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Ben Blake contributed to the running commentary, at this point, by remarking: "Irrespective of whatever other reservations I might have concerning Jung's perspective, one of the differences between him and Campbell that I've always appreciated was the healthy respect that Jung had for the complexity of forces at work in the unknown realms in which he was interested. I find far less of this kind of respect in Campbell, although there can be little doubt Campbell had great respect for the wisdom that he believed could be obtained by venturing into the unknown worlds beneath the surface of myth.

"Jung never believed the forces inherent in the world of archetypes could be tamed. There were transcendent dimensions to that world that he believed were beyond human abilities to master or comprehend.

"Campbell, on the other hand, often seems to give the impression that the hero is one who conquers and tames the forces encountered during the inward journey. While this may be true as far as one's struggle with one's own personal ego is concerned, the same cannot be said of the principle of Divinity that is realized during the egoless state.

"This principle of Divinity is not something which one masters or tames. In fact, one would be more accurate if one were to contend this principle of Divinity has helped one to master and tame the unruliness and rebellious ignorance of the personal ego.

"The hero's victory has been won while venturing forth in an unknown world. Yet, the victory is really over the enemy - in other words, the personal ego - that the hero has brought with him from the everyday world into the regions of the new world.

"Nothing of the new world has been tamed or conquered. The hero is a hero for facing himself and choosing Divinity over his own ego, even though when all of this is looked at from the egoless side of things, I'm sure this decision process is seen as a no-brainer.

"Campbell calls on us to surrender completely to the forces of the new world. Jung, however, advises caution.

"To be sure, Jung is warning us in this fashion because he feels the ego must be protected from identifying too deeply with the realm of archetypes and, as a result, running the risk of the dissolution of identity and healthy ego functioning. Nevertheless, Jung also is warning us in this fashion because he knows, based on personal experience, one is capable of being misled, confused and destroyed by some of the forces associated with the world of archetypes.

"In a sense, Jung is counseling us to look before we leap, and if we do leap, we should take care not to leap too far. Campbell, on the other hand, seems to be advising us that in the context of responding to the symbols of myth, he who hesitates is lost, and, moreover, there is no such thing as leaping too far.

"As Colby has indicated, however, Jung's counsel is rooted in actual experience. Campbell's advice is based on little more than armchair musings on these issues.

"Consequently, Jung's cautionary note is nuanced in a way that only comes from the benefit of lived experience, while Campbell's theoretical encouragement lacks the tempering quality which comes from having seen, in a direct fashion, that there are aspects of the journey, or forces encountered on this quest, that are quite independent of the ego, yet, nonetheless, are capable of leading one away from the condition of enlightenment. In other words, there may be good reasons why one ought not, in an indiscriminate fashion, give oneself over to, or surrender to, certain forces and dimensions encountered during the inward journey.

"Not only does one's relationship with the external world have a potential for generating illusion and delusion, one's relationship with the internal world has this potential as well. As a result, one would be well advised to exercise some degree of discretion before surrendering to the forces, powers and wonders that one runs into during one's journey.

"These considerations lead me to another issue with respect to Campbell. This involves what appears to me to be an inconsistency in his view of the status of the world.

"Sometimes, one finds Campbell talking about the worthless nature of the normal, everyday world. At other times, Campbell characterizes this world as, ultimately, not being essentially different from the reality the enlightened hero discovers in the new world to which the hero has journeyed during his quest.

"Surely, in all of this, the real nature of the world remains constant. What varies is the person's relationship to, and understanding of, that world's nature.

"The everyday world is not what is worthless. What is worthless are our attitudes toward, and our ways of interacting with, that world.

"Our ignorance and condition of unenlightenment are what create the illusion of a worthless world. Therefore, part of the wisdom that the returning hero has to share with humanity concerns the fact of our having devalued the true nature of the world through the faulty understandings which we are imposing on that world.

"Campbell was right, I feel, to criticize, among others, Jung when these people sought to get their clients to hold on to ego-consciousness and to strengthen the role of the ego in everyday functioning. Yet, Jung may have been right- although, perhaps, for the wrong reasons- to treat the everyday world as real rather than illusory and worthless as Campbell sometimes is inclined to do, at least prior to the fourth volume of The Masks of God.

"On the other hand, Campbell was right, I believe, to argue that the principle of Divinity is actively present in the everyday world. The nearest which Jung comes to any of this - and this is not really near at all - is to allow for the possibility that the individual may project archetypal elements from the realm of the collective unconscious onto different facets of the external world.

