Myths and stories throughout the ages and across the world tell tales of heroes and heroines who survive the ordeals of impossible tasks given to them or perhaps having to fight dragons, but hopefully coming home with the treasure. The theme of a heroic journey serves as a powerful symbol for the human experience and has permeated movies, stage productions and books. The hero’s journey is a dynamic process that can serve as a conceptual metaphor for understanding individual development where each major transitionary life event serves as a call to step into an initiatory experience.
The hero archetype refers to the person who hears the call to adventure and follows it. The call may come from outside in the form of an invitation or it may come in the form of inner promptings, a yearning, a secret wish or what Michael Meade calls an itch that needs scratching. The call may come through a crisis and personal suffering, a daunting challenge, a devastating loss, or even through enormous success. According to James Hollis the call is not a single event, but a lifelong journey of answering many callings. Dennis P. Slattery says that the call is not a flash of insight, but more a stumbling along into adventure, venturing into the world, forging one’s own path with no clarity about where you are going.
Although much of our experiences take place in the world, there is the inner journey that coincides with these outer events. Many people would be familiar with the painful emotional descent after a relationship break-up or a devastating disappointment. The Hero’s Journey was Joseph Campbell’s metaphor for the deep inner journey of transformation that leads us through movements of separation, descent, ordeal, and return – over and over again. Jung stated that “The way is within us, but not in Gods, nor in teachings, nor in laws. Within us is the way, the truth, and the life”. Rumi asks us “When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”
Joseph Campbell mapped the archetypal heroic journey in three major phases: Departure, Initiation, and Return.
Written for @jungsouthernafrica
References: (1) Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 231.
Image credit: Malte Lenz
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