BEYOND THE HERO'S JOURNEY

Other Powerful Mythic Themes

BEYOND THE HERO'S JOURNEY

Other Powerful Mythic Themes

by

Pamela Jaye Smith

Pamela Jaye Smith
MYTHWORKS
7231 Franklin Ave.
Hollywood, CA 90046
323-874-6042 phone/fax
www.mythworks.net
pjs@mythworks.net

Copyright 2004 by Pamela Jaye Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews.
Published 2007
Printed by CafePress.com in the United States of America

ISBN 979-0-9790295-0-9
 BEYOND THE HERO’S JOURNEY
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

What is Theme and why do you need one? 5

Selecting Your Themes 9

Thematic Plot Points 12

Four Planes of the Plot Points 16

Arranging the Mythic Plot Points 20

Maintaining Originality 23

The Mythic Themes — each section includes:

Media Echoes
The Myth
The Mythic Meaning
Plot Points

About Face 26

Damsel in Distress 39

Parsifal - Search for the Holy Grail 49

Stealing Fire from Heaven 57

Wakeup Call 63

The Ajna Focus - Character’s Self-Initiation 76

Recommended Reading

Author Bio
*****
 BEYOND THE HERO’S JOURNEY

Other Powerful Mythic Themes

Having trouble making your story fit the pattern of The Hero’s Journey?

Can’t quite make those paradigms match your own characters and plot?

Maybe that’s because your story is actually based on a different pattern.

Contrary to popular opinion, The Hero's Journey is not the only mythic Theme.
It's certainly a good one but it is only one of many.
A few years after the publication of Hero With a Thousand Faces, Dr. Joseph
Campbell modified his position and observed that for different times and places there
were different mythic structures and archetypes.
This book introduces you to many other powerful Mythic Themes ranging from
“Lost Love Rescued” to “The Wake-up Call”, from “War In Heaven” to “The Search for
the Promised Land”.

Your story isn’t mythic?

Well, it should be.

And it can be.

 No matter the genre, no matter the style, from futuristic to faeries, from coming-
of-age to aged lovers, the heart and spine of your story will usually echo some ancient
tale. Figure out what that is, align your story with those timeless paradigms and voila —
your story is now mythic.

Your story is entirely original?

Well… probably not.

But that’s okay.

It’s good, actually. You know that saying about nothing new under the sun? It’s
kind of true and kind of not true. Though these timeless tales we call myths survive the
rise and fall of civilizations and seem to magically appear and reappear across the globe,
every culture and every age gives each of those marvelous old stories their own special
spin. And so can you. The guidelines in this book are simply that — guidelines. They
are not formulas, they are not formats, they are not cookie-cutters.

The Mythic Themes are like musical keys, an artist’s palette, poetic styles — they
are, like The Hero’s Journey, powerful universal paradigms that can enhance your own
individualistic story-telling.
Each Mythic Theme is explained and explored via:
• Media Echoes - other stories, movies, etc. on the same theme to help you identify
which Theme resonates the most for your particular story.
• The Myth itself.
• Mythic Meaning - what great truths does the story hold?
 • Symbols, Analogies, Metaphors, and more.
• Plot Points - guidelines for your own story.

This book can be a valuable reference and resource for all your story-telling projects.
By aligning your own story with one of these ancient and timeless Mythic Themes,
you’ll be tapping into the power of those myth-makers who crafted the original stories
to touch the human heart and inspire the human soul.
Using the guidelines in Beyond the Hero’s Journey, you can:
• Refine and focus your story theme.
• Select an appropriate sub-plot to enhance your story.
• Use the Plot Points as guidelines for plot drivers, incidences, and scenes in your
story.
• Use the symbols and images that will fire recognition in your audience.
• Maintain your originality while tapping into the timeless power of these classic
myths.
• Take your place in the long line of myth-makers who create moving and
memorable stories that engage and entertain your audience.

*****
WHAT IS A THEME AND WHY DO YOU NEED A ONE?

“What’s your story about?” asks someone who could actually get your story sold,
printed, produced, or filmed. You wander around the plot giving incidences here,
scenes there, and the would-be helper’s eyes glaze over. You need a concise method to
convey your story Theme, one which will resonate with Familiarity yet stun with
Surprise.
Or perhaps you’ve done the workshops, read the books, and have the pitch down
on your latest screenplay, novel, play, or short story. That’s great, congratulations. But
you can always refine it just a bit, add some extra flair, right?
And what about the story in your head, the one you’re about to write?
Or you’re a director and you’re handed a script that doesn’t seem to know what
it’s about. What can you do?
Or you’re an actor and your role in the script seems vague and unmotivated.
How can you interpret and play out your character to relate it to the main Theme of the
story?
In the movie Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan there’s a copy of Herman Melville’s
classic novel Moby Dick on the bookshelf in Khan’s desert Planet hut. Some people
liken Khan’s long-lived vengeance towards Captain Kirk as a futuristic version of
Captain Ahab’s vengeance towards the white whale Moby Dick that had taken his leg in
an earlier encounter. If you know the story of Moby Dick you might correctly infer that
this movie is going to be about obsession and vengeance.
A designer can do wonders for a production by tapping into the story’s
underlying Theme (even if the other collaborators don’t) and infusing the sets, props,
and wardrobe with an appropriate thematic look and feel.
 Art, among many things, is structure within chaos. Modern Information
Theory basically says that the more order and the more bits of information that exist
within a system, the more able that system is to convey intent and meaning without
distortion. Yet you need some chaos for the system not to be static, for it to be
interesting, a bit unsettling and provocative. There’s always plenty of chaos. The order
in your creative endeavor is your Theme.
So...
What is a Theme?
What is a premise?
Which do you need first?
What do they do?
Why should you care?
Have you ever been boggled in your attempt to state the Theme of your story? Is
it "Love conquers all", "Greed is good", "Stand by your man", "Duty versus desire",
"Death before dishonor"? Rather than Themes, these are premises from which to
launch a Theme, but a Theme is a much more complex thing.
‘Theme’, according to the Webster's dictionary, is from Latin and Greek thema:
"that which is laid down" (or plotted out).
‘Premise’ is from the Latin prae-mittere: "to send before; a previous statement or
assertion that serves as the basis for an argument" (or story).
Actually either one can come first in the writer’s creative process but they should
eventually work hand in hand with structural and tonal integrity.
The Theme gives you the Storyline and its Plot Points.
The Premise gives the Theme its tone, its mood and feeling.
You can have various stories on the same Theme but with different Premises and
thus they’ll be quite different one from the other. Some examples are these stories on
the Theme of “Cross-Dress for Success”: Some Like It Hot, The Crying Game, Mrs.
Doubtfire, M. Butterfly, Boys Don’t Cry. Other examples are stories on the Theme of
“Lost Love Rescued”: Orpheus and Eurydice, Streets of Fire, Against All Odds,
Bodyguard, The English Patient. If you think about each of these stories on similar
Themes you’ll see that they prove different points (Premises) in different ways such as
comedic, tragic, romantic, action-oriented, etc.
Obviously you the storyteller care about crafting the most accessible vehicle for
your creativity. You want to make the greatest, most effective connection with the
greatest number of people. One sure way to do that is to be sure your story resonates
with the integrity of its inherent Theme. Don't be distracted, don't fill the story with
things that don't belong, and make sure all the pieces fit one to the other.
Recognition and proper use of Theme is the first step towards creating this
artistic integrity.

