The Hero Journey: A British (World) Literature Invitation

(with great debt and gratitude to Joseph Campbell)

At the heart of literature and art, of religion and myth, of culture and story… at the heart of life is the hero journey. According to Joseph Campbell,

Mythmakers are seldom content to regard the world’s great heroes as mere human beings who broke past the horizons that limited their fellows and who returned with such boons as any man with equal faith and courage might have found.

The mighty hero of extraordinary powers is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within.

This class invites you to recognize the special nature of your birth, to listen for a call spoken by a herald perhaps yet unknown to you, and to accept that call regardless of your fears and the very real dangers you may face.

Then, you will need to conquer the guardians at the gate, both internal and external, to be transformed by sinking into the belly of the whale, by dying to yourself and risking a new birth.

You will then need to persevere through the training and tests that will await you on the road of trials in a region of magnified power and strange, mystical forces & figures. There you will learn the true extent of your power, of your connection to the supernatural, a connection that is both wondrous and mysterious. There you will find the source of your supernatural aid and learn to accept both the gifts and the hard lessons offered by the Universe to assist you along the way.

You will then need to conquer the demons that would bar your return home and resist the message of your apotheosis – the epiphanies you have gained from facing the challenges along the road. You will risk death yet again as you resist the temptations of nirvana that promise you bliss but would prevent you from completing your hero journey and bringing back your boon, your gift, that is capable of transforming the world.

Once you’ve crossed the threshold of return, you will need to find a way to integrate the power of the supernatural with the mundane of “reality.” Only then, when you have become a master of both worlds, only then will you be able to aid others on their way.

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To help you take this journey and then to lead others to take it, the resources offered here are a beginning – and an end, the end of a journey already taken. Use what you will to get started, but realize that each journey is unique, and as you take your own, you will discover and create what you really need to aid you on your way.

Eventually you may even outgrow the language of the hero journey presented here. But, whatever the words and symbols you light upon, that sing to you of the mystery you are being encouraged to embrace—the ultimate message will transcend and resonate: you are a hero that the Universe, that God, is calling into being and action.

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Few stories you’ll read follow a straight line from the birth to the call to the road of trials to the return home. All good stories start somewhere in the middle. It’s only here, at some mid-point, that the story takes shape, that the call is heard and you’re prompted to understand the meaning of your journey – when you realize the need to look back at who you have been, who you are, and to see the something more that has been going on all along just at the edge of your perception… So, we begin, not with your birth, but with where you are now, with who you are now, at this mid-point on your journey.

To begin, answer the following five questions (in any order):

Who are you?

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Whom do you serve?

Whom do you trust?