{"id":2050,"date":"2014-03-02T16:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T22:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=2050"},"modified":"2014-12-30T20:37:48","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T02:37:48","slug":"unfortunate-effects-of-joseph-campbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2014\/03\/unfortunate-effects-of-joseph-campbell.html","title":{"rendered":"Unfortunate Effects of Joseph Campbell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

On my journey from fundamentalist Christianity to Nature and Deity centered Paganism, perhaps no single figure was more helpful than Joseph Campbell.\u00a0 I found him at just the right time, when I was starting to get serious and realized I needed to develop a strong religious foundation based on what I did believe instead of what I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Shortly after my religious turning point<\/a>, I watched The Power of Myth<\/em> over and over on PBS.\u00a0 I also found and read the accompanying book.\u00a0 It was exactly what I needed to hear at that exact point in time.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an excerpt from my private journal from 2001:<\/p>\n

From a nuts and bolts perspective, I like what Campbell says about \u201cfollow your bliss\u201d \u2013 do what you really want to do and you\u2019ll be happy [though I now agree with those who say \u201cfollow your bliss\u201d devalues unpleasant but necessary work<\/em>].\u00a0 If you chase money or power or whatever, you\u2019ll end up missing out.<\/p>\n

Campbell talked about God as a force, like Star Wars \u2013 <\/em>PBS said George Lucas was heavily influenced by Campbell.\u00a0 He chose his words very carefully, talking about common myths between religions, archetypes, and such\u2026 I think you could use Campbell\u2019s work as justification for polytheism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hesitate to publish something so raw, but for someone whose only concept of God was the jealous, vengeful god of Christian fundamentalism, that was a huge step forward.\u00a0 Campbell wasn\u2019t the end for me, but he was a necessary and helpful way station on my journey.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard dozens if not hundreds of other people (some Pagans, some not) say the same thing.\u00a0 I owe a lot to Joseph Campbell.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I think Campbell\u2019s ideas are contributing to some of the current discord within Paganism.<\/p>\n

The universal doctrine teaches that all the visible structures of the world \u2013 all things and beings \u2013 are the effects of a ubiquitous power out of which they rise, which supports and fills them during the period of their manifestation, and back into which they must ultimately dissolve. \u2013 from The Hero With a Thousand Faces<\/em> by Joseph Campbell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his search for universal themes, Campbell combined and conflated widely differing myths into a \u201cmonomyth\u201d \u2013 a soft polytheism of mythology that claims all myths are aspects of One Myth.\u00a0 One critic called this<\/a> \u201ca (Joseph) Campbell soup of myths that loses all local flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of us in the Pagan community are heavily influenced by Campbell, even if we\u2019ve never read or seen his work.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t a devotional polytheist or if you haven\u2019t had experiences of individual deities, his ideas of monomyth and of \u201cGod as Force\u201d are intuitively attractive.\u00a0 The reverence in which Campbell is held within liberal religious circles only adds to his authority.\u00a0 That makes it very easy for intelligent and well-meaning Pagans to interpret polytheistic experiences (of others or even their own) through monotheistic and non-theistic lenses.<\/p>\n

Is that wrong?\u00a0 I\u2019m not going to tell anyone how to interpret their religious experiences.\u00a0 If Joseph Campbell\u2019s ideas are meaningful and helpful to you, so be it \u2013 you could do far worse.\u00a0 But if you tell me my experience of Danu<\/a> can only be seen as an aspect of a universal Goddess or as an archetype or that it must be an expression of a universal myth, we\u2019re going to have issues.<\/p>\n

All religions are true but none are literal. \u2013 from The Hero With a Thousand Faces <\/em>by Joseph Campbell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The literal reading of religious texts is the source of much trouble in our world, but let\u2019s not throw the baby of religion out with the dirty bathwater of literalism<\/a>.\u00a0 When Joseph Campbell says all religions are true he\u2019s affirming that all religions have value even though their texts and traditions aren\u2019t historically and scientifically accurate.<\/p>\n

