Greek myth about Theseus who receives advice together with a ball of thread from
Ariadne. These resources turn out to be critical in helping him find his way back out
of the labyrinth that he is preparing to enter in order to slay the Minotaur monster that
resides there.
The next stage is “the crossing of the first threshold”, i.e. the actual entering
into the unknown territory. Campbell emphasizes the weirdness of this transition by
discussing the recurrent image of the hero being swallowed into “the belly of the
whale” or other monster, thus becoming completely shut off from the normal
environment. The agent is now in a different world where the rules, dangers and
opportunities are not known. While this crossing is already a severe challenge, it is
merely a warming up for the next stage, “the road of trials”, in which the hero has to
overcome a variety of challenges that test the hero’s abilities to the full. A classic
example of such a series of trials are the twelve labors imposed on the Greek/Roman
hero Hercules. Typical challenges involve killing a dangerous animal (often a dragon
or monster), winning a combat, acquiring a hard-to-get resource (e.g. a flower, ring or
sword), overcoming a physical obstacle (e.g. crossing a desert, climbing a mountain),
and solving a mystery (e.g. answering a riddle, discovering a hidden treasure, or
finding a way out of a labyrinth).
The series culminates in a final contest, the “apotheosis”. As a reward for
succeeding in this last trial, the hero receives “the ultimate boon”. This is Campbell’s
term for the affordance that constitutes the final goal of the hero’s quest. It typically
offers extraordinary powers or benefits, enabling the bearer to achieve goals or riches
that otherwise would remain out of reach. Examples are the Holy Grail (whatever that
may be...), the fountain of youth, the philosophers’ stone, marriage to a prince or
princess, a kingdom, a magic formula, or spiritual enlightenment.
The hero finally needs to bring back the boon to the ordinary world. This may
involve some further complications, such as the hero preferring to stay (“refusal of the
return”), having to escape from pursuers that try to recover the boon (“the magic
flight”), needing a “rescue from without”, or having to overcome the challenge of
integrating the extraordinary boon into ordinary life (“the crossing of the return
threshold”). If everything goes well, the hero ends up as a “master of the two worlds”,
who feels at home both in the ordinary environment and in the mysterious realm
where the boon originated, thus achieving a true “freedom to live”, characterized by
an absence of fear or constraint.
From this summary of the monomyth, it is clearly a depiction of the process
that I have called navigation or adventure, in which an agent (the hero) follows a
meandering course towards a goal (the boon) that passes through an unknown or
uncertain environment (the mysterious world) which throws up various surprises or
diversions (trials or challenges), some of which are negative (dangers), others positive
(aids, boons). Achieving the goal (succeeding in the quest) significantly enhances the
agent’s fitness. Moreover, exploration of the unknown territory results in the
discovery of affordances that are now ready to be exploited (by the hero or others)
thanks to the newly achieved knowledge.
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