the far sheet looking into the black glassy current. To my horror the lovely creature just hopped into the water and disappeared. Moments later it reappeared, emerging out of the icy water. A flurry of wings, and it was back on its ice sheet. Then back into the water again, and I mean underwater . This went on for some time and I thought, “Well this is fitting content for my essay: a death-and-renewal metaphor wrought not of words nor of concepts, but of ice and feathers, sunlight and snow.” It was my first encounter with the American dipper. Obviously, my new favorite bird. MythBlast authored by: Craig Deininger  has been writing for the JCF Mythblast series since 2018. He has taught at Naropa University, Studio Film School in Los Angeles and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he earned an MFA in poetry. He also earned an MA and PhD in Mythology and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He has counterbalanced his studies with manual work in fields like big ag farming, landscaping, commercial fishing, trail-building, framing houses and so on. He is grateful to have somehow made it to later life after too many outdoor misadventures in backpacking, rock climbing, hiking and, especially, trying to get too close to wildlife that doesn’t want to be gotten-too-close-to. His poetry has appeared in several literary magazines including The Iowa Review, and his first book of poetry Leaves from the World Tree was co-authored with mythologist Dennis Patrick Slattery and published by Mandorla Books. This MythBlast was inspired by  The Power of Myth  Episode 6, and The Hero's Journey Latest Podcast In this episode, recorded in 1974, Joseph Campbell explores the relationship between humans and their gods. The lecture was given just two years after Campbell's retirement from Sarah Lawrence College and five years after the publication of the final volume in his Masks of God series. Host Bradley Olson introduces the lecture and provides commentary at the conclusion. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "Life is but a mask worn on the face of death. And is death, then, but another mask? "How many can say,' asks the Aztec poet, 'that there is, or is not, a truth beyond?" -- Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image , 160 The Eternal Principle (see more videos) Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

Still from Hayao Mizayaki's The Boy and the Heron This mythblast is not exactly about Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron , but it is inspired by the “affects” of this recent film which won the best animated feature category at last year’s Golden Globe and Academy Awards. I suspect audiences are drawn to the film because it demonstrates with uncanny precision (and imprecision!) the encounter with the dream-world (aka: underworld, aka: unconscious) through the agency of the archetype of the trickster figure. On that note, now is a good time to recall Joseph Campbell’s apt correlation between dream and myth: “Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream” ( The Hero[n] with a Thousand Faces, 18). To better suit the following context, allow me to restate: Dream is the expression of the personal unconscious, while myth is the expression of the collective unconscious, within which the archetypes reside. The weirdness of the dream Surely there are other, rare films that are also (literally) dreamlike. But as for the rendering of the actual experience of encountering the unconscious via the dreaming state, The Boy and the Heron is, in my opinion, unsurpassed. There are only two things I feel I need to point out to support this claim. The first is the film’s accuracy in recreating that particular kind of imagistic and narrative weirdness that we encounter in dreams—and I emphasize “weirdness” because it is of a sort that is strangely familiar (perhaps having something to do with weird ’s etymological source: fate). The second criterion is the unmistakable duplicitousness of the story’s trickster, the heron, who guides the boy (and us) down a path that begins on ordinary-enough terms, but then transforms into something very different along the way. Furthermore, the transformation (of both environment and guide) proceeds by such negligible degrees that we suddenly find ourselves, late in the game, startled and bewildered, lost deep in unconscious terrain with no real idea of how we got there. This mini-awakening, this recognition that things have sneakily transmuted without our having noticed (or even questioned) until it is blatant, is common to dream-experience. And guess who’s responsible, so to speak, for shuttling us to and fro, in and out, of these different states of consciousness and perspective, these moments of seeing, moments of blindness, and so on and so forth? That’s right, as will soon be (partially) seen, the trickster. But for now, note that these mini-awakenings or glimpses into the unconscious indicate that, for a moment, an aspect of the unconscious has been made known to the conscious due to the light, so to speak, that we’ve thrown into it. And note also that this light can penetrate only so far before it is simply stopped, as if at gates specifically designed to preserve the mysteries of the unconscious from our making a mess of them—or, more likely, to preserve us from being annihilated by them. Either way, this dynamic highlights a central aspect of the archetype (indeed, of all archetypes)—namely, that just as the exception is always inherent in the archetype, likewise there is always that part of the archetype that eludes our knowing altogether. We could call this its depth. And this is kind of a good thing, because when we find ourselves