Monomyth

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

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Persephonespring
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Monomyth

Post by Persephonespring »

Can someone tell me about the Mono-myth? I've been told by someone who doesn't like JC that it's his most "popular" theory. I've not heard of it.


Jan
Might be a drop in a bucket, but, as I like to say, no drops, no ocean. :-) Clemsy

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Post by nandu »

Joseph Campbell traces the Hero's journey, in his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in the myths of the world, isolating the common motifs and elements. According to my knowledge, this is the "monomyth".

Nandu.
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Post by Clemsy »

Also, it is Campbell's primary thesis that all myths, everywhere, tell the same story, just dressed differently according to culture. He depends heavily on Jung's idea of archetypes, which are genetically encoded in our DNA.

So our myths, our religions, don't define our differences so much as they define our collective humanity.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Persephonespring »

Thank you both!

Jan
Might be a drop in a bucket, but, as I like to say, no drops, no ocean. :-) Clemsy

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Post by Roncooper »

Clemsy,
Thank you for the concise summary. Your phrase "all myths tell the same story," threw me for a few hours. Hero tales are certainly not the only type of myth, there are creation stories and cautionary tales for example. Of course this is just splitting hairs. Campbell's message is the same whether one uses story or stories.

What I really wanted to ask was about this "its in our DNA" idea. Does anyone know if Campbell held this view or did this idea come later? I have a real problem with this idea. If our personalities and likes and dislikes are programmed in, why does almost every college in the world have art appreciation classes? This seems to comtradict the DNA idea.

Sometimes I think DNA is the rug under which my fellow intellectuals sweep everything they can't understand about humanity. This includes topics like consciousness, love, beauty, and even understanding.

Roncooper

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Post by Clemsy »

Hi Roncooper...

Just briefly... that we are genetically predisposed toward archetypes doesn't mean that our personalities are hardwired. I'm of the mind that our personalities are a combination of our biology, environment and something else that's a bit undefinable. But archetypes predispose us to comprehend narrative, and, unless my understanding is mistaken, provide the symbolic language with which we can define what impulses drive, protect, and threaten us (The Trickster? The Tyrant? The Servant? The Teacher? The Tree? The Ouroborus?).

There is, seems to me, like musical notation, infinite variation.

And, yes Campbell considered archetypes, and myth, to be a function of our genetic heritage. He explains this in a number of places, but the initial chapters of Primitive Mythology and Flight of the Wild Gander deal with this idea.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by jim baird »

With all respect, my take on Jung's ideas of archetypes is that those symbols are contained in the collective mind rather than contained by anything as "physical" as DNA structure.

I read somewhere in Jung that he claimed to have shown empirically that the psyche does not have a location.

I think of mind substance as having a "subtle" form rather than a physical one.

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Post by Cindy B. »

Hey, Jim.

I'd like to share two posts that I made elsewhere on Jungian archetypes. Let me know what you think if you'd like.


Archetype Review


Also, Jung's theory of mind is a type of dual-aspect monism wherein the psychophysical monistic source is the unus mundus: http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic. ... 7745#77745


:)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Clemsy »

So essentially, archetypes fall under instinct.

Campbell quotes Jung, in Primitive Mythology thusly:
The primary image [archetype] is a memory deposit, an engram, derived from a condensation of innumerable similar experiences ...the psychic expression of an anatomically, physiologically determined natural tendency.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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Post by Cindy B. »

Yet very early on Jung abandoned any theorizing about archetypes as "memory traces, engram-like," etc. The link between such terms and Lamarkism was not helpful and not really where he was coming from.

It is necessary to point out once more that archetypes are not determined as to their content, but only as regards their form (C: Emphasis mine.), and then only to a very limited degree. A primordial (C: archetypal) image is determined as to its content only when it has become conscious and is therefore filled out with the material of conscious experience. --Jung

And as I said above, "Just as commonly acknowledged biological instincts cannot be directly observed but are inferred and known by the effects they produce--say, nest building--so it is with archetypes as psychic instincts that can only be known by the effects they produce in the form of archetypal images and the ideas and behaviors associated with their expression; Nature provides the instinctual framework for potential patterns of human experience that over time we as psychosocial beings have shaped and given voice to."

