The Power of Myth

by Joseph Campbell

Very often one of the things that one learns as a member of the mystery religions is that the labyrinth, which blocks, is at the same time the way to eternal life. This is the final secret of myth—to teach you how to penetrate the labyrinth of life in such a way that its spiritual values come through. That is the problem of Dante’s Divine Comedy, too. The crisis comes in the “middle of the way of our life,” when the body is beginning to fade, and another whole constellation of themes comes breaking into your dream world. Dante says that, in the middle year of his life, he was lost in a dangerous wood. And he was threatened there by three animals, symbolizing pride, desire, and fear. Then Virgil, the personification of poetic insight, appeared and conducted him through the labyrinth of hell, which is the place of those fixed to their desires and fears, who can’t pass through to eternity. Dante was carried through to the beatific vision of God. On a smaller scale, in this Pima Indian story, we have the same mythological image. The Pima Indians were among the simplest Indian cultures in North America. And here they have, in their own way, made use of this highly sophisticated image, which matches Dante.