at those gates, gazing into the awesome face of the unknown, we are in that moment subsumed by the beautiful condition of being lost, and hopefully, at a loss for words or thoughts or anything, really. For at last we are capable of pure exploration and discoveries. At last the soul finds itself in the room with its preferred kind of treasure: wonder, novelty, renewal and, of course, experience (which is the soul’s chief currency—both in value and in the flow or direction [cf. “current”] of its evolution). Get your snake oil here, but maybe don’t drink it I won’t address The Boy and the Heron ’s specifics because that would flatten the experience and waste time. So instead, in signature trickster fashion I’ll just say trust me. Check out the film. You might as well, the risk is small enough, even if I am lying about the whole thing. And so it is with the trickster, whose scale of severity ranges anywhere from Curly and Mo boinking each other in the eyes to Loki engineering the destruction of an entire pantheon along with its cosmos. Regardless of scale, the trickster jars the ego into a new perspective by subjecting it to frustration, embarrassment, terror, confusion, ruin and sundry other psychologically unpalatable flavors. But the trickster may also ease the ego into new terrain through all kinds of slippery maneuverisms and sleights-of-hand. Either way, new perspectives are rendered in which, for better or worse, we are suddenly not so central or significant as we had formerly presumed, and our power of influence is indeed meagre if not entirely absent. The trickster jars the ego into a new perspective by subjecting it to frustration, embarrassment, terror, confusion, ruin and sundry other psychologically unpalatable flavors. The superlative metaphor for this absence of influence is probably death, which we find in the myth of Hades and Persephone. Here, in one fell swoop, we (and “we” are the Persephone-figure in this myth) are simply taken without any say in the matter, without any means of escape or of fighting it off and that, as they say, is that. Well, the (probably) good news is that another job of the trickster (who, of course, is a moonlighter!) is to guide souls into (and sometimes out of) the underworld. In classical terms this auxiliary role [Gk. psychopomp ] is played by Hermes. Furthermore, he is the inciter of dreams through so-to-speak taps on the unwitting heads of all sleeping things with his dual-serpentine helix caduceus staff whose history traces even farther back beyond Greece into ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. And so, this deity, like Miyazaki’s heron, is both the personification of, and the host of, the psyche’s transport to and fro between worlds which are distinguished less by physical contents and more through psychic encounters as the perspectives we inhabit within whichever particular state of consciousness we literally find ourselves. This, I think, is the great value to all the trickster’s antics. It’s just that (as with all things) it comes at a price. Thanks for reading... MythBlast authored by: Craig Deininger  has been writing for the JCF Mythblast series since 2018. He has taught at Naropa University, Studio Film School in Los Angeles and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he earned an MFA in poetry. He also earned an MA and PhD in Mythology and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He has counterbalanced his studies with manual work in fields like big ag farming, landscaping, commercial fishing, trail-building, framing houses and so on. He is grateful to have somehow made it to later life after too many outdoor misadventures in backpacking, rock climbing, hiking and, especially, trying to get too close to wildlife that doesn’t want to be gotten-too-close-to. His poetry has appeared in several literary magazines including The Iowa Review, and his first book of poetry Leaves from the World Tree was co-authored with mythologist Dennis Patrick Slattery and published by Mandorla Books. This MythBlast was inspired by Creative Mythology and the archetype of The Trickster . Latest Podcast Enuma Okoro , is a Nigerian-American author, essayist, curator and lecturer. She is a weekend columnist for The Financial Times where she writes the column, “The Art of Life,” about art, culture and how we live. And is the curator of the 2024 group exhibition, “The Flesh of the Earth,” at Hauser & Wirth gallery in Chelsea, New York. Her broader research and writing interests reflect how the intersection of the arts and critical theory, philosophy and contemplative spirituality, and ecology and non-traditional knowledge systems can speak to the human condition and interrogate how we live with ourselves and others. Her fiction and poetry are published in anthologies, and her nonfiction essays and articles have been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Aeon, Vogue, The Erotic Review, The Cut, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, NYU Washington Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and more. Her Substack, "A Little Heart to Heart" is a labyrinth towards interiority, exploring the fine line between the sacred and the ordinary in our daily lives. Find it at Enuma.substack.com and learn more about Enuma at www.enumaokoro.com . In this conversation, we explore Enuma’s journey, the ways myth, art, and storytelling shape us, and how we can use them as tools to reimagine both our personal and collective realities. Listen Here This Week's Highlights "The dream is a private myth, and the myth is a public dream." -- Joseph Campbell Myth and Meaning , 18 Psyche & Symbol: The Origin of Elementary Ideas (see more videos) Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

