U different nations There are myths that touch on important life issues, themes of good and evil. Mythological heroes a great variety, but is there anything in common between them? In the first half of the 20th century, Joseph Campbell conducted research large number myths, and then wrote a voluminous work, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” in which he reflected everything that he was able to identify. The book was not immediately accepted, but later it had a great influence on the plots of films; now Campbell's ideas are taken into account when creating all films that have a mythological component.
The author of the book believes that all myths have general structure, and their heroes can be combined into one archetypal image. This explains the title of the book, in which one character seems to be given many faces. The book is unusual combination mythology and psychology. Joseph Campbell in his research relies on the teachings of famous psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
The first part of the book is dedicated to the main character of the myths, telling about his image and path. The author believes that three stages can be distinguished in the life of each hero, when he realizes his essence, proves it with heroic deeds, and then returns to the world ordinary people, however, difficulties may arise at the final stage. In the second part, Campbell speaks through this image not only about the hero’s path, but also about the existence of everything in the world.
The book allows you to form general idea both about mythology and about the world as a whole, about the perception of people and their attitude towards the images of heroes. At the same time, it makes it possible to take some part of it and study it in more detail, since the research material is very extensive.
The work belongs to the Psychology genre. It was published in 2008 by ACT, Refl-book, Wackler. The book is part of the "Masters of Psychology (Peter)" series. On our website you can download the book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format or read online. The book's rating is 3.63 out of 5. Here, before reading, you can also turn to reviews from readers who are already familiar with the book and find out their opinion. In our partner's online store you can buy and read the book in paper version.
Joseph Campbell
hero with a thousand faces
To my parents
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
© Translation into Russian LLC Publishing House "Piter", 2018
© Russian edition, LLC Publishing House "Piter", 2018
© Series “Masters of Psychology”, 2018
Preface
that most cannot understand them true meaning. For example, we tell a child that small children are brought by a stork. And the truth is represented here symbolically, since we know what exactly this big bird embodies. However, the child does not know this. He feels the falsehood, understands that he has been deceived, and we know how often his distrust of adults and his reluctance to obey them begins precisely with such experiences. We have come to the conclusion that it is better not to distort the truth with the help of such symbols and not to deny the child knowledge of real circumstances, taking into account the level of his intellectual development.
The purpose of this book is precisely to discover the nature of some of these truths, known to us under the masks of characters of religions and myths, to bring together many characteristic fragments that are not too difficult to understand, and so to reveal their original meaning. The ancient teachers knew what they meant. Once we can read their symbolic language again, we will need to master the art of anthology in order to give to modern man hear what they taught. But first we must study the grammar of symbols itself, and there are hardly any better tools - as a key to its secrets - than the modern psychoanalytic approach. Without trying to present this method as the last word in science, one can nevertheless admit that this approach is acceptable. The next step is to bring together the many myths and folk tales from all over the world and let them speak for themselves. In this way, all the semantic parallels will become immediately visible, in this way we will be able to present the entire vast and amazing set of fundamental truths that have determined human life for thousands of years on this planet.
Perhaps one can reproach me for the fact that, in trying to identify correspondences, I neglected the differences in the traditions of East and West, modern times, antiquity, and primitive peoples. However, a similar objection can be made to any anatomy textbook that explicitly neglects racial differences in physiological characteristics for the sake of a fundamental general understanding of human physical nature. Of course, there are differences between the many mythological and religious systems of mankind, but this book is devoted, in fact, to what unites them; and once we understand this, we will discover that the differences here are not as great as is commonly believed wide circles unenlightened public (and, of course, among politicians). I hope that this kind of comparative research will contribute to the not entirely hopeless cause of those constructive forces that are trying to unite modern world, - not for the sake of building an empire based on a single religion or political principles, but on a people-to-people basis. As the Vedas say: “The truth is one, the sages speak about it using many names.”
