MASKS

Dr. Ray Stantz, 

The Heart of The Ghostbusters :

….it’s A Girl.

Dr. Egon Spengler :

It’s Gozer.

Winston :

I Thought “Gozer” was A Man --

Dr. Egon Spengler :

It’s Whatever it Wants to Be….

Venkman :

Well, whatever it is, 

it’s got to 

Get By Us --

Go Get Her, Ray!

Gozer The Gozarian…?

Good Evening….

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

We Want to Think about God. 

God is a Thought, God is an Idea, but its reference is to 

something that transcends

all Thinking. 

I mean, He’s Beyond Being, Beyond the category of 

Being or Nonbeing. 

Is He or is He not? Neither 

Is nor Is Not.

Every God, every mythology, every religion, is True 

in this sense : It is True 

as metaphorical of 

The Human and 

Cosmic Mystery.

He Who Thinks He Knows,

Doesn’t Know. 

He Who Knows that 

He Doesn’t Know, knows.

There is an old story 

that is still good — 

The Story of The Quest, 

The Spiritual Quest, 

that is to say, to find 

the inward thing that 

You basically are. 

All of these symbols in mythology refer to you — 

Have you been reborn? 

Have you died to your animal nature and come to life as a human incarnation? 

You are God in your deepest identity. 

You are one with the transcendent.

BILL MOYERS: 

The images of God are many. 

Joseph Campbell called them 

“The Masks of Eternity,” and said 

they both cover and reveal 

the face of glory. 

All our names and images for God are masks, Campbell said, 

they signify that ultimate reality, which by definition transcends language and art.

A Myth is a Mask of God, too, a metaphor for what lies behind the visible world. 

As teacher, scholar and writer, Joseph Campbell spent his life in the study of comparative religion. He wanted to know what it means that God assumes such different masks in different cultures. We go east of Suez and see people dancing before a bewildering array of fantastic gods. When those people come here, well, Campbell told the story of the young Hindu who called on him in New York and said, “When I visit a foreign country, I like to acquaint myself with its religion. So I bought myself a Bible and for some months now have been reading it from the beginning. 

But, you know, I can’t 

find any religion in it.”

BILL MOYERS: 

But Joe, can Westerners grasp this kind of mystical trance 

theological experience? 

It does transcend theology, it leaves theology behind. I mean, if you’re locked to the image of God in a culture where science determines your perceptions of reality, how can you experience this ultimate ground that the shamans talk about?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The best example I know in our literature is that beautiful book by John Neihardt called Black Elk Speaks.

BILL MOYERS: 

Black Elk was?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Black Elk was a young Sioux or Dakota, as they are often called, boy around nine years old, before the American cavalry had encountered the Sioux. 

They were the great people of the plains. 

And this boy became sick, psychologically sick. His family…I’m telling the typical shaman story. The child begins to tremble, and is immobilized, and the family’s terribly concerned about it. And they send for a shaman who had had the experience in his own youth, to come as a psychoanalyst, you might say, and pull the youngster out of it. But instead of relieving him of the deities, he is adapting him to the deities, and the deities to himself, you might say. It’s a different problem from that of psychoanalysis. I think it was Nietzsche who said, “Be careful, lest in casting out your devil, you cast out the best thing that’s in you.” Here, the deities who have been encountered the powers, let’s call them are retained. The connection is retained, it’s not broken. And these men then become the spiritual advisers and gift-givers of their people.

Well, what happened with this young boy, he was about nine years old, was he had a vision, and the vision is described, and it’s a vision prophetic of the terrible future that his tribe was to have. But it also spoke of the possible positive aspects of it. It was a vision of what he called the hoop of his nation, realizing that it was one of many hoops which is something that we haven’t all learned well enough yet and the cooperation of all the hoops and all the nations and grand processions and so forth. But more than that, it was an experience of himself as going through the realms of spiritual imagery that were of his culture, and assimilating their import. And it comes to one great statement, which for me is a key statement of the understanding of myth and symbols. He says. “I saw myself on the central mountain of the world, the highest place. And I had a vision, because I was seeing in a sacred manner, of the world.” And the sacred central mountain was Harney Peak in South Dakota. And then he says, “But the central mountain is everywhere.” That is a real mythological realization.

