Is The Hero’s Journey Valid?

Everything in the science of Lifewriting is about balance, rooted in the physical body (survival drives) opening the heart (relationships, especially with yourself) and the career of your dreams, doing something that brings joy, is of service, and provides abundance. This foundation naturally grows to expansion and spirituality, according to Yogic psychology.

The warrior way would be survival, then emotion. The Healer way would be emotion, THEN survival, and then opening intellect and spirit. According to teachers I respect, there is no healthy path that STARTS with thought or spiritual aspiration, without that rooting.

There has been considerable controversy about the Hero’s Journey: whether it is “nonsense” or “gospel”, whether it is universal or a specific cultural archetype, whether it stresses conflict as a purely Western position on human existence.

I find all of this interesting, and if one takes Joseph Campbell’s original statements not just literally but dogmatically, there is plenty to criticize if one thinks “ah. All stories must have these elements, in this order, literally.”

If you do, you often create a stilted, hackney’d pseudo-Tolkein pastiche, something we’ve all seen a hundred times before. Here is Campbell’s original pattern, as listed at the following website:https://libguides.gvsu.edu/c.php?g=948085&p=6857311

THE STEPS OF THE HERO’S JOURNEY

THE ORDINARY WORLD