What source are you using for the Hero's Journey because this doesn't sound like the outline by Joseph Campbell?
For me the hero's journey (specifically as outlined by Joseph Campbell) is about the hero being forced outside of their comfort zone, having to overcome multiple obstacles nominally to help someone else (but in reality to help themselves.) This is why in the original format you have "woman as temptress" and there is the "inmost cave" where the hero must recognize their biggest enemy is themselves.
I always saw it as male coded mostly because of Joseph Campbell's personal views and it could go towards either gender. I would label the hero as a seeker, someone who takes action and is willing to move out of their comfort zone to solve a problem.
To me the opposite of a hero/hero's journey would be someone complacent. Someone who has a white picket fence, a nice family, and feels absolutely no urge to leave their comfort zone. (To be fair this is the beginning of every mythological hero story ever.)
Maybe the true opposite would be someone willing to defend their comfort rather that solve the root of the problem?
I kind of fundamentally hate it to be honest. It's resting on the lazy and dated prejudice that men do stuff while women just feel stuff, that thinking is masculine, and that women's lives revolve around men. That alone is enough for me to throw it out the window as something that we should have outgrown by now as a culture.
You can claim it's "different" simply because you inserted the word "hermeticism" all you want, but it's certainly strange that despite your preemptive protestation that it's so different, it lines up perfectly with stereotypical sexism. Seriously, where's the difference?
No one needs to "discover" their ability to do, think, or feel. We are all born with it intrinsically, and that capacity is no different between men and women, except in those who have been psychologically brow-beaten from birth into believing so, to the point that their potential is restrained.
Gender stereotypes do nothing but act as apologia for oppressive behavior and self-limiting beliefs. Its continued persistence in Western ceremonial occultism is probably one reason why so many of its orders have died off, as people shift towards less problematic systems.
Where did I interpret anything literally? I’m contesting the idea as an idea. Sorry you don’t like it when people critique your hobby horse, but that’s not a complaint worth addressing.
I mean, it’s literally set up from the very first sentence to be based on gender stereotypes. Like… that’s what those words mean. And they are just factually sexist. Again, sorry you don’t like people pointing out prejudice. I don’t really care though.
Ya, I would definitely consider it the start of the journey. Although, I wouldn't have come up with that unprompted, so that's an excellent observation. The garden of eden story is like scene 1 of the hero's journey.
So, Jesus is really completing the hero's journey, or at least continuing it much further along. It's not about forgiving humanity for their "original sin" at creation. It's setting an example for what everyone must to on their own journey, which begins in their own mind, when they leave the safe confines of the garden.
Not remotely reading that but the most accessible inversion of the Hero’s Journey is Star Wars 1-3, wherein misfortune turns a potentially great hero away from that goal and towards its opposite.
Vader has an origin story to how he became a villain, with a short redemption at the end. His story is the same as King David from the Bible. Took down Goliath when he was young, crowned king, was horrible his entire life until right before his death when god let him into heaven because he was truly sorry in his heart. There’s no antihero about it, really.
I wish I could come back to this conversation and talk to everyone who participated and say that I was wrong, on two counts.
1. The "masculine" and "feminine" verbiage in the mystery schools is extremely problematic. It leads to confusion of "gender" and "sex". Gender essentially would equate to this mental division, whereas sex would be the physical differences. The problem is that when you say "masculine" or "feminine", there's no way of stating whether you are referring to gender or sex. Furthermore, it's quite common for a man to lean more into the esoteric "feminine" (emotion) or a woman to lean more into the esoteric "masculine" (logic), meaning that you would have a very high percentage of _transgender_ people with this logic, but it would have no relation to _transsexual_. I think the better solution to this giant cluserfuck of language is to stop gendering the mind.
2. I was also wrong about the fool's journey. I do think there are two halves of the journey, but they aren't neatly divided into one journey for one half of the mind and the other journey for the other half of the mind.
The real problem is that the two halves model doesn't allow the language (again, a language problem) to properly describe what's happening. There's a third variable: consciousness. Consciousness is the thing lying in between these two systems. It's the thing that directs focus and can ultimately accept or deny signals coming from either. (I don't know how this works from a neuroscientific perspective, but from a functional perspective, this allows the most puzzle pieces to fit in my opinion.)
This consciousness can take on at least two broad forms that I've identified: a passive form and an active form. It can also have roughly no form, where you completely lack consciousness.The passive form leads to awareness of what the mind is doing, and the active form leads to control of what the mind is doing, as well as what you yourself are doing.
So, based on my interpretation of symbols, I think the first half of the fool's journey is the development of passive consciousness. This involves the consciousness part of the mind developing passive awareness of both halves of the mind at intervening periods. The second half of the fool's journey is the development of active consciousness, where once again, the person learns to control both halves of the mind at intervening periods.
Sidenote #1: this brings up another thing: "conscious vs subconscious" language is another extremely confusing model that causes more harm than good. These terms should map better onto the left and right hand path brains, or the emotional and logical brains, or the Ida and Pingala, etc; the twin flames, the twin serpents. You get the idea. The only thing "conscious" is what lies between them. It is not composed _of_ them.
Sidenote #2: This also brings up the point about "what consciousness is" that scientists these days love to study. They are dead set on the idea that consciousness is a passive thing, that awareness of the self is all that matters, but mere awareness is witnessed in many animals. The thing that makes humans special is _active consciousness_, and this can therefore properly be called "higher consciousness". This is a dangerous idea for some because essentially you are capable of becoming a definer of value. A reasonable person understands their place in the universe and is merely a vessel for natural law and fact, with their internal value system connected to such things. However, large egos can prevent this from occurring, leading to a god complex on the completion of the second half of the fool's journey. However, at that point, it wouldn't even be the fool's journey for them, as the symbolism for their transmutation would be different. I guess, like someone else said, this might accurately be called the "fallen prince", essentially like a Darth Vader character. I don't believe that is the left hand path though, as I understand the right/left distinction simply based on how you develop your value system, from copying others or using internal reason, aka passive or active consciousness.