In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas reworked the 4th Century B.C. Greek
philosopher Aristotle's thoughts about poetic Unities into these three: Wholeness,
Harmony, Radiance.
Stories that are "all over the place", "lost me in the middle", or "what was that
about?" do not have integrity of Theme, do not have Wholeness. Think of how
effective a laser beam is. What is it? Concentrated light. By recognizing your inherent
Theme or by selecting one and sticking with it, you will concentrate the whole light of
your creativity to great effect.
You can accomplish the other two Unities of Harmony and Radiance by
designing similar integrities of Tone accompanied by aligned symbols, images, naming,
speech styles, blocking, etc.

*****
SELECTING YOUR THEMES

As an artist, you naturally tap into the creative realm, pull down a concept and
interpret it according to your own time, place, and experiences. Problems can arise if
your interpretation gets muddied, distracted, or distorted beyond recognition.
If you don’t already know what your Theme is (and often the artist simply does
not) or you have a number of Themes working in a story at once, understanding your
Theme will help clarify your intent and message.
Most stories will have a main Theme and a sub-plot Theme. As a writer, you
may find as you go over the various Themes that what you thought was your main plot
is really better as a sub-plot. And something that seemed like a side-story or back-story
is really what you are trying to say and should be the main Theme of your story.
You may already know what your Theme is. Great. If it’s listed here, then you
can immerse yourself in other works on that Theme and check your story beats against
the Plot Points.
If you’re unsure what your Theme is, read through this book and see if one of
them strikes you with a deep similarity. Try re-telling that particular thematic storyline
with your own characters and actions and see if it feels close.
Ask others to read your story and tell you what other stories it reminds them of.
Remember, it’s okay to be like other stories in Theme, because that gives the audience
Familiarity. But you must be different in how you tell it, to give them Surprise.
If you’re still stuck in identifying your story’s Theme, pull out the earliest draft,
the version closest to your initial inspiration. Sometimes, especially when you’re
writing with partners or writing for someone else, it’s easy to get off-track and start
telling a different story from the one you set out to tell. Get back to the essence of what
you wanted to say. Somewhere deep inside your mind and your heart that seed of
inspiration still lives. Track it down and bring it back to light. You, your story, and
your audience will all thank you for it.
 ...I find a lot of my ideas in history.
That’s where they keep the stories.
Nicholas Meyer, writer-director
Star Trek movies II, IV, VI,
Time After Time, The 7% Solution

By no means are all Mythic Themes covered in this book. If you don’t find a
match for your story here, ask around among friends for feedback, think of how you’d
describe your story to a development exec or agent in that one line pitch: “Well, it’s like
Die Hard meets The Piano”, and go from there. Since most modern stories have a link
to ancient stories, you can work your way backwards and find that Mythic Theme.
Then read all the stories on that same Theme, and build a chart of their Plot Points.
But hopefully, you’ll find your Mythic Theme among the many here. Also, there will
be another book or two from MYTHWORKS on Mythic Themes, so be sure to get on
the MYTHWORKS mailing list.
Once you’ve decided which Mythic Theme you’re telling, then really immerse
yourself in it. See at least three of the visual versions. Read the original myth. Read a
version of the story from the Middle Ages, or the 1930’s, or from a totally different
culture. Mathematics and science have now shown us how repetitive patterns occur in
nature in the form of fractals. Stories work on the same principle. The connection
with a pattern, even in the smallest scale, puts you in touch with the entire body of that
pattern. In the same way, immersing yourself in these various expressions of a Mythic
Theme taps your creative mind straight into the power source of inspiration. It’s like
tuning a musical instrument: your mind will begin to resonate with all the ideas and
versions and twists and turns that particular story can take.
 Tuning into your Mythic Theme is a simple procedure really, and not that
mystical at all. You probably already do it as an artist. Certainly actors do by getting
“into” the role. In fact, most creative people build a little world around themselves in
which they live while they’re working on a project. It’s a little bubble of a separate
reality and after a while you know whether or not you’re “in” it. There are lots of
phrases for this: in the grove, in the zone, cruising, living it, tuned in, on line, plugged
in....
The sciences tell us again and again that everything is vibrating all the time. By
consciously setting your creative, mental, and emotional bodies to the frequency of your
Theme, you become the actual instrument through which an eternal story can be sung
anew.

*****

THEMATIC PLOT-POINTS

Once you have identified your Mythic Theme(s) either from the ones listed in
this book or your own outside research, you can use the Mythic Plot-Points as a
structural basis for your story; not as rigid forms, but rather as flexible guidelines
subject to your own interpretation.
Unlike the standard mainstream Hollywood paradigms of structure which tell
you only that something should happen at page number such-and-such, and that you
should have a turning point here-and-thus, each Mythic Theme has a Plot Point
breakdown which offers what should happen within your story so that the initial intent
comes across to the audience. Still leaving the writer free play for arrangement of the
events within a Theme, there are nonetheless certain challenges that must be met,
certain skills that must be acquired, certain growths in awareness that must be gleaned
for any hero to really be a Hero.
When writers and directors take great liberties with old story-lines, part of the
resulting criticism is not just people’s petty niggling about their favorite story becoming
unfamiliar but it’s often a real psychological uncomfortableness with a change in the
intent and message of the story.
Folk tales, fairy tales, and the classical myths are often reshaped, which is fine,
and often distorted, which is not. Though certainly we have freedom to tell any story in
any way we wish, what you lose by changing some of the internal verities of a story is
the way it resonates with an audience.
Some of the most famous Greco-Roman myths were retold in their own time
with a different spin on them. In Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods
and Heroes she recounts various of the classical stories according to one or another of
the many Greek and Roman poets, historians, and authors, telling the reader why she
chose one over the other for their particular point of view. So even during classical
times the stories were given different slants, depending on whether Ovid or Pindar or
Aeschylus was telling it. Some were moralists, some wanted to stir the populace towards
war, some wrote comedies, and others simply wanted to tell a good rollicking tale. In
early versions of the King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra fiasco it was about
betrayal, adultery, and murder. In later versions it was about infanticide, justice, and
righteous vengeance. The facts stayed the same, the motives and rationalizations for the
actions altered with the times.
In early versions of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey the hero-warrior -king Odysseus
was called “the wise Odysseus”. Some century and a half later he was called “the wily
Odysseus” as the Greek people’s appreciation for craftiness shifted to a disdain for
dishonesty.
 You can probably think of some famous stories from myth and literature which
have lately been retold with a modern spin... and which have not done well at the box
office. There’s a reason for that, and it has to do with mythic integrity.
Disney’s version of the Hercules myth comes to mind and we’ll address that at
greater length later. Also recall that although Pretty Woman was a great financial
success, the happy ending story you saw on the screen was not what the screenwriter
originally wrote and sold. And some would say it’s not a message we really want to send
to little girls: that being a hooker is a good and glamorous thing.

Let me write the songs (or stories) of a nation

and I care not who writes its laws.
Plato 427-347 B.C.E.