The human mythic imagination Bill Moyers: What do you think our souls owe to ancient myths? Joseph Campbell: Well, the ancient myths were designed to put the mind, the mental system, into accord with this body system, with this inheritance. Bill Moyers: A harmony? Joseph Campbell: To harmonize. The mind can ramble off in strange ways and want things that the body does not want. And the myths and rites were a means to put the mind in accord with the body, and the way of life in accord with the way that nature dictates. Bill Moyers: So in a way these old stories live in us. Joseph Campbell: They do, indeed… (5:08-5:53) In this episode of the Power of Myth , Campbell speaks of the mythic imagination that arose from human interaction with animals as hunters. He points to the Lascaux caves exquisite paintings as a “burst of magnificent art and all the evidence you need of a mythic imagination in full career” ( 28:00-28:10 ). At an estimated 30,000 years old, the Lascaux cave paintings in Dordogne, and the even earlier paintings of Chauvet-Pont D’arc in Ardèche in France are magnificent—Picasso anecdotally said, “Since Lascaux, we have invented nothing.” What if story is not a human invention? I am wondering about an idea, though: while these caves may well be one of the earliest efforts at mythic storytelling by humans, there are actually story-tellers that began these stories millions of years earlier. What if story is not simply a human invention, but one we humans simply understand in a particular way? What if story is not simply a human invention, but one we humans simply understand in a particular way? If we think mythically about stories themselves, and about how these stories create the world as much as they define it—and how as humans we are created by the stories we tell, an intriguing mythic and scientific lens begins to open. The creator microbes In June, The New York Times Magazine published a piece by science writer Ferris Jabr , an adaptation of his book Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. Jabr accompanied a group of geomicrobiologists down into a mine shaft in South Dakota, a cave carved out by gold miners rather than water, tunneling a mile and a half below the surface. What they discovered here is extraordinary, as Jabr writes: “Here we were, deep within Earth’s crust—a place where, without human intervention, there would be no light and little oxygen—yet life was literally gush­ing from rock.“ Microbes abound there, without human intervention, and they are ancient, living and moving seemingly endlessly, and they breathe, eat, and create rock. It’s a radical realization: that our planet is not life perched on a shallow surface, but is instead constantly being created by life. These microorganisms create their surroundings. Jabr continues, “Subsurface microbes carve vast caverns, concentrate minerals and precious metals and regulate the global cycling of carbon and nutrients. Microbes may even have helped construct the continents, literally laying the ground­work for all other terrestrial life.” Simultaneously, microbiologists are just beginning to parse out the relationship between microbes in the human body, particularly in the human gut, and how they don’t merely inhabit their surroundings, but transform them as well. Genes in the human gut microbiome vastly outnumber the “human” genes we carry, and not only develop human cognitive function, including memory, but our emotional capacity. In an article echoing Jung in its title, “Collective Unconscious: How Gut Microbes Shape Human Behavior,” researchers report that “gut microbes are part of the unconscious system influencing behavior, and microbes majorly impact on cognitive function and fundamental behavior patterns” (pgs. 1-9). Mythic microbial stories If Campbell is right—and our human myths emerged as a way to bring harmony with the natural world—and the microbiologists and microgeologists are right—and the microbe community on the planet are creators and communicators, building both the natural world and human capacities to function within it—is it that outrageous to imagine that the first and most powerful story-tellers were not human at all? But that our stories that we shape and are shaped by each telling of them actually are mythic echoes of microbial stories? I find this idea both utterly compelling and oddly comforting. It weaves a powerful connection and rightness for me, in both scientific and mythic ways, about human kinship with everything else on—and in—this planet. And perhaps this affinity can be an opening into how we might better articulate that connection as we try to respond to a beleaguered natural world. MythBlast authored by: Leigh Melander, Ph.D. has an eclectic background in the arts and organizational development, working with inviduals and organizations in the US and internationally for over 20 years. She has a doctorate in cultural mythology and psychology and wrote her dissertation on frivolity as an entry into the world of imagination. Her writings on mythology and imagination can be seen in a variety of publications, and she has appeared on the History Channel, as a mythology expert. She also hosts a radio who on an NPR community affiliate: Myth America, an exploration into how myth shapes our sense of identity. Leigh and her husband opened Spillian, an historic lodge and retreat center celebrating imagination in the Catskills, and works with clients on creative projects. She is honored to have previously served as the Vice President of the Joseph Campbell Foundation Board of Directors. This MythBlast was inspired by  The Power of Myth  Episode 3, and Romance of the Grail Latest Podcast