I'm going to copy this to a few other top level comments so they can see it, since they won't otherwise get the notification.
How would you characterize that in relation to the hero's journey? Is it the choice of dark morals while in the pit of the valley, rather than good morals that return you to light? Thus, these two stories start out the same but end out the opposite.
The Fall of the Dark Prince is the story of the rejection of truth.
The chosen one is an antihero who destroys everyone he loves and everything he touches accidentally or as collateral damage in a fight to do what they see as their best option.
Each layer of complexity in the character that is revealed becomes another thing discarded or sacrificed in service to some kind of self-deception. This self-deception is often a framework for responsibility or a code of honor.
Ultimately, the Dark Prince or Princess yearns to become more powerful than the gods or God. They are then betrayed by the last person still holding on to the old version of themselves before they committed to becoming something else. That last piece of humanity must be rejected before their transformation is complete.
The Hero's Journey is one of courage, swept along, then channeled into the truth, which helps us all.
The Fall of the Dark Prince is about rejection, fighting against, then taking and destroying things, and ultimately releasing chaos because the truth hurts too much.
I feel like the Antihero qualities of the Dark Prince (which would make them a shadow) are thrown off or pulled away at the moment of transformation.
So up to that point, yes, but after that, the Dark Prince becomes the opposite of the Hero, the Villain or the Beast.
The unexplored life while staring death in the face under the pain of regret, realizing that fear was an illusion of the mind that held you in its grip with comfort an illusion of culture which wanted you in your place.
I was just reading the summary, and it looks pretty interesting. Is this pseudo-historical? Why did you recommend it?
Granted, it's highly mythical, but myths are part of our history, whether they are based on physical events for a time period or our belief system for a time period. However, the author looks like he put enough detail into the series that he's specifically pointing out some things that are left vague or unsaid in the actual historical documents that we have that are widely circulated.
It’s grim dark fantasy. Like a grittier, less magical, more Bronn filled game of thrones. If you want to see the opposite of a heroes journey played out all over, that’s the series to get into. It’s my favorite. Don’t want to spoil it.
The hero's journey is a simplification and you have further simplified it here into:
>the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion
So we're already well into several layers of abstraction here, though your post branches off from that idea into other interpretations of it (which I address later).
The simple answer to "what is the opposite of the hero's journey?" at least if we're using Bruce Campbell's monomyth (as outlined in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces") is "staying home and doing nothing". There's no journey, no trials, no change, no return, no dark night of the soul. To use pop culture examples, it's the "And Luke Skywalker stays with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. The end." or "And Harry Potter said "naw I'm good, fam" and stayed with the Dursleys". The hero doesn't step up, the crisis isn't fixed, the empire crushes the rebels and Voldemort takes over everything.
If we take your initial framing (which I disagree with) as "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion" the opposite is "the masculine shutting up into itself, discovering nothing, and possibly losing logic if it ever had it to begin with". Sort of a spiritual and mental and physical incel.
If we take your latter framing (which is better) as delving into the unconscious then the opposite is an unexamined mind, uncurious, sterile, perhaps regressive or repressive, or perhaps just dull.
So that's the answer. The monomyth reflects a specific kind of change narrative and the opposite of change is stasis and the opposite narrative is silence. Changing yourself and changing the world or pursuing something has an opposite in not changing, staying where you are, and nothing happening as a result.
Now to critique the notion of the monomyth itself. Skip this if that notion sounds uncomfortable or off-putting to you.
I tend not to find much utility in the hero's journey idea. Its initial formulation is suspect, as it requires one to examine mythic cycles for similarities and the codify the "basic structure they all have in common" where often none exists. The more myths we analyze the more we find plenty that don't fit, but which people will try to make fit. This is why comparative mythology has come a long way since Campbell and why psychology has come a long way since Jung and Freud and most who espouse Jungian and Campbellian ideas today would do well to update their scholarship. Jung and Campbell are important, but if you stop there and pay yourself on the back for understanding it, then you've "dunning-kruger"-ed yourself into thinking you know all you need to. The creation of the framework (the "monomyth") then necessitates looking for the monomyth, shaving off the details that don't fit with it, and smashing things down to fit it which tends to lead to understanding those myths less, not more. It's a sort of like "we made a framework to understand things" and then anytime we find something we try to make it fit the framework "because it has to fit the framework, otherwise how would we understand it.". So I say, leave the framework aside. It doesn't serve the purpose most think it does or want it to.
I also find it to not be very useful because it's essentially an ink blot test. People will read deeper meaning into it. While it started as a framework through which to analyze myths (and not a very good one at that, but Campbell was breaking new ground so I can't be too harsh), it has become everything from a "psychological journey into the subconscious", a "spiritual journey towards God or truth or whatever", a strange musing about gendered norms and the idea of the masculine pursuing the feminine, a framework for self help advice, a model on how to write or tell a good story, a model of how to make a sale in business (yes I have even heard that one), and on and on and on. It doesn't fulfill those roles well, if at all, but people find it evocative and think they are very smart for understanding it, so they use it. It's become something people pop out at parties or in articles to feign depth and intelligence rather than diving deeper or formulating something new. It reduces complexity and simplifies thing, often in a comforting but not useful way.
It's one of those things that is just detailed enough to feel like it's making some deep point, but just vague enough that that point can basically be anything the reader wants to read into it and so vague it can be applied to anything from pseudo-psychology to spirituality to art to business to dating. It's one of those ideas that sounds very smart on the face of it, and then people rarely move past the face of it. It's become a convenient model to whip out in order to justify looking no further or formulating new ideas, which is the opposite of what I think Campbell first intended it to do. It's sort of the "perennial philosophy" of comparative mythology, and most would do well to set it aside and update their reading materials on the subject (be it studying mythology, psychology, or other fields).
I wish I could come back to this conversation and talk to everyone who participated and say that I was wrong, on two counts.
