Lights: Joseph Campbell
Neolithic mask; 7000 B.C. Wikimedia Commons
The Masks of God
Enter the mythological world of Joseph Campbell
Primitive Mythology
Why should it be that whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination – preferring even to make life a hell for themselves and their neighbors, in the name of some violent god, instead of accepting gracefully the bounty the world affords?
And though many who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition rationally scrutinize and disqualify the sacrament of others, a comparison reveals that all have been built from one fund of mythological motifs – variously selected, organized, interpreted, and ritualized according to local need.
Such themes as the fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero have a worldwide distribution – appearing everywhere in new combinations while remaining only a few and always the same.
By looking into this, we can get an image of a fundamental unity in the spiritual history of mankind. In entering the Primitive Mythology of Joseph Campbell, we will explore the ideas of Inherited Images and Imprints of Experience, the worlds of Primitive Planters, and in the world of Primitive Hunters, the Shamanism and the Paleolithic Caves.
Occidental Mythology
The geographical divide between the Oriental and the Occidental ranges of myth and ritual is the tableland of Iran. Eastward are the two spiritual provinces of India and the Far East, and westward, Europe and the Levant.
Throughout the Orient the idea prevails that the ultimate ground of being transcends thought, imaging, and definition. The supreme aim of Oriental mythology, consequently, is not to establish as substantial any of its divinities or associated rites, but to render by means of these an experience that goes beyond. An experience of identity with that Being of beings which is both immanent and transcendent. Prayers and chants, images, temples, gods, sages, definitions and cosmologies are but ferries to a shore of experience beyond the categories of thought and rationality.
In the Western ranges of mythological thought and imagery, on the other hand (whether in Europe or the Levant), the ground of being is normally personified as a Creator – of whom Man is the creature distinct from the Creator. The primary function of Occidental myth and ritual, consequently, is to establish a means of relationship of God to Man and Man to God.
This relationship has branched out in two very different ways. On the one hand, Man may renounce his human judgment in the face of the majesty of God. This is a type of piety we find in all the traditions of the Levant: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. On the other hand, Man may - in the manner of the Greeks – stand by his human values and judge, according to these, the character of his gods. This type of piety is of a humanistic kind, and is recognized in the native mythologies of Europe: Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Germanic.
A further look into this.
Oriental Mythology
The myth of eternal return, which is still basic to Oriental life, displays an order of fixed forms that appear and reappear through all time. There never was a time when time was not. The daily round of the sun, the waning and waxing moon, the cycle of the year, the rhythm of organic birth, death, and new birth, represent a miracle of continuous arising that is fundamental to the nature of the universe.
There is nothing to be gained, either for the universe or for man, through individual originality and effort. The first duty of the individual is to play his given role – as do the sun and moon, the various animal and plant species, the waters, the rocks, and the stars – without resistance, without fault; and then, if possible, to identify its consciousness with the inhabiting principle of the whole. The dreamlike spell of this contemplative, metaphysically oriented tradition carries into modern times an image that is of incalculable age.
The individual matters no more than a fallen leaf. Old rites work in a way to move the focus of the individual from himself (who is perishable) to the everlasting group. In the words of the Indian Bhagavad Gita: “..as worn out clothes are cast off and others put on that are new, so worn out bodies are cast off by the dweller in the body and others put on that are new.”
Moving west, to the Near East in Sumer, a new sense of the separation of the spheres of god and man began to be represented in myth and ritual about 2350 B.C. The king, then, was no longer a god, but a servant to the god, his Tenant Farmer, supervisor of the race of human slaves created to serve the gods with unremitting toil. And no longer identity, but relationship, was the paramount concern. The king, from having been the chief embodiment of divinity on earth, was now but a priest offering sacrifice in tendance to the One above.
Oriental mythology contains striking contrasts to Occidental mythology, as we will see when we go into Campbell’s treatment of this vast area. He looks at the following themes:
The Separation of East and West; divided into the themes: The Four Great Domains, The Cities of God, and The Cities of Men.
The Mythologies of India; divided into the themes: Ancient India (Indus: 2500 – 1500 B.C.; Vedic: 1500 – 500 B.C.), Buddhist India (The New City States: 800 – 500 B.C.; The Great Classics: 500 B.C. – 500 A.D.), and The Indian Golden Age (The Age of the Great Beliefs: 500 – 1500 A.D.)