The myth-makers who create the stories which last forever have consciously or
unconsciously tapped into home-truths of humanity and the workings of the world. To
ignore those truths for the sake of supposed originality, politically-correct
interpretation, or commercial appeal would be like a conductor deciding not to have the
instruments of the orchestra all tuned to each other ...or a visual artist jumbling up
styles ...a chef serving a conflicting palette of tastes ...a doctor prescribing something
meant for a horse to a human, so that not only does it not address the symptom at hand
but it also makes you uncomfortable in an entirely new way.
Not that dissonant music, eclectic art, and multi-cultural food can’t be good.
But it’s seldom great and seldom lasts beyond the first blush of audience surprise.
These creations are most commonly known as “fads”. They are often unkindly known
as “aberrations” or worse.
Holding Mythic Integrity simply means staying true to the intent. E.g., the
Hercules myth is an analogy of the astronomical precession of the equinoxes through
the constellations, the physiological growth of the spinal column in the fetus, the
psychological development of an individual through the various stages of development
from survival through individuation to group awareness, and the cultural development
of a people; it is not about celebrity status and commercialism. My book INNER
DRIVES: How to Write and Create Characters Using the Eight Classic Centers of
Motivation discusses the Hercules myth as it relates to the Centers of Motivation or
chakras.
Innovation and divergent creativity are great and to be greatly sought after.
And certainly the old stories need constantly to be put into new dress and dialogue for
modern times. But we must not miss the message. The point is just as Aristotle pointed
out thousands of years ago: there has to be Unity in your art or it just ain’t art. Use
this tool of the story-teller’s craft to assure unity of intent and story-line to elicit the
underlying Mythic Theme; this will get and keep your stories closer to Art and
Familiarity as you explore the elements of Surprise.

*****
THE FOUR PLANES OF THE PLOT POINTS

If they want to catch the attention of their audience and impart their
information in a lasting fashion, public speakers and writers are advised to “First, tell
‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em. Then, tell ‘em. Lastly, tell ‘em what you told ‘em.”
The myth-making Initiates of the Mystery Schools in every time and culture
have used an even more powerful tool of communication. The Ageless Wisdom advises
that since our reality is composed of four Planes, or levels, or aspects, so too should our
communications, particularly our stories, reflect these four levels. The four levels are
the Inspirational/Spiritual Plane, the Mental Plane, the Emotional Plane, and the
Physical Plane.
Each individual is said to have a “body” on each Plane, though some are more
well-developed than others. Anyone alive obviously has a physical body. Surely,
though, you’ve known people who don’t seem to have any emotions, or those who seem
incapable of critical thought. And some people seem so cruel that one doubts they have
any access to the Spiritual Planes whatsoever. Yet regardless of whether or not they
might be expressing these aspects, it’s simply part of the design mechanism that we all
have them available to us. The point of many spiritual disciplines is for the aspirant to
align her lower three “bodies” and put them under the guidance of the higher
Inspirational/Spiritual body.
The myth/legend of the Hindu warrior prince Arjuna beautifully expresses this
concept. In the iconography of that story Arjuna, signifying the integrated personality,
is riding into battle in his war chariot, which is drawn by three horses, signifying his
Physical, Emotional, and Mental bodies. [Sometimes there are four horses for the four
directions or four elements. Sometimes there are five horses for the five senses. The
concept is always the same, however.] Arjuna’s charioteer is the blue-skinned god
Krishna, signifying the Inspirational/Spiritual Plane. Arjuna trusts that under the
guidance of his higher energies all the horses will go in the same direction at the same
speed and thus allow him to accomplish his goals in this world.
As you construct your story, you may find that you want to begin on the
Inspirational Plane, then the heroine is knocked down into Physical survival Plane and
through the course of the story must use her wits and her persuasive powers to rise back
up. Because he is a high-ranking General in line to possibly even become Emperor of
Rome, Russell Crowe’s Maximus in Gladiator could be seen to follow this pattern. Just
think of the tagline that “What we do in life echoes in Eternity”.
Or you might be telling a rags-to-riches story and the person starts out stuck in
the Physical Plane but with growing ambitions (Emotional Plane).
In The Mission, Robert De Niro’s Captain Mendoza operates from an Emotional
Plane of greed and love/lust and jealousy. After he kills his own brother, he descends to
grueling Physical Plane punishment as Jeremy Irons’s Father Gabriel doles out his
penance. By the end of the film, having had rich Spiritual Plane experiences, Mendoza
combines those three Planes in a valourous act of bravery, sacrifice and redemption.
Some stories may seem pretty much limited to two levels, such as A Beautiful
Mind wherein the character vacillates between the Mental and the Emotional Planes, to
great dramatic effect. Rocky moves between the Physical and the Emotional, with the
successes or failure in each Plane affecting subsequent motivations and actions in the
other.
Another way to use the Planes would be to explore the wide variety of
expressions on the sliding scale of dark-to-light on each one. On the Physical Plane for
instance, you have the vibrant fecundity of the natural world and radiant good health of
the physical form. At the other end of that sliding scale you have injury, slaughter,
death, and decay.
Regardless of what Plane a particular Plot Point plays out on, you can enrich
your story by having some reference to another Plane within that same scene. For
instance, you might have an argument between two characters where one is coming
from an Emotional focus and the other from a Mental one. A film that illustrates this
very well is Bull Durham, a delightful mélange of nuclear physics, Oriental philosophy,
mystic poetry, love, lust, and baseball.
Even in action films there can be time for the higher Planes. Luke Skywalker
trains with Yoda, Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai learns to appreciate the elegant
beauty of cherry blossoms, and Lara Croft figures out the brain-bending riddles of
hidden treasures.
One way to widen the appeal of so-called “chick flicks” (Emotional Plane) is to
add aspects of the other Planes. A great example of this is Romancing the Stone, which
combines the Emotional and the Physical in a fun romp that satisfies both the
romantics and the adventurous.
Just as a character can do what I call “Raising the Dragon” and make a run up
the Centers of Motivation or chakras, we can also look at that template as the balancing
and integration of the Physical body (Root and Sacral Centers), the Emotional Body
(the Lower and Aspirational Solar Plexus Centers), and the Mental Body (the Throat
Center) all together via the Ajna Center (named after that Hindu warrior prince
Arjuna). They all then supposedly come under the direction of the
Inspirational/Spiritual Plane via the Heart Center and the Crown Center. Some
examples of “Raising the Dragon” are Apocalypse Now, Under Siege, Groundhog Day,
and Jacob’s Ladder.
So in the Four Levels then, you have many combinations of choices for your Plot
Points and can create rich and complex characters as well as situations that are both
exciting and meaningful.
This is where your own creative choices can make all the difference when you are
using the classical Themes and Plot Points. No one will ever put together the same
combination, so even though your story will resonate with Familiarity, it can also be
Surprising. And that is what we require in our stories -- Familiarity and Surprise.

*****

ARRANGING THE MYTHIC PLOT POINTS

Time is very flexible. Just because a story needs to have a Beginning, a Middle
and an End does not mean they all occur in a linear sequence. Some stories start at the
end and then are told in flash-back. Some stories have dips backwards and forwards in
time to create suspense or give information. Any arrangement which increases the
dramatic affect can work.
Some stories which play with time are The Usual Suspects, Before the Rain, Pulp
Fiction, Sliding Doors and The English Patient. Apocalyptic stories tend to bookend the
tale with the outcome seen first, and then the story we see/read is about how we got
there, e.g. Road Warrior and Terminator II. Lots of literature makes use of the
Narrator-Participant, e.g. “Call me Ishmael” from the narrator of the novel Moby Dick;
“Saigon... shit, I’m still in Saigon” from the movie Apocalypse Now. Other story-tellers
use the Omniscient Observer-Narrator : “I sing of arms and the man...” from Virgil’s
Aenead, and “It was the best of times, the worst of times” from A Tale of Two Cities,
and that fun old TV series Dragnet, “This is the city.....”.
A good way to work with the Mythic Plot Points is to use note cards or a
computer program that recreates them. Lots of writers find the 3 x 5 note cards easiest
because you can lay out the story line and actually put your hands on it and rearrange
reality with push-pins and a corkboard.
Each note card should have the Plot Point as a heading, and then your particular
interpretation on it. E.g., the Mythic Theme of Dead Poet’s Society is “Stealing Fire
From Heaven”, where the Titan god Prometheus determines to bring fire to poor,
wretched, cold and hungry mankind against orders from his arrogant and elitist fellow
gods. Prometheus is pursued and hounded all the way and eventually is severely
punished for his transgression. He is chained to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains
and an eagle comes and pecks out his liver every day. Overnight it grows back, so the
next day, here comes that pesky eagle again for another feast of pate-de-Prometheus.
One of the note cards would read:

PROMETHEUS STIRS INTEREST IN HUMANS

The new English teacher stirs the boys’ interest in poetry by challenging
them to stand up and declaim a stanza with enthusiasm.

