So The Story of The Buffalo’s Wife was told to confirm the reverence.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
That’s right.
BILL MOYERS:
What happened when the white man came and slaughtered this animal of reverence?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
That was a sacramental violation.
I mean, in the eighties, when the buffalo hunt was undertaken, you know, with Kit Carson…
BILL MOYERS:
The 1880s, a hundred years ago.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
— and Buffalo Bill and so forth. When I was a boy, whenever we went for sleigh rides we had a buffalo robe.
Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo robes all over the place.
This was the sacred animal to the Indians.
These hunters go out with repeating rifles, and then shoot down the whole herd and leave it there.
Take the skin to sell and the body’s left to rot.
This is a sacrilege, and it really is a sacrilege.
BILL MOYERS:
It turned the buffalo from a “thou-”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
To an “it.”
BILL MOYERS:
The Indians addressed the buffalo as “thou.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
As a “thou”.
BILL MOYERS:
As an object of reverence.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
The Indians addressed life as a “thou,” I mean, trees and stones, everything else.
You can address anything as a “thou”, and you can feel the change in your psychology as you do it.
The ego that sees a “thou” is not the same ego that sees an “it.”
Your whole psychology changes when you address things as an “it.”
And when you go to war with a people,
the problem of the newspapers is to turn those people into its, so that they’re not “thous.”
BILL MOYERS:
That was an incredible moment in the evolution of American society, when the buffalo were slaughtered.
That was the final exclamation point behind the destruction of the Indian civilization, because you were destroying…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Can you imagine what the experience must have been for a people within 10 years to lose their environment, to lose their food supply, to lose the object of the… the central object of their ritual life?
BILL MOYERS:
So it is in your belief that it was in this period of hunting man and woman, the time of hunting man, that human beings begin to sense a stirring of the mythic imagination, the wonder of things that they didn’t know.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
There is this burst of magnificent art and all the evidence you need of a mythic imagination in full career.
I want a shot at the title if Balboa's got the guts to meet me in the ring.
My whole life's been directed towards this title.
I live alone. I train alone.
I'll win the title alone. I want him.
He can't duck me forever.
He can run, but he can't hide.
““One time, sparring with another white belt, I was choked out with a ‘guillotine’ choke, where one arm is round your head like a playground headlock and the other under your throat pulling upwards.
Because it was another beginner, not Chris or another warlord from the control end of the room, the sparring was competitive and – this is interesting – my ego was suddenly invited back into the equation.
When I’m sparring with Chris the relationship has explicit and implicit safety built into it, I’m not competing, I couldn’t compete, I’m learning. When it’s against Dave, Smasher, my ego would do just as well to pit itself against the hydraulic jaws of a garbage truck.
Against another white belt, my ego sees a little chance for glory and sidles in where it would best be left out. As the choke took hold and I felt beaten and submitted it were as if the wrench on my neck had opened a valve to an inaccessible cellar where my bruised adolescent self lay hiding.
I sat quietly afterwards, uncertain of what I felt.
My wife remarked that I was quiet that evening and I, reluctantly (ego, again) told her what had happened.
She almost thought it funny, not in a derisory way or in a way that made me feel more ashamed and defensive, but in a way that highlighted the idiosyncrasy of my feeling.
I spoke about it to someone else who doesn’t drink and does Jiu Jitsu and he explained that it’s a contact sport and that these feelings are normal and have to be accepted. I learned an important lesson through that particular experience.
I had avoided an entire aspect of my nature because of an unwillingness to confront the vulnerability, no, the shame, that is inhered within physical defeat.
It came to me in this way, this may not be historically true, but mythically it is:
I.
As a boy I could fight, I had no fear.
II.
As an adolescent I was not initiated.
III.
As I awoke, I was not shown how to live at the new frequency, I had only women to observe and ‘role model’.
• When violence came, as it does to all teenage boys, I was not equipped and the shame killed a part of me, it put it ‘underground’.
• I was too afraid to try and revive it; it was in adolescence of course that I became a drug addict.
• I did not become willing to go into The Underworld until I killed the person I had to become to survive my youth.
• When I finally went there, in my middle years, through the means of Jiu Jitsu, I needed a mentor, in this case Chris, to hold the space for me.”
Russell Brand,
“Mentors.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
What is the meaning of the virgin birth?
In India, there is this system of the kundalini, as it’s called, the idea of the centers, psychological centers up the spine.
And they represent the psychological planes of concern and consciousness and action. The first is at the rectum, and this is that of alimentation.
The serpent represents this, you know, a traveling esophagus going along just eating, eating, eating, eating.
And all of us are — we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t eating.
And then the second, the second center is at the sex organ center, and that’s the urge to procreation.
The third center’s called, is at the navel, and this is where you eat and want to consume.
And it’s not the alimentary eating, it’s the mastering and smashing and trashing of others, do you see? This is the aggressive mood.
Now, the first is an animal instinct, the second is an animal instinct, the third is an animal instinct, and these three centers are located in the pelvic base, do you see.
The next one is at the level of the heart, and this is the opening of compassion.
And there you move out of the field of animal action into a field that is properly human and spiritual.
Now, in each of these centers there is a symbolic form.
At the base, the first one, there is the form of the lingam and yeni, the male and female organs in conjunction.
At the heart chakra, there is again the male and female organs in conjunction, but in gold.
This is the virgin birth. It’s the birth of spiritual man out of the animal man. Do you understand?
BILL MOYERS:
And it happens?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
When you are awakened at the level of the heart to compassion and to suffering with the other person.
That’s the beginning of humanity. And the meditations of religion properly are on that level, the heart level.