I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Henry Morton Robinson, whose advice greatly assisted me in the initial and final stages of the arduous work involved in bringing the materials I collected into a readable form, and also to Mrs. Peter Jager, Mrs. Margaret Wing and Mrs. Helen McMaster, for their invaluable suggestions after reading my manuscripts many times, and finally to my wife, who worked next to me from the first to last day by listening, reading and editing what you have written.
New York,June 10, 1948J.K.Il. 1. Gorgon Medusa (marble). Ancient Rome, exact date unknown
1. Myth and dreams
When we arrogantly watch a red-eyed Congolese shaman in the midst of a ritual, or take exquisite pleasure in reading exquisite translations of Lao Tzu's enigmatic verses; when we try to delve into the complex argument of Thomas Aquinas or suddenly grasp the meaning of a bizarre Eskimo tale, we always encounter the same, changing in form, but still surprisingly constant story and at the same time the same defiantly persistent hint that the unknown, somewhere waiting for us, is much more than can ever be known and told to the world.
Wherever man has set foot, always and in all circumstances, people have created myths, living embodiments of the work of the human body and spirit. It would not be an exaggeration to say that myth is a wonderful channel through which human culture in all its manifestations, inexhaustible flows of cosmic energy. Religions, philosophies, arts, forms of social organization of primitive and historical person, discoveries in science and technology, and the dreams themselves, bursting into our sleep in flashes - all this originates in the primordial, magical circle of myth.
It’s simply amazing that the simplest children’s fairy tale has the special power to touch and inspire deep layers of creativity - just as a drop of water preserves the taste of the ocean, and a flea’s egg contains all the mystery of life. For mythological symbols are not born of themselves; they cannot be brought to life by the will of reason, invented and suppressed with impunity. They are a spontaneous product of the psyche, and each of them carries intact in the germ all the power of its original sources.
What is the secret of this timeless vision? In what depths of the brain does it originate? Why are myths the same everywhere, no matter what clothes they wear? And what is their meaning?
Many branches of science have tried to answer this question. Archaeologists are looking for answers at excavations in Iraq, Crete and Yucatan. Ethnologists collect information from the Khanty on the banks of the Ob and the African Bubi tribes living in the Fernando Po valleys. A new generation of Orientalists has recently discovered the sacred texts of the East, as well as sources Holy Scripture created in the pre-Jewish era. And another group of purposeful researchers-ethnopsychologists, back in the last century, tried to answer the question about the psychological origins of language, myths, religion, art in their development, and moral norms.
Rated the book
Rated the book
You are that
Abyssus abyssum invocat.
98 read? 4 reviews?.. I truly don’t understand anything in this world!
Take the book apart for quotes and reread, reread, reread.
On my part, this was the most feeble attempt in the world to “respect anything other than the Dharma.” Why? Yes, open "Hero"...
The path is the path.
"Indeed summary, the universal doctrine teaches that all visible structures of the world - all things and beings - are the result of the action of the omnipresent force from which they emanate, which supports and fills them with itself while their manifestation lasts (appearance in the world), and to which they must return to dissolve in it. It is a force known to science as energy, to the Melanesians as mana, to the Sioux Indians as the Wakonda, to the Hindus as Shakti, and to Christians as the power of God."
Campbell succeeded in the impossible - he brought together the goal of religious quest, the mythological proto-plot (monomyth) and the mental life of each person.
I had heard about this book for a long time, but only read it when synchronicity pointed it out to me (in the form of the “I want to read” list from Comrade. commeavant“ah, it’s very convenient for fortune-telling) - and well, before, probably, it would have been less tough and would have caused more surprise. Now the surprise was caused, rather, by how timely it came to me!
Tragedy as a celebration of the destruction of temporary form, comedy as the great dance of life.
A man inside a lake who asks God for the opportunity to go outside, and receives the answer - go, but you will die. (Legend of one of the African peoples.)
King Muchukunda, born a man, was a great fighter and knight who wished for only one thing - endless sleep and the opportunity to incinerate with his gaze anyone who interfered with him. (This is now my favorite legend.)