The Mythologies of the Far East; divided into the themes Chinese Mythology, and Japanese Mythology.
Creative Mythology
In our recent West, since the middle of the twelfth century, an accelerating disintegration has been undoing the formidable orthodox tradition. With its fall, the released creative powers of a great company of towering individuals have broken forth. In the fields of literature, secular philosophy, and the arts a totally new type of non-theological revelation has become the actual spiritual guide and structuring force of the civilization. In the context of traditional mythology, the symbols are presented in socially maintained rites. In what Campbell is calling “creative” mythology this order is reversed: the individual has had an experience of his own – of order, horror, beauty, or even mere exhilaration – which he seeks to communicate through signs. Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.
The first function of mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysteries of this universe as it is. The second function is to render an interpretative total image of the same, as known to contemporary consciousness. Shakespeare’s definition of the function of his art, “to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature” is thus equally a definition of mythology. A third function is the enforcement of moral order: the shaping of the individual to the requirements of his geographically and historically conditioned social group. In this moral, sociological sphere, authority and coercion come into play. In Christian Europe, already in the twelfth century, beliefs no longer universally held were universally enforced. The result was dissociation of professed existence from actual existence. The consequence was spiritual disaster which, in the imagery of the Grail legend, is symbolized in the Waste Land theme: a landscape of spiritual death, a world waiting, waiting – for Godot – for the Desired Knight who would restore its integrity to life and let stream again from infinite depths the lost, forgotten waters of the inexhaustible source. The present wave of “New Age” is also an expression of this search.
The rise and fall of civilizations in the long, broad course of history can be seen to have been largely a function of their supporting canons of myth, because not authority but aspiration is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilization. For those in whom a local mythology still works, there is an experience both of accord with the social order, and of harmony with the universe. For those in whom the authorized signs no longer work, there follows a sense of dissociation. Coerced to the social pattern, the individual can then only harden, and if any considerable number of the members of this society are in this situation, the point of no return will have been passed.
Primitive Mythology
Why should it be that whenever men have looked for something solid on which to found their lives, they have chosen not the facts in which the world abounds, but the myths of an immemorial imagination – preferring even to make life a hell for themselves and their neighbors, in the name of some violent god, instead of accepting gracefully the bounty the world affords?
And though many who bow with closed eyes in the sanctuaries of their own tradition rationally scrutinize and disqualify the sacrament of others, a comparison reveals that all have been built from one fund of mythological motifs – variously selected, organized, interpreted, and ritualized according to local need.
Such themes as the fire theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero have a worldwide distribution – appearing everywhere in new combinations while remaining only a few and always the same.
By looking into this, we can get an image of a fundamental unity in the spiritual history of mankind. In entering the Primitive Mythology of Joseph Campbell, we will explore the ideas of Inherited Images and Imprints of Experience, the worlds of Primitive Planters, and in the world of Primitive Hunters, the Shamanism and the Paleolithic Caves.
Occidental Mythology
The geographical divide between the Oriental and the Occidental ranges of myth and ritual is the tableland of Iran. Eastward are the two spiritual provinces of India and the Far East, and westward, Europe and the Levant.
Throughout the Orient the idea prevails that the ultimate ground of being transcends thought, imaging, and definition. The supreme aim of Oriental mythology, consequently, is not to establish as substantial any of its divinities or associated rites, but to render by means of these an experience that goes beyond. An experience of identity with that Being of beings which is both immanent and transcendent. Prayers and chants, images, temples, gods, sages, definitions and cosmologies are but ferries to a shore of experience beyond the categories of thought and rationality.
In the Western ranges of mythological thought and imagery, on the other hand (whether in Europe or the Levant), the ground of being is normally personified as a Creator – of whom Man is the creature distinct from the Creator. The primary function of Occidental myth and ritual, consequently, is to establish a means of relationship of God to Man and Man to God.
This relationship has branched out in two very different ways. On the one hand, Man may renounce his human judgment in the face of the majesty of God. This is a type of piety we find in all the traditions of the Levant: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. On the other hand, Man may - in the manner of the Greeks – stand by his human values and judge, according to these, the character of his gods. This type of piety is of a humanistic kind, and is recognized in the native mythologies of Europe: Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Germanic.