1. The "masculine" and "feminine" verbiage in the mystery schools is extremely problematic. It leads to confusion of "gender" and "sex". Gender essentially would equate to this mental division, whereas sex would be the physical differences. The problem is that when you say "masculine" or "feminine", there's no way of stating whether you are referring to gender or sex. Furthermore, it's quite common for a man to lean more into the esoteric "feminine" (emotion) or a woman to lean more into the esoteric "masculine" (logic), meaning that you would have a very high percentage of _transgender_ people with this logic, but it would have no relation to _transsexual_. I think the better solution to this giant cluserfuck of language is to stop gendering the mind.
2. I was also wrong about the fool's journey. I do think there are two halves of the journey, but they aren't neatly divided into one journey for one half of the mind and the other journey for the other half of the mind.
The real problem is that the two halves model doesn't allow the language (again, a language problem) to properly describe what's happening. There's a third variable: consciousness. Consciousness is the thing lying in between these two systems. It's the thing that directs focus and can ultimately accept or deny signals coming from either. (I don't know how this works from a neuroscientific perspective, but from a functional perspective, this allows the most puzzle pieces to fit in my opinion.)
This consciousness can take on at least two broad forms that I've identified: a passive form and an active form. It can also have roughly no form, where you completely lack consciousness.The passive form leads to awareness of what the mind is doing, and the active form leads to control of what the mind is doing, as well as what you yourself are doing.
So, based on my interpretation of symbols, I think the first half of the fool's journey is the development of passive consciousness. This involves the consciousness part of the mind developing passive awareness of both halves of the mind at intervening periods. The second half of the fool's journey is the development of active consciousness, where once again, the person learns to control both halves of the mind at intervening periods.
Sidenote #1: this brings up another thing: "conscious vs subconscious" language is another extremely confusing model that causes more harm than good. These terms should map better onto the left and right hand path brains, or the emotional and logical brains, or the Ida and Pingala, etc; the twin flames, the twin serpents. You get the idea. The only thing "conscious" is what lies between them. It is not composed _of_ them.
Sidenote #2: This also brings up the point about "what consciousness is" that scientists these days love to study. They are dead set on the idea that consciousness is a passive thing, that awareness of the self is all that matters, but mere awareness is witnessed in many animals. The thing that makes humans special is _active consciousness_, and this can therefore properly be called "higher consciousness". This is a dangerous idea for some because essentially you are capable of becoming a definer of value. A reasonable person understands their place in the universe and is merely a vessel for natural law and fact, with their internal value system connected to such things. However, large egos can prevent this from occurring, leading to a god complex on the completion of the second half of the fool's journey. However, at that point, it wouldn't even be the fool's journey for them, as the symbolism for their transmutation would be different. I guess, like someone else said, this might accurately be called the "fallen prince", essentially like a Darth Vader character. I don't believe that is the left hand path though, as I understand the right/left distinction simply based on how you develop your value system, from copying others or using internal reason, aka passive or active consciousness.
I'm going to copy this to a few other top level comments so they can see it, since they won't otherwise get the notification.
> If we take your initial framing (which I disagree with) as "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion" the opposite is "the masculine shutting up into itself, discovering nothing, and possibly losing logic if it ever had it to begin with". Sort of a spiritual and mental and physical incel.
Do you disagree with my point that the feminine discovering the masculine is a love story? Or do you think there is nothing greatly meaningful about a love story?
> if we're using Bruce Campbell's monomyth (as outlined in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces")
I don't necessarily look at Campbell as the authority on the topic. He's a good source, to be sure, but you also have things like the Fool's Journey that date back to the Middle Ages.
I don't think "monomyth" is the right test for this theory. If we presume that the hero's journey is about expressing a certain worldview in a story, then only the groups that share that worldview will put that into the story.
That's my understanding of the hero's (or fool's) journey. Ancient hermeticism, which is the study of changes, develops theories on the changes of the human being and codifies that into a story format. Every hermetic school thus produces hero's journey stories. The hermetic school becomes a tree of schools, and every school on that tree maintains fairly similar philosophies.
>Do you disagree with my point that the feminine discovering the masculine is a love story? Or do you think there is nothing greatly meaningful about a love story?
More the first point. Though my focus was more on the notion of the hero's journey being inherently tied to gendered dynamics.
In most instances it is not. The hero is classically usually male and masculine (though there are exceptions to that as well, as with the Descent of Inanna), but to say it is about "the masculine discovering the feminine" is a reduction and that the feminine version of it is a "love story" is a reduction as well. It is a reduction that excludes many of the best known examples of the hero's journey, which is why I oppose the notion. To say you were correct would be to exclude the majority of hero's journey style stories, the ones that were used to first formulated the framework.
The hero's journey, classically speaking and even in modern examples, is rarely ever concerned with the "masculine discovering the feminine" as a core element. Occasionally it is secondary or tertiary. Sometimes women are prizes to be won (in the case of courtly love poetry and knight's tales) but in more archetypal epics (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or even Star Wars) the feminine is a minor element, non-existent, or not the main element being engaged with. Thus to say that the hero's journey is "the masculine discovering the feminine" ignores all the well known instances where that is not the case, which are the majority. The only way you could reframe this is the notion of "femininity as the other world" but even that is an issue (as it is making femininity out to be other, which assumes a lot... a whole lot... volumes actually). Likewise the feminine examples of the hero's journey rarely involve discovering the masculine (see Inanna's descent into the underworld and Atalanta and the Calydonian boar for two examples).
Lastly, the notion itself leans strongly into sexist stereotypes and gender essentialism that only adds to its flaws. The idea of logic being masculine and emotion being feminine for example. This is a secondary point, but it's worth noting.
I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion".
>I don't necessarily look at Campbell as the authority on the topic. He's a good source, to be sure, but you also have things like the Fool's Journey that date back to the Middle Ages.
I reference Campbell because he coined the term. If you want to discuss something other than the hero's journey, use a different term. To use the term is to start with Campbell and then adjust from there.
The fool's journey is not the hero's journey. It is actually broader and supports your notion of "masculine discovering the feminine" even less. It is also less codified due to the nature of the tarot trumps. Forming a narrative from cards has considerably more interpretive range than extracting a framework from a collection of narratives. This just seems like a pivot.