BILL MOYERS:
You say it’s the beginning of humanity, but in these Stories, that’s the moment when gods are born, the virgin birth, it’s a god who emerges from that chemistry.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yeah, and you know who that god is?
It’s you.
All of these symbols in mythology refer to you.
You can get stuck out there and think it’s all out there, and so you’re thinking of Jesus and all the sentiments about how he suffered and all; what that suffering is, is what ought to be going on in you. Have you been reborn?
Have you died to your animal nature and come to life as a human incarnation?
BILL MOYERS:
Why is it significant that this is of a virgin?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, it is that the begetter is the spirit.
It is a spiritual birth.
The virgin conceived of the Word, through the ear.
BILL MOYERS:
The Word came like a shaft of light.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yes. And now, the Buddha was born from his mother’s side, at the level of the heart chakra.
That’s a symbolic birth; he wasn’t born from his mother’s side, but symbolically he was.
BILL MOYERS:
But the Christ came the way you and I come.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yes, but of a virgin.
BILL MOYERS:
Which is a power greater than…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
And then, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, her virginity was restored.
So nothing happened physically, you might say.
It’s not a physical birth.
It’s symbolic of a spiritual transformation, that’s what the virgin birth is about.
And so deities are born that way who represent beings who act in terms of compassion, and not in terms of the lower three centers.
And in the Old Testament story, God gives the one forbidden thing, and he knows very well, now I’m interpreting God --
He knows very wellthat Man’s going to eat
The Forbidden Fruit.
But it’s by doing that
that Man becomes
The Initiator of His Own Life.
Life really begins with that.
BILL MOYERS:
I also find in some of these early stories, the human tendency to Find someone to BLAME.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yeah.
BILL MOYERS:
Let me read Genesis 1, then I’ll ask you to read one
from the Bassari legend.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
All right.
BILL MOYERS:
Genesis 1:
“And God said,
‘Have you eaten from The Tree which I commanded you that you should not eat?’
Then the man said,
‘The Woman whom you gave to be with me, She gave me of The Tree and I ate.’
And the Lord God said to The Woman,
What is this you’ve done?’
And The Woman said,
‘The Serpent deceived me, and I ate.’
Now, I mean, you talk about buck-passing,
it starts very early.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL :
That’s right.
BILL MOYERS:
And then there’s the Bassari legend.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
It’s been tough on serpents, too.
“One day Snake said,
‘We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry?’
Antelope said, ‘But we don’t know anything about this fruit.’
Then Man and His Wife took some of the fruit and ate it.
Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, ‘Who ate the fruit?’
They answered, ‘We did.’
Unumbotte asked, ‘Who told you that you could eat that fruit?’
They replied, ‘Snake did.’
It’s the same story.
BILL MOYERS: Poor Snake.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It’s the same story.
BILL MOYERS: What do you make of this,
that in all of these stories
the principal actors are
Pointing to Someone Else
as The Initiator of The Fall?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah, but it turns out to be Snake.
And Snake in both of these stories is :
The Symbol of Life --
Throwing off
The Past
and
Continuing to Live.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The Power of Life,
because The Snake sheds its Skin, just as The Moon sheds its Shadow.
The Snake in most cultures is POSITIVE. Even the most poisonous thing, in India, the cobra, is a sacred animal.
And The Serpent, Naga, The Serpent King,
Nagaraga, is the next thing to the Buddha, because --
The Serpent represents The Power of Life,
in The Field of Time to throw off Death,
and The Buddha represents The Power of Life
in The Field of Eternity, to be Eternally Alive.
Now, I saw a fantastic thing of a Burmese priestess, a snake priestess, who had to bring rain to her people by calling a king cobra from his den and kissing him three times on the nose. There was the cobra, the giver of life, the giver of rain, which is of life, as the divine positive, not negative, figure.
BILL MOYERS:
The Christian stories turn it around,
because The Serpent was The Seducer.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, what that amounts to is
A Refusal to Affirm Life.
Life is Evil in this view.
Every natural impulse is sinful
unless you’ve been baptized or circumcised,
in this tradition that we’ve inherited.
For Heaven’s sakes!
BILL MOYERS: By having been The Tempter,
Women have paid a great price, because in mythology, some of this mythology, they are the ones who led to the downfall.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Of course they did. I mean, they represent life. Man doesn’t enter life except by woman, and so it is woman who brings us into the world of polarities and pair of opposites and suffering and all. But I think it’s a really childish attitude, to say “no” to life with all its pain, you know, to say this is something that should not have been.
Schopenhauer, in one of his marvelous chapters, I think it’s in The World as Will and Idea, says: “Life is something that should not have been. It is in its very essence and character, a terrible thing to consider, this business of living by killing and eating.” I mean, it’s in sin in terms of all ethical judgments all the time.
BILL MOYERS: As Zorba says, you know, “Trouble? Life is trouble. Only death is no trouble.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s it. And when people say to me, you know, do you have optimism about the world, you know, how terrible it is, I said, yes, just say, “It’s great!” Just the way it is.
BILL MOYERS: But doesn’t that lead to a rather passive attitude in the face of evil, in the face of wrong?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: You participate in it. Whatever you do is evil for somebody.
BILL MOYERS: But explain that for the audience.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, when I was in India, there was a man whose name was Sri Krishnamenon and his mystical name was Atmananda and he was in Trivandrum, and I went to Trivandrum, and I had the wonderful privilege of sitting face to face with him as I’m sitting here with you. And the first question, first thing he said to me is, “Do you have a question?” Because the teacher there always answers questions, he doesn’t tell you what anything, he answers. And I said, “Yes, I have a question.” I said, “Since in Hindu thinking all the universe is divine, is a manifestation of divinity itself, how can we say ‘no’ to anything in the world, how can we say ‘no’ to brutality, to stupidity, to vulgarity, to thoughtlessness?” And he said, “For you and me, we must say yes.”
