"The true language, the profound language, must open consciousness" (Nietzsche).
"A whole mythology is deposited in our language" (Wittgenstein).
"The center is, above all, the origin, the starting point of all things" (René Guénon).
The Hero's Journey
Campbell's Monomyth
According to mythologist Joseph Campbell, who expounded his theory in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949), the hero's journey in all cultures has a common pattern, a same mythic structure that he calls "monomyth" (a term taken from Finnegan's Wake, by James Joyce). The journey is always the same archetypal story, although developed with infinite possible variations. The journey is individual and can be external (physical) or internal (through the mind, heart or spirit).
The structure of the monomyth, according to Campbell, consists of 17 archetypal states classified into three phases: the Hero's Departure or Separation (the circumstances leading to the adventure), the Hero's Initiation (the experience gained in the adventure), and the Hero's Return (with the knowledge and powers acquired):
The Departure
1
The Call of Adventure
2
The refusal of the call
3
The Supernatural Help
4
The Crossing of the First Threshold
5
The Belly of the Whale
The Initiation
6
The Path of Trials
7
The encounter with the goddess
8
Woman as temptation
9
Reconciliation with the father
10
Apoteosis
11
The Last Grace
The Return
12
The Refusal of the Return
13
The Magic Escape
14
The rescue from the outside world
15
Crossing the Threshold of Return
16
The Possession of the Two Worlds
17
Freedom to Live
For Campbell, cultures advance by the impulse of heroes. They do not evolve as a result of mass action, but by the action of a few individuals (the heroes), who are able to go beyond established norms and boundaries and enter new and unknown terrain to gain knowledge.
The mythical structure of the hero's journey, according to Vogler
Few hero's journeys conform exactly to the monomyth structure, so various authors have proposed alternative, simpler structures (with fewer steps). The best known is the one proposed by Christopher Vogler. This Holliwood producer and screenwriter, based on Campbell's structure, wrote a small seven-page document entitled "A Practical Guide for the Hero with a Thousand Faces". It was so successful that he expanded that work, resulting in his "The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers" [2007]. The structure proposed by Vogler simplifies and generalizes Campbell's structure. It consists of a cyclical path composed of 12 steps, also divided into the same three phases (or acts) of the monomyth:
ACT I: DEPARTURE, SEPARATION
The ordinary world.
It is the ordinary, everyday world of the hero before the story begins.
The call of adventure.
The hero is presented with a problem, a challenge or an adventure. In short, a possible goal to achieve.
Rejection of the call.
The hero experiences fear and doubt, mainly due to fear of change, so he decides to reject the adventure.
Encounter with the mentor.
The hero finds a mentor who motivates and drives him to accept the challenge. The mentor can be a person (sage, guide or assistant), a simple piece of advice from someone, reading a book, a dream, an unexpected event or synchronicity, etc. In short, something that inspires the hero and makes him/her decide.
Crossing the first threshold.
The hero leaves the ordinary world and enters alone into a special, strange, different and magical world, where rules and limits are unknown. He faces the guardian of the threshold, which is his own fear that he has to overcome.
ACT II: INITIATION
Trials, allies and enemies.
The hero faces a series of trials, encounters allies who help him, and faces enemies who hinder him from achieving his goal. The result of this stage is that he learns the rules of the special world.
Approach to the Deep Cave.
The hero approaches the Deep Cave, where the central battle of the adventure will take place. The hero prepares himself, overcoming his fear, for he has faith, even though at times it seems to him that the adventure is meaningless. The second threshold is when the hero enters the Deep Cave. The Deep Cave symbolizes the depths of the human soul, which is precisely where the source or essence of what the hero seeks is found.
Difficult or traumatic ordeal.
It is the supreme test, where the hero experiences the greatest crisis of the adventure. It is the central battle, where the hero faces his own fears and fights for life or death (literally or metaphorically).
Reward.
The hero triumphs in the central battle and obtains the reward for his efforts, the attainment of the goal: a knowledge, a treasure, a key, a symbol or object of power, which confers strength, energy and protection.
ACT III: RETURN
The way back or third threshold.
The hero decides to end the adventure and starts the way back to the ordinary world, but he experiences some resistance to return to his previous existence. Just as there are guides or assistants on the way out, guides and rescuers are also needed to bring the hero back to the ordinary world, especially if he has been weakened by the experience. The way back can be just as dangerous as the way out.
Resurrection of the hero or fourth threshold.
The hero is reborn, resurfaces as a wiser and more complete man, with a new consciousness, with a new vision of the world, enlarged, full of strength and creative energy. He then faces his own inner transformation and does so in a balanced way, integrating the old and the new consciousness, the inner (spiritual) world and the outer (material) world. He also integrates and harmonizes his lower self (ego) with his higher self (being or self). He overcomes the pairs of opposites and achieves gnosis, true understanding, where he experiences freedom and the essential unity of all things. The hero realizes that the journey has truly been one of initiation, of self-knowledge, of enlightenment, and that the true destination of the journey is his own inner realm.
Return with the elixir.
The hero returns home with the elixir. The elixir symbolizes the essence, the gnosis, the deep knowledge acquired by the hero in the adventure. The hero understands that his achievement must also belong to the ordinary world, so he shares his knowledge with the community, to help its evolution and raise the collective consciousness.
The spiral labyrinthine journey
The hero's journey to his goal is not a direct one, but one of continuous advances and retreats, labyrinth-like. The center of the labyrinth represents the goal to be reached. The special world is a labyrinth, in a real or metaphorical sense. There are transcendent labyrinths (those that lead to the Center) and non-transcendent labyrinths (those without a Center). The labyrinth of the hero is of the transcendent type.