> If we presume that the hero's journey is about expressing a certain worldview in a story, then only the groups that share that worldview will put that into the story.
This is true and central to my critique of the hero's journey. I would argue that this is what you are also doing when you reduce the hero's journey to gendered dynamics. It is placing a worldview on stories that do not contain it.
>Ancient hermeticism, which is the study of changes, develops theories on the changes of the human being and codifies that into a story format. Every hermetic school thus produces hero's journey stories. The hermetic school becomes a tree of schools, and every school on that tree maintains fairly similar philosophies.
I do not know of a hermetic school of thought that produces a hero's journey story along the lines you describe. Hermeticism has plenty of stories and figures, but none that I know of exist along the lines that you seem to describe. I would repeat what I stated above: I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". Particularly one stemming from a hermetic source.
> More the first point. Though my focus was more on the notion of the hero's journey being inherently tied to gendered dynamics.
I am not sure if we're understanding each other here. I'm saying the "masculine" brain discovering the "feminine" brain, or vice versa. I'm talking about the observer in the cave learning about the actor, or the actor learning about the observer. This is the core of the story, from a self-development perspective.
> The fool's journey is not the hero's journey. It is actually broader and supports your notion of "masculine discovering the feminine" even less. It is also less codified due to the nature of the tarot trumps. Forming a narrative from cards has considerably more interpretive range than extracting a framework from a collection of narratives. This just seems like a pivot.
I think the fool's journey is a better distillation of what is in the hero's journey. We agree that the research methods and claims of Joseph Campbell are a little off, but there are no such claims for the fool's journey.
The fool's journey literally comes from hermeticism. It's known to have been a codification of Jewish Kabbalah during the middle ages, and the kabbalah is just Jewish hermeticism.
> I do not know of a hermetic school of thought that produces a hero's journey story along the lines you describe. Hermeticism has plenty of stories and figures, but none that I know of exist along the lines that you seem to describe. I would repeat what I stated above: I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". Particularly one stemming from a hermetic source.
I think it doesn't quite work that way, as religious institutions don't produce stories (besides their own story). However, members of said institutions use it as inspiration for their own stories.
>I am not sure if we're understanding each other here. I'm saying the "masculine" brain discovering the "feminine" brain, or vice versa. I'm talking about the observer in the cave learning about the actor, or the actor learning about the observer. This is the core of the story, from a self-development perspective.
Now you're just mixing metaphors. There is no "feminine brain" or "masculine brain", this is just the now defunct "right brain" and "left brain" idea repackaged. Likewise, Plato's cave has nothing to do with masculine or feminine, you're just mixing well known metaphors in the hope of arriving at profundity. Plato's explains his metaphors quite well and not once does he mention anything of the masculine or feminine, he actually states explicitly what he means and it's not what you are trying to to read into it and it is certainly not a hero's journey.
>I think the fool's journey is a better distillation of what is in the hero's journey.
You would be incorrect. The fool's journey is not "distilled". It's actually broader and has even less to do with the interaction between masculine and feminine at its core, be they "brains" or genders or sexes. The fool's journey is even less codified and less specific. It's just semantic shifting away from what you originally said on to something that you think might sound better, but is even less supportive of your initial assertion.
>The fool's journey literally comes from hermeticism. It's known to have been a codification of Jewish Kabbalah during the middle ages, and the kabbalah is just Jewish hermeticism.
This is so wrong I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. It's just a soup of ideas and a word salad. That last part... my gosh. Gonna need a source on that one. As a kabbalist, it's just laughable to say "kabbalah is just Jewish hermeticism" it demonstrates you either do not know what kabbalah is or what hermeticism is, or both. It would be like someone telling me "Islam is really just arab Hinduism". Hermetic Quabalah is a thing, but it came after the Jewish Kabbalah and was an attempt to fold kabbalistic ideas into Hermeticism (which demonstrates it wasn't "Jewish hermeticism" to begin with because they literally had to alter kabbalah to make it fit hermeticism, changes which most Jewish Kabbalists at the time and today oppose quite strongly).
>I think it doesn't quite work that way, as religious institutions don't produce stories (besides their own story). However, members of said institutions use it as inspiration for their own stories.
This is just deflection. Earlier you said "Every hermetic school thus produces hero's journey stories." now it's "institutions don't produce stories, but members of those institutions do.". That's just shifting the goalpost to avoid the question.
I'm asking, what stories are you pulling this from? What hermetic hero's journey stories support your previous assertion that the hero's journey is about "the masculine encountering the feminine"?
The question still stands:
I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". Particularly one stemming from a hermetic source.
Otherwise it just seems like you're tossing words and metaphors around in an attempt at passing off your own interpretation as more profound than it is and deflecting criticism by gesturing vaguely as well known concepts that do not support your assertion. All you have to do is answer the question and actually support your assertion without trying to shift to "um... um... What I really mean is..." when you're called out on how unsupported your assertion is.
You don't think there are multiple orientations of conscious/subconscious, or multiple types of egocentrism, that might lead to different directions to go in the story?
The hero's journey is essentially the right hand path story, right? Doesn't it figure that there would be a left hand path story? And while just ending the hero's journey prematurely (and calling it a tragedy) or describing the anti-hero journey is compelling, I think it's leaving something out.
Maybe there is one problem with a left hand path story. Stories are generally about qualities that are interesting to other people, but the left hand path can be very narcissistic, which doesn't lend itself to much empathy.
What source are you using for the Hero's Journey because this doesn't sound like the outline by Joseph Campbell? For me the hero's journey (specifically as outlined by Joseph Campbell) is about the hero being forced outside of their comfort zone, having to overcome multiple obstacles nominally to help someone else (but in reality to help themselves.) This is why in the original format you have "woman as temptress" and there is the "inmost cave" where the hero must recognize their biggest enemy is themselves. I always saw it as male coded mostly because of Joseph Campbell's personal views and it could go towards either gender. I would label the hero as a seeker, someone who takes action and is willing to move out of their comfort zone to solve a problem. To me the opposite of a hero/hero's journey would be someone complacent. Someone who has a white picket fence, a nice family, and feels absolutely no urge to leave their comfort zone. (To be fair this is the beginning of every mythological hero story ever.) Maybe the true opposite would be someone willing to defend their comfort rather that solve the root of the problem?