Well, I had learned from my friends who were students of his, that that happened to have been the first question he asked his guru, and we had a wonderful talk for about an hour there on this theme, of the affirmation of the world. And it confirmed me in a feeling that I have had, that who are we to judge? And it seems to me that this is one of the great teachings of Jesus.
BILL MOYERS: Well, I see now what you mean in one respect; in some classic Christian doctrine the world is to be despised, life is to be redeemed in the hereafter, it is heaven where our rewards come, and if you affirm that which you deplore, as you say, you’re affirming the world, which is our eternity of the moment.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That’s what I would say. Eternity isn’t some later time; eternity isn’t a long time; eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now which thinking in time cuts out.
BILL MOYERS: This is it.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: This is it.
BILL MOYERS: This is my …
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere, and the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
There’s a wonderful formula that the Buddhists have for the Boddhisattva. The Bodhisattva, the one whose being, satra, is illumination, bodhi, who realizes his identity with eternity, and at the same time his participation in time. And the attitude is not to withdraw from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but to realize that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder, and come back and participate in it. “All life is sorrowful,” is the first Buddhist saying, and it is. It wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow, loss, loss, loss.
BILL MOYERS: That’s a pessimistic note.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I mean, you got to say yes to it and say it’s great this way. I mean, this is the way God intended it.
BILL MOYERS: You don’t really believe that?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, this is the way it is, and I don’t believe anybody intended it, but this is the way it is. And Joyce’s wonderful line, you know, “History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.” And the way to awake from it is not to be afraid and to recognize, as I did in my conversation with that Hindu guru or teacher that I told you of, that all of this as it is, is as it has to be, and it is a manifestation of the eternal presence in the world. The end of things always is painful; pain is part of there being a world at all.
BILL MOYERS: But if one accepted that isn’t the ultimate conclusion, to say, well, ‘I won’t try to reform any laws or fight any battles.’
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I didn’t say that.
BILL MOYERS: Isn’t that the logical conclusion one could draw, though, the philosophy of nihilism?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s not the necessary thing to draw. You could say I will participate in this row, and I will join the army, and I will go to war.
BILL MOYERS: I’ll do the best I can on earth.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I will participate in the game. It’s a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts. And that wonderful Irish saying, you know, “Is this a private fight, or can anybody get into it?” This is the way life is, and the hero is the one who can participate in it decently, in the way of nature, not in the way of personal rancor, revenge or anything of the kind.
Let me tell you one story here, of a samurai warrior, a Japanese warrior, who had the duty to avenge the murder of his overlord. And he actually, after some time, found and cornered the man who had murdered his overlord. And he was about to deal with him with his samurai sword, when this man in the corner, in the passion of terror, spat in his face. And the samurai sheathed the sword and walked away. Why did he do that?
BILL MOYERS: Why?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Because he was made angry, and if he had killed that man then, it would have a personal act, of another kind of act, that’s not what he had come to do.
“The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn't.”
— George Lucas
“Fans lost their minds.
It was an affront, the neutering of a badass."
One legal expert argued that Greedo's behavior constituted a direct threat and would clearly warrant preemptive action in self-defense in the United States.
In 2014, when asked by fans who shot first, actor Harrison Ford, who plays Han, replied:
“I don't know and I don't care.”
Question: is there an objective ‘Reality’ or a series of interdependent mental projections?
In other words, was Hitler a kind of nationally conjured totem to re-energize castrated and enraged Germany?
Were The Beatles a quadrant of awakening shamans that carried a generation from plodding rock, to sexy pop, then psychedelia and ultimately consumerism?
The events in the outer world are governed by subtler energies, many of which pass through our collective psyche.
No doubt meteors and hurricanes shape environment but culture, by definition, is the manifestation of human drives.
There are patterns, shapes and archetypes that recur.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, a serendipitous adventure can take place, also, You know, what the word serendipity comes from?
Comes from the Sanskrit Swarandwipa, the Isle of Silk, which was formerly the name of Ceylon
And it’s a story about a family that’s just rambling on it’s way to Ceylon, and all these adventures take place.
And so you can have the serendipitous adventure as well.
BILL MOYERS:
Is the adventurer who takes that kind of trip a hero in the mythological sense?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yes, He is ready for it.
This is a very interesting thing about these mythological themes.
The achievement of the hero is one that he is ready for, and it’s really a manifestation of his character.
And it’s amusing, the way in which the landscape and the conditions of the environment match the readiness of the hero.
The adventure that he’s ready for is the one that he gets.
(Clip from “Star Wars”)
HAN SOLO:
Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution and I’m not in it for you, Princess.
I expect to be well paid.
I’m in it for me.
BILL MOYERS:
The mercenary, Solo, begins as a mercenary and ends up as a hero.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
He was a very practical guy, a materialist in his character, at least as he thought of himself.
But he was a compassionate human being at the same time, and didn’t know it.
The adventure evoked a quality of his character that he hadn’t known he possessed.
(Clip from “Star Wars”)
PRINCESS LElA:
I love you.
HAN SOLO:
I know.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
He thinks he’s an egoist, he really isn’t,
and that’s a very lovable kind of human being, I think, and there are lots of them functioning beautifully in the world.
They think they’re working for themselves, very practical and all, but no, there’s something else pushing them.
BILL MOYERS:
What did you think about the scene in the bar?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
That’s my favorite, not only in this piece, but of many, many pieces I’ve ever seen.