Another would read:

PROMETHEUS’ PLAN DISCOVERED BY GODS

Tradition-bound parents are upset to discover new English teacher’s
encouragement of independence in their children.

And so on....
Another helpful tool is to color-code your note cards with the type of scene.
You can have actual colored cards, or use colored pencils, markers, etc. to denote such
different types of scene as: action, fight, insight/revelation, love scene, failure, training,
etc.
When I was writing and consulting for a client doing an action-adventure story
we devised colored icons for the different types of scenes. We had pink hearts for love
scenes, blue swords for fight scenes, yellow feet for chase scenes, etc. That way when we
looked at the scene sequences on our plot-board we could get an immediate sense of the
pacing of the story. Using this method it’s obvious if you’ve got the love scenes
bunched up or it’s nothing but chase, chase, chase and you need talk, chase, discovery,
fight, etc. You can also add the estimated time for each scene/sequence so you can get a
real sense of the pacing of your story. This system works well for screenplays as well as
novels. A good story has good rhythm, and you can use the Plot Points and plot board
to analyze and arrange the scenes so that they fall into a cohesive rhythm.
MAINTAINING ORIGINALITY

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

T. S. Eliot 1888-1965

How often have you heard the plaintive wail of editorial or development
departments: “We’re looking for something new, fresh, original.” And then when you
bring in something new, fresh and original you hear, “No one would understand this,”
or “We can’t take chances on unfamiliar material.”
The conventional wisdom of mainstream Hollywood and many aspects of the
publishing world seems to be the copycat, the sequel, and recycling. How many Star
Wars wanna-be’s were there? Are we braced for Rocky IX, yet another John Grisham or
Michael Crichton novel/movie? What ‘50s and ‘60s TV series have we not seen
converted to the big screen?
Yet there continue to be those landmark products which rise above the crowd
and set new markers on the frontiers of creativity: 200l: A Space Odyssey, Midnight
Cowboy, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Road Warrior, Terminator,
Terms of Endearment, Fried Green Tomatoes, Blood Simple and Fargo. Pulp Fiction,
Being John Malkovich, and Matrix all set new standards in time-lines and style.
And think about the TV series which have set new standards: Star Trek, All in
the Family, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, E.R., Ellen and X-Files.
 Or the books Women in Love, Catcher in the Rye, Lolita, Portnoy’s Complaint,
One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Confederacy of Dunces, An Acceptable Boy, and
Wicked.
How about the plays, operas, and musicals: Salome, Rite of Spring, Jesus Christ,
Superstar, Lion King.
There’s a paradox at work here. It goes back to something you read earlier about
the two most important elements of effective communication: Familiarity and Surprise.
Remember that the movie Star Wars used the familiarity of the Hero’s Journey
Theme (guided by mythic advisor Joseph Campbell) and echoed in Japanese filmmaker
Kurasawa’s Hidden Fortress, but coupled it with the surprise of incredibly stunning new
technology.
Fried Green Tomatoes covered familiar ground of the old South, racism, wife
abuse, and friendship but surprised us with its genteel yet upfront dealing with
feminine homosexuality.
Or think of Raging Bull which told a familiar story about a prize-fighter, yet
surprised us by being shot in black-and-white, by in-your-face camera angles in some of
the first use of the Steadi-cam, by the actor De Niro’s extreme fluctuation in weight and
looks, and the close focus on unattractive personal intensity.
And think of how popular some foreign films are in America, and how popular
some American media is abroad. Remember that Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai was very
well re-told in John Sturges’s Magnificent Seven -- Familiarity and Surprise.
So don’t worry about using a familiar Theme. Everybody does, from
Shakespeare (who redid the old Greek myth about Pyramus & Thisbe as Romeo &
Juliet) to George Lucas (who retold Campbell’s Hero’s Journey in Star Wars). What
will make your story special is your special interpretation of an eternal Mythic Theme.
There are only 88 keys on the piano, 26 letters in our alphabet, 42 chromosomes in the
human, etc.; yet look again at the infinite and unending variety available by combining
and re-combining the elements.

Variety is the soul of pleasure.

Aphra Behn 1640-1689

*****
 ABOUT FACE

or…

He said — She said

MEDIA ECHOES:

Beethoven's opera Fidelio, Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, Two

Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labours Lost, Twelfth Night, Sylvia Scarlett, Male War
Brides, Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, The Crying Game, Mrs. Doubtfire, Yentl, M. Butterfly,
Orlando, Dead Again, Shakespeare in Love, Boys Don’t Cry
The blue-skinned Hindu god Lord Krishna dressed as a woman in The
Mahabharata.
In Homer's Iliad, handsome Achilles cross-dresses and hides out in a harem to
avoid the draft, but wily Ulysses recruits him anyway and brave tempestuous Achilles
eventually wins Top Hero's honors in the Trojan War.
The Norse god Thor disguised himself as the goddess Freya, bride of Thrym to
redeem Thor's hammer, stolen by the Thrym.
19th century English explorer and author Sir Richard Francis Burton spent his
life shifting identities. He spoke over forty languages, disguised himself as an Arab and
infiltrated the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, searched for the source of the
Nile, and translated The 100l Arabian Nights into English. There are implications that
Burton crossed and re-crossed the lines of sexual inclination as well. After his death his
wife burned his journals, finding them way too erotic. Postmortem censorship, what a
shame. See the film Mountains of the Moon and find Burton’s many books in the
library.

*****

THE MYTH:

