Bill Moyers: I came to understand from reading your books - The Masks of God or The Hero With A Thousand Faces, for example - that what human beings have in common is revealed in myths. Myths are the stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.
Joseph Campbell: People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about, and that's what these clues help us to find within ourselves.Bill Moyers: Myths are clues?
"Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life."
Bill Moyers: You changed the definition of a myth from the search for meaning to the experience of meaning.
Joseph Campbell: Experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What's the meaning of a flower. There's the Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower. There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called "the one thus come". There's no meaning. What's the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of a flea? It's just there. We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about.
13 comments:
Now carry this a step further and apply it to your (maybe a bit hasty?) critique of sci-fi and Star Wars.
Joseph Campbell - Film:
George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to credit Campbell's influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other works of Campbell's. The linkage between Star Wars and Campbell was further reinforced when later reprints of Campbell's book used the image of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker on the cover.[24] Lucas discusses this influence at great length in the authorized biography of Joseph Campbell, A Fire in the Mind:
I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what's valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is...around the period of this realization...it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books...It was very eerie because in reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs...so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I'd been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent...I went on to read 'The Masks of God' and many other books.
Comparative religion:
A fundamental belief of Campbell's was that all spirituality is a search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return. This elemental force is ultimately “unknowable” because it exists before words and knowledge. Although this basic driving force cannot be expressed in words, spiritual rituals and stories refer to the force through the use of "metaphors"—these metaphors being the various stories, deities, and objects of spirituality we see in the world. For example, the Genesis myth in the Bible ought not be taken as a literal description of actual events, but rather its poetic, metaphorical meaning should be examined for clues concerning the fundamental truths of the world and our existence.
Campbell was fascinated with what he viewed as basic, universal truths, expressed in different manifestations across different cultures. For example, in the preface to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he indicated that a goal of his was to demonstrate similarities between Eastern and Western religions. In his four-volume series of books The Masks of God, Campbell tried to summarize the main spiritual threads common throughout the world while examining their local manifestations. Tied in with this was his idea that many of the belief systems of the world which expressed these universal truths had a common geographic ancestry, starting off on the fertile grasslands of Europe in the Bronze Age and moving to the Levant and the "Fertile Crescent" of Mesopotamia and back to Europe (and the Far East), where it was mixed with the newly emerging Indo-European (Aryan) culture.
ole Scratch doesn't know who Kurosawa is either.
To pay Lucas much if any heed in his revisionist, post hoc retelling of the thing, he's going to mighty great lengths acting like he doesn't know who he lifted the original movie's plot lock, stock, and light sabre from....,
LOL, CNU, I was trying to stick to the whole universal myth, religious aspect of the thing. Then you had to get into the whole thieving plot aspect of the rabbit hole.
One step at a time here, lol.
LOL. Ahhhh
Ya'll Black Battle Star Gallactica cats are funny.
But Gray Con, you seem to mistake this for being some kind of commentary on the relative merits of Science Fiction. Whether or not Science Fiction is "good or bad".
Which couldn't be further from the truth.
It is what it is.
This is an examination of Collin's argument that "science fiction" Just So happens to be used as a means of conditioning the masses to not only accept, but to expect, a historical narrative of apotheosis.
In the future ... according to Sci Fi symbolism ... Man is God.
This anthropocentric hubris was bred in the occult and expresses itself in Sci-Fi kind of like a Masonic sequel to Evolution.
Whether Collins is right or wrong or whether dude once voted for Lyndon Larouche is immaterial.
I find this process of gradual and subtle inculcation fascinating in light of the abundance of apparently intelligent people willing to squirt monkey virus juice up their noses and believe the earth is going to melt unless we pay a "carbon tax".
The elite gotta be doin' summin.
My man says tricking the masses into believing an "illusion of an infallibly accurate vision of how the world is going to look in the future" is a powerful mind control strategy.
I believe it.
Look at the irrational faith the Plantation MD has in a system so pathetically flawed. When faced with the recall of nearly 1 Million Defective Doses of Swine Flu Vaccine intended for infants, instead of acknowledging the tremendous problems with mass vaccinations, he becomes a vociferous apologist for THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY.
How absurd? Straight up mind control bra. Started with Star Wars. Then DMG was watching Star Trek and that damn Cpt. Kurk. Made him think "Whyt Bwoyz Can Do AnyThang! Dey Jus Like God! If Dey Say Shoot Monkay Virus .. Ima Shoot Monkay Virus!"
(lol ... forgive bra. That monkey virus shit obviously cracks me up.)
Phil put it best:
"Memes (contagious ideas) are instilled through the circulation of "mass appeal" documents under the guise of "science fiction" literature. Once subsumed on a psychocognitive level, these memes become self-fulfilling prophecies, embraced by the masses and outwardly approximated through the efforts of the elite.