BILL MOYERS: 

Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It distinguishes between the local cult image, Harney Peak, and its connotation, the center of the world. The center of the world is the hub of the universe, axis mundi, do you know, the central point, the pole star around which all revolves. The central point of the world is the point where stillness and movement are together. Movement is time, stillness is eternity, realizing the relationship of the temporal moment to the eternal not moment, but forever -is the sense of life. Realizing how this moment in your life is actually a moment of eternity, and the experience of the eternal aspect of what you’re doing in the temporal experience is the mythological experience, and he had it. So is the central mountain of the world Jerusalem, Rome, Banaras. Lhasa, Mexico City, you know? Mexico City, Jerusalem, is symbolic of a spiritual principle as the center of the world.

BILL MOYERS: 

So this little Indian was saying, there is a shining point where all lines intersect?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s exactly what he said.

BILL MOYERS: 

He was saying God has no circumference.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

God is an intelligible sphere, let’s say a sphere known to the mind, not to the senses, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. And the center, Bill, is right where you’re sitting, and the other one is right where I’m sitting. And each of us is a manifestation of that mystery.

Kit

 

 

 

"These thinges, with many other shall by good & honest witnes be aproved to be his opinions and Comon Speeches, and that this Marlowe doth not only hould them himself, but almost into every Company he Cometh he persuades men to Atheism willing them not to be afeard of bugbeares and hobgoblins, and vtterly scorning both god and his ministers as I Richard Baines will Justify & approue both by mine oth and the testimony of many honest men, and almost al men with whome he hath Conversed any time will testify the same, and as I think all men in Cristianity ought to indevor that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped, he saith likewise that he hath quoted a number of Contrarieties oute of the Scripture which he hath giuen to some great men who in Convenient time shalbe named. When these thinges shalbe Called in question the witnes shalbe produced."

 

THE 'BAINES NOTE'

As originally submitted

(BL Harley MS.6848 ff.185-6)

 

A note Containing the opinion of one Christopher 

Marly Concerning his Damnable Judgment 

of Religion, and scorn of gods word.

 

 

That the Indians and many Authors of antiquity haue 

assuredly writen aboue 16 thousand yeares agone wher 

as Adam is proued to haue lived within 6 thowsand yeares.

 

 

He affirmeth that Moyses was but a Jugler, & that one 

Heriots being Sir W Raleighs man can do more then he.

 

 

That Moyses made the Jewes to travell xl yeares in the 

wildernes, (which Jorney might haue bin Done in lesse then 

one yeare) ere they Came to the promised land, to thintent 

that those who were privy to most of his subtilties might 

perish and so an everlasting superstition Remain in the harts 

of the people.

 

 

That the first beginning of Religioun was only to keep men 

in awe.

 

 

That it was an easy matter for Moyses being brought vp in 

all the artes of the Egiptians to abuse the Jewes being 

a rude & grosse people.

 

That Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest. 

 

That he was the sonne of a Carpenter, and that if the 

Jewes among whome he was borne did Crucify him 

theie best knew him and whence he Came.

 

 

That Crist deserved better to Dy then Barrabas and 

that the Jewes made a good Choise, though Barrabas 

were both a thief and murtherer.

 

 

That if there be any god or any good Religion, then it 

is in the papistes because the service of god is performed 

with more Cerimonies, as Elevation of the mass, organs, 

singing men, Shaven Crownes & cetera. That all protestants 

are Hypocriticall asses.

 

 

That if he were put to write a new Religion, he would 

vndertake both a more Exellent and Admirable methode 

and that all the new testament is filthily written.

 

 

That the woman of Samaria & her sister were whores 

& that Christ knew them dishonestly.

 

 

That St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ 

and leaned alwaies in his bosome, that he vsed him 

as the sinners of Sodoma.

 

That all they that loue not Tobacco & Boies were fooles.

 

That all the apostles were fishermen and base fellowes 

neyther of wit nor worth, that Paull only had wit 

but he was a timerous fellow in bidding men to be 

subiect to magistrates against his Conscience.

 

 

That he had as good Right to Coine as the Queene of 

England, and that he was acquainted with one poole 

a prisoner in newgate who hath greate Skill in mix=

ture of mettals and hauing learned some things of 

him he ment through help of a Cunninge stamp 

maker to Coin French Crownes pistolets and Eng=

lish shillinges.

 

 

That if Christ would haue instituted the sacrament 

with more Ceremoniall Reverence it would haue 

bin had in more admiration, that it would haue 

bin much better being administred in a Tobacco pipe.

 

 

That the Angell Gabriell was Baud to the holy 

ghost, because he brought the salutation to Mary.

 

 

That one Ric Cholmley hath Confessed that he was 

persuaded by Marloe's Reasons to become an Atheist.