BILL MOYERS:
Why?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, where you are is on the edge, you’re about to embark into the outlying spaces. And–
BILL MOYERS:
The real adventure.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
The real adventure.
This is the jumping-off place, and there is where you meet people who’ve been out there, and they run the machines that go out there, and you haven’t been there.
It reminds me a little bit in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, the atmosphere before you start off the adventure.
You’re in the seaport, and there’s old salts, seamen who’ve been on the sea, and that’s their world, and these are the space people, also.
By participating in a ritual, you are participating in a myth.
BILL MOYERS:
And what does it mean, do you think, to young boys today. that we are absent these myths?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, the confirmation ritual is the counterpart today of these rites.
As a little Catholic boy, you choose your confirmed name, the name you’re going to be confirmed by, and you go up.
But instead of having them scarify you, knock your teeth out and all, the bishop gives you a mild slap on the cheek.
It’s been reduced to that, and
nothing’s happened to you.
The Jewish counterpart is the bar mitzvah, and whether it works actually to effect a psychological transformation, I suppose, will depend on the individual case.
There was no problem in these old days.
The Boy came out with a different body, and
He’d Gone Through Something.
INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT
Cornelius and Tyler each stir a boiling pot.
Cornelius (V.O.):
Tyler was full of useful information.
TYLER :
Ancient peoples found that clothes got clean when they washed them at certain points in the river.
Do you know why?
CORNELIUS :
No
Tyler gestures for Jack to come over
TYLER:
Human sacrifices were once made on the hills above this river.
Bodies burned, water seeped into ashes to make lye. This is lye, a crucial ingredient.
Once it mixed with the melted fat of the bodies a thick, white soapy discharge crept into the river.
Let me see your hand please.
Tyler licks his lips until they're gleaming wet. He takes Jack's hands and KISSES the back of it.
CORNELIUS :
What is this?
TYLER:
This, is a Chemical Burn.
The saliva shines in the shape of the kiss.
Tyler pours a bit of the flaked lye onto CORNELIUS’ hand. CORNELIUS’ whole body JERKS. Tyler holds tight to CORNELIUS’ hand and arm. Tears well in CORNELIUS’ eyes; his face tightens.
TYLER:
It will hurt more than you've ever been burned. And you will have a Scar.
CORNELIUS (V.O.):
Guided meditation worked for cancer, it could work for this.
SHOT OF A FOREST, IN GENTLE SPRING RAINFALL. RESUME:
Without Pain, without Sacrifice, we would have NOTHING!
CORNELIUS (V.O.):
I tried not to think of the words "searing" or "flesh."
SHOT OF A FOREST, IN GENTLE SPRING RAINFALL. RESUME:
TYLER: •STOP•. This is Your Pain, This is Your Burning Hand. It’s right here!
JACK: I’m going to My Cave. I’m going to My Cave, I’m going to find My Power Animal !! —
SHOT OF INSIDE THE ICE CAVE - ON MARLA, LYING NAKED UNDER A FUR COAT, TURNING HER HEAD TO LOOK TOWARDS US. RESUME:
TYLER: NO! Don’t deal with it like those dead people do. Come on!
CORNELIUS : I get The Point!
TYLER: No what you’re feeling is premature Enlightenment.
SHOT OF INSIDE ICE CAVE - NAKED MARLA PULLS CORNELIUS DOWN ON TOP OF HER - CORNELIUS KISSES HER - CIGARETTE SMOKE COMES FROM HER MOUTH - CORNELIUS COUGHS. RESUME:
Tyler SLAPS CORNELIUS’ face, regaining his attention…
TYLER: This is The Greatest Moment of Your Life, man! And you’re off somewhere missing it.
CORNELIUS,, snapping back, tries to jerk his hand away. Tyler keeps hold of it and their arms KNOCK UTENSILS off the table.
CORNELIUS :
No I’m not!
TYLER:
•SHUT UP•
Our Fathers were our models for God — if Our Fathers bailed, WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT GOD....?
Tyler SLAPS CORNELIUS’ face again…
TYLER:
•Listen to Me.•
You have to consider the possibility that God DOES NOT LIKE YOU, he never WANTED You –– In all probability, He HATES You.
This is Not The Worst Thing That Can Happen.....
JACK: It isn’t…?
TYLER:
We don’t need him.
Fuck damnation. Fuck redemption. We are God's Unwanted Children?
¡¡ SO BE IT !!
CORNELIUS looks at Tyler -- they lock eyes. CORNELIUS does his best to stifle his spasms of pain, his body a quivering, coiled knot. He bolts toward the sink, but Tyler holds on.
TYLER:
Listen. You can run water over your hand and make it worse, OR -- Look at Me! -- OR, you can use Vinegar and neutralize The Burn.
TYLER: First, you •HAVE• to give up —
First you have to KNOW, not fear, •KNOW• That Some Day You Will Die ––
CORNELIUS :
You don’t know how this feels!
Tyler shows CORNELIUS a LYE-BURNED KISS SCAR on his own hand. Tears begin to drip from CORNELIUS' eyes.
TYLER:
It’s Only After We’ve Lost Everything,
That We’re Free to Do Anything.
Tyler grabs a bottle of VINEGAR -- pours it over CORNELIUS' wound.
TYLER:
Congratulations –– You’re one step closer to hitting Rock Bottom
BILL MOYERS: You visited some of the great painted caves in Europe.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Oh, yes.
