The Power of Myth

by Joseph Campbell

The first instruction would be to follow the hints of the myth itself and of your guru, your teacher, who should know. It’s like an athlete going to a coach. The coach tells him how to bring his own energies into play. A good coach doesn’t tell a runner exactly how to hold his arms or anything like that. He watches him run, then helps him to correct his own natural mode. A good teacher is there to watch the young person and recognize what the possibilities are—then to give advice, not commands. The command would be, “This is the way I do it, so you must do it this way, too.” Some artists teach their students that way. But the teacher in any case has to talk it out, to give some general clues. If you don’t have someone to do that for you, you’ve got to work it all out from scratch—like reinventing the wheel. A good way to learn is to find a book that seems to be dealing with the problems that you’re now dealing with. That will certainly give you some clues. In my own life I took my instruction from reading Thomas Mann and James Joyce, both of whom had applied basic mythological themes to the interpretation of the problems, questions, realizations, and concerns of young men growing up in the modern world. You can discover your own guiding-myth motifs through the works of a good novelist who himself understands these things.

Jack