In this episode we speak with Master Chungliang Al Huang —a tai chi master, writer, philosopher, dancer, and generational teacher. Originally from Shanghai, China, Master Huang moved to the United States to study architecture and cultural anthropology, and later Dance. In the 1960s, Master Huang forged a significant collaboration with philosopher Alan Watts, which led him to Esalen. There, he became a beloved teacher and formed meaningful connections with thought leaders such as Huston Smith, Gregory Bateson, and Joseph Campbell. He and Joe taught together at Esalen until Joe’s death in 1987. Master Huang is an author of many books including the classic Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain. His contributions include pioneering modern dance in the Republic of China and sharing the stage with luminaries like the Dalai Lama and Jane Goodall. He has been an assembly member and presenter at The Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions and has been a keynote speaker for the YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) and WPO (World Presidents’ Organization) and at major global gatherings in China, India, Switzerland, Germany, South America, South Africa, and Bali. In 1988 he was featured in the inaugural segment of the PBS series, A World of Ideas, moderated by Bill Moyers. Joseph Campbell famously remarked, “Chungliang Al Huang’s Tai Ji dancing is ‘mythic images’ incarnate. He has found a new way to explain ‘the hero’s journey’ to help others follow their bliss through the experience of tai ji practice in his work through the Living Tao Foundation.” In this conversation, we discuss his life, his relationship with Alan Watts, and his friendship with Joseph Campbell. For learn more about Chungliang visit:  https://livingtao.org Listen Here This Week's Highlights “Within each person there is what Jung called a collective unconscious. We are not only individuals with our unconscious intentions related to a specific social environment. We are also representatives of the species Homo sapiens. And that universality is in us whether we know it or not." -- Joseph Campbell Myth and Meaning , 18 The Center of The World (see more videos) Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter

[Creation] by Diego Rivera. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Gods within Joseph Campbell had a vision of an independent “science of myth,” a discipline of depth mythologizing which could stand on its own academic legs. Rather than being relegated to literary, anthropological, and archeological disciplines, Campbell wanted to ground myth on its own mythic substance while privileging a depth-psychological approach. Especially leaning on Carl Jung, Campbell comes again and again to a fundamental insight about the universality of myth— the archetypal figures of myth and legend correspond to psychological factors that are at work in the depths of the collective unconscious mind : “And this is one way of saying that in all of us, in our human activities, deities are operating” ( Romance of the Grail 152). Whenever a human action shines with the power of the archetypal, it has been transfigured by the power of myth. Archetypal images mediate both outer and inner realities. They constitute a psycho-physical medium of consciousness, indispensable to the cognitive function of the symbolic and its capacity to disclose the reality of the world.  Logos vs. mythos Images are not outside of language, not even outside verbal communication. For there is a direct relation between images and their meaning; they belong together as integrated wholes in the symbolic order. When we hear a foreign language, for example, we may have the jarring experience of hearing sounds without meaningful images attached to them. Without the resonance of images in our soul, we could not hear the song of meaning in the vibrations of human thought. As Martin Heidegger put it, “Language itself is poetry in the essential sense,” ( Poetry, Language, Thought 72) that is, in the sense that language can reveal the essence of things. Hence, he explains: “Language is not poetry because it is primal poesy; rather, poesy takes place in language because language preserves the original nature of poetry” (72). Rather than external opposites, mythological images are internal to words, as mythos  to logos  and logos  to mythos , in the full concept of mythology . We know that “non-verbal” images have the power to speak louder than words. As structures of signification, archetypal images are core channels of meaning and imagination; they constitute the world wide web of our symbolic life as a species.  Archetypal images retrace the order of the collective unconscious; they express the cultural forms of a collective consciousness which casts its shadow on the reality of the social field where it generally becomes unconscious. The collective consciousness and the collective unconscious are one and the same. Mythic images both hide and reveal the subterranean movement of the universal in the order of conscious thought, a movement that unleashes the power of the creative imagination. Combining the literal with the metaphorical into a single force, it is in the nature of the mythic to become historic.  Mythic images both hide and reveal the subterranean movement of the universal in the order of conscious thought, a movement that unleashes the power of the creative imagination.  The crucible of mytho-history Mythic images mediate between the literal and metaphoric, the manifest and latent, the ghostly and the real, in the virtual medium of psychic in existence. For the mythic only “exists” inside the historic. Mythic images are thus historic self-elucidations of the human spirit, caught between the metaphoricity of language and the literalism of fact.  