Transcendental labyrinth (Chartres Cathedral)
At the Center of the labyrinth lies the great Secret, the treasure, the enlightenment, the higher consciousness, the supreme power, the supreme knowledge, the supreme awareness that allows to contemplate and experience the essential unity of all things, the timeless, essential, transpersonal, universal dimension, where lies the Truth, the real, the authentic, the Primordial Energy, the field of freedom and of all possibilities.
The approach to the Center is gradual. It is a centripetal process. But there is also a centrifugal force, of resistance, which hinders it from reaching the Center. This resistance or force is subjective, for it comes from within the hero himself. The hero fights against his own fears, his mental inertia, his old vision of the world, his conditioning, in short, his "shadow", according to Jung's terminology. Every labyrinth has its monster (etymologically, "movement of the soul"), which is our own shadow.
The labyrinth is like a mandala, which has to be traversed from the outside in, going through the different layers until reaching the Center. The hero's journey is an experience of transformation, from the lower, superficial self (when the hero begins the journey) to the higher, true, deep self (when the hero reaches the Center). The hero's journey is a process of "individuation", according to Jung's terminology, a process of union of the conscious with the unconscious, of the superficial with the deep, of the limited with the unlimited, of the manifest with the unmanifest, of the ego with the self.
The general movement of the hero is in a spiral, through successive approximations, for this is how all objectives are achieved. The spiral symbolizes the path, the initiatory journey to the Center. The closer we approach the Center, the greater our awareness and understanding.
The game of the Goose perfectly symbolizes the spiral hero's journey and the process of advancing and retreating on his way to the Center. The game board consists of 63 spiral squares, where the last square (the 63rd) is the Center, symbolizing the divine and eternal world. If this square is reached, the limit of the world is surpassed and one enters the divine dimension, from where a new cycle of birth and death begins. Depending on the square in which you fall, you can move forward or backward. If one falls on a goose, one advances towards the next goose, that is to say, one experiences an elevation of consciousness, since there is an approach to the Center. In ancient times, geese were considered to be repositories of divine wisdom, intermediaries between Heaven and Earth, messengers of the other world and guardians of sacred places. Therefore, geese could propel man on his journey to the Supreme Consciousness.
The Goose Game
MENTAL and the Hero's Journey
The concept of the hero's journey and the monomyth is considered as a metaphor relating to personal growth, development or evolution, in the psychological or spiritual realm. In general, in the increase of the individual's level of consciousness, that is, in his or her level of approach to the Center. In addition, the myth uses a symbolic, metaphorical, universal language, which admits many particular interpretations.
The development of MENTAL partakes of many of the archetypal characteristics of the hero's journey (the author of this book, in this case):
It is an inner journey, to the Center, of searching for structural and functional archetypes of the consciousness of maximum simplicity, of the essence of reality (inner and outer), of the underlying or transcendent order of reality to make the world comprehensible. The journey is undertaken motivated by faith in the existence of such archetypes.
The ordinary world is represented by the weight of tradition, by the classical way of seeing things. The special world is the ordinary world itself, but contemplated in a new way, challenging the established norms. That is why the ordinary world is shown to the hero as special.
The hero advances towards his goal, with many aids and also many difficulties, with continuous advances and setbacks. Often, the hero thought he had found the archetypes, only to realize later that they were not, because they could be expressed in terms of simpler ones.
The journey is in the direction of the Center, but the hero finds that the Center is inaccessible, unmanifest and inexpressible, like the Tao ("The Tao that can be expressed is not the true Tao", said Lao-Tse), because if it could be expressed then we would be limiting it, and the Tao has no limitations. Only its first manifestations are accessible, at the most: the archetypes, which, like a Crown, surround the Center. Therefore, the hero stops at the Crown. The Crown symbolizes power, authority, wisdom, dignity, elevation, enlightenment, perfection and truth. The Crown may symbolize what Taoists call "the Central Castle," which they identify with the "third eye," the union of opposites that leads to gnosis, to transcendental knowledge.
Like the character in Kafka's novel "The Castle", we can walk the streets of the village, talk to its inhabitants, discuss with the authorities, send messengers, etc., but we will never be able to access the castle. The castle symbolizes absolute truth. We can only access the frontier between the absolute and the relative, the primary archetypes.
The center is a meta-archetype, an archetype that unites all pairs of contrary or dual archetypes. A meta-archetype of which every given pair of (contrary or dual) archetypes are its manifestations.
Archetypes are the junction point between the manifest and the unmanifest. They are both unmanifest and manifest. They are unmanifest, but they are expressible through examples (instances) of the manifest world. They are the "operating system" of reality.
After reaching his goal (discovery of the archetypes), the hero understands the transcendental, that which imprints the character of universality on everything. The hero attains gnosis, a harmonization between the inner (mental) and the outer (nature), a new expanded and unified vision of the world, a higher consciousness. He also returns with more energy, power and creativity.
The hero verifies the immense power and universality of the archetypes discovered, for they can be applied to all domains of science where formal language is needed (the formal sciences). The hero makes this essential knowledge (the "elixir") available to the scientific community of the ordinary world through this work.
Archetypes are deep structures of our psyche or dimensions of consciousness. When we use an archetypal structure we are resonating with the universal, with the first manifestations of the Primordial Energy. All reality is explained by the manifestations (instances) of archetypes.
MENTAL is an initiatory language because it connects with the archetypes, which connect the conscious with the unconscious. One becomes aware of the unity of all things, of the common essence. With MENTAL, the world is no longer seen in the same way. It is an initiation, a leap of consciousness into the unity of all things. To the "uninitiated," a MENTAL code is seemingly cryptic, like alchemical symbology. When the universal meaning of these symbols is "revealed", then everything makes sense, unity is perceived and power and creativity are achieved.
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