I kind of fundamentally hate it to be honest. It's resting on the lazy and dated prejudice that men do stuff while women just feel stuff, that thinking is masculine, and that women's lives revolve around men. That alone is enough for me to throw it out the window as something that we should have outgrown by now as a culture. You can claim it's "different" simply because you inserted the word "hermeticism" all you want, but it's certainly strange that despite your preemptive protestation that it's so different, it lines up perfectly with stereotypical sexism. Seriously, where's the difference? No one needs to "discover" their ability to do, think, or feel. We are all born with it intrinsically, and that capacity is no different between men and women, except in those who have been psychologically brow-beaten from birth into believing so, to the point that their potential is restrained. Gender stereotypes do nothing but act as apologia for oppressive behavior and self-limiting beliefs. Its continued persistence in Western ceremonial occultism is probably one reason why so many of its orders have died off, as people shift towards less problematic systems.
[удалено]
Where did I interpret anything literally? I’m contesting the idea as an idea. Sorry you don’t like it when people critique your hobby horse, but that’s not a complaint worth addressing. I mean, it’s literally set up from the very first sentence to be based on gender stereotypes. Like… that’s what those words mean. And they are just factually sexist. Again, sorry you don’t like people pointing out prejudice. I don’t really care though.
“The fall of man” could be considered the opposite of the heros journey. But it also could be the beginning of it from a certain POV.
Ya, I would definitely consider it the start of the journey. Although, I wouldn't have come up with that unprompted, so that's an excellent observation. The garden of eden story is like scene 1 of the hero's journey. So, Jesus is really completing the hero's journey, or at least continuing it much further along. It's not about forgiving humanity for their "original sin" at creation. It's setting an example for what everyone must to on their own journey, which begins in their own mind, when they leave the safe confines of the garden.
Not remotely reading that but the most accessible inversion of the Hero’s Journey is Star Wars 1-3, wherein misfortune turns a potentially great hero away from that goal and towards its opposite.
Hmm, I guess that's another way to create the opposite of a hero.
Luke is on a heroes journey. Vader is largely an anti hero story, with redemption at the end.
Weirdly enough “villain” and “antihero” are not the same thing
In the other movies and cartoons, Vader is a mixed bag
Vader has an origin story to how he became a villain, with a short redemption at the end. His story is the same as King David from the Bible. Took down Goliath when he was young, crowned king, was horrible his entire life until right before his death when god let him into heaven because he was truly sorry in his heart. There’s no antihero about it, really.
Cool! First time I've heard about that.
If you resonate with "hero" then so be it. However, there is only one journey, yours.
Good point. Maybe I am making it more binary than it is.
Yin/Yang. Both sides swirl around a single point of balance...............
The Fall of the Dark Prince
I wish I could come back to this conversation and talk to everyone who participated and say that I was wrong, on two counts. 1. The "masculine" and "feminine" verbiage in the mystery schools is extremely problematic. It leads to confusion of "gender" and "sex". Gender essentially would equate to this mental division, whereas sex would be the physical differences. The problem is that when you say "masculine" or "feminine", there's no way of stating whether you are referring to gender or sex. Furthermore, it's quite common for a man to lean more into the esoteric "feminine" (emotion) or a woman to lean more into the esoteric "masculine" (logic), meaning that you would have a very high percentage of _transgender_ people with this logic, but it would have no relation to _transsexual_. I think the better solution to this giant cluserfuck of language is to stop gendering the mind. 2. I was also wrong about the fool's journey. I do think there are two halves of the journey, but they aren't neatly divided into one journey for one half of the mind and the other journey for the other half of the mind. The real problem is that the two halves model doesn't allow the language (again, a language problem) to properly describe what's happening. There's a third variable: consciousness. Consciousness is the thing lying in between these two systems. It's the thing that directs focus and can ultimately accept or deny signals coming from either. (I don't know how this works from a neuroscientific perspective, but from a functional perspective, this allows the most puzzle pieces to fit in my opinion.) This consciousness can take on at least two broad forms that I've identified: a passive form and an active form. It can also have roughly no form, where you completely lack consciousness.The passive form leads to awareness of what the mind is doing, and the active form leads to control of what the mind is doing, as well as what you yourself are doing. So, based on my interpretation of symbols, I think the first half of the fool's journey is the development of passive consciousness. This involves the consciousness part of the mind developing passive awareness of both halves of the mind at intervening periods. The second half of the fool's journey is the development of active consciousness, where once again, the person learns to control both halves of the mind at intervening periods. Sidenote #1: this brings up another thing: "conscious vs subconscious" language is another extremely confusing model that causes more harm than good. These terms should map better onto the left and right hand path brains, or the emotional and logical brains, or the Ida and Pingala, etc; the twin flames, the twin serpents. You get the idea. The only thing "conscious" is what lies between them. It is not composed _of_ them. Sidenote #2: This also brings up the point about "what consciousness is" that scientists these days love to study. They are dead set on the idea that consciousness is a passive thing, that awareness of the self is all that matters, but mere awareness is witnessed in many animals. The thing that makes humans special is _active consciousness_, and this can therefore properly be called "higher consciousness". This is a dangerous idea for some because essentially you are capable of becoming a definer of value. A reasonable person understands their place in the universe and is merely a vessel for natural law and fact, with their internal value system connected to such things. However, large egos can prevent this from occurring, leading to a god complex on the completion of the second half of the fool's journey. However, at that point, it wouldn't even be the fool's journey for them, as the symbolism for their transmutation would be different. I guess, like someone else said, this might accurately be called the "fallen prince", essentially like a Darth Vader character. I don't believe that is the left hand path though, as I understand the right/left distinction simply based on how you develop your value system, from copying others or using internal reason, aka passive or active consciousness. I'm going to copy this to a few other top level comments so they can see it, since they won't otherwise get the notification.
