The Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell was an American academic and researcher who spent decades traveling the world studying the myths, stories, and images of a wide and extensive variety of different cultures. Over the course of his studies, he discovered that in almost every culture, myths and stories had certain archetypal or common elements. Among these commonalities were stories of heroes, either male or female, who went on physical journeys through magical kingdoms and eventually returned home having achieved both a physical goal and an inner spiritual transformation. In other words, their physical journeys were in many ways an externalization, or manifestation, of an inner emotional, spiritual, or psychological journey. Campbell discovered and documented such similarly patterned stories in cultures spanning huge tracts of time and geography - from Ancient Egypt to contemporary American film (i.e. "The Wizard of Oz" and "Star Wars"), from the Bible to "The...