Socratic Seminar and Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces

Here's a few passages on a topic that we didn't explore during this reading of LHoD. Feel free to use them as prompting for ideas for our Socratic seminar discussion and don't forget to create two of your own (similar to the wave questions on the blog).

Joseph Campbell, American mythologist best know for his work in comparative mythology and religion, identified a common motif of the hero with a thousand faces—the same basic story of the hero’s journey seen in the myths in various cultures spanning history.  

Joseph Campbell viewed the hero’s journey as a story that can be used to help people better understand their own lives.  Consider Campbell’s following thoughts on the journey, and consider how these questions might help us better understand The Left Hand of Darkness:

1. “People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. 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.”
2. "We have not even to risk the journey alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."
3. “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.”
4. "When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness."
5. “In these stories, the adventure that the hero is ready for is the one he gets. The adventure is symbolically a manifestation of his character. Even the landscape and the conditions of the environment match his readiness.”