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In the mood for a re-read of Joseph Campbell’s classic https://t.co/L7Hs0llScD
we tell the truth in symbolic clothing the old teachers knew what they were saying we must learn the grammar of their symbols - Campbell knew he was simplifying + disregarding variations across cultures, and happily anticipated + welcomed criticism on this front
“The wonder is that characteristic efficacy to touch and inspire deep creative centers dwells in the smallest nursery fairy tale - as the flavor of the ocean is contained in a droplet or the whole mystery of life within the egg of a flea.”
- humans are born too soon, unfinished, unready - their defense from a universe of dangers is the Mother - for months after the catastrophe of birth, Mother and dependent Child constitute a dual unit, both physically and psychologically
Any prolonged absence of the parent causes tension in the infant and consequent impulses of aggression (also when the Mother is obliged to hamper the Child) Thus the first object of the child’s hostility is identical with the first object of its love
Beneath the floor of the comparatively neat dwelling that we call our consciousness lie unsuspected Aladdin caves Here there be jewels and jinns, inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives
The numerous strange rituals reported from both primitive tribes and great civilisations of the past appear to have a common purpose: To conduct people across difficult thresholds of transformation that demand a change in patterns of not only conscious but also unconscious life
Lol even in 1949 Campbell was saying Americans need to grow up And that psychoanalysts, experts, etc are basically performing the roles of shamans and medicine men Humans seem to need our Elons and Navals and Talebs to function as a pantheon to project our fantasies onto https://t.co/hoZU0Ulqj7
On Minos: “By sacrilege of the refusal of the right, however, the individual cut himself as a unit off from the larger unit of the whole community: and so the One was broken into the many, and these battles each other- each out for himself- and could be governed only by force.”
The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world - no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper https://t.co/H7EYjDmkNK
where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves where we had thought to travel outwards, we shall come to the center of our own existence where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world ❤️ https://t.co/bKDDzgIlLh
“though the terrors will recede before a genuine psychological readiness, the overbold adventurer beyond his depth may be shamelessly undone.” ^ this feels like something that doesn’t get represented much anymore as stories get Disneyfied – fools being brutally devoured by ogres https://t.co/qzcp8g2CHJ
The last paragraph of Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces: the modern hero who dares to heed the call… cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast of its slough of pride, fear, avarice, sanctified misunderstanding live, as though the day were here https://t.co/EgxElN9fxG
