Friday, May 05, 2006

The Hero's journey

The Hero's journey

I started reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell last night, and it's absolutely fascinating. On the surface it's just a book about the (general) Hero's journey across all mythologies, but Campbell brings in Jung and Freud (although he focuses on the former) in emphasizing his point that the symbolism used in mythological tales is the same symbolic short-hand used in dreams. While I don't agree with him in general, his passion for the subjects of mythology and the collective unconscious are infectious. While his arguments didn't fully convince me that mythology culls from the same pot of dream, I am convinced that his claims are true in limited cases. I whole-heartedly recommend the book to anyone interested in dreams or mythology.

In related news, I've become convinced that the Internet is the physical (or at least visual) translation of Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious. Perhaps later I'll go into detail.

Reading:
  • Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Michael J. Behe
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
  • Runaways Vol. 5: Escape to New York, Brian K Vaughan, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa (Finished.)
  • Marbles in my Underpants, Renee French (Finished.)

    D


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