The Hero with a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell

  And this is not a work that consciousness itself can achieve. Consciousness can no more invent, or even predict, an effective symbol than foretell or control tonight’s dream. The whole thing is being worked out on another level, through what is bound to be a long and very frightening process, not only in the depths of every living psyche in the modern world, but also on those titanic battlefields into which the whole planet has lately been converted. We are watching the terrible clash of the Symplegades, through which the soul must pass — identified with neither side.

  But there is one thing we may know, namely, that as the new symbols become visible, they will not be identical in the various parts of the globe; the circumstances of local life, race, and tradition must all be compounded in the effective forms. Therefore, it is necessary for men to understand, and be able to see, that through various symbols the same redemption is revealed. “Truth is one,” we read in the Vedas; “the sages call it by many names.” A single song is being inflected through all the colorations of the human choir. General propaganda for one or another of the local solutions, therefore, is superfluous — or much rather, a menace. The way to become human is to learn to recognize the lineaments of God in all of the wonderful modulations of the face of man.

  With this we come to the final hint of what the specific orientation of the modern hero-task must be, and discover the real cause for the disintegration of all of our inherited religious formulae. The center of gravity, that is to say, of the realm of mystery and danger has definitely shifted. For the primitive hunting peoples of those remotest human millennia when the sabertooth tiger, the mammoth, and the lesser presences of the animal kingdom were the primary manifestations of what was alien — the source at once of danger, and of sustenance — the great human problem was to become linked psychologically to the task of sharing the wilderness with these beings. An unconscious identification took place, and this was finally rendered conscious in the half-human, half-animal figures of the mythological totem-ancestors. The animals became the tutors of humanity. Through acts of literal imitation — such as today appear only on the children’s playground (or in the madhouse) — an effective annihilation of the human ego was accomplished and society achieved a cohesive organization. Similarly, the tribes supporting themselves on plant-food became cathected to the plant; the life-rituals of planting and reaping were identified with those of human procreation, birth, and progress to maturity. Both the plant and the animal worlds, however, were in the end brought under social control. Whereupon the great field of instructive wonder shifted — to the skies — and mankind enacted the great pantomime of the sacred moon-king, the sacred sun-king, the hieratic, planetary state, and the symbolic festivals of the world-regulating spheres.

  Today all of these mysteries have lost their force; their symbols no longer interest our psyche. The notion of a cosmic law, which all existence serves and to which man himself must bend, has long since passed through the preliminary mystical stages represented in the old astrology, and is now simply accepted in mechanical terms as a matter of course. The descent of the Occidental sciences from the heavens to the earth (from seventeenth-century astronomy to ­nineteenth-century biology), and their concentration today, at last, on man himself (in twentieth-century anthropology and psychology), mark the path of a prodigious transfer of the focal point of human wonder. Not the animal world, not the plant world, not the miracle of the spheres, but man himself is now the crucial mystery. 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. Man, understood however not as “I” but as “Thou”: for the ideals and temporal institutions of no tribe, race, continent, social class, or century can be the measure of the inexhaustible and multifariously wonderful divine existence that is the life in all of us.

  The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. “Live,” Nietzsche says, “as though the day were here.” It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal — carries the cross of the redeemer — not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.

  Figure 84. Earthrise (photograph, lunar orbit, a.d. 1968)

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  Endnotes

  [1] Odyssey, IV, ll. 401, 417–18, translation by S. H. Butcher and Andrew Lang (London, 1879).

  [2] Ibid., IV, ll. 400–406.

  [3] Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1.22.3. [The translation appears to be Campbell’s own. — Ed.]

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  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Note on Method and Organization

  The primary purpose of this list is to help readers find the sources that Campbell used to write this book. It also shows the remarkable breadth of reading — in mythology, ethnology, folklore, the modern and medieval literatures of Europe, psychology, philosophy, and religious scriptures of the Occident and Orient — that he incorporated into his first major independent work.

  The book went through many revisions between the first draft in 1944, when it was known as How to Read a Myth, and its publication by the Bollingen Foundation in 1949. A letter in the Opus Archives written to Campbell’s friend Henry Morton Robinson dated March 13, 1946, indicates that he had originally planned to cite fewer sources by relying heavily on the thirteen-volume set The Mythology of All Races, published between 1916 and 1932 under the editorship of Louis Gray and John McCulloch. Unfortunately, the Macmillan Company had bought the republication rights to the set, and they refused to give him permission to make quotations while they considered putting out a new edition, forcing Campbell to track down new sources to illustrate his arguments.

