The Thanantological Context of The Serial Killer

“ The more I looked into it, the more I began to see that we have these mutants living among us, right now. 

The people from the 21st century; from the end of the 21st century are here. 

But there is no context for them. 

In the same way that – y’know, if you lived in… Tunguska two hundred years ago, and you were an epileptic, you would be a shaman. 

There was a context for you. 

In this society, you’re an epileptic. 

It’s quite simple; it’s a disease, and nothing you say is of any worth because it’s considered pathology.

If, on the other hand, you look at these people, who are The Mutants… and what do they call it? 

Multiple Personality Disorder.

This is what lies beyond the personality; the “I”; the bullshit.

Because if you take “I” to the limit – and like I said, I’m sure a lot of us here have done this – it becomes… 

all that happens is that self questions self. 

Endlessly; repetitively. 

“Am I doing this right? 

Is this the right way? 

Should I think about these people like this? 

Should I approach them this way - 

Should I involve them this way?”

 Self questions self, endlessly, and it reaches a peak… it goes nowhere.

On the national scale, that same thing – self questions self; self encounters not-self; equals borders, war, destruction.. that’s where it goes. 

That’s where it ends. 

That thing ends in disaster.

It ends in neurosis on a personal level. 

And it ends in war on the national level.

So I began to think: 

“What could we replace that with?” 

And I was looking at these poor MPD fuckers. 

And I realised they just don’t have a context.


The basic hunting myth, I would say, is of a kind of covenant between The animal world and the human world, where the animal gives its life willingly. 

They are regarded generally as willing victims, with the understanding that their life, which transcends their physical entity, will be returned to the soil or to the mother through some ritual of restoration. 

And the principal rituals, for instance, and the principal divinities are associated with the main hunting animal, the animal who is the master animal, and sends the flocks to be killed, you know. 

To the Indians of the American plains, it was the buffalo. 

You go to the northwest coast, it’s the salmon. 

The great festivals have to do with the run of salmon coming in. 

When you go to South Africa, the eland, the big, magnificent antelope, is the principal animal to the Bushmen, for example.

BILL MOYERS: 

And the principal animal, the master animal

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Is the one that furnishes the food.

BILL MOYERS: 

So there grew up between human beings and animals, a bonding, as you say, which required one to be consumed by the other.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s the way life is.

BILL MOYERS: 

Do you think this troubled early man, too

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Absolutely, that’s why you have the rites, because it did trouble him.

BILL MOYERS: 

What kind of rites?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Rituals of appeasement to the animals, of thanks to the animal. 

A very interesting aspect here is the identity of the hunter with the animal.

BILL MOYERS: 

You mean, after the animal has been shot.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

After the animal has been killed, the hunter then has to fulfill certain rites in a kind of “participation mystique,” a mystic participation with the animals whose death he has brought about, and whose meat is to become his life. 

So the killing is not simply slaughter, at any rate, it’s a ritual act. 

It’s a recognition of your dependency and of the voluntary giving of this food to you by the animal who has given it. 

It’s a beautiful thing, and it turns life into a mythological experience.

BILL MOYERS: 

The hunt becomes what?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It becomes a ritual. 

The hunt is a ritual.

BILL MOYERS: 

Expressing a hope of resurrection, that the animal was food and you needed the animal to return.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

And some kind of respect for the animal that was killed; that’s the thing that gets me all the time in this hunting ceremonial system.

BILL MOYERS: 

Respect for the animal.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The respect for the animal and more than respect, I mean, that animal becomes a messenger of divine power, do you see.

BILL MOYERS: 

And you wind up as the hunter killing the messenger.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Killing The God.

BILL MOYERS: 

What does this do? Does it cause guilt, does it cause

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Guilt is what is wiped out by the myth. It is not a personal act; you are performing the world of nature, For example, in Japan, in Hokkaido in northern Japan among the Ainu people, whose principal mountain deity is the bear, when it is killed there is a ceremony of feeding the bear a feast of its own flesh, as though he were present, and he is present. He’s served his own meat for dinner, and there’s a conversation between the mountain god, the bear and the people. They say, “If you’ll give us the privilege of entertaining you again, we’ll give you the privilege of another bear sacrifice. ”

BILL MOYERS: If the cave bear were not appeased, the animals wouldn’t appear, and these primitive hunters would starve to death. So they began to perceive some kind of power on which they were dependent, greater than their own.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And that’s the power of the animal master. Now, when we sit down to a meal, we thank God, you know, or our idea of God, for having given us this. These people thanked the animal.

BILL MOYERS: And is this the first evidence we have of an act of worship.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: — of power superior to man?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: And the animal was superior, because the animal provided food.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, now, in contrast to our relationship to animals, where we see animals as a lower form of life, and in the Bible we’re told, you know, we’re the masters and so forth, early hunting people don’t have that relationship to the animal. The animal is in many ways superior, He has powers that the human being doesn’t have.

BILL MOYERS: 

And then certain animals take on a persona, don’t they the buffalo, the raven, the eagle.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Oh, very strongly. Well, I was up on the northwest coast back in 1932, a wonderful trip, and the Indians along the way were still carving totem poles. The villages had new totem poles, still. And there we saw the ravens and we saw the eagles and we saw the animals that played roles in the myths. And they had the character, the quality, of these animals. 

It was a very intimate knowledge and friendly, neighborly, relationship to these creatures. 

And then they killed some of them. You see.

The Animal had something to do with 

the shaping of the myths of those people, 

just as the buffalo for the Indians of the plains played an enormous role. 

They are the ones that bring the tobacco gift, 

the mystical pipe and all this kind of thing, 

it comes from a buffalo. 

And when The Animal becomes The Giver of ritual and so forth, 

they do ask The Animal for advice, and the animal becomes the model for how to live.