The Hero with a Thousand Faces

In the Epilogue, Campbell quotes a well-known piece of Hindu scripture: “‘Truth is one,’ we read in the Vedas; ‘the sages call it by many names” (389-90). This statement undergirds Campbell’s theory of the monomyth, as well as the ultimate truth he perceives therein. Throughout The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell includes dozens of stories from all over the world that represent wide-ranging theological systems, rituals, cultures, and social structures. Yet all these myths, Campbell asserts, tell a central story he calls the monomyth. In fact, the monomyth’s theme similarly deals with the unity behind the fabric of existence.

In the mystical world of adventure, the hero finds life-threatening peril and tremendous reward. Some myths depict this reward (or boon) as a magical object, a divine spouse, or a metaphysical truth. No matter the boon’s form, according to Campbell, it symbolizes enlightenment. Enlightenment is to perceive the true nature of existence and come away with wisdom, strength, love, and detachment from things of the earth. Campbell describes the location of this revelation in many ways: Enlightened heroes see through the universe into the Imperishable, the Source, or the void. A quote from Coomaraswamy describes it as a place “behind the scenes, where there is no polarity of contraries” (353).

Campbell frequently brings up the elimination of all earthly division in the void. At the World Navel, where a hero can see the Source of true enlightenment, time and eternity meet each other. This place is also where dualities like good and evil, male and female, and divine and mortal break down. The hero might also gain enlightenment during a meeting with the divine, which Campbell describes this way:

The two—the hero and his ultimate god, the seeker and the found—are thus understood as the outside and inside of a single, self-mirrored mystery, which is identical with the mystery of the manifest world. The great deed of the supreme hero is to come to the knowledge of this unity in multiplicity and then to make it known (40).

Campbell also describes this idea in Part 2 with the cosmogonic cycle, in which every element of the universe arises from and dissolves into the void.

For the reader, a hero’s journey through the unconscious can yield enlightenment and a glimpse of the void. According to the saint Milarepa, “If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion will arise within your hearts” (160). The key to unlocking the power of myth lies in the attainment of enlightenment from within the depths of the unconscious, where a profound understanding of the silent, empty void will open the mind and heart.

Campbell depicts both the hero’s journey narrative and the cosmogonic narrative as circle diagrams, which are included in the text. The myth of the hero’s journey begins with a call to adventure, followed by a passage across the threshold between the hero’s everyday world and a dangerous, magical zone. The hero enters this world, faces trials, and is tested to the point of death. Thereafter, the hero takes his divine boon back through the magical world, across the threshold, and to his point of origin at home. This circle represents three major stages of “separation—initiation—return” (30), as the hero separates from home, is initiated in the supernatural realm, and returns from whence he came.

Similarly, the cosmogonic myth depicts a cyclic emanation of matter from the void, which manifests into the whole universe and thereafter descends into the void at the end of time. In this model, matter separates from emptiness and time from eternity; the universe is initiated into existence; and all things return to each other in a final destruction.

The monomyth, then, tells itself over and over again. The hero will arise, embark on a quest, and bring back a boon, but the world will not remain saved forever. A new hero will emerge as well, as Campbell points out: “The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalized into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero to refresh the word” (218). Likewise, the myths of the beginning of the universe inevitably lead to stories about its end. However, a new universe rises from the void, continuing the cycle. In mythology, the symbol of this point of energy from which all things emerge is the World Navel. Campbell writes:

for the hero as the incarnation of God is himself the navel of the world, the umbilical point through which the energies of eternity break into time. Thus the World Navel is the symbol of the continuous creation: the mystery of the maintenance of the world through that continuous miracle of vivification which wells within all things (41).