THE HERO
WITH A THOUSAND FACES
(INITIATION STAGE)
Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.
NUCLEAR UNIT OF THE MONOMYTH

(X) – Separation
or Departure

(Y) – Initiation

(Z) – Return
INITIATION

(Y) A penetration of some source of power.
The Road of Trials
 The Meeting with the Goddess
 Woman as Temptress
 Atonement with the Father
 Apotheosis
 The Ultimate Boon
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This is the zone unknown
that represents a dramatic
shift from the old world.
A dream landscape of
curiously fluid, ambiguous
forms, where the hero must
survive a succession of trials.
If it is not a literal new world,
it could be a new emotional
state or view (think Father of
the Bride).
New rules.
Ruled by a villain.
Allies, enemies, sidekicks,
teams, and or rivals appear.
VS.
ROAD OF TRIALS
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In this new world, the hero
must survive a succession of
trials.
The hero is secretly aided by
the advice, amulets, and
secret agents of the
supernatural helper.
Prepare the hero for greater
ordeals ahead.
Not maximum life-or-death
test.
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(If the Separation Stage is
like an entrance exam, the
Road of Trials is a pop
quiz.)
ROAD OF TRIALS
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Examples:
Psyche & Cupid
 “The Story of the Youth Who
Went Forth to Learn What
Fear Was”
 Star Wars (1977)
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The Karate Kid (1984)
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Obi-Wan giving Luke the
lightsaber to train with orbs.
Daniel-san doing household
chores for Mr. Miyagi.
The Matrix (1999)
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Neo sparring with Morpheus.
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QUESTIONS TO HELP FRAME THIS STEP
Given this person's background and experience, what kinds
of trials or ordeals make sense for him or her? What would
be truly challenging for this person? What does the person
fear and how will this fear be represented to him or her?
 What does the person consider to be obstacles to progress or
growth?
 Does the person have some personality or character traits
that will be mirrored back to him or her in a challenging
way?
 What strategies, skills, insights, known or unknown
strengths or talents, etc, does the person use or develop to
survive or resolve these trials?
 What assistance, seen or unseen, does the person have or
receive to deal with these trials?
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THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT
FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS
Exemplifies the Road
of Trials
 Stupid, youngest son
is the hero; why?
 Wants to shudder:
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Shudder (v): (1) To
shiver convulsively.
(2) To vibrate or
quiver out of fear or
cold
Symbolism of the
number ‘3’
Shudder.
THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT
FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS
1. Meeting with the
Sexton
 2. A Night at the
Gallows
 3. Waggoner at the
Inn
 Fire, Lathe,
Cutting-board with
knife
 Black cats & dogs
 Bed moving on own
accord
 The half-men bowlers
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MEETING WITH THE GODDESS
Represents the hero’s
total mastery of life.
 Woman IS life, and
the hero its knower
and master.
 Occurs at the nadir,
zenith, outermost
edge of earth, at
central point of
cosmos, or in the
innermost chamber
of the heart.
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 The
promise of perfection; the soul’s
assurance that at the end of its exile in
the material world; it will return to
motherly bliss; our concept of a universal
mother results from the universal childmother relationship
 By taking possession of the motherdestroyer, he knows that he and the
father are one; he is in the father’s place.
MEETING WITH THE GODDESS