But to the average reader \u2013 and that includes many Pagans \u2013 \u201ctrue\u201d implies The One Ultimate Truth.\u00a0 And the self-evident fact is that all religions aren\u2019t different paths up the same mountain \u2013 they\u2019re different paths up different mountains.<\/p>\n

The religious impulse is a response to universal human experiences:\u00a0 of birth and death, of joy and suffering, of community and solitude, of wonder and awe.\u00a0 But our many responses have widely varying triggers and have taken widely varying forms.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nature centered Paganism is a response to the modern disconnection from and desecration of the Natural world.\u00a0 It seeks to help us live in harmony with other species and with the Earth herself.\u00a0 Deity centered Paganism is a response to the experience of the Gods and their stories.\u00a0 It seeks to help us honor them, learn from them, and work with them toward the greater good.\u00a0 Even though many of us are both Nature and Deity centered and there is some overlap between the two (Poseidon is a God of the Sea), these two centers of Paganism are not merely different expressions of the same goals \u2013 they have different goals.<\/p>\n

Now think about the sources and goals of fundamentalist Christianity, of mainline Protestantism, of Catholicism, of the branches of Judaism, Islam and Buddhism<\/a>, and of all the many religions in the world.\u00a0 Yes, there are some commonalities, but the essence of each religion is a unique approach to a unique set of questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll religions are true\u201d does not mean all religions are ultimately the same.\u00a0 It means all religions have meaning and value and deserve to be treated fairly.<\/p>\n

Not all religions deserve our respect \u2013 the Westboro Baptist Church is only the most obvious example.\u00a0 As a polytheist, I don\u2019t care which Gods or Goddesses you do or don\u2019t worship.\u00a0 I care that you conduct yourself honorably and that you treat other creatures and ecosystems with the dignity and respect deserved by all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>People say that what we\u2019re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what we\u2019re really seeking. I think that what we\u2019re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. \u2013 from The Power of Myth<\/em> by Joseph Campbell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another source of confusion is our evolutionary instinct to divide everything into good\/bad, helpful\/harmful, like me\/Other.\u00a0 When we get to know people of different religions and we see they\u2019re basically good, we move them from the \u201cOther\u201d category to the \u201clike me\u201d category.\u00a0 And if someone else is \u201clike me\u201d then I may assume that deep down they must be seeking the same things I seek.\u00a0 This is not an accurate assumption.<\/p>\n

Joseph Campbell may have been seeking an experience of being alive, but I can assure you a fundamentalist Christian is seeking to avoid going to hell when he dies.\u00a0 Those aren\u2019t remotely the same goal.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have to say \u201cdeep down you\u2019re just like me\u201d in order to get along with another person or a different religion.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have to assume they\u2019re seeking the same things in different ways.\u00a0 We just have to respect their inherent dignity and worth and trust they\u2019ll do the same for us.<\/p>\n

I support Big Tent Paganism.\u00a0 I want Wiccans and Druids and Hellenists and Heathens and tree huggers and everyone else working together to support each other, to support events like Pantheacon and sites like The Wild Hunt<\/a> and Patheos Pagan<\/a>.\u00a0 Individually none of us have a critical mass.\u00a0 Together we do.\u00a0 And besides, it\u2019s just more fun together.<\/p>\n

But please, don\u2019t assume what motivates you is what motivates me.\u00a0 Don\u2019t assume what you seek is what I seek.\u00a0 And for the sake of all the Gods (quite literally) don\u2019t insist that my experience must be interpreted through your lens.<\/p>\n

Ask.\u00a0 And then listen.\u00a0 I\u2019ll do the same for you.\u00a0 It will be a good conversation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m very thankful for Joseph Campbell \u2013 he had just the right message at just the right time on my spiritual journey. But I think Campbell\u2019s ideas are contributing to some of the current discord within Paganism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":2054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[325,4,5,8,327,326],"class_list":["post-2050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-2","tag-joseph-campbell","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-polytheism","tag-the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces","tag-the-power-of-myth"],"yoast_head":"\nUnfortunate Effects of Joseph Campbell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019m very thankful for Joseph Campbell \u2013 he had just the right message at just the right time on my spiritual journey. 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