BILL MOYERS: Tell me what you remember when first you looked upon those underground caves.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, you didn’t want to leave. Here you come into an enormous chamber, like a great cathedral, with these animals painted. And they’re painted with a life like the life of an ink on silk, the Japanese painting. And well, you realize the darkness is inconceivable. We’re there with electric lights, but in a couple of instances, the concierge, the man who was showing us through, turned off the lights and you were never in darker darkness in your life. It’s like a, I don’t know, just a complete knockout of, you don’t know where you are, whether you’re looking north, south, east or west. All orientation is gone, and you’re in a darkness that never saw the sun. Then they tum the lights on again, and you see these gloriously painted animals. A bull that will be 20 feet long, and painted so that the haunches will be represented by a swelling in the rock, you know, they take account of the whole thing. It’s incredible.
BILL MOYERS: Do you ever look at these primitive art objects, and think not of the art but of the man or woman standing there, painting or creating? I find that’s where I speculate.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Oh, this is what hits you when you go into those caves, I can tell you that. What was in their mind when they were doing that? And that’s not an easy thing to do. And how did they get up there? And how did they see anything? And what kind of light did they have the little flashing torches throwing flickering things on it, to get something of that grace and perfection? And with respect to the problem of beauty, is this beauty intended, or is this something that is the natural expression of a beautiful spirit. You know what I mean? When you hear a bird sing, the beauty of the bird’s song, is this intentional, in what sense is it intentional? But it’s the expression of the bird, the beauty of the bird’s spirit, you might almost say, and I think that way very often about
this art. To what degree was the intention of the artist, what we would call “aesthetic,” or to what degree expressive, you know, and to what degree something that they simply had learned to do that way? It’s a difficult point. When a spider makes a beautiful web, the beauty comes out of the spider’s nature, you know, it’s instinctive beauty. And how much of the beauty of our own lives is the beauty of being alive, and how much of it is conscious intention? That’s a big question.
BILL MOYERS: You call them temple caves.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes.
BILL MOYERS: Why temple?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Temple with images and stained glass windows, cathedrals, are a landscape of the soul. You move into a world of spiritual images, that’s what this is. When lean and I, my wife and I, drove down from Paris to this part of France, we stopped off at Chartres Cathedral. There is a cathedral. When you walk into the cathedral, it’s the mother, womb of your spiritual life Mother church All the forms around are significant of spiritual values, and the imagery is in anthropomorphic form God and Jesus and the saints and all, in human form.
BILL MOYERS: In human form.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Then we went down to the Lascaux. The images were in animal form. The form is secondary; the message is what’s important
BILL MOYERS: And the message of the cave?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The message of the cave is of a relationship of time to eternal powers that is somehow to be experienced in that place. Now, I tell you, when you’re down in those caves, it’s a strange transformation of consciousness you have. You feel this is the womb, this is the place from which life comes, and that world up there in the sun with all those … that’s a secondary world: this is primary. I mean, this just overcomes you.
BILL MOYERS: You had that feeling when you were there?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I had it every time. Now, what were these caves used for? The speculations that are most common of scholars interested in this, is that they had to do with the initiation of boys into the hunt. You go in there, it’s dangerous, it’s very dangerous. It’s completely dark. It’s cold and dank. You’re banging your head on projections all the time, and it was a place of fear. And the boys were to overcome all that, and go into the womb of the earth. And the shaman, or whoever it was that would be helping you through, would not be making it easy.
BILL MOYERS: And then there was a release, once you got into that vast, torchlit chamber down there. What was the tribe, what was the tradition trying to say to the boy?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That is the womb land from which all the animals come.
BILL MOYERS: I see.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And the rituals down there have to do with the generation of a situation that will be propitious for the hunt. And the boys were to learn not only to hunt, but how to respect the animals and what rituals to perform, and how in their own lives no longer to be little boys but to be men. Because those hunts were very, very dangerous hunts, believe me, and these are the Original men’s rile sanctuaries, when: the boys became no longer their mothers’ sons, but their fathers’ sons.
BILL MOYERS: Don’t you wonder what effect this had on a boy?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, you can go through it today, actually, in cultures that arc still having the initiations with young boys. They give them an ordeal, a terrifying ordeal, that the youngster has to survive, makes a man of him, you know.
BILL MOYERS: What would happen to me as a child, if I went through one of these rites, as far as we can…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, we know what they do in Australia. Now, when a boy gets to be, you know, a little bit ungovernable, one fine day the men come in, and they’re naked except for stripes of white down that has been stuck on their bodies, and stripes with their men’s blood. They used their own blood for gluing this on. And they’re swinging the bull-roarers, which are the voice of the spirits, and they come as spirits. The boy will try to take refuge with his mother; she’ll pretend to try to protect him. The men just take him away, a mother’s no good from then on, you see, he’s no longer a little boy. He’s in the men’s group, and then they put him really through an ordeal. These are the rites, you know, of circumcision, subincision, and so forth.
BILL MOYERS: And the whole purpose is to…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Tum him into a member of the tribe.
BILL MOYERS: And a hunter.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And a hunter.
BILL MOYERS: Because that was the way of life.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah, but most important is to live according to the needs and values of that tribe. He is initiated in a Short period of time into the whole culture context of his people.
BILL MOYERS: So myth relates directly to ceremony and tribal ritual, and the absence of myth can mean the end of ritual.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: A ritual is the enactment of a myth. By participating in a ritual, you are participating in a myth.
BILL MOYERS: And what does it mean, do you think, to young boys today. that we are absent these myths?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, the confirmation ritual is the counterpart today of these rites. As a little Catholic boy, you choose your confirmed name, the name you’re going to be confirmed by, and you go up. But instead of having them scarify you, knock your teeth out and all, the bishop gives you a mild slap on the cheek. It’s been reduced to that, and nothing’s happened to you. The Jewish counterpart is the bar mitzvah, and whether it works actually to effect a psychological transformation, I suppose, will depend on the individual case. There was no problem in these old days. The boy came out with a different body, and he’d gone through something.