Sometimes, the encounter with the goddess is
negative, based on negative experiences with our
mothers.
 1. The absent, unattainable mother for whom we
have feelings of aggression.
 2. The hampering, forbidding, punishing mother.
 3. The mother who holds on to the child who wants
to grow and be independent.
 4. The desired but forbidden mother (Oedipus
Complex).
MEETING WITH THE GODDESS
Lady of Tubber Tintye: The
lady of the house of sleep is
the paragon of beauty,
represents everything in the
world that has lured us or
promised joy.
(Sleep=mother’s
womb=paradise=peace)
 Star Wars: Princess Leia, who
wears white and was a
“sister” of a higher order in
earlier scripts
 The Matrix: The Oracle: She
gives Neo the choice of life or
death. He has mastered life.
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QUESTIONS TO HELP FRAME THIS STEP
How will this step be represented in the story?
 Does the person have a soul mate, another half? Does an all
loving god or goddess, or non-gendered but supremely
loving force make itself known to the person?
 Can the person accept and/or identify with the ultimate
creative/destructive nature of the universe?
 Does the person begin to understand or experience the
union of opposites, for example spiritual/material, good/bad,
male/female, life/death, etc.
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WOMAN AS TEMPTRESS
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Earthly pleasures tempt us
away from our quest.
We deny that we are creatures
of flesh.
We whitewash, perfume,
reinterpret, repress, and
imagine that all our fleshly
flaws are someone else’s fault.
When it dawns on us (or is
forced on our attention) that
everything we think and do is
tainted by the odor of the flesh,
there is often a moment of
revulsion:
 life, the acts of life, woman
as the symbol of life, become
intolerable to the pure soul.
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WOMAN AS TEMPTRESS
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Examples:
Hamlet
 Oedipus
 St. Peter & Petronilla
 The Matrix: The
woman in red almost
gets Neo killed.
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QUESTIONS TO HELP FRAME THIS STEP
Given this person's background and experience, what kinds
of temptations make sense for him or her?
 Is this person on a spiritual journey, will he or she
experience the temptations of the flesh?
 Are there habitual patterns of thought or behavior that
serve to undermine, or tempt the person from his or her
path?
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ATONEMENT WITH THE FATHER
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The hero makes amends or
reparations for a wrong – or perceived
wrong – in his or her past.
This typically involves the father or a
father figure.
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Nursery trauma: boys see the
father as the interrupter of the
blissful relationship between child
and mother. (Oedipus Complex)
Atonement (at-one-ment) consists of
the abandonment this ogre father and
the feelings of guilt or sin.
The reflex of the victim’s ego is to
project an ogre image of the father: a
concept of a wrathful, aggressive god.
This projection keeps the adult spirit
saturated with a sense of sin, keeping
it from a more balanced and realistic
view of the father and the world.
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ATONEMENT WITH THE FATHER
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Twin Warriors of the Navaho
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Phaethon
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Star Wars: Darth and Luke reconcile
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The Matrix: Neo rescues and comes to agree (that he's The One)
with his father-figure, Morpheus
QUESTIONS TO HELP FRAME THIS STEP
How does the person resolve him or herself with the sources
of control and power in his or her life?
 What experiences mark the person as ready to take on the
new roles of his or her transformed self?
 What behaviors, attitudes, relationships, dependencies,
body parts, must be sacrificed to achieve this?
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APOTHEOSIS
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The divine state the human
hero attains after he has gone
beyond the last terrors of
ignorance.
The hero becomes free of all
fear.
This is frequently seen in a
pair of opposites being
dissolved (male/female,
good/evil, time/eternity, etc.).
God created Adam in his
image and later separated
woman from him. Male and
female are created in the
image of god. So what is
God? Both? Well, sort of
according to Campbell. The
smallness of gender does not
apply to Him. He is divine.
APOTHEOSSIS
Adam & Eve
 Tiresias
 Neo understands he is “The One” in The Matrix.
 Luke becomes a Jedi Knight.
 The Crane Kick in The Karate Kid
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QUESTIONS TO HELP FRAME THIS STEP
Given this person's background and experience, what would
heaven be for him or her?
 What does this person know or experience now that is
beyond good and evil, male and female, life and death?
 Does the person give him or herself a moment to bask in the
glow of what has been achieved?
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ULTIMATE BOON
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When the final task is accomplished
with ease.
Boon (n.) – Something to be
thankful for; blessing; benefit
The elect hero faces no delaying
obstacle and makes no mistake.
A motif of the inexhaustible dish in
fairy-tales.
A motif of the cornucopian banquet
of the gods in mythology.
 Freud Alert: Paradise at the
mother’s breast still play into
myth and fairy tale
In mythology, the gods are not a
final end. Mythology lifts us up and
beyond the gods, understanding
them as embodiments and
custodians of the elixir of
Imperishable Being but not
themselves the Ultimate in its
primary state.
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QUESTIONS TO HELP FRAME THIS STEP
Given this person's background and experience, what would
be the goal of his or her quest? What is the ultimate boon
for this person?
 Was there a stated goal of the quest? If so has it changed?
Has the person learned more or less than he or she
expected?
 What are the rewards of this person's journey?
 What relationship does this person now have to his or her
own immortality, gods, or god-like figures?
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