 

 

These thinges, with many other shall by good & 

honest witnes be aproved to be his opinions and 

Comon Speeches, and that this Marlow doth not 

only hould them himself, but almost into every 

Company he Cometh he perswades men to Atheism 

willing them not to be afeard of bugbeares and 

hobgoblins, and vtterly scorning both god and his 

ministers as I Richard Baines will Justify & 

approue both by mine oth and the testimony 

of many honest men, and almost al men with 

whome he hath Conversed any time will 

testify the same, and as I think all men in 

Cristianity ought to indevor that the mouth of 

so dangerous a member may be stopped, he saith likewise 

that he hath quoted a number of Contrarieties oute of 

the Scripture which he hath giuen to some great men who 

in Convenient time shalbe named. When these thinges shalbe 

Called in question the witnes shalbe produced.

 

Richard Baines

 

THE CORONER'S INQUISITION (Translated)

The original was discovered by Leslie Hotson and this, his translation, given in his The Death of Christopher Marlowe (1925).

KENT / INQUISITION Indented taken at Detford Strand in the aforesaid County of Kent within the verge on the first day of June in the year of the reign of Elizabeth by the grace of God of England France and Ireland Queen defender of the faith &c thirtyfifth, in the presence of William Danby, Gentleman, Coroner of the household of our said lady the Queen, upon view of the body of Christopher Morley, there lying dead & slain, upon oath of Nicholas Draper, Gentleman, Wolstan Randall, gentleman, William Curry, Adrian Walker, John Barber, Robert Baldwyn, Giles ffeld, George Halfepenny, Henry Awger, James Batt, Henry Bendyn, Thomas Batt senior, John Baldwyn, Alexander Burrage, Edmund Goodcheepe, & Henry Dabyns who say [upon] their oath that Ingram ffrysar, late of London, Gentleman, and the aforesaid Christopher Morley, and Nicholas Skeres, late of London, Gentleman, and Robert Poley of London aforesaid, Gentleman, on the thirtieth of May in the aforesaid thirtyfifth year, at the aforesaid Detford Strand in the aforesaid County of Kent within the verge about the tenth hour before noon of the same day met together in a room in the house of a certain Eleanor Bull, widow; & there passed the time together & dined & after dinner were in quiet sort together & walked in the garden belonging to the said house until the sixth hour after noon of the same day & then returned from the said garden to the room aforesaid & there together and in company supped; & after supper the said Ingram & Christopher Morley were in speech & uttered one to the other divers malicious words for the reason that they could not be at one nor agree about the payment of the sum of pence, that is, le recknynge, there; & the said Christopher Morley then lying upon a bed in the room where they supped, & moved with anger against the said Ingram ffrysar upon the words aforesaid spoken between them, and the said Ingram then & there sitting in the room aforesaid with his back towards the bed where the said Christopher Morley was then lying, sitting near the bed, that is, nere the bed, & with the front part of his body towards the table & the aforesaid Nicholas Skeres & Robert Poley sitting on either side of the said Ingram in such a manner that the same Ingram ffrysar in no wise could take flight; it so befell that the said Christopher Morley on a sudden & of his malice towards the said Ingram aforethought, then & there maliciously drew the dagger of the said Ingram which was at his back, and with the same dagger the said Christopher Morley then & there maliciously gave the aforesaid Ingram two wounds on his head of the length of two inches & of the depth of a quarter of an inch; whereupon the said Ingram, in fear of being slain, & sitting in the manner aforesaid between the said Nicholas Skeres & Robert Poley so that he could not in any wise get away, in his own defence & for the saving of his life, then & there struggled with the said Christopher Morley to get back from him his dagger aforesaid; in which affray the same Ingram could not get away from the said Christopher Morley; and so it befell in that affray that the said Ingram, in defence of his life, with the dagger aforesaid to the value of 12d, gave the said Christopher then & there a mortal wound over his right eye of the depth of two inches & of the width of one inch; of which mortal wound the aforesaid Christopher Morley then & there instantly died; And so the Jurors aforesaid say upon their oath that the said Ingram killed & slew Christopher Morley aforesaid on the thirtieth day of May in the thirtyfifth year named above at Detford Strand aforesaid within the verge in the room aforesaid within the verge in the manner and form aforesaid in the defence and saving of his own life, against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her now crown & dignity; And further the said Jurors say upon their oath that the said Ingram after the slaying aforesaid perpetrated & done by him in the manner & form aforesaid neither fled nor withdrew himself; But what goods or chattels, lands or tenements the said Ingram had at the time of the slaying aforesaid, done & perpetrated by him in the manner & form aforesaid, the said Jurors are totally ignorant. In witness of which thing the said Coroner as well as the Jurors aforesaid to this Inquisition have interchangeably set their seals. Given the day & year above named &c.

