The Hero with a Thousand Faces

An individual person cannot be the composite human, for the person is limited by sex, age, and vocation. The “fullness of man” (383) can only be located in the group, of which the individual is a direct product. The one who separates from the group has separated from himself.

Societal roles are enforced by certain rituals such as “birth, marriage, burial, installation” (383). People occupy these roles to place them firmly in the social structure and to preserve the community, which will last beyond the lives of its individual members. The social outcast cannot experience this assurance and has no value for the group. The social rituals enact the unity of individual and society, as well as represent the unity of society and the universe.

Campbell points out that many thinkers interpret certain tribal rituals as attempts to manipulate natural phenomena. He argues that most of these rituals are actually performed in acceptance of natural changes—such as the coming of winter—and are meant to prepare community members for these changes.

Campbell cites two traditions that picture the oneness of society and cosmos in their rituals. Certain Native American tribes view animals like the beaver as part of their bloodline and thus treat the creature with reverence and protection. The Navaho tribe constructs a mud hut called a hogan that reflects the hogan of the cosmos.

Although the social outcast does not seem to possess value for the group, he might actually be a hero embarking on a journey. The hero knows that his vocation, sex, and age are not essential qualities but temporary “costumes” and “the accidents of geography, birth-date, and income” (385). Meditation, asceticism, and other religious practices that involve social withdrawal invite people to see beyond these costumes into the oneness of all things. The enlightened one returns to earth changed, unconcerned with social labels. He can exist freely among societies, for they are all of himself, and he is of them; “[t]hus, just as the way of social participation may lead in the end to a realization of the All in the individual, so that of exile brings the hero to the Self in all” (386). The distinction between self-interest and self-sacrifice dissolves, and the hero exists in harmony with the cosmos.

Campbell considers how the modern person has cast away mythology and believes humankind to be enlightened and free due to rugged individualism, scientific progress, and the machine age. There is little use for gods. This is reflected not only in modern thought but in contemporary social structures, which are increasingly politically and economically organized.

The traditional social model has flipped: Once the group superseded the individual, and now the individual supersedes the group. This produces a great confusion in the individual, however, who has no set structures by which to construct meaning and has become separated from his unconscious. In this lies the contemporary hero’s journey: to unite the conscious and the unconscious once again.

Campbell continues that people frequently misinterpret the hero’s journey today because contemporary social structures differ from those of the past. Furthermore, a host of secular groups have weakened and subsumed much of religion, and many participants do not engage in rigorous religious practice. The modern hero-task is to find the fullness of humanity within by engaging with the mysteries of the unconscious—not only on an individual level but on a global level. In reference to the emerging mythologies around the world, Campbell quotes a Hindu proverb: “‘Truth is one,’ we read in the Vedas; ‘the sages call it by many names’” (389-90).

Campbell continues, “The center of gravity, that is to say, of the realm of mystery and danger has definitely shifted” (390). Former societies focused on animals as mysterious, fearsome beings that invaded their worlds. In this focus, they also turned this fear into connection, forming mythologies around beings that had both animal and human elements. Plant-eating tribes formed similar mythological bonds with the world’s flora, as the human life cycle mirrored that of cultivating crops. Other groups created mythology from heavenly bodies, the sun, moon, and stars.

These patterns of thought have passed away, and the cosmos is not a source of awe. Rather, humanity itself is the focus of intense study and fascination, as evidenced in popular contemporary fields like anthropology and psychology. Campbell writes, “Man is that alien presence with whom the forces of egoism must come to terms, through whom the ego is to be crucified and resurrected, and in whose image society is to be reformed” (391). In this way, the individual can find within the total, universal human. Society, ever riddled by vice, will never be ready for the hero to depart, and indeed the modern hero will likely realize his destiny amid isolation and grief.