A further look into this.
Oriental Mythology
The myth of eternal return, which is still basic to Oriental life, displays an order of fixed forms that appear and reappear through all time. There never was a time when time was not. The daily round of the sun, the waning and waxing moon, the cycle of the year, the rhythm of organic birth, death, and new birth, represent a miracle of continuous arising that is fundamental to the nature of the universe.
There is nothing to be gained, either for the universe or for man, through individual originality and effort. The first duty of the individual is to play his given role – as do the sun and moon, the various animal and plant species, the waters, the rocks, and the stars – without resistance, without fault; and then, if possible, to identify its consciousness with the inhabiting principle of the whole. The dreamlike spell of this contemplative, metaphysically oriented tradition carries into modern times an image that is of incalculable age.
The individual matters no more than a fallen leaf. Old rites work in a way to move the focus of the individual from himself (who is perishable) to the everlasting group. In the words of the Indian Bhagavad Gita: “..as worn out clothes are cast off and others put on that are new, so worn out bodies are cast off by the dweller in the body and others put on that are new.”
Moving west, to the Near East in Sumer, a new sense of the separation of the spheres of god and man began to be represented in myth and ritual about 2350 B.C. The king, then, was no longer a god, but a servant to the god, his Tenant Farmer, supervisor of the race of human slaves created to serve the gods with unremitting toil. And no longer identity, but relationship, was the paramount concern. The king, from having been the chief embodiment of divinity on earth, was now but a priest offering sacrifice in tendance to the One above.
Oriental mythology contains striking contrasts to Occidental mythology, as we will see when we go into Campbell’s treatment of this vast area. He looks at the following themes:
The Separation of East and West; divided into the themes: The Four Great Domains, The Cities of God, and The Cities of Men.
The Mythologies of India; divided into the themes: Ancient India (Indus: 2500 – 1500 B.C.; Vedic: 1500 – 500 B.C.), Buddhist India (The New City States: 800 – 500 B.C.; The Great Classics: 500 B.C. – 500 A.D.), and The Indian Golden Age (The Age of the Great Beliefs: 500 – 1500 A.D.)
The Mythologies of the Far East; divided into the themes Chinese Mythology, and Japanese Mythology.
Creative Mythology
In our recent West, since the middle of the twelfth century, an accelerating disintegration has been undoing the formidable orthodox tradition. With its fall, the released creative powers of a great company of towering individuals have broken forth. In the fields of literature, secular philosophy, and the arts a totally new type of non-theological revelation has become the actual spiritual guide and structuring force of the civilization. In the context of traditional mythology, the symbols are presented in socially maintained rites. In what Campbell is calling “creative” mythology this order is reversed: the individual has had an experience of his own – of order, horror, beauty, or even mere exhilaration – which he seeks to communicate through signs. Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.
The first function of mythology is to reconcile waking consciousness to the mysteries of this universe as it is. The second function is to render an interpretative total image of the same, as known to contemporary consciousness. Shakespeare’s definition of the function of his art, “to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature” is thus equally a definition of mythology. A third function is the enforcement of moral order: the shaping of the individual to the requirements of his geographically and historically conditioned social group. In this moral, sociological sphere, authority and coercion come into play. In Christian Europe, already in the twelfth century, beliefs no longer universally held were universally enforced. The result was dissociation of professed existence from actual existence. The consequence was spiritual disaster which, in the imagery of the Grail legend, is symbolized in the Waste Land theme: a landscape of spiritual death, a world waiting, waiting – for Godot – for the Desired Knight who would restore its integrity to life and let stream again from infinite depths the lost, forgotten waters of the inexhaustible source. The present wave of “New Age” is also an expression of this search.
The rise and fall of civilizations in the long, broad course of history can be seen to have been largely a function of their supporting canons of myth, because not authority but aspiration is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilization. For those in whom a local mythology still works, there is an experience both of accord with the social order, and of harmony with the universe. For those in whom the authorized signs no longer work, there follows a sense of dissociation. Coerced to the social pattern, the individual can then only harden, and if any considerable number of the members of this society are in this situation, the point of no return will have been passed.