The mythic and the literal are thus not external factors opposed to each other in fixed hierarchy. The metaphorical is not better than the literal and vice versa; one should not be on top of the other, as good is supposed to rule over evil, right over wrong, better over worse. Adapting the words of Jacques Derrida: “It is not, therefore, a matter of inverting the literal meaning and the figurative meaning but of determining the ‘literal’ meaning of [the mythic image] as metaphoricity itself” ( Of Grammatology 15). The mythic image expresses this metaphoricity of the literal itself, which opens up new horizons of meaning and archetypal vision. Dehumanizing mythology The human soul as human language, the archetypal Logos, which includes the mathematical and cognitive dimensions, has a demonstrably inhuman reach into the secrets of Nature. This very inhumanity at the same time allows us to peer into the unfathomable workings of nature as revealed by quantum physics, for example.  To speak of the archetypal, therefore, is to lay bare our naked inhumanity. For archetypes come to embody the best and the worst of what humans can do to one another, other creatures, and the environment. In the same vein, James Hillman too was compelled to speak of the “dehumanizing” effect of archetypal experience in general. For better or worse, the archetypal power of the mythic image comes to life in the deeds and misdeeds of human history.  The transparency of the transcendent Campbell had a beautiful way of expressing this opening of the mythic dimension. Rather than the opacity of the black and white, he spoke of achieving a certain transparency to the transcendent . To this purpose, he bid us look to artists for “These people can look past the broken symbols of the present and begin to forge new working images, images that are transparent to transcendence” ( Pathways to Bliss 20). In their disclosure of archetypal truth, myths are guides and guide posts to help us light our way. The power of their created works is to reawaken our capacity for mythic vision out of the primeval void of the collective unconscious. Artists are thus specialists in the deployment of the symbolic dimension of myth in the light of what is true; we are molders and shapers of the transparency of language to the shattering experience of archetypal truth.  “Thus in the work it is truth, not only something true, that is at work” (Heidegger 54). It is the archetype of the Logos  or the “Holy Ghost” or Spirit of Truth that is also at work in mythological creation. The event of truth in the work of art goes beyond the aesthetic experience of myth.  The aesthetic experience is itself made transparent to the operation of the transcendent function of truth, or logos, through which we as human beings evolve. Mythos and logos are not binary opposites or mortal enemies. In their togetherness alone mythos and logos complete the archetypal pattern of true mythology in the crucible of myth and history. Rather than aestheticizing myth in an imaginary universe divorced from truth, true mythology ( vera narratio ) emanates from “Its Root Ancient Truth,” as the Maya Popol Wuh  has it in its opening pages of creation. The power of myth, therefore, pushes toward the creation of new worlds of truth in time. Rather than a fixed essence, existential truth grows and develops in time. So what Heidegger writes about art is in every sense applicable to the power of true myth defined as: “the creative preserving of truth in the work. Art then is the becoming and happening of truth ” ( Poetry, Language, Thought 69). The transcendence of this event of truth is the real power that sets us free. Rather than correctness or adequation to a thing, the concept of truth in the existential sense becomes a concept of freedom. Truth as freedom in mythic creation opens the creative space in which we learn to become true  ourselves. In touch with the event of truth in myth, we experience the transcendence of creative being itself as the spirit of our authentic selves. MythBlast authored by: Norland Téllez is an award-winning writer and animation director who currently teaches Animation and Character Design courses at Otis College of Art and Design, Cal State Fullerton. He is also conducting a Life Drawing Lab at USC School of Cinematic Arts. He earned his Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2009 with a dissertation on the Popol-Wuh of the K’iche’ Maya, which he is currently translating and illustrating in its archetypal dimensions as the Wisdom of the Peoples. You can learn more at norlandtellez.com . This MythBlast was inspired by  The Power of Myth  Episode 3, and Romance of the Grail Latest Podcast In this bonus episode, Campbell answers questions following his 1971 lecture, "Primitive Rites & Traditions", at Esalen Institute. He first speaks about the differences between male and female rites in various times and places and then gives an overview of his interpretation of the meaning of the "Virgin Birth". Listen Here This Week's Highlights “The logics of image thinking and of verbal thinking are two very different logics. I’m more and more convinced that there is, as it were, a series of archetypes which are psychologically grounded, which just have to operate, but in whatever field is available to them. In the myths, they are represented pictorially. There’s a big distinction to be made between the impact of the image, and the intellectual and social interpretation and application of the image.” -- Joseph Campbell Myth and Meaning , 27 The Dynamic of Life (see more videos) Subscribe to the MythBlast Newsletter