The Power of Myth

By recommendation from my freshmen year English teacher, I read The Power of Myth, a series of video interviews between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell that were transcribed into book format regarding mythology around the world. According to his Wikipedia description, Campbell is credited as an American mythologist who focuses on comparative mythology and religion.

The main idea of the book is the reoccurrence of the "monomyth," a common thread that runs through all human cultures throughout history. The monomyth is the idea that the mythology within each culture carries a variant of the same story. It is the "hero's journey" and it is the story of the hero's quest of overcoming great struggles to reach enlightenment, allowing them to save themselves and their people. Regardless of origin civilization and time of creation, mythologies all seem to share this thread, albeit with different masks.

Campbell compares the creation stories of several religions (because religions are based in mythologies, by definition of the word) which is particularly interesting to me.

Campbell argues mythology is an integral part of human life and should not be lost to the ever decreasing of spirituality. "They're stories about the wisdom of life... Mythology teaches you what's behind literature and the arts, it teaches you about your own life," said Campbell. Mythologies create a culture and each civilization would be nothing without it's rich history and that involves myths.

MOYERS: Genesis 1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

CAMPBELL: This is from "The Song of the World," a legend of the Pima Indians of Arizona: "In the beginning there was only darkness everywhere-- darkness and water. And the darkness gathered thick in places, crowding together and then separating, crowding and separating..."

MOYERS: Genesis 1: "And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light."

CAMPBELL: And this is from the Hindu Upanishads, from about the eighth century B.C.: "In the beginning, there was only the great self reflected in the form of a person. Reflecting, it found nothing but itself. Then its first word was, 'This am I.'" 

The two continue in this fashion, Campbell citing the Bassari people of West Africa and again the Pima Indians and the Upanishads. It is really quite fascinating how on the face the common perception of cultures around the world are vastly different, yet these civilizations, which thrived completely independent of each other, all share the same story. I think many people with entrenched beliefs have the propensity to focus on their microcosm of the world yet refuse to see the general picture of this shared human consciousness. I think we forget that we are, for the most part, the same but cite irrelevant aspects of culture like dress and skin color and region as a reason to be blind to the rest of the world. Campbell humbles us, and that's a good thing.

Since it would be too long, there are some fascinating ruminations Campbell has about the US dollar found here on page 33!