It was a pleasant but hot afternoon in Greece around 1300 B.C. and Tiresius was
strolling home down a wooded path in Greece, minding his own business. Stretched
across the pathway were two snakes copulating. ‘Interesting’, he thought to himself as
he stepped over their writhing bodies.
Tiresius suddenly felt rather odd. A few steps
and his body began to weird out on him. A few more
steps and he looked down in astonishment -- his
formerly masculine body was now feminine, complete
with all the accouterments, but missing those of the
masculine gender. “What tha--?” his own voice
startled him with it’s higher, softer timbre.
Running his now softer, finer hands over his
softer, finer form, Tiresius was faced with the
inevitable conclusion that he had suddenly
transmogrified (morphed) into a female. And he
didn’t even have to go to Sweden! What a
predicament. How was he going to explain this to his
wife!? How had this happened? Suspicious, he looked
back for the coupling snakes -- but they were gone.
 Stories vary as to whether Tiresius figured out a way to stay with her/his family
in her/his new form or simply disappeared and made a new life as a woman. Whatever,
she/he lived as a woman for seven years.
Then one day she/he was walking through the same forest along the same path
and lo and behold she/he again came across two snakes copulating. “Aha!” he/she said,
and scurried to step over the snakes, just to see if perhaps that was the magic that had
caused the gender transformation.
Voila! Sure enough, after a few steps, the change occurred in reverse and Miss
Tiresius was once again Mister Tiresius.
If you follow the story of him having been gone for seven years, it must have
been a tumultuous reunion with his family. If the version that she’d blended into the
system, how was he doing to deal with this new change? Any way you dealt with it, this
was going to be difficult.
We’re not told what happened to the husbands/wives/children who went
through the sex-changes with him, but if they’d had therapy in those days, no doubt
these people would’ve been in it for a long, long time.
Anyway, time passed and Tiresius was a good guest at dinner parties where “Viva
la Difference” was being discussed. In higher realms, however, it was being discussed
with a vengeance.
Hera, Queen of the Gods, was adamantly insisting to her eternally philandering
husband Zeus that all those immortal, half-immortal, and mortal women he was boffing
right and left as himself, a bull, a swan, a shower of gold, etc. were not pleased by his
intentions. She contended that women did not enjoy sex at all and the King of the
Gods was forcing his attentions on females who’d be happier and better off without
them.
“Nonsense”, countered Zeus, who counted an incredibly large number of
females among his conquests. “Women enjoy sex, and I please them. In fact, women
enjoy sex more than men do, so just get over it.”
 The argument escalated until all of Mount Olympus had taken sides in the
debate over whether or not women enjoyed sex more than men and whether Zeus was
accused of either sexual harassment or consensual sex. Sound familiar?
How to settle the argument?
Someone mentioned this mortal fellow Tiresius, who through a weird twist of
nature-magic had spent seven years as a woman. Surely he, who had been both, would
have first hand experience on whether men or women enjoyed sex more. Tiresius got
an invitation to Mount Olympus.
Now as anyone who has received a summons to a Congressional Hearing knows,
this is not exactly good news. But how can you decline? So Tiresius trudged up to
Mount Olympus, curious about and at the same time dreading the reason and the
results of his call.
Tiresius stood before the gods. The question was posed. The mortal man knew
he was in a heck of a fix. On one side was Hera, the obsessively jealous and insanely
vindictive Queen of the Gods and those who sided with her. On the other side was the
omnipotent King of the Gods Zeus and all who sided with him. What was a mortal to
do?
Tiresius decided to tell the truth.
“Well....” he hemmed and hawwed. “Actually....”
“Yes...?” the gods all breathed in anticipation.
“Women. Women enjoy sex more than men. Lots more. In many more
different ways. For longer periods of time. So much more in fact that lots of societies
go out of their way to be sure they can’t enjoy it. Terrifies them, you see. Did you
know that in the country of -- “
“Enough!!!” shrieked Hera, dismayed and furious at his answer. “You’re
obviously blind to the truth, therefore blind you shall be.” And with a wave of her
godly hand, struck the mortal blind.
 As furor broke out among the inhabitants of Mount Olympus, now-blind
Tiresius tumbled down from the heights, blinded as a result of having told the truth as
he had seen it.
Some time later he was bumbling around in the bushes trying to make his way
home and he heard a crack of thunder. Alert, he ‘looked’ around, sensing a presence.
It was Zeus. Tiresius, as you might imagine, had had quite enough of the Olympians
and turned his back on where he thought Zeus might be.
“Listen, Tiresius,” Zeus sighed. “I appreciate what you did and all, but you
know the rules. I can’t take back what another god does, but I can give you a blessing
to counteract the curse.”
Tiresius listened up.
“You were brave enough to tell the truth, and that’s a rare thing among mortals,
as well as immortals. Hera took your sight. And that’s a darn shame. In recompense, I
gift you with another kind of sight. Prophecy.”
Oh, great.... Tiresius was smart enough to graciously thank Zeus for the gift and
let him be on his way. As everyone knows, being a prophet is not exactly a cool gig.
People tend either not to believe you or to loathe and detest you for telling the truth.
Basically though, it served Tiresius fairly well; he became the famed Prophet of
Thebes and participated in some of the famous events centered around that city. One
of his bad days was when he was forced to reveal Oedipus’s fate to him: just as had
been prophesied before the young king was born, he had indeed killed his own father,
married his own mother and had four children with her. (Sounds like an early version
of the Chinatown subplot “My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter”.)
Tiresius died in a siege of Thebes at a very old age. Still blind. Still a man.

*****
THE MYTHIC MEANING:

It’s about understanding sexual duality. According to the basic tenets of most
philosophies (though religions often water it down for social control) our true identity
is that of immortal Souls existing as many differing Personalities throughout time and
place: some female, some male. Like walking a mile in the other guy's shoes, by
temporarily "being" the opposite form we gain an understanding of sexual duality
which helps us rise above it and put those powerful energies to good use. Deeper,
fulfilling romantic love is often an added reward.
Tiresius is the Soul; his experiences are those of the soul in physical incarnation.
Tiresius is the Individual; his experiences are those of the individual coming to
an understanding of others through empathy, imagination, and/or experience.
In the course of experiencing life in the physical body, many cultures believe the
soul incarnates a number of times into various forms and various times and places.
The whole point of a physical universe, it is said, is so that the Creator can experience
Life. It’s a game, and the Creator has eventually to play all the parts. Many creation
myths begin with a god or goddess’s loneliness and desire to have a companion with
which to experience the cosmos.
Part of the experience of life is to experience both the Yin and the Yang, the
Masculine and the Feminine. One of the biggest contemporary problems in the world
today is the war between the sexes. The most popular self-help books, tapes, and
seminars are those which delineate the differences between men and women and
promise to bring about better communication and relation.
Neurophysiology reveals structural and functional differences between male and
female brains. Great social tomes have been written about the culture wars between the
matriarchy of the last age and the patriarchy of this one. It’s probably best summed up
by that old adage, “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”
 But something myth and metaphysics has always known is that gender is a
temporary thing. Even within each individual the gender alters over the course of a
lifetime. Swahili is a fascinating language that has twenty-two classes of nouns, some of
which include variants on gender according to age and function. Just think how
specific you can get with this in delineating actions and attitudes in different characters.
For instance, in the female you have a range from the early fetus which is genderless, to
the fetus which will become a girl-child, to the baby, to the pre-pubescent girl, to the
adolescent virgin girl, to the sexually active girl/woman, to the pregnant woman, to the
new lactating mother, to the woman fertile again and ready to become pregnant and on
to the menopausal, post-menopausal and crone female. Obviously these are all quite
different states of being and may well deserve their own separate linguistic
determination.
Point being, there are many “ways” to be and we go through many, many of
them in each lifetime. The path to wisdom includes experiencing or having an
understanding of as many different paths as possible.
In the esoteric physiology of the human used in Oriental medicine from
acupuncture to Ayurvedic and many occult practices from yoga to the martial arts, there
are two currents which twine their way in a spiral up the spinal column. These are the
Ida (feminine) and the Pingala (masculine). You can see these represented by the two
twining snakes in the medical symbol of the Caduceus.
[Learn more about this in my book “INNER DRIVES: How to Write and Create
Characters Using the Eight Classic Centers of Motivation” as well as in the “What’s My
Motivation?” seminar CDs and audio tapes, and in that section on the “Mythic Tools for
Writers” seminar CDs and audio tapes.]
At various points in a person’s life one may exhibit one characteristic more than
the other. This may switch from year to year, day to day, minute to minute. It’s not
about sex and gender but about the quality of energy. Sometimes it’s appropriate to be
in the outgoing, exploring, aggressive nature. Sometimes it’s appropriate to be in the
receptive, nurturing, engendering nature. Neither is better than the other, they are
simply flip sides of an expression of Life.
In your story, the women character may be the one exhibiting masculine energy.
The male character may be the receptive one, responding to her actions. Which is to
say once again that the physical gender of a character may have very little to do with
what type of energy they express.
Okay, so that covers the romantic and physical. Let’s look at other ways we can
apply the dichotomy of the Tiresius story.
People who’ve been on the inside of a closed system can bring great insights of
beauty and understanding to the rest of us. They can also reveal corruption, injustice,
or simple inadequacies.
As politics shifts, the slaves sometimes become the enslavers, and vice versa. The
kingdom is conquered and the king becomes a servant. A people rebels and the
downtrodden become the new rulers. Viva Zapata starring Marlon Brando is a good
example of this dynamic at work.
Immigrants and natives, officers and enlisted, boss and worker, these
dichotomies offer opportunities to explore dualities. And what about the parent-child
relationship? How many parents say in frustration, “Just wait till you have children”?
And how many people shudder in horror to realize they have become their parents?
Then too there’s the sad poignancy of adult children becoming caregivers for ailing
elder parents.
The dualities of life -- when in direct opposition to each other -- provide great
opportunities for dramatic conflict, the heart of good story-telling. But still, some of
the most fun and most dramatic situations do center around changing genders... and
outfits.
*****
PLOT POINTS:

• The Individual is going along with their normal life, but has some trouble
understanding or getting along with the opposite sex.
• An exterior situation applies pressure on the Individual and precipitates the sex
change.
• The Individual either sees that as a means to escape the current dilemma or as a
way to get what they desire.
• Accomplishing the sex change. This can be a focal point of the first part of
story, or it could be quickly accomplished.
• Individual has difficulty fitting in and carrying off the new gender.
• Individual lapses into former gender habits and must deal with the
consequences. Others are suspicious, old support systems don’t function
anymore, etc.
• Individual learns something valuable about their new gender and begins to
incorporate it into their character (Tootsie did this very well).
• A temptation to revert to the old ways challenges the character’s determination
to hold this new gender.
• There’s a near-revelation and the Individual must either cover their tracks, enlist
an ally in the cover-up, or redouble their efforts to “be” the new gender.
• The Individual gains a success in the new gender.
• Another challenge from the outside tests the Individual’s integrity. They are
troubled, seek counsel, fret… think of Tiresius up there on Mount Olympus torn
between the arguing gods and goddesses.
• The Individual makes a stand on integrity, even at the risk of losing everything
they’ve gained.
//or//
 • If you’re doing a tragedy, they do not stand up for the right. They fall prey to
their own insecurities, fears, greed, etc.
• The system punishes the Individual: you can do this regardless of which stand
they took. If it’s a tragedy, we see the consequences of their weakness or the
corruption of the system.
//or//
• The system rewards the Individual: regardless of which stand they took.
Sometimes having the bad guys get away with their sins makes for the more
satisfactory endings.
• The Individual has learned something valuable about the other gender, even if
they don’t necessarily have the personal courage and integrity to fully apply it.
They should voice that lesson.

*****
 DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

or…

RESCUE OF THE VIRGIN PRINCESS

MEDIA ECHOES:

Snow White, Cinderella, Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, Ella Enchanted, Born
Yesterday, Evita, Flashdance, The Little Mermaid, Titanic

*****
THE MYTH:

According to the Greek poets’ version of the story, Andromeda was the beautiful
virgin daughter of vain Cassiopeia, Queen of Ethiopia. Cassiopeia had drawn down the
wrath of the gods because she’d claimed to be more lovely than queen goddess Hera
(often called the cow-faced Hera so we might well suppose she was not particularly that
good-looking) and the sea-nymphs, daughters of the sea god Neptune. This sort of self-
aggrandizement never went over well with the gods, plus the people of her land were
being devoured by a great sea serpent as punishment for their Queen’s foolish boasts.
An oracle revealed that only by the sacrifice of the offending Queen’s innocent
daughter would the slaughter stop. The people forced Andromeda’s father Cepheus to
agree to her death so the girl was chained to a rock to await her grisly fate.
About that time the hero PERSEUS just happened to be flying by on his way
back from slaying the gorgon Medusa, a formerly beautiful cursed queen whose look
turned men to stone. A beautiful white horse with wings had sprung from the severed
neck of the Medusa and offered itself to Perseus. So the Hero was winging by on his
new winged steed PEGASUS and he spotted this gorgeous young woman in a bit of peril
-- naked and bejeweled -- up on a cliff by the churning sea. They fell instantly in love.
Perseus waited on the rocky cliff until the hungry serpent showed up and
immediately lopped off its head, (or held up the recently-acquired head of Medusa
which turned the sea monster to stone, according to another version). Perseus claimed
Andromeda as his bride, and they took off for his home and kingdom where the story
tells us they lived happily ever after.