An answer to a call, and an unanswered call, and what happens when you don't answer the call...
All truly great creative acts occur in the mode of death for the ordinary world.
Those who dive into the abyss and emerge connected to it by a ring.
Marriage with the goddess and reconciliation with the father - receiving the energy of the world and going beyond duality.
The danger of turning a hero into a tyrant, because a tyrant is just the embodiment of a petrified, numb, frozen life... (*The tyrant is Minos, and his petrified craving for power, which is embodied in the labyrinth with the minotaur; the antipode is the king who, according to ancient tradition, at the end of his reign, he prayed, took a bath, went out onto the platform and cut himself into pieces *)
"Lord of Two Worlds": the hero's final test is returning home. After all, even the Buddha doubted that his experience could be explained to other people.
And a lot more - I decided to change my traditions and not write a giant review with a bunch of quotes. I probably have 200 of them in my bookmarks.
This is advaita, but from a scientific point of view. I didn't even know this could happen. Jung also spoke - cautiously - about such things, but I had never met her directly and with such fascination, with such an exotic, powerful, indisputable evidence base from the religion and mythology of dozens of peoples of the world.
Wed:
"Which deity is worshiped in abstinence by Amaterasu on the High Heavens Plain? She worships her own inner self as a Deity, seeking to develop divine virtue in her own personality through inner purity and thus become one with God." (Comments)
And:
"God is not far away and not inaccessible. One's own enlightened consciousness is God. From it all objects arise and into it everything returns. All objects and objects constantly worship him in their own varied and accessible ways." ("Yoga-Vasishtha")
Joseph Campbell, you are my hero. Even if in our a-ritualized time of mechanical gods we all live not as in your main text, but as in your last page passing this great path not in tribal renunciations and dances, but in despair - and joy! - loneliness.
Rated the book
It is perceived as vague propaganda of “eastern spirituality”. The message of this book is not very clear. Comparisons with Propp naturally suggest themselves. But what Propp does in “Morphology...” is clear; he is engaged in literary criticism. But what Campbell does is another question.
It would be hard to call this book scientific, even popular science. It’s somehow too voluminous for journalism. It’s too fluent for a textbook. There is no psychology here. For philosophy, it’s too cliched and not original.
In general, at best we have something like hermeneutics based on mythological texts. At worst, an extremely bloated essay on the topic “What mythologies have I read and what do I find in common in them?” Considering the final conclusions at the fifth-grader level, about the fact that “everything is rotten in the Danish kingdom,” I am inclined to the latter.
Okay, I need to say at least something kind. Campbell does the analysis really large quantity various myths, including little-known ones. This will be curious for a person who is not in the subject and may provoke him to take something to read from primary sources. The bad thing is that from all these myths the author stubbornly pulls out what he needs to illustrate his thoughts (that’s right, in the singular), and ignores everything else. Therefore, I would not draw conclusions about this or that mythological system based on Campbell’s reasoning.
To summarize: if you want to talk about archetypes and the unconscious, read Jung. If you want to talk about myths, read the texts themselves with notes from experts. If you want to talk about structuralism, read Propp. And I still haven’t figured out why I should read Campbell.
Eat great book"The Hero with a Thousand Faces"
I bet her sales will skyrocket
I read it in Kyiv this wild spring.
As if on a binge, having gone into loneliness, my tongue abandoned me,
There was a complete dead end, you don’t know what it is.
Everyone was wondering - is he drinking or preparing a release? I was just sitting on the balcony.
Are these average rhymes? So what? After all, there is truth behind them.
This book brought me back, I realized that I was still alive.
And she inspired Lucas to create Star Wars. E-e-e!
The point is simple, in all mythologies, all religions, how many can you find?
And at the heart of every story there is the same motive:
Someone hears a distant voice, he leaves the house alone.
He walks along the road from the city into a dark forest full of cobwebs.
On the way he meets monsters, and he fights them alone.
He is not a hero yet, he is afraid of everything, but he keeps going.
