Joseph Campbell

I was recently re-remembering my readings of Joseph Campbell. I think most people would remember him for the consulting/mentoring work he is supposed to have done for George Lucas during the creation of Star Wars. (People hotly dispute how useful or influential this really was.)

Campbell was, for me, an important key for unwrapping the importance of mythology to the human mind and spirituality. I started by watching parts of "The Power of Myth," a PBS show where Bill Moyers interviewed Campbell. Then I went on to read "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and the four-part "Masks of God." Campbell studies mythology and its infinite variations over the course of human history. From this study, the stories of Christianity took on a new significance for me, as really wonderful examples of mythology -- which is NOT to insult or denigrate them.

I use the term "myth" very carefully. Being raised as a conservative evangelical Christian, I was taught to believe that "myth" meant "untrue fable." The Greek and Roman Gods were myths, but the stories in the Bible were "true."

And yet Campbell taught me that the power of the Bible comes from how it digs into the same core of human desires and psychological structures as did the mythology of the Greek Gods. As I see it, behind almost all religions are deeper psychological truths that use the stories and forms of religious mythology to communicate deeper truths about ourselves. Myths are actually specially-charged stories that have a deep connection with what it means to be human . . . They are true to our psychological needs as humans, even if they are not objective in the manner of a story in the New York Times.

In my own history, if not that of the rest of the world, Cambell's work is also tied up with that of Carl Jung and the Jungian archetypes . . . . Quoting Wikipedia (that quick source of dubious quotations), these are "innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. Being universal and innate, their influence can be detected in the form of myths, symbols, rituals and instincts of human beings." This is as good a description as any.

What is liberating for me was to realize that Christianity is not unique in being the sole "true" religion in a sea of "false" religion. Instead, it is one reflection of how humans deal with their innate psychological "hardwiring." . . . We may still argue over whether that hardwiring was created by design or by chance (and I'm not sure there is any way to resolve that argument, hence my attraction to some form of intellectual agnosticism), but we can all begin to see patterns throughout human history. Assuming God's existence, perhaps God was working a lot more broadly in human history than conservative Christians have been willing to admit. "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice. . . " (quoting from John 10:16)