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| (Image from The Quantum Revolution) |
The Proverbial Labyrinth Of The
Hero's Path Is Thoroughly Known
The proverbial labyrinth of the Hero's Path is thoroughly known; however, the proverbial labyrinth of the Hero's Path is not necessarily known by you!
-Paul Whiting
(a.k.a., Poet, Artist and Philosopher)
"I am the poet who thinks that he knows it!"
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My Writing About Joseph Campbell's Quote From His Book 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces' Regarding The Labyrinth Being Thoroughly Known:
The labyrinth is thoroughly known... –Joseph Campbell, a partial quote from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (first published in 1949)
The proverbial labyrinth of the Hero's Path is thoroughly known; however, the proverbial labyrinth of the Hero's Path is not necessarily known by you! –Paul Whiting (written March 15th, 2015, revised January 25th, 2022, revised September 17th, 2022, revised June 12th, 2023 and revised June 13th, 2023)
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"Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)" from Wikiquote:
"Centuries of husbandry, decades of diligent culling, the work of numerous hearts and hands, have gone into the hackling, sorting, and spinning of this tightly twisted yarn. Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god ... where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." –Joseph Campbell, from the book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
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"The Hero with a Thousand Faces" from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia—which is funded primarily through donations from millions of individuals around the world, including this blogger (I make a totally affordable monthly donation):
"The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell, in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths.
Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. Filmmaker George Lucas acknowledged Campbell's theory in mythology, and its influence on the Star Wars films..."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
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My Philosophical Notes:
The reason that I wrote this prose can be summed up with the following statement: The proverbial labyrinth of the Hero's Path is thoroughly known; however, the proverbial labyrinth of the Hero's Path is not necessarily known by you!
By the way the quote above, by American Professor Joseph Campbell, which includes the phrase that inspired this post,"the labyrinth is thoroughly known," is from his transformative book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces."
It is one of my all-time favorite quotes.
And, when I was younger (this was in Salt Lake City, Utah), I was quite literally transformed when I read that passage about the hero's path, and how "the labyrinth is thoroughly known," and most specifically the following part of the quote:
"And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god ... where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." –Joseph Campbell
Thus, as a young "Poet, Artist and Philosopher," I was so moved by that quote from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" that it informed my life—along with the many wise words I have read from many other wise authors!
Now, in the quotation above of Joseph Campbell's writing, you might notice that there are three periods within the portion of the quote "and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god ... where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence," which clearly indicates that there is something more to that quote that I didn't quote! And the reason for this editorial omission has to do with the content of that portion of Joseph Campbell's writing from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", which states the following:
"...where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves..."
You see, the reason I did not include that portion of Joseph Campbell's writing in the quote above is because it seems to be saying, "rather than killing someone else, you'll be killing yourself." However, I interpret the phrase "where we had thought to slay another" as a reference to realizing that "slaying another" is the wrong path on the Hero's Journey! In addition to that, I also interpret the phrase "we shall slay ourselves" as a reference to realizing that it is OUR OWN EGO that needs to be destroyed, then recreated anew, on the Hero's Journey and not someone else's ego! Thus, at the first part of our Hero's Journey, we may have mistakenly thought that we were going to be destroying someone else's egomania, rather than destroying—and then healing—our own egomania...
...And so, here is the complete, and for me transformational, quote from Joseph Campbell's life-changing book, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces":
"Centuries of husbandry, decades of diligent culling, the work of numerous hearts and hands, have gone into the hackling, sorting, and spinning of this tightly twisted yarn. Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." –Joseph Campbell
Just so you know, I revised this prose, as I often do with my writing! And I changed how this prose was written when I was editing it on my "Poet, Artist and Philosopher" and "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" blogs. So, I wanted to show you how this prose used to be written, before I rewrote it as above.
And it used to be written like this:
The Labyrinth Is Thoroughly Known
The labyrinth is simply not known by you—as of yet!
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And then I revised it to be written like this:
The Proverbial Labyrinth Is Thoroughly Known
The proverbial labyrinth is simply not known by you—as of yet!
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And then I revised it, again, to be written like this:
The Labyrinth Of The Hero's Path Is Thoroughly Known
The labyrinth of the Hero's Path is simply not known by you—as of yet!
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And, thus, I finally revised it to be written as it is above.
And this prose was also published on my "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" blog (please see the hyperlink below for the blog), since I feel that the message in this prose applies to the message that I am trying to convey through "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer."
This prose was written in Portland, Oregon.
-Paulee
https://paulwhitingwriting.blogspot.com
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This "Poet, Artist and Philosopher" Post No. 070 was edited on May 3rd, 2024.
"Prose is using all of the words that are necessary in order to describe all that is necessary to describe." –Paul Whiting [June 1st, 2022]