"Nonetheless, in my opinion, and I agree with Colby on this, one of Campbell's shortcomings was that Campbell didn't necessarily understand what he was saying. As Colby has suggested, perhaps the reason for this is his theory may have been uninformed by actual mystical or spiritual experiences.

"In any event, one finds, I think, some signs of the inconsistent status of the world within Campbell's framework when one reflects, somewhat, on his reaction to his experiences in India. If Campbell really understood what he was saying about the true nature of the world, then he would have put his trip to India in proper perspective.

"When people devalue the true nature of the world, then they automatically are prepared to devalue the people who live in that world. Alternatively, when people devalue their own true nature and, instead, become entangled in the machinations of their personal egos, then one will devalue the true nature of both the world as well as the true nature of other human beings.

"Furthermore, professing to believe in the teachings of a religious or spiritual or tradition, is not the same thing as sincerely living in accordance with those teachings. Campbell, however, often seems to feel the former realm of mere belief will somehow guarantee the realization and implementation of what is being professed."

"I've been listening quite intently," intervened Tammy Winthrop, "to what Andrea, Colby and Ben have been saying. Suddenly, an idea came to me. This idea may or may not be correct, but it makes a lot of sense, at least to me, when one considers it in the context of what appears to be a major shift in Campbell's thinking which, to the best of my knowledge, he never explained - or, at least, never explained to my satisfaction.

"In any case, the idea is this. When Campbell went to India and saw that true, sincere action did not necessarily follow from belief, maybe he was shaken concerning his own understanding of things. After all, if everything worked the way his theory said it did, then he should have wondered how these sort of oppressive, impoverished and individual-devaluing conditions could be possible in a land that, supposedly, was the origin for the notion of egoless enlightenment that played such an important role in his book: The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

"These experiences would have carried, I believe, a very problematic implication for his own teachings. If he wished to continue to maintain that all one needed in order to gain access to enlightenment was to obtain, with the help of a sage, a true interpretation of the symbols inherent in a myth, then how does he explain the social conditions he discovered in India where there was a wealth of symbol-laden mythic material, as well as the sages necessary to provide correct interpretations of, and guidance concerning, the significance, meaning and value of such material?

"His time in India proved to him that a basic operating principle of his theoretical approach to myth was contra-indicated by actual experience. Ironically, rather than understand the symbolic significance of his experiences in India, Campbell seemed to hold the East's teachings at fault rather than the individuals with personal egos who were the ones with the responsibility for taking up the quest of the hero and, then, after successfully completing the inward journey, living in accordance with the unitive understanding brought forth through the condition of enlightenment.

"Supposedly, for Campbell, the ultimate significance and message of the hero myth was the oneness of reality. On the one hand, enlightenment joined the visible and invisible worlds together and showed them to be different aspects of one and the same active principle of Divinity. Moreover, self-realization provided the insight which fused the world of consciousness with the unconscious realms and demonstrated them to be so many expressions of the same underlying reality.

"Yet, ostensibly, Campbell was not able to reconcile the facts he learned on his trip to India with the principle of unity that he alleged to be at the heart of the meaning of the hero myth. This left him with a huge theoretical problem, since if the hero myths were not about the unity of being - as his trip to India seemed to lead him to believe might be the case - then what did the hero myth mean?

"Andrea earlier indicated there is a dimension in the teachings of Campbell that is not necessarily in Jung's theoretical framework. More specifically, for Campbell, symbols do not have just a psychological meaning, as is, by and large, the case for Jung, symbols also have a metaphysical meaning for Campbell.

"Campbell is not interested in just putting forth a correct theory of the nature of myth. Campbell believes his theory of myth correctly reflects the structural character of the reality or ontology of the universe and human beings.

"Therefore, symbols are rooted in something more than the realm of psychology. Symbols are rooted in ontology as well.

"In this respect, and as I suggested previously, one of the major problems for Campbell is how to demonstrate that his experiences in India are consistent with a theory of myth that, seemingly, Campbell believes does not, cannot, or should not, allow for the sort of social conditions which he had witnessed during his trip. If Campbell were not thinking along these lines, then, one could hypothesize, he might not have responded in as negative a fashion as he did following his trip there.

"As far as psychological symbolism is concerned, Campbell can continue to construe the meaning of the hero myth, along with other varieties of myth, as being one of unity. However, he seemed to have difficulty continuing to do this - at least, perhaps, in the privacy of his own thoughts - with respect to the meaning of the metaphysical or ontological symbolism inherent in myth."

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