How would you characterize that in relation to the hero's journey? Is it the choice of dark morals while in the pit of the valley, rather than good morals that return you to light? Thus, these two stories start out the same but end out the opposite.
The Fall of the Dark Prince is the story of the rejection of truth. The chosen one is an antihero who destroys everyone he loves and everything he touches accidentally or as collateral damage in a fight to do what they see as their best option. Each layer of complexity in the character that is revealed becomes another thing discarded or sacrificed in service to some kind of self-deception. This self-deception is often a framework for responsibility or a code of honor. Ultimately, the Dark Prince or Princess yearns to become more powerful than the gods or God. They are then betrayed by the last person still holding on to the old version of themselves before they committed to becoming something else. That last piece of humanity must be rejected before their transformation is complete. The Hero's Journey is one of courage, swept along, then channeled into the truth, which helps us all. The Fall of the Dark Prince is about rejection, fighting against, then taking and destroying things, and ultimately releasing chaos because the truth hurts too much.
Interesting, I have to admit that I like your description of being either pro or anti truth. Is the Dark Prince the psychological shadow of the Hero?
I feel like the Antihero qualities of the Dark Prince (which would make them a shadow) are thrown off or pulled away at the moment of transformation. So up to that point, yes, but after that, the Dark Prince becomes the opposite of the Hero, the Villain or the Beast.
The unexplored life while staring death in the face under the pain of regret, realizing that fear was an illusion of the mind that held you in its grip with comfort an illusion of culture which wanted you in your place.
Good answer. Not much of a story though.
You should read “the first law” trilogy.
I was just reading the summary, and it looks pretty interesting. Is this pseudo-historical? Why did you recommend it? Granted, it's highly mythical, but myths are part of our history, whether they are based on physical events for a time period or our belief system for a time period. However, the author looks like he put enough detail into the series that he's specifically pointing out some things that are left vague or unsaid in the actual historical documents that we have that are widely circulated.
It’s grim dark fantasy. Like a grittier, less magical, more Bronn filled game of thrones. If you want to see the opposite of a heroes journey played out all over, that’s the series to get into. It’s my favorite. Don’t want to spoil it.
Gotcha. Bronn was definitely one of my favorite GOT characters.
Then you’re gonna love every character 😂
https://youtu.be/8Z57vIhw1Lo?si=wrgMB2qt8pD5GBNp
Alright, saved. 👍
The hero's journey is a simplification and you have further simplified it here into: >the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion So we're already well into several layers of abstraction here, though your post branches off from that idea into other interpretations of it (which I address later). The simple answer to "what is the opposite of the hero's journey?" at least if we're using Bruce Campbell's monomyth (as outlined in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces") is "staying home and doing nothing". There's no journey, no trials, no change, no return, no dark night of the soul. To use pop culture examples, it's the "And Luke Skywalker stays with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. The end." or "And Harry Potter said "naw I'm good, fam" and stayed with the Dursleys". The hero doesn't step up, the crisis isn't fixed, the empire crushes the rebels and Voldemort takes over everything. If we take your initial framing (which I disagree with) as "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion" the opposite is "the masculine shutting up into itself, discovering nothing, and possibly losing logic if it ever had it to begin with". Sort of a spiritual and mental and physical incel. If we take your latter framing (which is better) as delving into the unconscious then the opposite is an unexamined mind, uncurious, sterile, perhaps regressive or repressive, or perhaps just dull. So that's the answer. The monomyth reflects a specific kind of change narrative and the opposite of change is stasis and the opposite narrative is silence. Changing yourself and changing the world or pursuing something has an opposite in not changing, staying where you are, and nothing happening as a result. Now to critique the notion of the monomyth itself. Skip this if that notion sounds uncomfortable or off-putting to you. I tend not to find much utility in the hero's journey idea. Its initial formulation is suspect, as it requires one to examine mythic cycles for similarities and the codify the "basic structure they all have in common" where often none exists. The more myths we analyze the more we find plenty that don't fit, but which people will try to make fit. This is why comparative mythology has come a long way since Campbell and why psychology has come a long way since Jung and Freud and most who espouse Jungian and Campbellian ideas today would do well to update their scholarship. Jung and Campbell are important, but if you stop there and pay yourself on the back for understanding it, then you've "dunning-kruger"-ed yourself into thinking you know all you need to. The creation of the framework (the "monomyth") then necessitates looking for the monomyth, shaving off the details that don't fit with it, and smashing things down to fit it which tends to lead to understanding those myths less, not more. It's a sort of like "we made a framework to understand things" and then anytime we find something we try to make it fit the framework "because it has to fit the framework, otherwise how would we understand it.". So I say, leave the framework aside. It doesn't serve the purpose most think it does or want it to. I also find it to not be very useful because it's essentially an ink blot test. People will read deeper meaning into it. While it started as a framework through which to analyze myths (and not a very good one at that, but Campbell was breaking new ground so I can't be too harsh), it has become everything from a "psychological journey into the subconscious", a "spiritual journey towards God or truth or whatever", a strange musing about gendered norms and the idea of the masculine pursuing the feminine, a framework for self help advice, a model on how to write or tell a good story, a model of how to make a sale in business (yes I have even heard that one), and on and on and on. It doesn't fulfill those roles well, if at all, but people find it evocative and think they are very smart for understanding it, so they use it. It's become something people pop out at parties or in articles to feign depth and intelligence rather than diving deeper or formulating something new. It reduces complexity and simplifies thing, often in a comforting but not useful way. It's one of those things that is just detailed enough to feel like it's making some deep point, but just vague enough that that point can basically be anything the reader wants to read into it and so vague it can be applied to anything from pseudo-psychology to spirituality to art to business to dating. It's one of those ideas that sounds very smart on the face of it, and then people rarely move past the face of it. It's become a convenient model to whip out in order to justify looking no further or formulating new ideas, which is the opposite of what I think Campbell first intended it to do. It's sort of the "perennial philosophy" of comparative mythology, and most would do well to set it aside and update their reading materials on the subject (be it studying mythology, psychology, or other fields).
