The Hero’s Journey
Had I understood Joseph
Campbell’s monomyth of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ before I wrote ‘Waking The
Monkey!’, it probably would have got in the way of my exploration of the path I
was describing. It would have been
impossible not to write with the thought of its structure in the back of my
mind, and a feeling that I had to try and conform to it.
I had heard of Campbell of
course, but had somehow managed to conflate him with James George Fraser of The
Golden Bough fame from the previous century, who perhaps he might almost have
been in a previous incarnation, researching, as he did, religious myths which
would provide a background to the meta structure that Campbell describes.
Far better that I should only
come to a detailed reading of the Hero’s Journey after I had understood it as
playing out in the course of my own path.
I had gone seeking experience
and adventure, though I didn’t really understand that. I was driven with a youthful
exuberance. I had only heard what I
believe may be the last Hunter/Garcia song ‘Days Between’ once or twice on low
quality audience tapes and not properly grasped any of its power or import, but
there is a line that well describes this.
‘There were days, there were days I know …. When all we ever wanted was
to learn and love and grow’. Another
line which I will leave for now also expressed the mood which described the
ending of the Hundredth Monkey camps two years later.
But in 1995 I was impelled by
an inner magnetism that sought to lock on to my path, though I knew not what
that would be. The Fool stepping out on
the journey of life, finding a quest, meeting wizards and guides, I step over
the edge and fall out of favour into the abyss of my Rite of Passage. Not until it was all over and the dust had
settled did I realise that I had gone through a transformative ritual
experience that empowered me to put behind me my sense of diminishment in the
face of the world and others more powerful than myself.
The journey has three
parts. Firstly, the naïve initiate sets
out on their journey, has preliminary adventures, meets guides, learns some of
what they will need to know and then finds themselves adrift. The second part is the descent into Hell, in
which the Hero faces their demons, is granted assistance by certain magical
allies, makes what at first may be an abortive attempt at escape from Hell and
then finally achieves it in the third part and is reunited with their guide
having now become a Hero or Wizard also.
I was most excited to be
interviewed about my book on The Hundredth Monkey Radio.net recently. Obviously the guys behind that have spent
some time thinking about what the ‘Hundredth Monkey’ is, and how it could work.
My own view on the ‘Hundredth
Monkey’ might be slightly different from what theirs would be. Certainly it was the case at the camps that
agreement was sought in order to produce morphic fields which might imprint
themselves on the collective psyche.
There are always going to be problems with this in my view, although
this was not a conclusion I reached until later on in the process.
What my own path taught me was
that I needed to find the seed crystal of a deeper understanding within myself
that went beyond collective memes but tapped into the mythic levels of our
psyches and engaged with archetypal processes.
The future of our species must
emerge from the ancestral and evolutionary roots. We cannot go somewhere that we are not designed and prepared to
go by our past experience and genetic learning.
A caged tiger is an unfilled
creature. We must accept that nature is
wild, and that we too are wild creatures who should not be caged. We can enculture and focus our development
in ways that tigers cannot because we have different neurological adaptations,
but neither of us like cages.
But one advantage the tiger
has, even when caged, is that it does not lose touch with its instincts the way
that humans can be trapped into doing.
The purpose of the Rite of
Passage is to awaken those instincts and consciousness while still remaining in
the prepared vessel of the culture, to awaken to self empowerment and knowledge
of oneself as a cosmic being, an agent of the Universe.
This is a thing much greater
and more powerful than a milkwater consensus which de-claws the tiger. This is the ‘Awakening’ that we all hear so
much about. All the mental knowledge
that we acquire of the world is only preparation for the activation.
Nature, as Campbell was fond of
saying, is a mystery, and terrifying.
We can only truly become empowered and autonomous beings within it if we
are willing to accept that mystery, and that terror. The tamed world of consensus makes us all lapdogs when we began
as wolves.
I will briefly mention my
friend Ishtar Babilu Dingir and her website as she, having recently read Waking
The Monkey!, encouraged me to work on the sequels, which will expand on the arc
of the Hero’s Journey.
Both her work
and my eventual sequels will I believe demonstrate that the ‘New Age’ movement
as we have come to know it has been diverted from the course on which it should
have flowed had it been able to express its energies most fruitfully.
This too is a rite of
passage, and humanity in all its diverse forms will be wiser for having walked
through this darkness and then discerned the deception which we have been led
into.
But we must continue pushing and seeking for a path through this. I have just read 'The Passing of the Grey Company' the chapter in 'The Return of the King' in which Aragorn leads his companions through the Paths of the Dead under the Haunted Mountain, the Dwimorberg. We must have the stern courage of Isildur's heir if we are to brave this passage.
The Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear: I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death which brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will allow it to pass over me and through me and when it has passed I will turn the Inner Eye to see its path. Where it has gone there will be nothing, only I will remain. (Frank Herbert, Dune)
You can purchase a paper or e-book version of my account
of my shamanic rite of passage at The Hundredth Monkey Camp ‘Waking The Monkey!
~ Becoming the Hundredth Monkey’ (A Book for Spiritual Warriors) at
