Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and their disciples who have “demonstrated irrefutably that the logic, the heroes, and the deeds of myth survive into modern times.” These pioneers of psychology have provided an intellectual framework in which man can finally understand, without resorting to metaphor, the pattern and significance of the quest for self-knowledge that leads to a greater appreciation of what it means to be human. His text is filled with analysis of the psychological ramifications of the various stories detailing the hero’s descent into the underworld, his meetings with supernatural figures, his mastery of skills, and his triumphs over monsters and ogres. Using primarily the techniques of dream analysis popularized by Freud and the explanation of archetypes outlined by Jung, Campbell shows how the hero’s triumph is not over outside forces but over himself: “The perilous journey” turns out in every case to be “not of attainment but of reattainment, not discovery but rediscovery. The godly powers” which the hero strives to possess “are revealed to have been within the heart of the hero all the time.”

Campbell’s manner of presentation for this provocative thesis is largely anecdotal. Entire pages of the text are often devoted simply to recounting in detail the adventures of a hero whose story illustrates a single point Campbell wishes to make. The juxtaposition of tales from a variety of cultures helps Western readers understand the universality of these stories, and Campbell frequently chooses to illustrate his argument with non-Western examples for precisely that reason, leaving it to readers to see the parallels to stories with which they are more familiar. For example, after giving a brief account of the biblical version of the Virgin Birth, Campbell devotes several pages to stories from India, Tonga, and pre-Columbian South America—all to make the point that the miraculous tale of Jesus’ conception is not unique but simply one of several such tales about heroes who come as redeemers to their civilizations. At another point, after quoting the Creation story from the first chapter of Genesis, he adds that this “is the Biblical version of a myth known to many lands.” In part, at least, Campbell is out to demonstrate that no religion has unique or privileged claim on mankind; all are simply representations of the human need to find explanations for vexing phenomena.

There is, too, in Campbell, a nonscholarly bent toward the dramatic, a sense that scholarship must be placed in service to a higher political or social calling. On numerous occasions in the text he interrupts his commentary to exhort his readers to some kind of special awareness or even to action. If there is an overriding purpose beyond the scholar’s desire to illuminate or explain the past, Campbell expresses it succinctly near the close of his study: “The hero-deed to be wrought is not today what it was in the century of Galileo,” he notes; instead, it “must be that of questing to bring to light again the lost Atlantis of the coordinated soul.” This cannot be accomplished by turning away from modern advances; the contemporary hero must face progress squarely so that he may make the modern world “spiritually significant” or in other words make “it possible for men and women to come to full human maturity through the conditions of contemporary life.” Humanity itself is now “the crucial mystery” to be penetrated by the contemporary hero, the “alien presence with whom the forces of egoism must come to terms.” The modern hero must seek to understand the true human nature in spite of current prejudices against doing so, the chief among them, Campbell intimates, being the spirits of individualism, misguided religious fanaticism, and nationalism that characterize twentieth century society worldwide. These are the monsters from which the contemporary hero must save mankind.

Campbell’s modern hero is modeled on existentialist lines. Like Friedrich Nietzsche’s Superman, he relies on no gods or demons to support him, believes in no magic totems to ward off forces bent on his destruction. Instead, he recognizes clearly that none of these exist—except in his own mind. The ultimate horror that he confronts is much like the horror that Joseph Conrad’s Mr. Kurtz cries out against in Heart of Darkness (1902): The potential for savagery, greed, cruelty, and bestiality exists within man himself, as forces to keep him from realizing his full potential and achieving happiness. Campbell’s contemporary hero will come to grips with himself, understanding the need to give of himself so that society will prosper.