'by WILLIAM DANBY Coroner'.

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The Coroner's Inquisition

Kanc. / Inquisicio indentata capta apud Detford 

Strand in praedicto Comitatu Kancia infra virgam 

primo die Junij anno regni Elizabethe dei gratia 

Anglie ffrancie & Hibernie Regine fidei defensoris &c 

tricesimo quinto coram Willelmo Danby Generoso 

Coronatore hospicij dicte domine Regine super visum 

corporis Cristoferi Morley ibidem iacentis mortui & 

interfecti per sacrum Nicholai Draper Generosi Wol-

stani Randall generosi Willelmi Curry Adriani Walker 

Johannis Barber Roberti Baldwyn Egidij ffeld Georgij 

Halfepenny Henrici Awger Jacobi Batt Henrici Ben-

dyn Thome Batt senioris Johannis Baldwyn Alexandri 

Burrage Edmundi Goodcheepe & Henrici Dabyns 

Qui dicunt sacrum suum quod cum quidam Ingramus 

ffrysar nuper de Londinia Generosus ac praedictus 

Cristoferus Morley Ac quidam Nicholaus Skeres nuper 

de Londinia Generosus ac Robertus Poley de Londinia 

praedicta Generosus tricesimo de Maij anno tricesimo 

quinto supradicto apud Detford Strand praedictam in 

praedicto Comitatu Kancia infra virgam circa horam 

decimam ante meridiem eiusdem diei insimul conuener-

unt in Camera infra domum cuiusdam Elionore Bull 

vidue & ibidem pariter moram gesserunt & prandebant 

& post prandium ibidem quieto ['quiete' in MS] modo insimul fuerunt 

& ambulauerunt in gardinum pertinentem domui prae-

dicto vsque horam sextam post meridiem eiusdem diei & 

tunc recesserunt a gardino praedicto in Cameram prae-

dictam & ibidem insimul & pariter cenabant & post 

cenam praedicti Ingramus & Cristoferus Morley locuti 

fuerunt & publicauerunt vnus eorum alteri diuersa 

maliciosa verba pro eo quod concordare & agreare non

potuerunt circa solucionem denariorum summe voc-

atum le recknynge ibidem & praedictus Cristoferus 

Morley adtunc iacens super lectum in Camera vbi cen-

auerunt & ira motus versus praefatum Ingramum ffrysar 

super verbis vt praefertur inter eos praelocutis Et prae-

dictus Ingramus adtunc & ibidem sedens in Camera 

praedicta cum tergo suo versus lectum vbi praedictus 

Cristoferus Morley tunc iacebat prope lectum vocatum 

nere the bed sedens & cum anteriori parte corporis 

sui versus mensam & praedicti Nicholaus Skere & 

Robertus Poley ex vtraque parte ipsius Ingrami sedentes 

tali modo vt idem Ingramus ffrysar nullo modo fugam 

facere potuit Ita accidit quod praedictus Cristoferus 

Morley ex subito & ex malicia sua erga praefatum 

Ingramum praecogitata pugionem praedicti Ingrami 

super tergum suum existentem maliciose adtunc & 

ibidem euaginabat & cum eodem pugione praedictus 

Cristoferus Morley adtunc & ibidem maliciose dedit 

praefato Ingramo duo vulnera super caput suum longi-

tudinis duorum policium & profunditatis quartij vnius 

policis Super quo praedictus Ingramus metuens occidi 

& sedens in forma praedicta inter praefatos Nicholaum 

Skeres & Robertum Poley Ita quod vlterius aliquo 

modo recedere non potuit in sua defensione & salua-

cione vite sue adtunc & ibidem contendebat cum prae-

fato Cristofero Morley recipere ab eo pugionem suum 

praedictum in qua quidem affraia idem Ingramus a 

praefato Cristofero Morley vlterius recedere non potuit 

Et sic in affraia illa Ita accidit quod praedictus In-

gramus in defensione vite sue cum pugione praedicta

precij xij^d; dedit praefato Cristofero adtunc & ibidem 

vnam plagam mortalem super dexterum oculum suum 

profunditatis duorum policium & latitudinis vnius 

policis de qua quidem plaga mortali praedictus Cris-

toferus Morley adtunc & ibidem instanter obijt Et 

sic Iuratores praedicti dicunt super sacrum suum quod 

praedictus Ingramus praefatum Cristoferum Morley 

praedicto tricesimo die Maij anno tricesimo quinto 

supradicto apud Detford Strand praedictam in prae-

dicto Comitatu Kancia infra virgam in Camera prae-

dicta infra virgam modo & forma praedictis in defen-

sione ac saluacione vite sue interfecit & occidit contra 

pacem dicte domine Regine nunc coronam & dignita-

tem suas Et vlterius Juratores praedicti dicunt super 

sacrum suum quod praedictus Ingramus post occisi-

onem praedictam per se modo & forma praedictis per-

petratam & factam non fugit neque se retraxit Sed que 

bona aut catalla terras aut tenementa praedictus In-

gramus tempore occisionis praedicte per se modo & 

forma praedictis facte & perpetrate habuit Iuratores 

praedicti penitus ignorant In cuius rei testimonium 

tam praedictus Coronator quam Iuratores praedicti