And in the end - he comes to the lair, it will be difficult, but he will win.
And having killed the dragon, he will return home, but not to the same person who left.
He'll sleep a little, there'll be no bazaar, and then he'll hit the road again.
And comics, TV series, cultures, posts are built on this,
Drug trips and dystopias, fairy tales, fables, sculptures and dreams -
And so much so that if you compare
Egyptian myths and Gangster Petersburg
You will see the journey of one hero under the guise of these two.
The hero's path is to kill monsters, take treasures, build temples.
He is a hero not because he is a muscleman and a fighter, but because he cannot do otherwise.
I remember the first battles in Russia - there it was believed that an enemy was needed,
To make it out for sure, you need to surround it with kilometers of riser.
Afterwards, deconstruction began.
All the enemies were diligently unscrewed.
But underneath all the kitchen psychology
There lies a collective unconsciousness.
And behind everyone, even everyday
The manifestation of the negativity of two individuals
An ancient motif is visible - a clash of archetypes.
The heroes have not gone anywhere, the dragons have not gone anywhere.
Even if their battle is in the office between a stapler and a hole puncher.
And heroes and dragons are very similar,
They are confused, but wait - there is a fundamental difference.
After all, only the dragon has no way,
No idea, no ideology. His role is to be an enemy.
He sits quietly in his den. Breathes out fire with smoke.
Why doesn't Joker have his own movie?
Batman, CatWoman, Batman and Robin, but he has nothing.
Why isn't there a game where you're like a fungus and you jump on SuperMario?
And if there was, it would be a joke, millions would not play the game.
And do you understand what I'm getting at? My analysis here is quite simple.
Gnoyny, you are just another level, but not the final boss.
Because the hero is not ashamed to say - I am flawed, I am vulnerable.
And that’s why people see themselves in him, but they can’t see themselves in you.
You are a snake, you are afraid of me and yourself.
Your only chance is to laugh it off.
You are a shifty bastard, you can’t get caught,
Only this is your bug, not a feature, dude.
Because sarcasm is a shell, armor, scales.
But where are you, comrade? I read with my visor open, friends.
And therefore - you will lose. Maybe the card fell this way and karma is shitty,
But you only played the antagonist.
And this is the tragedy of Slava Mashny,
Arelina, further down the list.
You're not an antihero, you're not a hero at all,
You evoke zero empathy.
And the tops, alas, will not follow you.
You follow them on Instagram.
You have no way, you used mine
But I forgot that there was sincerity in mine.
Battle rap, black humor and grime.
Where is Gnoyny behind the banter and anonymity?
But he simply doesn’t exist, because he disappeared somewhere.
You copied everything, even this gesture of mine.
Mr. Postmodernist, you are a compost dermist.
Your destiny is to be the MC for celebrations.
And maybe someone noticed that there is no swearing in my rounds.
How so? Gotham will ask me, you are the author of that very quote.
It’s very simple - I’m fighting a shell-shocked, wildly dull tramp.
And obscene language is the pearl of the Great Russian language. OK?
And let's say today, maybe you can even kill me.
I will continue to travel through stadiums, you will continue to troll me.
Caliphs for an hour, leaders for a moment, look,
They are ready to arrogantly conquer Olympus.
What? My cake with candles is burning in the distance. I'm so old.
To me, BlackStar means Talib, Kwali and Moss Depp.
And someone’s voice whispers to me - stop rapping, leave your mark clean.
Before you degenerate like a bro step, but the edging light blinds the crowd of faces.
Squeals, tears, laundry. We are a boys band, and you are a critic from your mother’s sofa.
Listen, Ivangay, as Stalin once said - “If you criticize, suggest!”
You'll make a fool, you'll bully - it doesn't matter.
After all, for now you are in my rap coordinate system.
If you ever suggest an alternative syllable,
Because it’s a shame to live in someone else’s paradigm at 27 years old,
Then on your own path you will become a hero of the people.
In the meantime, you are just something that my ass gave birth to.