BILL MOYERS: What about the female? I mean, most of the figures in the temple caves arc male. Was this a kind of secret society for males only?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It wasn’t a secret society, it was that the boys had to go through it. Now, we don’t know exactly what happens with the female in this period, because we have very little evidence to tell us. In primary cultures today, the girl becomes a woman with her first menstruation. It happens to her; I mean, nature does it to her. And so she has undergone the transformation, and what is her initiation? Typically it is to sit in a little hut for a certain number of days, and realize what she is.
BILL MOYERS: How does she do that?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: She sits there. She’s now a woman. And what is a woman? A woman is a vehicle of life, and life has overtaken her. She is a vehicle now of life. A woman’s what it’s all about; the giving of birth and the giving of nourishment. She’s identical with the earth goddess in her powers, and she’s got to realize that about herself. The boy does not have a happening of that kind. He has to be turned into a man, and voluntarily become a servant of something greater than himself. The woman becomes the vehicle of nature; the man becomes the vehicle of the society, the social order and the social purpose.
BILL MOYERS: So what happens when a society no longer embraces powerful mythology?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: What we’ve got on our hands. As I say, if you want to find what it means not to have a society without any rituals, read The New York Times.
BILL MOYERS: And you’d find?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, the news of the day.
BILL MOYERS: Wars…
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Young people who don’t know how to behave in a civilized society. Half the…I imagine that 50% of the crime is by young people in their 20s and early 30s that just behave like barbarians.
BILL MOYERS: Society has provided them no rituals by which they become members.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: None. There’s been a reduction, a reduction, a reduction of ritual. Even in the Roman Catholic Church, my God, they’ve translated the Mass out of the ritual language into a language that has a lot of domestic associations. So that, I mean, every time now that I read tile Latin of the Mass, I get that pitch again that it’s supposed to give, a language that throws you out of the field of your domesticity, you know. The altar is turned so that the priest, his back is to you, and with him you address yourself outward like that. Now they’ve turned the altar around, looks like Julia Child giving a demonstration, and it’s all homey and cozy.
BILL MOYERS: And they play a guitar.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: They play a guitar. Listen, they’ve forgotten what the function of a ritual is, is to pitch you out, not to wrap you back in where you have been all the time.
BILL MOYERS: So ritual that once conveyed an inner reality is now merely form, and that’s true in the rituals of society, and the personal rituals of marriage and religion.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, with respect to ritual, it must be kept alive. And so much of our ritual is dead.
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said,
"My Son,
the battle is between two wolves inside us all.
One is "Evil" --
It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is "Good" --
It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied,
"The one you feed."
BILL MOYERS:
Poor Snake.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
It’s the same story.
BILL MOYERS:
What do you make of this, that in all of these stories the principal actors are pointing to someone else as the initiator of The Fall?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Yeah, but it turns out to be Snake.
And Snake in both of these stories is the symbol of life throwing off the past and continuing to live.
BILL MOYERS:
Why?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
The power of life, because the snake sheds its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow. The snake in most cultures is positive.
Even the most poisonous thing, in India, the cobra, is a sacred animal. And the serpent, Naga, the serpent king, Nagaraga, is the next thing to the Buddha, because the serpent represents the power of life in the field of time to throw off death, and the Buddha represents the power of life in the field of eternity to be eternally alive.
Now, I saw a fantastic thing of a Burmese priestess, a snake priestess, who had to bring rain to her people by calling a king cobra from his den and kissing him three times on the nose. There was the cobra, the giver of life, the giver of rain, which is of life, as the divine positive, not negative, figure.
BILL MOYERS:
The Christian stories turn it around, because the serpent was the seducer.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL:
Well, what that amounts to is a refusal to affirm life.
Life is evil in this view.
Every natural impulse is sinful unless you’ve been baptized or circumcised, in this tradition that we’ve inherited.
For heaven’s sakes!
2 :
Society...
6 :
Yes, sir?
2 :
Society is a place where people exist together.
6 :
Yes, sir.
2 :
That is Civilisation.
The Lone Wolf belongs to The Wilderness.
6 :
Yes, sir.
2 :
You must not be a Lone Wolf!
6 :
No, sir.
2 :
You must conform!
6 :
Yes, sir.
2 :
It is my duty to see that you do!
6 :
Yes, sir.
OLIVER :
We were always finding things. Pens. Poetry. Socks. The Astral Plane was like a magnet for lost dreams.
Minds.
That was the other thing we found.
In The Real World, when people lost their minds, they ended up here.
[COOING.] And who are we, then?
[BABY BABBLING.] Hmm.
THE WOLF : What you got today?
OLIVER :
A baby.
THE WOLF :
A baby? Wow. Look at that. [SNIFFS.] Can I have him?
OLIVER : It's a her, I think, and no.
If you want a baby, you can scavenge one yourself.
THE WOLF :
[SCOFFS.] "Scavenge." That's – I'm a wolf.
Wolves don't scavenge. We hunt.
You're lucky I don't hunt you.
OLIVER : Well, you live just next door. Wouldn't be hard.
THE WOLF : Have you told her about the Holocaust yet?
OLIVER : The? What?
THE WOLF :
Got to tell her. Prepare her, Oliver.
You can't grow up too fast. That's my motto.
Also, herpes. Make sure you tell her about herpes, like, right away.
