The Inner Reaches of Outer Space by Joseph Campbell

Author:Joseph Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781543662368
Publisher: Joseph Campbell Foundation
Published: 2018-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Metaphorical Identification

In the Blessing Ceremony of the Navaho the psychosomatic healing of spiritual initiation is accomplished by means of an identification, ritually induced, of the patient or initiate with the mythological adventure of the Pollen Path in its threshold crossings into and through a sacred space and out into the world transformed. We have not been told by what specific prayers, chants, and metaphorical acts the adventure is conducted. The pictorial statement of the painting, however, indicates the transformative stages.

Footprints of white cornmeal mark the path of the initiate throughout. As already noticed, they approach along a road that is of the two symbolic colors of the male and female powers, fire and water, sunlight and cloud, which at the place of the Spirit Bringers abruptly blend to one golden yellow of the color of pollen. The same color of pollen then appears bordering the outspread sacred space, which in this way opens to a display of the indwelling powers of pollen.

There are no footprints on this part of the path. To be assumed is a threshold passage of the mind as it turns from secular anxieties, identifications, and expectations, to a game of make believe (“as if”; als ob, recalling Kant; see pages 29‒30), assuming an intentionally metaphorical, mythological cast of hierophantic personifications. The Navaho have a number of procedures to effect this indispensable alteration of consciousness: sweat baths, solemn recitations of the names of the gods to be represented in the rite, heraldic face and body painting, with an investiture of ornaments such as the god with whom the candidate is to identify would be wearing. The ordeal is an act of sacrifice. The mind is to abandon forever the whole way of relating to life that is of the knowledge of the two powers of the path only as distinct from each other, red and blue. Beyond the exit gate, returning to the world, the path is to be no longer red and blue, but of the one color of pollen. The neighbors and friends who have gathered to witness the occasion will experience an exaltation, but then return to the world along the path by which they came; for their participation will have been, not of identification, but of a relationship—something comparable to the attendance by a Roman Catholic family at Holy Mass, whereas the initiate, nearly naked and decorated as a god, will have become identified with the adventure, as in the way of the words of Jesus reported in the Thomas Gospel: “Whoever drinks from My mouth shall become as I am and I myself will become he, and the hidden things shall be revealed to him” (Logion 109). 51

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