The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
Third Edition
Page 5
The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings,
terrors, and deluding images up into the mind -
whether in dream, broad daylight, or insanity;
for the human kingdom,
beneath the floor of the comparatively neat
little dwelling that we call our consciousness,
goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves.
There not only jewels
but also dangerous jinn abide:
the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that
we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives.
And they may remain unsuspected,
or, on the other hand, some chance word,
the smell of a landscape,
the taste of a cup of tea,
or the glance of an eye may
touch a magic spring,
and then dangerous messengers
begin to appear in the brain.
These are dangerous because they
threaten the fabric of the security
into which we have built ourselves and our family.
But they are fiendishly fascinating
too, for they carry keys
that open the whole realm of the
desired and feared adventure of
the discovery of the self.
Destruction of the world that we
have built and in which we live,
and of ourselves within it;
but then a wonderful reconstruction
of the bolder, cleaner, more
spacious, and fully human life -
that is the lure,
the promise
and the terror,
of these disturbing night visitants from the
mythological realm that we carry within.
The End