MELANIE : [SIGHS.] Get away! Go on!
[GROWLS.] Shoo! Get away! Get away!
THE WOLF :
Don't forget chlamydia. [HOWLS.]
OLIVER : Wife.
MELANIE: Husband. What did we scavenge today?
OLIVER : Well, half a sandwich, a very nice sock and, uh, this baby.
MELANIE: Oh, baby. Well, look at that. [GASPS.] Oh. Oh, aren't you adorable. Let's get you inside.
[BABY COOING.] [THE WOLF HOWLING.] [HOWLING CONTINUES.] [SIREN WAILING.]
[PANTING.] Oh, hey. [CHUCKLES.] I was just, uh [EXHALES.] This is Cynthia. I found her wandering alone in the woods. She's lost her innocence, which is a win for this guy. Plus, hey, she brought all these dirty needles with her, so I was thinking, party? Huh?
[SNIFFS.] Is that Soup?
MELANIE:
No.
[GROWLS.] Hello, Melanie.
This is Cynthia.
CYNTHIA: Hi. She's given up all Hope. [CHUCKLES.] Isn't
that great?
OLIVER : Look, we're trying to have a nice life here and raise this
baby with Wonder and Magic, so we need to keep The Real World out.
You guys like magic? 'Cause I can do magic. [CHUCKLES.] It was in my sleeve.
OLIVER : Go away.
[GROWLING.]
MELANIE: Not you, hon. Come in. Have some soup. Sorry. [ROARING.]
OLIVER : Listen, don't be mad. [SIGHS.] We should move. [THE WOLF HOWLING IN DISTANCE.] [INDISTINCT WHISPERING.] [INSECTS TRILLING.]
OLIVER : There we go. That's perfect. Oh, yes, that's perfect for [CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY.]
SYD : Why does some music make you happy but other music make you sad?
OLIVER :
That's a good question. Well, uh, do you know the difference between a major and a minor chord?
SYD :
I'm five.
OLIVER : No excuse. I'll show you when we get home.
SYD : Why do people use umbrellas in the rain but not the snow?
OLIVER:
Quiet now.
SYD : Whose stuff is this?
OLIVER : [SIGHS.]
People in The Real World. When they forget about something, when it stops being important, it comes here.
SYD : Oh.
OLIVER : Oh.
SYD : I'm gonna call her Heady.
OLIVER : Little bird. Not that way.
SYD : Why not? [MACHINERY WHIRRING.]
SYD : What is it?
OLIVER : It-it's called The Ostrich. Oh, wait, that's not right. It's the big bird, isn't it? No, The City. It's called The City. Also known as The Real World.
SYD : What makes it Real?
OLIVER : I'll explain when you're older.
SYD : No, now.
OLIVER : That's not the way it works, little bird. I'm The Daddy, and you're The Baby, and I'll tell you about The Real World when you're older. Now, come on. Mommy's making stuffed animal pie. Mmm. We don't want to be late.
SYD : [FLIES BUZZING.] People think Death is scary.
It's pretty scary, huh? I mean, look at it. All oozy, and what are those, maggots?
SYD : That's just Nature.
Mm, kids die, too, you know. Everybody. Your parents. Ooh. That's got to be scary, knowing that, huh? Mm.
SYD : My mom told me that Death is just part of Life.
[GROANS.] She did, huh?
OLIVER:
Sydney!
[THE WOLF GROWLS.]
SYD : Got to go. Bye. Wait, wait, wait. Did she tell you about chlamydia?
Tell me a bedtime story.
MELANIE:
Hmm. Oh. Once upon a time, There was a girl who had the most extraordinary ability. She could feel everything the animals felt.
When a donkey stubbed its toe, her toe hurt. Every time a monkey got sad, she got sad. It was her special power.
And she called her special power "Empathy."
And Empathy was her friend. They did everything together.
But it's a hard thing for a little girl to share the feelings of others. And she started to wonder,
"Where do they end and I begin?"
No. No. No. [DISTANT HOWLING.] [GASPS.]
Cynthia. Hey. Do you ever miss your parents?
Your Real Parents. Back in The Real World. Wasn't your mom a lush? I love that word. "Lush."
It sounds so positive. Which, uh Remember how she used to tuck you in at night with flecks of vomit in her hair?
I live here now.
With the rivers and trees.
Mm And Kenny?
Do you ever miss Kenny?
Kenny beat me.
Kenny's real sorry, baby. He wants you to come home real bad. He love-love-loves you. I have to go inside.
Hey. - [GASPS.] Look what I found. Hmm? [CHUCKLES.] I don't do that anymore. Aw come on. Sure, you do. Don't be scared, gorgeous. You think the light bulb is afraid of the dark?
The light bulb loves the dark. 'Cause in the dark it can shine. - [SIGHS SOFTLY.] - Shine for me, baby. [BIRDS CHIRPING.]
MELANIE:
So, that's where babies come from. And in a couple years, your body will start to change to be more like Mommy's. It's the most natural thing in the world. Any questions?
SYD :
What's chlamydia?
MELANIE:
Where'd you hear that word?
SYD : From The Wolf.
MELANIE: Uh,
well um, you know how, when someone sneezes on you, you catch a cold?
Well, that's because the cold is a virus, and the sneeze transfers the
virus to you. And chlamydia is kind of like a cold, except for your vagina. And, uh, you get it by having unprotected sex with someone who has that virus. Does that make sense?
SYD :
Bodies are weird.
- [MELANIE CHUCKLES.]
"Well, a Director is just someone who has a fetish about making The World the way he wants it - Sort of Narcissistic."
That's you....?
"All Directors....