  The list comprises all of the citations in this third edition of Hero, except for a few minor ones. It includes those works from which a significant quotation is drawn, works that are cited more than once, and works that had a major effect on his thinking. Secondary citations (where Campbell cites a source “as quoted in” another work) were not included, although the works in which Campbell found them are included. When the second edition was published in 1968, Campbell made most of his citations from the writings of C.G. Jung as they appeared in The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, while he took his citations from Freud’s writings from The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud.

  The list is in four sections. The first includes those works cited by Campbell for which a particular edition is identified. Except as noted, these have been verified either from library catalogs or from books in Joseph Campbell’s personal book collection, preserved at the Opus Archives.

  The second section lists journal articles cited within the book. Most of these have not been verified.

  Because of the difficulty in alphabetizing canonical works, these form the third section, arranged by religious tradition. This section contains works of religious scripture cited by Campbell. The works have been further broken down by faith or tradition. Since Campbell used sources available half a century ago, I have indicated the mod-ern forms of the titles used in the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, as well, when those vary, as those used by the Library of Congress, and noted when reprints or more recent translations are available.

  With well-known literary works and religious canon, Campbell sometimes cited the work without giving an edition. I have listed these separately in the fourth section. My comments appear in brackets with the initials R.B.

  — Richard Buchen, Special Collections Librarian, Joseph Campbell Collection of the Opus Archives and Research Center on the campuses of Pacifica Graduate I
nstitute, Santa Barbara, California

  Main Bibliographic List

  Anderson, Johannes C. Maori Life in Ao-Tea. Christchurch, [N.Z.]: n.d.

  Apuleius. The Golden Ass of Apuleius. Translated by W. Adlington. New York: The Modern Library, n.d.

  Aristotle. Aristotle on the Art of Poetry. Translated by Ingram Bywater, with a Preface by Gilbert Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920.

  Arnold, Thomas Walker, and Alfred Guillaume, eds. The Legacy of Islam. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1931.

  Bain, F. W. A Digit of the Moon and Other Love Stories from the Hindoo. New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910.

  Bastian, Adolf. Ethnische Elementargedanken in der Lehre vom Menschen. Berlin: Weidmann, 1895.

  Bédier, Joseph. Les légendes épiques: Recherches sur la formation des chansons de geste. 3rd ed. Paris: H. Champion, 1926.

  Bellows, Henry Adams, ed. The Poetic Edda, Scandinavian Classics, 21/22. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923.

  Bhagavad Gītā: Bhagavad Gita: Translated from the Sanskrit with Notes, Comments, and Introduction by Swami Nikhilananda. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1944.

  Boas, Franz. The Mind of Primitive Man. New York: Macmillan, 1911.

  ——— . Race, Language and Culture. New York: Macmillan, 1940.

  Book of the Dead: See Budge, E.A. Wallis, The Papyrus of Ani.

  Breasted, James Henry. Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912.

  Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad: The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: With the Commentary of Shankaracharya. Translated by Swami Madhavananda, with an Introd. by S. Kuppuswami Shastri. Translated by Madhavananda. Mayavati: Advaita Ashrama, [1934?].

  Bryan, William Frank, and Germaine Dempster. Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941.

  Budge, E.A. Wallis, ed., The Gods of the Egyptians. London: Methuen, 1904.

  ——— . The Papyrus of Ani. Translated by E.A. Wallis Budge. New York: Putnam, 1913.

  Burlingame, Eugene Watson, ed. Buddhist Parables. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922.

  Burton, Richard Francis. See Thousand Nights and a Night.

  Callaway, Henry. Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, in Their Own Words, with a Translation into English, and Notes, by Canon Callaway. Springvale, Natal: J.A. Blair; London: Trübner, 1868.

  Campbell, Joseph. “Folkloristic Commentary.” Grimm’s Fairy Tales, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, pp. 833–64. New York: Pantheon, 1944.

  Catholic Church. Saint Andrew Daily Missal, by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre O.S.B. of the Abbey of S. André. Bruges, Belgium: Abbey of St. André; St. Paul: E.M. Lohmann Co., [1943?].

  Chavannes, Edouard. Les mémoires historiques de Se-Ma-Ts’ien. Translated by Edouard Chavannes. Paris: E. Leroux, 1895.

  Codrington, R.H. The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-Lore. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891.

  Collocott, E.E.V. Tales and Poems of Tonga. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 46. Honolulu, HI: The Museum, 1928.

  Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish. Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916.

  ——— . The Dance of Siva: Fourteen Indian Essays. New York: Sunwise Turn, 1924.

  ——— . Hinduism and Buddhism. New York: Philosophical Library, n.d.

  ——— . Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government. American Oriental Series, V. 22. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1942.

  Curtin, Jeremiah. Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland. Boston: Little, Brown, 1890.

  Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Charles Eliot Norton. Rev. ed. 3 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1902.