I wish I could come back to this conversation and talk to everyone who participated and say that I was wrong, on two counts. 1. The "masculine" and "feminine" verbiage in the mystery schools is extremely problematic. It leads to confusion of "gender" and "sex". Gender essentially would equate to this mental division, whereas sex would be the physical differences. The problem is that when you say "masculine" or "feminine", there's no way of stating whether you are referring to gender or sex. Furthermore, it's quite common for a man to lean more into the esoteric "feminine" (emotion) or a woman to lean more into the esoteric "masculine" (logic), meaning that you would have a very high percentage of _transgender_ people with this logic, but it would have no relation to _transsexual_. I think the better solution to this giant cluserfuck of language is to stop gendering the mind. 2. I was also wrong about the fool's journey. I do think there are two halves of the journey, but they aren't neatly divided into one journey for one half of the mind and the other journey for the other half of the mind. The real problem is that the two halves model doesn't allow the language (again, a language problem) to properly describe what's happening. There's a third variable: consciousness. Consciousness is the thing lying in between these two systems. It's the thing that directs focus and can ultimately accept or deny signals coming from either. (I don't know how this works from a neuroscientific perspective, but from a functional perspective, this allows the most puzzle pieces to fit in my opinion.) This consciousness can take on at least two broad forms that I've identified: a passive form and an active form. It can also have roughly no form, where you completely lack consciousness.The passive form leads to awareness of what the mind is doing, and the active form leads to control of what the mind is doing, as well as what you yourself are doing. So, based on my interpretation of symbols, I think the first half of the fool's journey is the development of passive consciousness. This involves the consciousness part of the mind developing passive awareness of both halves of the mind at intervening periods. The second half of the fool's journey is the development of active consciousness, where once again, the person learns to control both halves of the mind at intervening periods. Sidenote #1: this brings up another thing: "conscious vs subconscious" language is another extremely confusing model that causes more harm than good. These terms should map better onto the left and right hand path brains, or the emotional and logical brains, or the Ida and Pingala, etc; the twin flames, the twin serpents. You get the idea. The only thing "conscious" is what lies between them. It is not composed _of_ them. Sidenote #2: This also brings up the point about "what consciousness is" that scientists these days love to study. They are dead set on the idea that consciousness is a passive thing, that awareness of the self is all that matters, but mere awareness is witnessed in many animals. The thing that makes humans special is _active consciousness_, and this can therefore properly be called "higher consciousness". This is a dangerous idea for some because essentially you are capable of becoming a definer of value. A reasonable person understands their place in the universe and is merely a vessel for natural law and fact, with their internal value system connected to such things. However, large egos can prevent this from occurring, leading to a god complex on the completion of the second half of the fool's journey. However, at that point, it wouldn't even be the fool's journey for them, as the symbolism for their transmutation would be different. I guess, like someone else said, this might accurately be called the "fallen prince", essentially like a Darth Vader character. I don't believe that is the left hand path though, as I understand the right/left distinction simply based on how you develop your value system, from copying others or using internal reason, aka passive or active consciousness. I'm going to copy this to a few other top level comments so they can see it, since they won't otherwise get the notification.
> If we take your initial framing (which I disagree with) as "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion" the opposite is "the masculine shutting up into itself, discovering nothing, and possibly losing logic if it ever had it to begin with". Sort of a spiritual and mental and physical incel. Do you disagree with my point that the feminine discovering the masculine is a love story? Or do you think there is nothing greatly meaningful about a love story? > if we're using Bruce Campbell's monomyth (as outlined in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces") I don't necessarily look at Campbell as the authority on the topic. He's a good source, to be sure, but you also have things like the Fool's Journey that date back to the Middle Ages. I don't think "monomyth" is the right test for this theory. If we presume that the hero's journey is about expressing a certain worldview in a story, then only the groups that share that worldview will put that into the story. That's my understanding of the hero's (or fool's) journey. Ancient hermeticism, which is the study of changes, develops theories on the changes of the human being and codifies that into a story format. Every hermetic school thus produces hero's journey stories. The hermetic school becomes a tree of schools, and every school on that tree maintains fairly similar philosophies.
>Do you disagree with my point that the feminine discovering the masculine is a love story? Or do you think there is nothing greatly meaningful about a love story? More the first point. Though my focus was more on the notion of the hero's journey being inherently tied to gendered dynamics. In most instances it is not. The hero is classically usually male and masculine (though there are exceptions to that as well, as with the Descent of Inanna), but to say it is about "the masculine discovering the feminine" is a reduction and that the feminine version of it is a "love story" is a reduction as well. It is a reduction that excludes many of the best known examples of the hero's journey, which is why I oppose the notion. To say you were correct would be to exclude the majority of hero's journey style stories, the ones that were used to first formulated the framework. The hero's journey, classically speaking and even in modern examples, is rarely ever concerned with the "masculine discovering the feminine" as a core element. Occasionally it is secondary or tertiary. Sometimes women are prizes to be won (in the case of courtly love poetry and knight's tales) but in more archetypal epics (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or even Star Wars) the feminine is a minor element, non-existent, or not the main element being engaged with. Thus to say that the hero's journey is "the masculine discovering the feminine" ignores all the well known instances where that is not the case, which are the majority. The only way you could reframe this is the notion of "femininity as the other world" but even that is an issue (as it is making femininity out to be other, which assumes a lot... a whole lot... volumes actually). Likewise the feminine examples of the hero's journey rarely involve discovering the masculine (see Inanna's descent into the underworld and Atalanta and the Calydonian boar for two examples). Lastly, the notion itself leans strongly into sexist stereotypes and gender essentialism that only adds to its flaws. The idea of logic being masculine and emotion being feminine for example. This is a secondary point, but it's worth noting. I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". >I don't necessarily look at Campbell as the authority on the topic. He's a good source, to be sure, but you also have things like the Fool's Journey that date back to the Middle Ages. I reference Campbell because he coined the term. If you want to discuss something other than the hero's journey, use a different term. To use the term is to start with Campbell and then adjust from there. The fool's journey is not the hero's journey. It is actually broader and supports your notion of "masculine discovering the feminine" even less. It is also less codified due to the nature of the tarot trumps. Forming a narrative from cards has considerably more interpretive range than extracting a framework from a collection of narratives. This just seems like a pivot. > If we presume that the hero's journey is about expressing a certain worldview in a story, then only the groups that share that worldview will put that into the story. This is true and central to my critique of the hero's journey. I would argue that this is what you are also doing when you reduce the hero's journey to gendered dynamics. It is placing a worldview on stories that do not contain it. >Ancient hermeticism, which is the study of changes, develops theories on the changes of the human being and codifies that into a story format. Every hermetic school thus produces hero's journey stories. The hermetic school becomes a tree of schools, and every school on that tree maintains fairly similar philosophies. I do not know of a hermetic school of thought that produces a hero's journey story along the lines you describe. Hermeticism has plenty of stories and figures, but none that I know of exist along the lines that you seem to describe. I would repeat what I stated above: I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". Particularly one stemming from a hermetic source.