*****
THE MYTHIC MEANING:

According to most creation myths, humanity is a slightly uncomfortable

combination of eternal soul and ephemeral, material body. When the Soul fell into
Matter, it became trapped and is now in need of rescue and redemption. In the
symbolism of the Ancient Mysteries, Matter is usually portrayed as the Virgin, and the
Soul as the redeeming Hero who raises her out of the clutches of evil darkness and
ancient entrapping energies of earth-bound materialistic priorities, usually represented
as the serpent.
One version of this fall is Aesop’s Fable about the dog walking across the bridge
with a nice juicy bone. Looking into the water he sees a dog with an even bigger bone
(it’s his own reflection but being ignorant of the laws of optics the pup’s unaware of
this). Greedy, the dog leaps into the water and drowns. Or recall the Greek story of
Narcissus, who fell hopelessly in love with his own reflection, became so starved and
weak while staring incessantly at himself in admiration that he fell into the water and
drowned.
 In the last five thousand years or so, the serpent or sea-monster has often been
symbolic of the old system. It’s the life force of the planet and of matter itself.
According to some, these magnetic “lei-lines” and the power spots of the planet are said
to be connected by the “dragon currents” or lines of physical magnetism. Upon these
spots are built Stonehenge, Machu Pichu, the Egyptian pyramids, Borobodur in
Indonesia, and many other holy spots.
The serpent is also representative of the Kundalini energy, or the Fire of Matter,
which has been dropped from the Crown Centre/Chakra (named Sahasrara in Sanskrit
and sometimes called Shiva) down into the Root Center (named Shakti). This drop of
our consciousness from a spiritual and mental focus to an emotional and physical focus
is reflected in most cultures’ stories of The Fall. Whether it’s the Judeo-Christian
expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the Hopi’s journey to the next world, or the
Mesopotamian goddess Inanna’s journey to the underworld -- it’s all about dropping
into a lower focus of attention and motivation. Great story stuff.
Also recall that the water is always-always-always the symbol of the emotions. So
a sea serpent is emblematic of the emotions and the Hero who rescues the Virgin from
the sea serpent is helping to raise her/humanity above the emotional to the mental
level, which supposedly is our next evolutionary step.
In the Wisdom Teachings of most philosophies and religions there is a
transition of awareness which progresses from Tribal (Unthinking-Rule-Following)
Consciousness to Individual (Me-Mine-Rebellious-Independent) Consciousness to
Group (Greater Good for the Greater Number) Consciousness. The growth and change
of characters in your stories will reflect some aspect of this psychological transition.
In many of the ancient systems which mythologize the transition from one state
of consciousness to another, water is the means of transition. Be it the breakup of
Atlantis with its sinking beneath the sea, the Flood of the Judeo-Christians with Noah,
the Flood of the Hindus and Chaldeans with their flood hero Manu, or the Floods of
the Meso-Americans and Polynesians... everybody has the story. The old paradigm was
water-based, i.e. emotional. The new paradigm is fire-based, i.e. mental.
Andromeda the Virgin Princess represents the “fallen” energy of consciousness
and that female part of the male-female energy polarity which must be (according to the
system of Centers of Motivation/Chakras) raised back up the spinal column into the
head for the Royal Marriage. It’s like Carl Jung’s anima and animus re-uniting within
the individual. This drop of Spirit into Matter is, recall, echoed in every culture’s story
of “The Fall”. Basically what it means is that spirit-higher self has taken on the
attributes and limitations of physical existence. Artistically speaking, this is that
wonderfully powerful duality and conflict between Poetry and Reality which creates
dynamic tension and is the foundation of all real Art.
Andromeda also represents that virgin energy or clay which is capable of
impression, of change, of being molded into new forms. She is quiescent, receptive,
naive, malleable -- and yet exhibits a quiet integrity and strength. In many ancient
systems that prime matter awaiting energization is called the Black Virgin.
Astrophysics gives us correlations today in the dark matter we know is out there but
which we cannot yet see.
In your own life and affairs, Andromeda is your ability, your talents. They
simply await the spark of inspiration and direction and then can gladly marry up with
your intent to create great things.
Cassiopeia the Vain Queen symbolizes the old system. The establishment. She
is the stodgy old program which offends the innovative new rulers. She is also perfectly
willing to sacrifice her virgin daughter to the old forms via the sea serpent. That, after
all, is what virgin daughters are for. They are certainly not supposed to be rescued and
run off with handsome young knight-heroes.
Some contemporary examples of the Cassiopeia part of the myth are
dysfunctional families, restrictive religions, businesses which take advantage of workers,
repressive dictatorships, etc.
 One of the first lessons you learn in studying the physics or metaphysics is that
“Form Resists Change”. It’s Newton’s first law: A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a
body in motion tends to stay in motion. Inertia. ‘What is’ will by its very nature resist
‘What is to come’. This is a great ground for dramatic conflict in that the heroic
characters see the need for drastic change and there is great resistance from the status
quo.
Perseus the Hero is the Consciousness or Awareness or Soul which sacrifices
itself for a time in order to rescue fallen Matter. He has empathy with and compassion
for the trapped Virgin and conspires with her to free her from the bonds of old
patterns, repressive systems, and the errors of narcissism. By his very nature as a
Stranger-from-afar he creates havoc, shakes up the old system, and “magically”
rearranges matter and matters.
The magnetic attraction between Perseus and Andromeda is that of male to
female, of soul to matter, of saviour to saved. And isn’t that what love always does for
us anyway -- shows us a better Self to become,
as reflected in the eyes of the beloved?
In Christian lore, the Marriage Feast
and the Upper Room are symbolic of the
raising of the Kundalini energy from the Root
Center into the Crown Center near the pineal
gland and the thalamus (the word means
“bridal chamber” in Greek). The Catholic
Church is the Bride of Christ and nuns and
monks “marry” Jesus. Christ’s goal is to
redeem the Church, his body, the material
world, and transfigure it up into Heaven just
as Perseus redeemed Andromeda and carried
her away. And just as the descending masculine energies create a strong magnetic pole
to attract the feminine energies and help them rise to meet it. The caduceus is symbolic
of this process.
Something important to remember about myths and esoteric stories is that they
are not gender-specific. The characters represent qualities, energies, frequencies, and
concepts but it is our goal to become such complete humans that we are not bound by
gender, race, color, creed, etc.
So even though the myths usually have a guy rescuing a girl, it’s the same
paradigm that is happening inside an individual and also inside other systems like
cultures, civilizations, species, etc.
This story of Perseus and Andromeda is the basis for the St. George and the
Dragon stories. And in turn, for all the Medieval and Chivalric tales of the Knight
rescuing the Princess from the Dragon.

*****
PLOT POINTS - DAMSEL IN DISTRESS:

• THE VAIN QUEEN OF THE ESTABLISHED REALM RANKLES THE GODS.

• HER VIRGIN DAUGHTER (OR STEPDAUGHTER, AS IN SNOW WHITE AND
CINDERELLA) IS PRESSED INTO SACRIFICE FOR THE GOOD OF THE
LAND. WE SEE THE MONSTER (OR MONSTROUS SITUATION) TO WHOM
THE PRINCESS WILL BE SACRIFICED.
• A KNIGHT/YOUTH IS OUT QUESTING FOR ADVENTURE, IDENTITY,
VALIDATION.
• KNIGHT ENTERS REALM, IS HORRIFIED AT TRADITION, AND FALLS IN
LOVE WITH THE VIRGIN. HE DETERMINES TO SLAY THE MONSTER AND
SAVE THE PRINCESS.
• SEVERE RESISTANCE FROM ESTABLISHMENT: THEY’VE ALWAYS DONE
THIS, WHAT IF HE FAILS, THE GODS WILL REALLY BE ANGRY IF YOU DO
THIS...ETC.
• VIRGIN PRINCESS RESISTS RESCUE OUT OF LOYALTY TO
ESTABLISHMENT.
• THE KNIGHT IS INITIALLY REPULSED, LEAVES. THE VIRGIN PRINCESS
MOURNS. THE VAIN QUEEN GLOATS AND TRIES TO GET THINGS BACK
TO NORMAL.
• BUT STILL DETERMINED, THE KNIGHT SEEKS OUTSIDE HELP. ALLIES
COME TO AID OF KNIGHT, GIVE SPECIAL GIFTS OF UNDERSTANDING,
CRAFT, WEAPONS, TOOLS, ETC. For his quest to kill Medusa the Gorgon
Perseus received winged shoes, an invisible cap, a reflective shield, and a magic
pouch.
• UNUSUAL EXTERIOR ENVIRONMENTAL EVENT OCCURS IN REALM OF
ESTABLISHMENT; PEOPLE QUESTION ITS MEANING, THE
 ESTABLISHMENT, UNREST BEGINS. Portents of change usually precede major
upheavals: unusual weather, an earthquake, a miraculous healing, etc.
• OUTSIDE INFLUENCE SHOWS PRINCESS THE NEED FOR CHANGE &
GROWTH; SHE ACQUIESCES.
• PRINCESS MUST RE-FIND KNIGHT FOR RESCUE.
• KNIGHT & PRINCESS BOND & PLAN ESCAPE.
• TREACHERY DISCOVERED; PRINCESS SECLUDED, KNIGHT IMPRISONED
(OR EXILED).
• PRINCESS LEARNS NEW SKILLS TO RAISE HERSELF UP: INDEPENDENCE,
COURAGE, SOMETHING INSPIRED BY THE HERO.
• KNIGHT LEARNS TO INTEGRATE HIMSELF AND BECOME MORE
EFFECTIVE, INSPIRED BY THE PRINCESS’S CONCERN FOR HER PEOPLE.
• THINGS GO MORE AWRY IN KINGDOM. VAIN QUEEN TRIES HARD TO
HOLD CONTROL. TENSION BUILDS.
• KNIGHT SNEAKS IN, RESCUES PRINCESS, AND ACTING AS MAGICIAN
(new unknown unusual element) RE-ARRANGES MATTERS.
• KNIGHT & PRINCESS BOND TO EACH OTHER AND TO HIGHER GOALS.
SET EXAMPLE FOR THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE.
• KNIGHT & PRINCESS LEAVE HER KINGDOM FOR HIS.

