The Hero’s Journey Joseph Campbell’s Explanation of The Departure, The Initiation, - PowerPoint Presentation

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The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell’s Explanation of The Departure, The Initiation, and The Return

The Departure

The Call to Adventure:

The call to adventure is the point in a person's life when he or she is first given notice that everything is going to change, whether he or she knows it or not.

The Departure

Refusal of the Call:

Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of

duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy

, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.

Luke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBm8ORsvBNM

Neo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lweuy1X9Tcg

The Departure:

Supernatural Aid

Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known.

The Departure:

Supernatural Aid (Continued)

This is often the one who delivered the call to adventure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFB16GCocfw

Talisman

An object or weapon that is representative of the hero.

It can be a weapon, artifact, or viewed as a good luck charm

AND/OR some skill, power, or talent in the hero that they have not fully recognized until now.

The Departure:

Crossing the Threshold

Acceptance of the Call:

Since this IS a hero story, the hero eventually reaches a point where the need is too great and/or the risk seems necessary.

The hero accepts the call, leaving his or her known world and venturing into the unknown and dangerous adventure.

Luke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhA1hn1o_bo

Neo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ1_IbFFbzA

The Initiation

The Road of Trials

The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.

The Initiation:

The Road of Trials:

Temptation

(What Campbell called the Woman as the Temptress)

This step is about those temptations that may lead the hero into failure(s) or even to abandon or stray from his or her quest.

The Initiation

The Hero’s lowest Point (What Campbell called The Belly of the Whale)

This is a critical moment in any story, an ordeal in which the hero appears to die and is born again.

Generally this is simply dying to the self (maybe shown by a willingness to give one’s life) so that the new (transformed) self can come into being.

(Sometime this killing

is

literal, and the earthly journey for that character is either over or moves into a different realm.)

The Initiation

The Belly of the Whale

This stage is a failure/loss that truly humbles the hero, but that hard gained humility is the last ingredient to make the hero truly heroic.

This transformation is what Campbell called Apotheosis: The hero has achieved a god-like state or transcendent perspective.

The Initiation

The Ultimate Boon

The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is whatever treasure the person went on the journey to get (whether the hero knew it or not). All the previous steps serve to prepare and prepare (or purify) the person for this step.

The Initiation

The ultimate boon(Continued):

But the “boon” is not always an object, and even an object is really a symbol of the apotheosis, or new “transcendent perspective” that the hero has gained, which is what makes him/her truly heroic.

The heroic perspective is the

ULTIMATE

“ultimate boon”.

Odysseus’ Hero’s Journey

So Far:

Call to Adventure: His call to join the Trojan War (OR choosing to go to

Ismaris

rather than straight back home like the rest of the Greeks)

Supernatural Aid: Athena, the goddess of wisdom

Talisman: His guile/wisdom/cleverness

Road of Trials/Temptation:

Ismaris

(Revenge), then partying too hard and too long on the beach and getting wiped out. First big failure!

Odysseus’ Hero’s Journey

So Far:

Lotus Eaters: Dangers of intoxication—numbing/distracting our pain. Forgetting our problems. Odysseus stayed sober and rescued his men. Maybe chose the wrong representatives.

Cyclops: Prideful selfish entitlement. Reveals a cultural weakness.

Heroic action: blinded the cyclops and had his men ride out

under the sheep.

Failure: Pride—taunting the cyclops with his real name. Gets him cursed

by Poseidon.

Aeolea

: Receive the bag of the winds so Poseidon can’t blow them off course.

He probably wanted credit—Pride. But he couldn’t stay awake long enough to

guard the bag. By not trusting his men with the truth, he set them all up for failure.

Circe: His men give in to lustful pleasure and are literally turned into the pigs they resemble.

But Athena gives Odysseus a charm to protect him and he makes a deal to save his men (but he must sacrifice his own ethics to do so).

Odysseus’ Hero’s Journey

So Far:

“Belly of the Whale” (His lowest point): Odysseus has to enter the underworld of Hades—and no mortal has ever returned alive. He must face his own death willingly, though it terrifies him.

Receives “The Ultimate Boon”: The prophecy from Tiresias.

Tells him he will face anguish (because Poseidon is still against him).

The prophecy says: “One narrow strait may take you through his blows: Denial of yourself; restraint of shipmates.”

Then warns specifically NOT to eat the cattle of Helios, the sun god.

If they don’t, all of his remaining men will make it home.

If they do, only Odysseus makes it, and that after more trouble.

Odysseus’ Hero’s Journey

So Far:

Refusal of the Return:

When he washes up on the nymph Calypso’s island, he has lost all his men and probably felt the failure of that. He refused to go home . . . For

seven years.

Then she offers to make him immortal if he stays with her, giving him a very compelling reason NOT to return home ever.

His choice after 7 years of added failure, to get back up and put all the failure behind him, must have been extremely difficult.

“Giving up is easy. It’s living that is difficult.”

If you were to argue that his seven years with Calypso is Odysseus’ lowest point, I would not Fully disagree.

Odysseus’ Hero’s Journey

So Far:

Crossing the Return Threshold:

He came back in humility as a beggar, not in arrogance demanding that still honor him as king.

Wins back his wife with humility and truth.

Did she forgive him?

The only way to know you’ve been forgiven to be honest about your offense

Confess honestly and give the opportunity for true forgiveness

Be willing to face whatever meaningful consequences are part of the deal

The Return:

Refusal of the Return

(Not always present)

So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its cares and woes?

The Return:

Magic Flight

Sometimes

the hero must escape with “the treasure,” if it is something that the gods/enemies have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.

The Return:

Crossing the Return Threshold

This is the heroic return to the “ordinary world.”

But the hero is not the same person who left that world.

He/she may have the “boon” (whatever weapon/magical artifact was obtained) and definitely has a transformed (and transcendent) heroic perspective to share.

The hero is now uniquely qualified to face whatever threats his/her home may face.

The Return:

Freedom to Live

Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death (or failure), which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.