Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell

Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell

Author:Joseph Campbell [Campbell, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublishDrive


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The main point that has here been so vividly illustrated is that in the phenomenology of mythology and religion two factors are to be distinguished: the non-historical and the historical. In the religious lives of the “tough minded,” too busy, or simply untalented majority of mankind, the historical factor preponderates. The whole reach of their experience is in the local, public domain and can be historically studied. In the spiritual crises and realizations of the “tender minded” personalities with mystical proclivities, however, it is the non-historical factor that preponderates, and for them the imagery of the local tradition — no matter how highly developed it may be — is merely a vehicle, more or less adequate, to render an experience sprung from beyond its reach, as an immediate impact. For, in the final analysis, the religious experience is psychological and in the deepest sense spontaneous; it moves within, and is helped, or hindered, by historical circumstance, but is to such a degree constant for mankind that we may jump from Hudson Bay to Australia, Tierra del Fuego to Lake Baikal, and find ourselves well at home.

In the present chapter on shamanism, that is to say, we are touching lightly the problem of the mystical experience — which is non-historical and yet, wherever it appears, gives sense and depth to whatever imagery may be cherished in the local tradition, cultivated by the local priests, and more or less crudely utilized for social ends and a bit of spiritual comfort by the local populace. The shaman represents this principle on the primitive level, as do the mystic, the poet, and the artist in the higher reaches of the culture scale.

I should like to suggest, as a basic hypothesis, therefore, a correlation of the elementary idea with the mystical and of the ethnic idea with the historical factor just described. The elementary idea is never rendered or experienced except through the medium of the ethnic, and so it looks as though mythology and religion could be studied and discussed on the historical plane. Actually, however, there is a formative force spontaneously working, like a magnetic field, to precipitate and organize the ethnic structures from behind, or within, so that they cannot finally be interpreted economically, sociologically, politically, or historically. Psychology lurks beneath and within the entire historical composition, as an invisible controller.

But, on the other had, all mythological imagery and ritual forms, both in their bearing on philosophy and in their impact on society, can and must be studied historically. As Professor Jensen has well said in his strongest criticism of a purely psychological approach to mythology, “A myth is not a sequence of independent images, but a meaningful whole, in which a particular aspect of the actual world is reflected.” [Note 36] In Part Two of the present study, the aspect represented to man’s imagination by the model of death and birth afforded by the plant world was reviewed; in the remaining chapters of Part Three, we consider the response to the aspect represented by the animal world.



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