The Flight of the Wild Gander by Joseph Campbell

Author:Joseph Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joseph Campbell Foundation
Published: 2018-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 10. Polychrome Pottery Design; Halaf ware, Iraq, c. 4000 b.c.

And so now—returning to the argument of the first part of this chapter—we have to ask ourselves whether it can be properly claimed that these geometrical forms, which have become the commonplaces of our modern psychological discussion of archetypal symbols, actually do represent basal structures of the human psyche, or may not, rather, be functioned only of a certain type or phase of social development incidental to the history of a limited portion of the race.

The question is one of considerable moment; for on it depends our whole interpretation of the so-called “spiritual,” “divine,” “esoteric,” or “mystical,” parokṣa references of our psychological vocabulary. Yet, as far as I know, it has not been systematically studied. What I should like to propose, therefore, is a preliminary hypothesis: an idea that occurred to me some years ago, during the course of a comparative study of the myths and art of certain living hunting races with those of the archaic Near East.

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