They're vaugely like Emperors."
- George Lucas
Always Two There are,
No More, No Less —
A Master and an Apprentice.
— The Rule of Two
"Curious.
I have brought The Sith to their ultimate victory. Through study, I
will soon learn how to defeat death. While I may choose apprentices, I
will never choose a successor."
— Darth Sidious, marginalia in The Book of The Sith, in the section titled "Selecting an Apprentice"
"The Sith Order is now a lineage....
It must not end with you!
I will not allow my new Sith Order to expire because you were unworthy or too protective to bequeath your power.
Know this : Your apprentice will kill you.
If this fact frightens you, then the Sith Order has already suffered a fatal infection.
Or do you believe that you will live forever?
You are not wrong to covet the secret, for I have sought to prolong my own life.
But in the extreme, this leads to narcissism and a lack of focus on The Rule of Two.
To be a Sith Lord is to outthink your enemies and to plan for every eventuality.
A proper apprentice will ensure that The Sith endure, no matter what fate may come upon your head."
— The Book of The Sith
An
interval of thirty years elapsed between the foundation of Lavinium and
the colonisation of Alba Longa. Such had been the growth of the Latin
power, mainly through the defeat of the Etruscans, that neither at the
death of Aeneas, nor during the regency of Lavinia, nor during the
immature years of the reign of Ascanius, did either Mezentius and the
Etruscans or any other of their neighbours venture to attack them. When
terms of peace were being arranged, the river Albula, now called the
Tiber, had been fixed as the boundary between the Etruscans and the
Latins.
Ascanius
was succeeded by his son Silvius, who by some chance had been born in
the forest. He became the father of Aeneas Silvius, who in his turn had a
son, Latinus Silvius. He planted a number of colonies: the colonists
were called Prisci Latini. The cognomen of Silvius was common to all the
remaining kings of Alba, each of whom succeeded his father. Their names
are Alba, Atys, Capys, Capetus, Tiberinus, who was drowned in crossing
the Albula, and his name transferred to the river, which became
henceforth the famous Tiber. Then came his son Agrippa, after him his
son Romulus Silvius. He was struck by lightning and left the crown to
his son Aventinus, whose shrine was on the hill which bears his name
and is now a part of the city of Rome.
He
was succeeded by Proca, who had two sons, Numitor and Amulius. To
Numitor, the elder, he bequeathed the ancient throne of the Silvian
house. Violence, however, proved stronger than either the father's will
or the respect due to the brother's seniority; for Amulius expelled his
brother and seized the crown. Adding crime to crime, he murdered his
brother's sons and made the daughter, Rhea Silvia, a Vestal virgin;
thus, under the presence of honouring her, depriving her of all hopes of
issue.
But
the Fates had, I believe, already decreed the origin of this Great City
and the foundation of the mightiest empire under heaven. The Vestal was
forcibly violated and gave birth to twins.
She
named Mars as their father, either because she really believed it, or
because the fault might appear less heinous if a deity were the cause of
it. But neither gods nor men sheltered her or her babes from the king's cruelty;
the priestess was thrown into prison, the boys were ordered to be
thrown into the river. By a heaven-sent chance it happened that the
Tiber was then overflowing its banks, and stretches of standing water
prevented any approach to the main channel. Those who were carrying the
children expected that this stagnant water would be sufficient to drown
them, so under the impression that they were carrying out the king's
orders they exposed the boys at the nearest point of the overflow, where
the Ficus Ruminalis (said to have been formerly called Romularis) now stands. The locality was then a wild solitude.
The
tradition goes on to say that after the floating cradle in which the
boys had been exposed had been left by the retreating water on dry land,
a thirsty she-wolf from the surrounding hills, attracted by the crying
of the children, came to them, gave them her teats to suck and was so
gentle towards them that the king's flock-master found her licking the
boys with her tongue.
According to the story, his name was Faustulus. He took the children to his hut and gave them to his wife Larentia to bring up. Some writers think that Larentia,
from her unchaste life, had got the nickname of "She-wolf" amongst the
shepherds, and that this was the origin of the marvellous story. As
soon as the boys, thus born and thus brought up, grew to be young men
they did not neglect their pastoral duties, but their special delight
was roaming through the woods on hunting expeditions.
As
their strength and courage were thus developed, they used not only to
lie in wait for fierce beasts of prey, but they even attacked brigands
when loaded with plunder. They distributed what they took amongst the
shepherds, with whom, surrounded by a continually increasing body of
young men, they associated themselves in their serious undertakings and
in their sports and pastimes.
Remus accordingly was handed over to Numitor for punishment. Faustulus had from the beginning suspected that it was royal offspring that he was bringing up —
—
for he was aware that the boys had been exposed at the king's command
and the time at which he had taken them away exactly corresponded with
that of their exposure. He had, however, refused to divulge the
matter prematurely, until either a fitting opportunity occurred or
necessity demanded its disclosure. The necessity came first. Alarmed for
the safety of Remus he revealed the state of the case to Romulus.
It
so happened that Numitor also, who had Remus in his custody, on hearing
that he and his brother were twins and comparing their ages and the
character and bearing so unlike that of one in a servile condition,
began to recall the memory of his grandchildren, and further inquiries
brought him to the same conclusion as Faustulus; nothing was wanting to the recognition of Remus.
So the king Amulius was being enmeshed on all sides by hostile purposes.
Romulus shrunk from a direct attack with his body of shepherds, for he was no match for the king in open fight.
They
were instructed to approach the palace by different routes and meet
there at a given time, whilst from Numitor's house Remus lent his
assistance with a second band he had collected. The attack succeeded and
the king was killed.