In addition to spreading virulent strains of thought, sci-fi has also been instrumental in the promulgation of Darwinism. For instance, the sci-fi literature of Freemason H.G. Wells would play an important role in promulgating the concept of evolution. J.P. Vernier reveals Wells' religious adherence to the concept of evolution and its inspiration on him as an author of science fiction:
Oh. Almost Forgot.
The suggestion that this narrative of apotheosis was born in the head of a John Lucas is as absurd as the suggestion that the alchemy of Evolution was born in the head of that dimwitted Charles Darwin.
Star Wars is a Babylonian repeat.
LOL, cut the shit man.
That scene in the first movie with the IT-O Interrogator did more to make cats scared of needles than any anti-vaccine memes promulgated in these parts or elsewhere.
You done pivoted from Star Wars to Columbine, which was followed quickly by another swift pivot from Star Wars to vaccines, and from there yet another pivot from Star Wars to cap and trade.
If this was a basketball court you'd be called for traveling. You 'bout to twist an intellectual ankle up in here man.
...you seem to mistake this for being some kind of commentary on the relative merits of Science Fiction. Whether or not Science Fiction is "good or bad".
Which couldn't be further from the truth.
This is an examination of Collin's argument that "science fiction" Just So happens to be used as a means of conditioning the masses to not only accept, but to expect, a historical narrative of apotheosis.
Okay, so is using science fiction as a means of conditioning the masses to accept or expect "a historical narrative of apotheosis" a good or bad thing?
Don't sit here and say that you aren't riffing on whether or not sci-fi is good or bad and then turn around and say that we're merely debating the claim which says that sci-fi is used to condition folks to accept "a historical narrative of apotheosis" (whatever that means).
I mean, if you didn't think that conditioning folk to accept "a historical narrative of apotheosis" via sci-fi was either a "good" or a "bad" thing, then why'd you even bring it up? Why frame it terms of "plantation memes" that "depict the future as a world without God" if you didn't think it was either good or bad?
If you really want to examine Collin's argument, then let's do that. We'll suss it out together and come up with something. But don't start leaning on flimsy rhetorical dismissals like "Black Battle Star Gallactica cats" when cats start making salient points which are relevant to the topic.
You say that sci-fi depicts a world without God and used Star Wars as an example. I pointed out that the themes of Star Wars line up nicely with a cat who studied comparative religion and the creator of Star Wars admitted as such.
So let's analyze without all the unnecessary pivoting.
"LOL, cut the shit man." GC
The ol' banana in the tailpipe trick.
"I mean, if you didn't think that conditioning folk to accept "a historical narrative of apotheosis" via sci-fi was either a "good" or a "bad" thing, then why'd you even bring it up?" Gray Con
Whaaaaaa?
Where you get that from Bra?
I brought it up as an experiment.
I consider it a kind of a Plantation Negro Litmus test.
If a muhfuggah is in the process of inculcation ....
And you point it out to him ...
And he continues to allow himself to be inculcated ...
What does that tell you about the muhfuggah?
They want to be inculcated.
Now Ye Negros of limited imagination who consider it an "Out of the question Stretchhhhhhhhh to use mass vaccinations in an analogy about apotheosis may see it other wise. Cool.
But it's far from "cut the shit" grasshopper.
Experiment?
Wouldn't it be easier to come out and say what you're trying to say, in plain English?
Would it be easier to come out and hear what you're trying to hear, in plain English?
lol ...
damn.
Cats get hostile up in this campe if they don't understand something immediately.
It's ok. Bra.
It's ok.
Chill.
Sit on it for a minute.
Aint a problem.
Not good or bad.
It just is.
Cats get hostile up in this campe if they don't understand something immediately.
LOL, DV, there's nothing to understand or not understand, because you haven't said anything.
Ahhh ... Come now grasshopper.
Don't let them nerdy haters get you twisted.
DV just reverse engineered the mythology of why you have a "yeah sort of" relationship with God.
Anybody said anything of more value to you ... drop a link:
_______________________ .
DV just reverse engineered the mythology of why you have a "yeah sort of" relationship with God.
Beelzebub jes mad cause idolatry and blood sacrifice seem to have fallen out of fashion too...,
Why Lavar Burton Malthus!
Idolatry ... and blood sacrifice ... out of fashion?
Shiit. That Kansas prairie grass is clogging up your dopamine hegemony bra.
It's not only in fashion Lavar. Idolatry and Blood Sacrifice is all the rage!
Straight up Babylon up in this camp.
You don't recognize it because Sci-Fi was used as a Trojan Horse to lure you nerds into a Luciferian future.
One man's '115,000 abortions per day' is another man's "blood sacrifice".
Just as ...
One man's '115,000 abortions per day' is another man's disposal of "biological glob".
Both men arrived at their perspective views via design. Both designs have different authors. And it aint no muhfuggin' John Lucas.
So go LaVar Skywalker. And may the force remind you. Denmark Vesey is school.
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