Vilnius pedagogical university faculty of foreign languages department of english philology

These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with the themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don’t know what the guide-signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself. (The Power of Myth, p. 4)

For Campbell, myths were stories which reflect human search for truth through the ages. People are created to “touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious” (The Power of Myth, p. 5), and for that reason they have to be able to cope with death and to accept life. These tasks would not be achievable without the help of myths. Moreover, in Campbell’s view “myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.” (The Power of Myth,

p. 5) There is one more famous quotation by the mythologist:
Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people’s myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts – but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. It tells you what the experience is. (The Power of Myth, p. 6)

Campbell believed that myths teach us the wisdom of life, while in schools people do not learn it. Schools provide pupils with technologies, information, different sorts of facts, while myths help to get the feeling and realization of a real life with all its mysteries and secrets. He claimed that “Mythology teaches you what’s behind literature and the arts, it teaches you about your own life. It’s a great, exciting, life-nourishing subject.” (The Power of Myth, p. 11) Campbell also compared myths to the world’s archetypal dreams which deal with great human problems.

The mythologist believed myths to be manifestations of human spirituality. They are the society’s dreams, which come from the same source like human dreams do. They teach people how to live, how to cope with death, how to behave in the world; in other words, they bear special meaning. Myths are “all the gods, all the heavens, all the worlds” (The Power of Myth, p. 39) within us.

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   CAMPBELL’S CLASSIFICATION OF THE FUNCTIONS OF MYTH
   

Campbell distinguished four basic functions of myth: metaphysical, cosmological, sociological, and pedagogical. (The Power of Myth, pp. 31-32)
The metaphysical function serves to awaken people’s minds to the mystery and wonder of life and creation, to open people’s hearts and souls to the secrets of the world. In other words, this function helps to realize that the world is overwhelmingly extraordinary and inimitable, and to conceive the greatness and importance of human existence. Moreover, the metaphysical function of myth sharpens people’s feelings, helps them to receive the hidden messages of the universe, to be able to appreciate its wonders fully. It is obvious that such things cannot be expressed directly, for that reason myths employ symbols and metaphors which are not bound to objective reality. To put it otherwise, this function gives way to metaphoric thinking and language which, accordingly, tune people to experience mystery of the world. (The Power of Myth, p. 31)
The second function – the sociological, helps to support a certain social order, it provides people with moral and ethic code to follow. So, myth makes it clear what ethical code is appropriate, what the institutional rituals are, etc. Campbell wrote about this function as follows: “And here’s where the myths vary enormously from place to place. You can have a whole mythology for polygamy, a whole mythology for monogamy. Either one is okay.” (The Power of Myth, p. 31) Consequently, myths provide people with information concerning particular social patterns. The sociological function of myth serves to link a man to a particular society. Every person is not a separate segment; he or she is a member of a large group – the surrounding society. Moreover, every single man is a part of the universe. Campbell wrote: “We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet.” (The Power of Myth, p. 24) Societies may differ – some of them have polygamy, others practice monogamy, but generally all the people of the world live according to the same norms, rules and values. There exist unwritten laws which govern our behaviour and shape our attitude to other people and objects. These unwritten laws are reflected in the
sociological function of mythology – they are meant to support and validate a certain social order and produce the laws of life which form a good society.
The cosmological function of myth describes the shape of the cosmos and the universe. Due to it people get the vivid view of the total world surrounding them. According to Campbell, science deals with this cosmological dimension. This function shows us “what the shape of the universe is”, but it is done in such a way that “the mystery again comes through.” (The Power of Myth, p. 31) Every object existing on our planet is charged with meaning and significance; it has its place in the cosmological scheme which the myth provides. In other words, the cosmological function of myth comprises the explanatory aspect. It educes the mystery of the objects surrounding people. Campbell mentioned that interestingly enough, the more scientists learn about the Earth, the more mystical their knowledge becomes:


Today we tend to think that scientists have all the answers. But the great ones tell us, “No, we haven’t got all the answers. We’re telling you how it works – but what is it?” You strike a match, what’s fire? You can tell me about oxidation, but that doesn’t tell me a thing. (The Power of Myth, p. 31)

Consequently, the cosmological function of myth is responsible for describing people’s environment: every rock, every hill and stone has its particular place and meaning in the cosmological scheme. It can be well illustrated by the following example: if the whole humanity is a newborn child, then the cosmological function is to help him or her to explore the surrounding world and figure out how all the processes happen. Moreover, it has to help that child to recognize all these numerous surrounding objects as parts of a single great holy picture, to conceive the trees, the Sun, the animals, etc. as messengers of the mysterious knowledge.

Manny Otto, commenting on Campbell’s functions of myth, states, that the cosmological function seeks to invigorate every particle of the cosmological image with mythological references. According to Campbell, throughout the history, the cosmological function is performed by “the great seers”. In different cultures and at different times they have diverse names: they are “Rishis” in India; in Biblical terms they are called “Prophets”; in primary cultures they were called “Shamans”; and, finally, in contemporary society they are “Poets”, “Artists” and “Scientists”.
The pedagogical function of myth, Campbell believed, is the most important of the four main functions. According to him, everyone must try to relate to it, as it teaches “how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances”. (The Power of Myth, p. 31) The pedagogical
function of myth serves as a beacon leading people through the most significant stages of their lives – from dependency to the final passage, which is death. It also brings people into harmony with the “ground being” – a term often used by Campbell to refer to an unnamed, unspecified universal mystical power. Moreover, the pedagogical function allows men to make this journey through their lives with a sense of comfort and purpose.
Justin Muller and Lenore Harris analyzed the functions of myth, classified by Campbell, and came to the conclusion that the pedagogical function deals with the human values. It teaches people how to behave; however, it differs from the sociological function, which seems to have a similar meaning and purpose. From their point of view, the difference lies in the very scheme of these functions. The sociological one refers basically to a particular society (societies may differ, in some cases even absolutely); while the pedagogical one is referred to the universe (universal values are accepted by all the societies of the world). To put it simply, the pedagogical function pinpoints what is right and what is wrong on a universal scale.

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