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

“We have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had though to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.”

–Joseph Campbell The Hero with a Thousand Faces

A. The definition

• “The Special manifestation of the immanent divine principle that has become incarnate in the world.”

B. Infant exile…

• The child of destiny must face a period of obscurity…
• This often is a time of danger, impediment, or disgrace as the outsider, handicapped, or despised one: stepchild, orphan, ugly duckling, etc.

C. The displaced hero…

• In The Matrix, unbeknownst to our hero, Neo, he has been displaced to a “false” World, the “Matrix,” not the World of his destiny or the “real” world of his birth, Zion.
• In this World, his heroic destiny has been completely obscured. He looks, thinks, and acts like everyone else in his world.
• He has no special or unique status and does not appear “heroic” in the least.

• The displaced world for Neo resembles our real world; however, the routine and mundane are emphasized.

• During this period of obscurity, the hero begins to experience the disjuncture of his internal sense of himself and the World’s view of him; he begins to recognize that something is missing.

• Neo “senses” that there is “something wrong” with the world and his seeking for answers is his innate “golden seed.”

• His seed powers are starting to awaken him to the heroic destiny of his birth.
• These feelings will eventually build up until he is “called” to action.

D. Unsuspected supernatural aid (even in the world)

• During this period of obscurity, there are unsuspected presences that lie in the dark realm to off the hero guidance…

E. World apprentice

• During this time and space, the youth learns the lessons of the seed powers just beyond the sphere of the measured and the named…

• The true character is revealed after the period of obscurity at the end of childhood and may involve a return to the place of true origins.
• It also involves an emergence of powers hitherto excluded from human life…

• Neo’s discovery of his “seed powers” initiates a “second birth,” where Neo is thrust back into the “real world” of his birth, Zion.

F. Hero nature

• The Hero’s destiny begins to manifest itself once the hero makes the transition back to his “real” birth world and as he prepares to embrace his Heroic Call.

• Neo, like most of us, is greatly skeptical of this concept of destiny and prefers to believe that he has “control” (based on the false assumption that destiny and free will can and do coexist).

• However, the hero’s destiny has such great potential ramifications on the World that it is often anticipated (predicted by the “fates”), producing excitement in those who desire the hero’s transformation of the World.

G. Crisis

• This recognition of his seed powers shatters the old world view of the youth and disaster initially greets the eye.

• However, after this initial havoc, the value of the new factor becomes clear and the world takes shape again in unsuspected glory.

H. Dragons to be slain

• The dragon to be slain is the status quo.
• The enemy is great and conspicuous in the seat of power.
• He is enemy, dragon, tyrant because he turns to his own advantage the authority of his position.
• He is Holdfast, not because he keeps the past, but because he keeps.

The Parable of the Seed