huic Inquisicioni sigilla sua alteratim aff[ixe]runt

Datum die & anno supradictis &c

per Willelmum Danby

Coronatorem

There is a Shining Point Where All Lines Intersect

BILL MOYERS: 

But Joe, can Westerners grasp this kind of 

mystical trance theological experience? 

It does transcend Theology, 

it leaves theology behind. 

I mean, if you’re locked to 

the image of God in a culture 

where Science determines 

your perceptions of reality, 

how can you experience 

this ultimate ground that 

the shamans talk about?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The best example I know in our literature is 

that beautiful book by John Neihardt called 

Black Elk Speaks.

BILL MOYERS: 

Black Elk was?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Black Elk was a young Sioux or Dakota, 

as they are often called, boy around nine years old, 

before the American cavalry had encountered the Sioux. 

They were the great people of the plains. 

And this boy became sick, psychologically sick. 

His Family…I’m telling the typical shaman story. 

The child begins to tremble, and is immobilized, 

and the family’s terribly concerned about it. 

And they send for a shaman who had had the experience in his own youth, to come as a psychoanalyst, you might say, and pull the youngster out of it. 

But instead of relieving him of the deities, 

he is adapting him to the deities, 

and the deities to himself, you might say. 

It’s a different problem from that of psychoanalysis. 

I think it was Nietzsche who said, 

“Be careful, lest in casting out your devil, 

you cast out the best thing that’s in you.” 

Here, the deities who have been encountered 

the powers, let’s call them are retained. 

The connection is retained, it’s not broken. 

And these men then become the spiritual advisers and gift-givers 

of Their People.

Well, what happened with this young boy, he was about nine years old, was he had a vision, and the vision is described, and it’s a vision prophetic of the terrible future that his tribe was to have. 

But it also spoke of the possible positive aspects of it. 

It was a vision of what he called the hoop of his nation, realizing that it was one of many hoops which is something that we haven’t all learned well enough yet and the cooperation of all the hoops and all the nations and grand processions and so forth. 

But more than that, it was an experience of himself as going through the realms of spiritual imagery that were of his culture, and assimilating their import. And it comes to one great statement, which for me is a key statement of the understanding of myth and symbols. 

He says,“I saw myself on 

The Central Mountain of The World, 

The Highest Place. 

And I had A Vision, because I was seeing 

in a sacred manner, 

of The World.” 

And the sacred central mountain 

was Harney Peak in South Dakota. 

And then he says, 

“But the central mountain is everywhere.” 

That is a real mythological realization.

BILL MOYERS: 

Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

It distinguishes between the local cult image, Harney Peak, 

and its connotation, the center of the world. 

The center of the world is the hub of the universe, axis mundi, do you know, the central point, the pole star around which all revolves. 

The Central Point of The World 

is The Point where 

Stillness and Movement are together. 

Movement is Time, 

Stillness is Eternity, 

realising the relationship of the temporal moment 

to the eternal not-moment, 

but forever - is the Sense of Life. 

Realising how this moment in your life is actually a moment of eternity, 

and the experience of the eternal aspect 

of what you’re doing in the temporal experience 

is the mythological experience, 

and he had it. 

So is the central mountain of the world 

Jerusalem, Rome, Banaras. 

Lhasa, Mexico City, you know? 

Mexico City, Jerusalem, 

is symbolic of a spiritual principle 

as the center of the world.

BILL MOYERS: 

So this little Indian was saying, there is a shining point where all lines intersect?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s exactly what he said.

BILL MOYERS: 

He was saying God has no circumference.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

God is an intelligible sphere, let’s say a sphere known to the mind, not to the senses, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. And the center, Bill, is right where you’re sitting, and the other one is right where I’m sitting. And each of us is a manifestation of that mystery.