  Dimnet, Ernest. The Art of Thinking. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929.

  Edda, Poetic. See Bellows, Henry Adams.

  Edda, Prose. See Sturluson, Snorri.

  Eddington, Arthur Stanley. The Nature of the Physical World. Gifford Lectures, 1927. New York: Macmillan, 1928.

  Edwards, Jonathan. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th. 2nd ed. Boston: n.p., 1742.

  Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land (1922).” In Collected Poems, 1909–1935. New York: Harcourt, Brace, [n.d.].

  Evans-Wentz, W.Y., ed. Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, or, Seven Books of Wisdom of the Great Path, According to the Late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering. London: Oxford University Press, 1935.

  ——— , ed. Tibet’s Great Yogi, Milarepa: A Biography from the Tibetan; Being the Jetsün-Kahbum or Biographical History of Jetsün-Milarepa According to the Late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering. London: Oxford University Press, 1928.

  Firdausi. The Shah Nameh of the Persian Poet Firdausi. Translated by James Atkinson. London, New York: F. Warne, 1886.

  Fletcher, Alice C. The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony. Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904.

  Flügel, J.C. The Psycho-Analytic Study of the Family. 4th ed. The International Psycho-Analytical Library, no. 3. London: L. and Virginia Woolf, at the Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1931.

  Fosdick, Harry Emerson. As I See Religion. New York, London: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

  Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Abridged ed. New York: Macmillan, 1922.

  Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 18, edited and translated by James Strachey et al. London: The Hogarth Press, 1955. Originally published 1920.

  ——— . The Future of an Illusion. In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 21, edited and translated by James Strachey et al. London: Hogarth Press, 1961, pp. 1–56. Originally published 1927.

  ——— . The Interpretation of Dreams. In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud. Edited and translated by James Strachey et al. London: The Hogarth Press, 1953. Originally published 1900.

  ——— . The Interpretation of Dreams (second part). In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 5, edited and translated by James Strachey et al. London: Hogarth Press, 1953. Originally published 1900–1901.

  ——— . Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis (part III). In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 16, edited and translated by James Strachey et al. London: Hogarth Press, 1963. Originally published 1916–1917.

  ——— . Moses and Monotheism. In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 23, edited and translated by James Strachey et al., pp. 1–137. London: Hogarth Press, 1964. Originally published 1939.

  ——— . The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 6, edited and translated by James Strachey et al. London: Hogarth Press, 1960. Originally published 1901.

  ——— . “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.” In The Standard Edition of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 7, edited and translated by James Strachey et al., pp. 123–245. London: Hogarth Press, 1953. Originally published 1905.

  Frobenius, Leo. Das unbekannte Afrika: Aufhellung der Schicksale eines Erdteils. Veröffentlichung des Forschungsinstitutes für Kulturmorphologie. Munich: Oskar Beck, 1923.

  ——— . Und Afrika sprach. Berlin: Vita, 1912.

  ——— . Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1904.

  Frobenius, Leo, and Douglas Claughton Fox. African Genesis. New York: Stackpole Sons, 1937.

  Gennep, Arnold van. Les rites de passage. Paris: É. Nourry, 1909.

  Giles, Herbert Allen. A Chinese Biographical Dictionary. London: B. Quaritch; Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1898.

  Ginsburg, Christian D. The Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development, and Literature. London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1920.

  Ginzberg,
Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated by Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin. 7 vols. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1911.

  Gray, Louis H., and J.A. MacCulloch, eds. The Mythology of All Races. 13 vols. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America; Marshall Jones Company, 1916–1932. Contents:

  I. Greek and Roman, by William Sherwood Fox. 1916.

  II. Eddic, by J.A. MacCulloch. 1930.

  III. Celtic, by J.A. MacCulloch; Slavic, by Jan Máchal. 1918.

  IV. Finno-Ugric, Siberian, by Uno Holmberg. 1927.

  V. Semitic, by S.H. Langdon. 1931.

  VI. Indian, by A.B. Keith; Iranian, by A.J. Carnvy. 1917.

  VII. Armenian, by M.H. Ananikian; African, by Alice Werner. 1925.

  VIII. Chinese, by J.C. Ferguson; Japanese, by Masaharu Anesaki. 1928.

  IX. Oceanic, by R.B. Dixon. 1916.

  X. North American, by H.B. Alexander. 1916.

  XI. Latin-American, by H.B. Alexander. 1920.

  XII. Egyptian, by W.M. Müller; Indo-Chinese, by J.G. Scott. 1918.

  XIII. Complete index to volumes I–XII. 1932.

  Grey, George. Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race, as Furnished by Their Priests and Chiefs. London: J. Murray, 1855.

  Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Unabridged edition. New York: Pantheon Books, 1944.