The Power of Myth

In contrast to the single-author Introduction, the main text of The Power of Myth is a back-and-forth discussion between Moyers and Campbell. The conversational style allows the main topics of each chapter to develop organically through anecdotes, questions, and spontaneous changes in topic. There is minimal narrative structure beyond the general topic expressed in each chapter’s title, like Chapter 1’s “Myth and the Modern World.” At each other’s prompting, Moyers and Campbell jump quickly from topic to topic and circle back to earlier points of discussion, especially when Campbell sees opportunities for clarification.

The dual perspective of the text—that of an expert and a curious amateur—is best seen when Moyers and Campbell discuss the purpose of myth. Moyers’s understanding is that “myths are the stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance” (4). Campbell disagrees arguing that, rather than pointing towards any single meaning, “myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life”, which can show people different ways to experience being alive (5).

In this chapter, Campbell defines four functions of myth, which is one of his main contributions to the field of comparative mythology. The first is the mystical function, which aims to reveal the mystery of life and the universe. The second is the cosmological function, which attempts to describe the shape and order of the universe. The third is the sociological function, which validates a certain social order. (He argues that this function has taken a place of prominence in modern religions like Christianity.) The last is the pedagogical function, which teaches a human how to live under different circumstances of time and place. Throughout the text, Campbell tries to explain which of these functions each myth has when he uses it as an example.

The theme of loss of mythology is central to Chapter 1. Campbell provides several examples of why he sees Americans as living in a “demythologized world” (10). Firstly, America is a young country without a cohesive spiritual or moral ethos for its various peoples. Campbell believes that young people are increasingly maladjusted to society because there are no stories or rituals to tell them how to behave. He tells an anecdote from his own life to represent this loss at the smallest scale. As a boy, Campbell and his contemporaries wore only shorts until they reached a certain age, which distinguished them from adult males who wore full-length trousers. Now he sees children wearing full-length trousers at any age, prompting him to ask, “When are they going to know that they are now men and must put aside childish things?” (9). The loss of this small ritual exemplifies a greater loss of ritualized initiation, which leaves children and young adults unsure of their role in society.

The discussion of marriage in this chapter, which foreshadows Chapter 7, offers another example of the loss of ritual. Campbell argues that married adults today connect primarily through their children, with the result that marriages are prone to dissolve when the children grow and leave the home. Traditional marriage rituals, by contrast, stressed the spiritual connection between partners and prepared them for the self-sacrifice involved in an enduring relationship. Today, Campbell states, “you can stand up in front of a judge and in ten minutes get married” (8). Without spiritual preparation and focus, modern Westerners don’t attribute a transcendent nature to this relationship, leaving many marriages superficial.

Campbell also observes that American youths are unprepared for spiritual experiences. He sees that many young people seek enlightenment through drug use, but notes that they can’t beneficially transform their consciousnesses from these experiences because they “do not know how to evaluate what has happened to [them]” (18). He contrasts this kind of drug use with the American Indian peyote ritual. Collecting the edible psychoactive cactus acts out a mythological journey wherein the participant leaves their community, enters the spiritual world, retrieves the item through hardship, and returns home. By outwardly enacting “the kind of experience that is associated with the inward journey” (17), the participants prepare for the spiritual experience of consuming the peyote. Campbell contrasts this ritual to the “mechanically induced mystical experience” involved in random drug use that leads to no real transformation (16).

Campbell points to Lebanon and Ireland as examples of the consequence when religions focus too much on in-group superiority rather than opening themselves to the global community. In Lebanon, he sees the Abrahamic religions fighting with one another “because the three of them have three different names for the same biblical god” (26). By not recognizing their shared mythological history, the groups cannot forge connections among themselves. In Ireland, Campbell sees the Irish Troubles—a prolonged conflict between Irish nationalists and British unionists divided also along religious lines—as stemming from the Protestant minority not opening themselves to the perspective of the Catholic majority. Each conflict, Campbell argues, could be mitigated by looking towards the core “love thine enemy” message shared by the competing religions (26).

Campbell argues that America once had a foundational myth involving a transcendent consciousness among all humans. The Founding Fathers believed all humans could think beyond selfish desires toward the common interest. Campbell sees several symbols in the Great Seal of the United States that point to a source of energy accessible by all, from which everything was and is created. One symbol is the pyramid with the eye of God (Reason) at the peak, reachable from all sides. Another symbol is the 13 stars above the eagle arranged in two interlocking Pythagorean triangles. The apex of the figure represents “the creative center out of which the universe and all things have come” (34). Campbell reads the two triangles as a symbol for democracy, which sees all people as capable of discovering the truth. The message of equality and cooperation that these symbols evoke has been lost in America since World War I, Campbell argues, when the United States entered a period of imperialism and economic individualism.

Connected to the theme of loss is the need for new myths. Campbell believes that modern mythologies will incorporate a global view of humanity. Campbell suggests Buddhism as a reference point because it focuses on a connection between the inner world of the individual and the cosmic order beyond ethnic or national boundaries. He believes that Buddhism’s primary concern is psychological transformation, which can occur anywhere on the planet. Moyers offers Star Wars as an example of a global myth because it does not prioritize any nation over another but rather embraces all beings in the universe. Star Wars is a continual point of reference throughout the book because of Campbell’s direct influence on George Lucas. Moyers also suggests the Gaia principle could be useful because it sees “the whole planet as an organism” on which all creatures might live harmoniously (40). The letter attributed to Chief Seattle that ends the chapter exemplifies this vision of treating the earth and its inhabitants with love and compassion.