Slava, Slava, you are lively and affectionate,
But take my organ out of your throat.
You were just a long enough pear
In my preparation for Dizaster.
Joseph Campbell
HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES
THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES
BOLLINGEN SERIES XVII
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Myth in the modern world
In the modern rational and pragmatic world, perhaps precisely because of this, interest in mythology is growing and deepening. Just as centuries ago, myths enchant, they are enigmatic and mysterious, antediluvian stories turn out to be unexpectedly relevant, humanity continues to find food for the soul and mind in them. Depth psychology has revealed many of the secrets of myth in the works of 3. Freud, C. G. Jung, E. Neumann, O. Rank, D. Hilman show the unconscious foundations of mythological symbolism, explain the origin of the grotesque characters of myths, the origins of their extraordinary adventures and amazing destinies. However, having been scientifically “disenchanted”, myths and legends have not at all lost their meaning for us - on the contrary, reading special works allows us to re-evaluate the unsurpassed combination of naive charm and enormous wisdom of the most simple legend or fairy tale.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is one of the most fascinating works of comparative mythology. This is a study of the psychological basis of heroic myths of various times and peoples, based on vast factual material. Joseph Campbell, with rare skill, is able to combine poetic presentation and a scientific view of the problem. Fairy tales and magical stories in the author’s retelling not only do not lose their charm, but acquire a new sound - thanks to a subtle analysis of the deep aspects of the human psyche, allegorically presented in plots and individual episodes of myths and legends.
Campbell's work is dedicated to the most common mythological plot - the story of the hero of his miraculous birth, heroic deeds, marriage to a beauty, wise rule and mysterious, mysterious death. The folklore of many nations tells about the life of such characters: among the Sumerians it was Gilgamesh, among the Jews - Moses and Joseph the Beautiful, among the Greeks - Theseus, Hercules, Jason, Odysseus, among the Scandinavians and Germans - Sigurd - Siegfried, among the Celts - King Arthur, among the Irish - the strongman Cu Chulainn and the valiant Diarmuid, among the French - Roland and Charlemagne, among the Yugoslavs - Marco - the youth, among the Moldovans - the sunny Fat - Frumos, among the Russians - a whole galaxy of “mighty heroes”. This list can be continued indefinitely. Why are stories about heroes so popular?
Campbell, like other authors (Claudio Naranjo, Alexander Piatigorsky, Geza Roheim Victor Turner Mircea Eliade), believes that the basis heroic myth compose symbolic forms of expression of two most important for the collective and individual human history events - the creation of the world and the formation of personality. In other words, in heroic epic in front of us cosmogonic myth And initiation ritual. The birth of a hero and his wanderings correspond to the symbolism of initiation (rites of passage), and feats, accomplishments and death correspond to the world order, the creation of Cosmos (order) from universal Chaos. Both of these processes are to some extent united, and initiation itself often has the character of a cosmogonic act - for example, in the Caucasian tales of heroes - narmax, or in Campbell's own myths about Krishna and Buddha.
The first part of the book is devoted to individual history hero with a thousand faces. The general outline of his adventures corresponds to the main stages of the initiation process and reproduces the various forms of rites of passage (rites de passage). The famous folklorist Arnold van Gennep identified three such stages - separative, consisting in the detachment of the individual from the group to which he was previously a member; liminal or the stage of “being on the edge” and recovery (reintegrative). A change in social or other status, which constitutes the main goal of initiation tests, involves a “exit” from the previous state, a renunciation of cultural functions, and the destruction of a social role. In myth, this is symbolized by the literal departure, flight, wanderings and wanderings of the hero. Before this, he hears a call, often accompanied by a warning about mortal danger, threats - or, conversely, promises of unprecedented good. Whether the hero heeds the call or refuses it, this is always the beginning of the path of separation from everything that was familiar and familiar. A typical form of conscription is embodied in the well-known epic fairy-tale plot: “If you go to the right, you will find a wife, if you go to the left, you will take wealth, if you go straight, you will lay down your violent head.”