:)
Last edited by Cindy B. on Mon Aug 19, 2013 7:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Roncooper »

Clemsy,
I like the idea that DNA predisposes us to certain choices. Given my personal experience, this seems like the correct scale of influence. However, there is a significant portion of the scientific community who believe that the situation is far more deterministic. They believe that everything arises from the physical universe. I have read papers that state that the differences in individuals are statistical variations and acts of genius are random fluxuations.

Cindy B.,
A word of warning about theorist in physics, especially quantum physics, they sometime suffer from extreme silliness; I believe the term is aphronesia, sometimes even in groups. The idea that consciousness can affect an experiment is certainly not main stream. They also talk seriously about the Schrodinger's cat paradox, and the latest one has to do with measurements changing the past. Most of these go away in time. Luckily there are experimentalists that keep the physical sciences physical.

All,
I think the differences in the interpretation of the role of DNA come from the fact that scientists study matter, while people associated with the JCF are focused more on consciousness. If scientists would think about consciousness in a serious way, they would probably agree that there is more to it than meets the molecule.

Finally,
I don’t understand what is meant by the subconscious. It seems to mean more than just dreamless sleep. My most receptive time is when I am in the process of waking up, when I am half awake. Does this state have a name?

Roncooper

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Post by Cindy B. »

Ron wrote:I don’t understand what is meant by the subconscious. It seems to mean more than just dreamless sleep. My most receptive time is when I am in the process of waking up, when I am half awake. Does this state have a name?
Here's a copy of information, Ron, that I posted elsewhere. Keep in mind that the point of view is Western and scientific:
I'm covering old ground here, but it's worth repeating, I think. The only part of the mind that can be directly known by an individual is consciousness. If you’re subjectively aware of some content or process going on inside your head, that's a conscious content or process. Consciousness, though, is only the tip of a very large iceberg when it comes to mental functioning, and most of what the brain is doing is inaccessible to our conscious awareness or just below the surface, so to speak, and occuring automatically, and is therefore unconscious and elements of unconsciousness. This is the basic distinction to be remembered, and whenever we run across terms such as “subconscious, personal unconscious, collective unconscious, shadow," etc., they’re all referring to the same thing which is unconsciousness. Most of our waking life, by the way, is spent in various states of unconsciousness and the ease of automatic mental functioning; in contrast, consciousness demands directed attention and/or periods of intentionality which require considerable energy in order to be sustained and in a way that most unconscious processes do not.
Also, the borderland state between consciousness and unconsciousness experienced upon awakening and falling asleep is called semiconsciousness.


:)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by jim baird »

Thanks for the replies.

I guess what stuck like a thorn in my side was the reference to DNA as somehow being a container of instinct, ergo of archetypes.

The idea of "psychic instinct" had not occured to me. Certainly psychic content is not in the recipe for anyone's DNA structure?

Jung's use of the word "Self" is the same as Campbell's and the ancients' use of the word "Atman", no?

I am also thinking of the scientist Rupert Sheldrake and his ideas about the differences between mind and brain.

What I have put together from Jung is that each of us includes a psychic content that is mostly, by far, collective, unconscious, complementary, compensatory, and ergo driven by an "agenda" that lies shrouded in mystery. Jung said that consciousness is merely a "momentary adaptation".

For me it puts the individual in a comparatively miniscule status.

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Post by Cindy B. »

First and foremost Jung was a scientist (his words not mine), and since his death in 1961, various post-Jungians and scientists in a variety of fields have continued to investigate his concept of the archetype. So far the general consensus is that his basic premises hold.

Also, for any interested in exploring Jungian Analytical Psychology basics as discussed on this board, please start here: http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4050

:)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Einherjar »

jim baird wrote: For me it puts the individual in a comparatively miniscule status.
The evolution of the social animal we know as humans, and how human biology reflects this evolution, should not come as surprising.

Our understanding of the individual as detached from the collective is a modern myth created by the consumer society, where the image of individualism do not represent merely separation, but being elevated above and beyond.

If you forget the consumer society and the lies of purpose of existence being centered around your logo and brand affiliation. You will see that the moving force in the human social collective is the element and influence of what we regard as the individual. This "x" factor, this edge the individual offers the collective of the social human animal, should not be perceived as having lesser status than before.
Eyvitar firna - er maðr annan skal, þess er um margan gengr guma; heimska ór horskum - gerir hölða sonu - sá inn máttki munr.

Never place blame on man, because it happens to all. No matter how wise, a fool he becomes, when love steals his powers.

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