'Finding YOU'

     
"A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life."

Joseph Campbell


This evening was the only New York City area screening of a new film titled "Finding Joe," a documentary about the work of Professor Joseph Campbell, the scholar at Vassar who delved into the world's mythologies and religious stories, discovering what he believed to be the single unifying theme found in all those morality tales: the Hero's Journey.

Arguably the most apt example of this is that first Star Wars movie from 1977. Consider the plot and you'll have the Hero's Journey concept, because George Lucas very deliberately assembled the story in accord with Campbell's teachings in his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." Luke Skywalker, a boy of uncertain parentage, suffers a life-changing shock which propels him, reluctantly, forth into the dangerous world (or galaxy, as this story has it). He meets with an older figure, someone to mentor him, and together they travel to places unimaginable. The mentor equips his apprentice with special tools, and schools him in their esoteric uses. The apprentice suffers the loss of his master, and must continue the adventure without him, relying on himself and what he has learned. He does battle with an enemy thought unbeatable, and even is swallowed whole by a monster, before conquering the enemy, achieving his goal, and returning to the world he had left in the innocence of his youth.

To strip this theme to its skeleton robs it of much of its appeal, but think of how many of man's stories adhere to that very formula. It's the life of Jesus, the dream of Dorothy, the quest of Frodo, the lessons of so many Greek myths. There's no limit to its application, because a story's time and place are only incidental; what matters is the story is true to each of us. Your psychology or my psychology or anyone's can be grafted onto the fundamental theme of the Hero's Journey to tell our own unique epics. Each of us has a paralyzing fear to confront and defeat as a necessary part of growth, and indeed achieving happiness. At the end of this film, it is explained that "Finding Joe" is not the documentarian's search for this famous man named Joe, but as a title, "Finding Joe" is only a rhetorical device synonymous with you finding yourself; you identifying your fundamental purpose in life, and then surpassing all internal obstacles (fear and other emotions that produce our excuses and procrastinations) to achieve your goals.

The tagline in the film's marketing quotes Campbell saying "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." An urgent lesson for anyone, but especially for those who have come in the same way and manner as all others before.

The various people interviewed in the film phrase these concepts far more creatively than I have here, and so I urge you to see "Finding Joe," and even to arrange to screen it for your brethren. This edition of The Magpie Mason is a rare commercial endorsement, so click here to purchase the $20 DVD. (My movie ticket at Symphony Space cost me $22!) The running time is only 80 minutes, but the impact of the wisdom imparted will leave you with a different understanding of any number of Masonic rituals, from the Sublime Degree to Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. All of those rites in which Masonic Man is sent forth on a quest owe their existence to this amazing anthropological dynamic Joseph Campbell discerned in the world's religions and mythologies.

"A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life."

Don't let Campbell's Hero's Journey displace any of the moral and esoteric understandings of Masonic degrees you hold already, but just make some room for another shelf amid your stock of knowledge.