The Hero with a Thousand Faces

“It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.” 

Campbell begins The Hero with a Thousand Faces by commenting on the ubiquity of myth in human culture. All areas of human development arise from a common story and set of symbols, and Campbell will explore this story in great detail.

“Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problems and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.” 

Myth and dream share a common symbology and represent the human mind’s basic urges in narrative form. The difference between the two is that myth is public and dream is private.

“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” 

In his extended analogy about the myth of the Minotaur, Campbell likens Theseus’s journey into the labyrinth with a person battling the personal demons of their unconscious. The one who embarks on this private hero’s journey will gain great rewards despite the dangers they fear.