The liminal stage is represented by the crossing of boundaries (thresholds: limen literally means “threshold”), being in an unusual, intermediate state. Lack of status is marked by blindness, invisibility, nudity, ridiculous attire (reed hat, donkey skin, caftan turned inside out), dirt, silence, prohibitions (which relate to sleeping, laughing, eating, drinking, etc.). “Liminal beings, for example, neophytes in rites of initiation or coming of age,” points out V. Turner, “can be presented as not owning anything. They may dress up as monsters, wear only rags, or even go naked, demonstrating a lack of status, property, insignia, worldly clothing indicating their place or role, position in the kinship system - in short, anything that could distinguish them from other neophytes or initiated. Their behavior is usually passive or humiliated; they must obey their teachers unquestioningly or accept unjust punishment without complaint.”
Liminality can be combined with being in the other world (a dungeon, the belly of a whale or other monster, at the bottom of the sea).
The hero is in the kingdom of death, he is a living dead who is facing a new birth and transformation.
The content of the third stage, rebirth (transfiguration, salvation, magical escape) ends with the apotheosis of the hero’s power and authority. He acquires extraordinary strength, magical skills, beauty, royal rank, marries a princess, and becomes a god. The main conquest of the hero in the myth is called by Campbell “freedom to live”:
Powerful in his insight, cool and free in his actions, exulting that his hand will be moved by the favor of Viracocha, the hero becomes the conscious instrument of the great and terrible Law, be his actions those of a butcher, a jester, or a king (p. 236).
However, the hero's adventures do not end with his apotheosis or death. Individual destiny divine hero is closely connected with the fate of the world, its emergence and renewal. The very birth of the hero, Campbell points out, takes place in the sacred center of the world (this is the so-called “Navel of the Earth”), sometimes, on the contrary, the place of burial becomes such a point (the legend that Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion of Christ, hides the skull of Adam). From this center creation begins, and the material for it is often the flesh of the hero or the body of a giant, snake, or chthonic monster killed by him. Indra's victory over the dragon Vritra, Marduk's killing of the terrible Tiamat, the creation of the world of people and gods from the body of the giant Ymir - these and other examples are discussed in detail in the book.
The creation of the world as a heroic act is not a single act, but a repeatedly repeated act. “What was brought to life in the act of creation,” writes V.N. Toporov, “became a condition of existence and was perceived as good. But by the end of each cycle it fell into decline, diminished, “erased” and in order to continue its previous existence it needed restoration, renewal, strengthening. The possibilities of ritual in this regard were determined by the fact that it was, as it were, inherent in the act of creation, reproduced it with its structure and meaning, and revived anew what arose in the act of creation.”
The hero, who reproduced the actions of the demiurge - the creator, was this creator and all subsequent ones - the events of the myth and its participants repeat the cosmogonic act again and again, they are its various variations - “allo-events” and “allogheroes”. This is how a hero in thousands of faces arose and forever walks the earth.
A reduced, partially desacralized version of the heroic myth is represented by a fairy tale. Campbell's book does not draw strict boundaries between myth and fairy tale - in fact, it is simply various genres the same plot. Parsing in a similar way fairy tale V.Ya. Propp identified similar functions fairy tale hero- absence, prohibition and its violation (“do not go up to the carved porch, do not leave the golden tower”), trouble or shortage (the decrepit king needs rejuvenating apples and living water), exile, flight and pursuit, tests of courage, fortitude and strength, finding a magical remedy or a magical assistant, a mysterious forest, grateful animals, a trip to another kingdom (in the form of an animal, on a horse, a bird, along a tree or ladder, falling into an abyss), fighting a serpent (the serpent is associated with mountains or water, acts as kidnapper, devourer, serpent's exactions - "every month he took a young girl and devoured"), crossing the fiery river, conquest of the princess, difficult tasks (often in response to matchmaking), magical escape, false hero and recognition of the true, transformation and accession of the hero.