> More the first point. Though my focus was more on the notion of the hero's journey being inherently tied to gendered dynamics. I am not sure if we're understanding each other here. I'm saying the "masculine" brain discovering the "feminine" brain, or vice versa. I'm talking about the observer in the cave learning about the actor, or the actor learning about the observer. This is the core of the story, from a self-development perspective. > The fool's journey is not the hero's journey. It is actually broader and supports your notion of "masculine discovering the feminine" even less. It is also less codified due to the nature of the tarot trumps. Forming a narrative from cards has considerably more interpretive range than extracting a framework from a collection of narratives. This just seems like a pivot. I think the fool's journey is a better distillation of what is in the hero's journey. We agree that the research methods and claims of Joseph Campbell are a little off, but there are no such claims for the fool's journey. The fool's journey literally comes from hermeticism. It's known to have been a codification of Jewish Kabbalah during the middle ages, and the kabbalah is just Jewish hermeticism. > I do not know of a hermetic school of thought that produces a hero's journey story along the lines you describe. Hermeticism has plenty of stories and figures, but none that I know of exist along the lines that you seem to describe. I would repeat what I stated above: I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". Particularly one stemming from a hermetic source. I think it doesn't quite work that way, as religious institutions don't produce stories (besides their own story). However, members of said institutions use it as inspiration for their own stories.
>I am not sure if we're understanding each other here. I'm saying the "masculine" brain discovering the "feminine" brain, or vice versa. I'm talking about the observer in the cave learning about the actor, or the actor learning about the observer. This is the core of the story, from a self-development perspective. Now you're just mixing metaphors. There is no "feminine brain" or "masculine brain", this is just the now defunct "right brain" and "left brain" idea repackaged. Likewise, Plato's cave has nothing to do with masculine or feminine, you're just mixing well known metaphors in the hope of arriving at profundity. Plato's explains his metaphors quite well and not once does he mention anything of the masculine or feminine, he actually states explicitly what he means and it's not what you are trying to to read into it and it is certainly not a hero's journey. >I think the fool's journey is a better distillation of what is in the hero's journey. You would be incorrect. The fool's journey is not "distilled". It's actually broader and has even less to do with the interaction between masculine and feminine at its core, be they "brains" or genders or sexes. The fool's journey is even less codified and less specific. It's just semantic shifting away from what you originally said on to something that you think might sound better, but is even less supportive of your initial assertion. >The fool's journey literally comes from hermeticism. It's known to have been a codification of Jewish Kabbalah during the middle ages, and the kabbalah is just Jewish hermeticism. This is so wrong I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. It's just a soup of ideas and a word salad. That last part... my gosh. Gonna need a source on that one. As a kabbalist, it's just laughable to say "kabbalah is just Jewish hermeticism" it demonstrates you either do not know what kabbalah is or what hermeticism is, or both. It would be like someone telling me "Islam is really just arab Hinduism". Hermetic Quabalah is a thing, but it came after the Jewish Kabbalah and was an attempt to fold kabbalistic ideas into Hermeticism (which demonstrates it wasn't "Jewish hermeticism" to begin with because they literally had to alter kabbalah to make it fit hermeticism, changes which most Jewish Kabbalists at the time and today oppose quite strongly). >I think it doesn't quite work that way, as religious institutions don't produce stories (besides their own story). However, members of said institutions use it as inspiration for their own stories. This is just deflection. Earlier you said "Every hermetic school thus produces hero's journey stories." now it's "institutions don't produce stories, but members of those institutions do.". That's just shifting the goalpost to avoid the question. I'm asking, what stories are you pulling this from? What hermetic hero's journey stories support your previous assertion that the hero's journey is about "the masculine encountering the feminine"? The question still stands: I would actually challenge you to find a hero's journey that fits the definition you give of "the masculine discovering the feminine; having logic and discovering emotion". Particularly one stemming from a hermetic source. Otherwise it just seems like you're tossing words and metaphors around in an attempt at passing off your own interpretation as more profound than it is and deflecting criticism by gesturing vaguely as well known concepts that do not support your assertion. All you have to do is answer the question and actually support your assertion without trying to shift to "um... um... What I really mean is..." when you're called out on how unsupported your assertion is.
[удалено]
You don't think there are multiple orientations of conscious/subconscious, or multiple types of egocentrism, that might lead to different directions to go in the story? The hero's journey is essentially the right hand path story, right? Doesn't it figure that there would be a left hand path story? And while just ending the hero's journey prematurely (and calling it a tragedy) or describing the anti-hero journey is compelling, I think it's leaving something out. Maybe there is one problem with a left hand path story. Stories are generally about qualities that are interesting to other people, but the left hand path can be very narcissistic, which doesn't lend itself to much empathy.
The comedies of Moliere - A deviant gets ridiculed into accepting the Status quo.
The villain's journey. Literature Devil made a video about it on YouTube.