*****
 PARSIFAL

&

The Search for the Holy Grail

MEDIA ECHOES:

Excalibur, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Fisher King,
Gilgamesh from the Assyro-Babylonian myth

THE MYTH:

This is one of the most poignant and potent Mythic Themes. It tells the story of
our search for meaning in a sometimes confusing and hostile world. It asks the
questions which have troubled and inspired humans for aeons: Who am I? Why am I
here? What's it all mean? Can I make a difference?
It's a great theme to use for a story of someone searching for their own identity,
trying to break out of a traditional system, or who needs to go through a series of trials
to discover their true worth and what really counts to them.
It's also an effective theme for a character who travels a lot throughout the story
because each new location can offer a particular trial or revelation for the hero.
Parsifal's a great hero because like all of us he begins in naiveté and goes
through a series of bumbling attempts to grow up, fit in, make something of himself,
win admiration, loses love, learns about perseverance and humility, and sacrifices self-
interest for the greater good.
There are a number of versions of this story but similarities run through them
all.
The hero is Parsifal, son of a dead knight, raised in the forest by his widowed
mother who was determined to keep him from knighthood and harm. But eventually
the child must leave the nest.
In the woods one day Parsifal spies some glorious knights. At first he thinks
they're angels, since he's never seen a man before. He's possessed of desire to follow
and become just like them. He follows them to Camelot but his first job there is in the
kitchens. After proving himself a hard working young man he climbs the ranks and
eventually becomes a knight of the Round Table.
During his knightly travels out and about the countryside righting wrongs and
saving damsels he comes to the Grail Castle. There Parsifal is introduced to Amfortas,
the Grail King wounded in the thigh (symbolic of an ailment in the sexual, procreative
powers) impatiently waiting for the one who can save him and his warring, famine-
ridden kingdom. At supper that night the Grail is carried silently through the dining
room. Paralyzed by awe and fear, Parsifal doesn't ask any questions (his mother
Gurnemantz taught him to only speak when spoken to, don’t be nosy, etc.). For his
wimpy too-correct attitude and lack of daring, Parsifal is turned out of the Grail Castle.
Later, still determined to find the Grail, Parsifal leaves a woman he dearly loves
and again sets out on the Quest. Omened by fierce thunderstorms and raped damsels
(remember that knights of that time were sworn to save damsels-in-distress so to pass
them by requires putting spiritual searching above physical duties), Parsifal presses
through a country of sand and thorns, then through meadows with orchards. He meets
a simple peasant woman and then a knight in golden armor. Finally he comes to an
ancient city where he receives personal praise but like the other things he encounters,
this too fades to dust. Each of these events symbolizes a step along the way to
enlightenment.
Having passed all these tests, Parsifal is feeling pretty sure of himself. But he
meets a hermit in a forest chapel who informs him he hasn't a chance to find the Grail
because he certainly isn't holy enough. Having been shot down in his hubris, Parsifal is
ashamed and discouraged. But his companion Galahad (Lancelot's son and a virginal
mystical knight), has also seen the Grail and inspires his dear friend Parsifal to
continue his search for the actual thing.
Along the way they now meet fellow Knight Sir Bors, who was captured by a
primitive tribe while he searched for the Grail. In captivity, however, he had seen a
vision of the Grail, and he too encourages Parsifal's continued search.
Parsifal and Galahad climb a steep mountain then come to an evil-smelling
swamp festooned with human bones, which they cross via a stone path built by ancient
kings.
Facing a wall of fire, they see the Grail within and beyond that a Heavenly City.
Awed at first, finally Galahad springs through fire and enters the Heavenly City in
light. Unlike the virgin Galahad, Parsifal -- though he has purified his heart in the
trials of this search -- has tasted of mortality and therefore cannot go through the fire
and into the City.
Having finally found and seen the Grail, Parsifal returns to the Kingdom
Camelot. He finds it in ruins, the Knights scattered, Sir Gawain ruined from his
dalliances with women.
But as Parsifal enters again Amfortas's Grail Castle, he has the courage, the
wisdom, and the experience to ask the right question this time, "Whom does the Grail
serve?"
The answer is, “It serves thee.” It serves the King, who is the country, it serves
the person who knows enough to ask. And of course, it serves God. With this asking
and the subsequent re-appearance of the Grail, the King is healed and the kingdom
saved.

*****

THE MYTHIC MEANING:

Parsifal is the one who has seen the Grail but does not leave the earth. He stays
behind to help his fellow Knights. They may not yet be able to see the Holy Grail, but
they can see him and he leads them towards the Light. In the Persian religion of
Mithras the middle step of the seven levels of initiation is like that of Parsifal, poised
between worlds and acting as a bridge for his fellows. It's also similar to the Buddhist
concept of the Bodhi-satva, one who has attained enlightenment but instead of moving
on to the next dimension returns to earth in order to lead others towards the light they
have not yet been able to see.
Galahad is the pure virginal one who sees God and passes on into the spiritual
world.
Gawain is the charming ladies' man whose brave knightly exploits are legendary.
However, his sensuality, self-indulgence and personal pride prevent his final access to
the Grail.
Sir Bors has had a vision of the Grail but has not yet grasped it or seen it in
actuality. Because he had this vision while held captive by natives, he symbolizes hope,
devotion and idealism in the midst of trouble. He encourages others by his own stolid
belief.
The many encounters along the way to the Grail symbolize the trials of the soul
on the Path to Enlightenment, the road to Heaven.
The Grail itself symbolizes selfless Service and Realization. Also the gifts of god.
Fertility. Also the enlightened human whose heart and head then hold the higher
energies, and pass them on to others. Anatomically speaking it's the ventricles in the
brain which hold the cerebro-spinal fluid which is said to be altered by spiritual
disciplines and enlightenment.
The wounded King Amfortas symbolizes fallen humanity trapped and mortified
in its generative/sacral/sexual areas, which can only be redeemed by attainment and
embodiment of a higher vision.
The Kingdom. In older cultures the king and the land are one; both must be
healthy. Even in modern countries results of the leaders' yearly medical exam are made
public: leader and land are one. The land is the physical manifestation of spirit; the
king is the intermediary.

*****
PLOT POINTS:

• PARSIFAL GROWS UP IN ISOLATION WITH MOM

He's the naive native boy, has never even seen a grown-up man.
• PARSIFAL SEES THREE KNIGHTS OUT IN THE WOODS
Awestruck at their magnificence and thinking they're angels, he follows them to
Camelot and gets a job in the kitchen.
• THE LEAP FROM THE CLIFF, INTO THE UNKNOWN
This is the first Leap of Faith which sets the Hero on the journey. See “The
Fool” card in the Tarot deck.
• 1ST appearance of grail
Dining at the Grail Castle with the wounded King Amfortas, Parsifal sees the
Grail carried through the room by a beautiful woman. Intimidated and exceptionally
well-mannered, he doesn't speak up and ask either about the King's wound or the Holy
Grail.
• PARSIFAL TURNED OUT OF THE GRAIL CASTLE
Clueless, Parsifal is shown the door.
• THUNDERSTORM - 2ND APPEARANCE OF THE GRAIL
Sir Galahad sees the Grail and a thunderstorm breaks out. The Lightning of the
gods, the Kabala, etc. Heaven recognizes Galahad.
• Parsifal enters THE country of sand and thorns
The mineral world, hard and unyielding.
• PARSIFAL PASSES THROUGH meadows with orchards
The vegetable world; pleasant and seductive to the physical senses.
• PARSIFAL MEETS A Simple peasant woman
The lure of common humanity and an uncomplicated existence.
• PARSIFAL PASSES A glorious city WHERE HIS FAME IS praiseD
The lure of pride and hubris.
• PARSIFAL MEETS A HERMIT IN THE WOODS
Who tells Parsifal he's not holy enough to see the Grail.
The solitary path requires even more purification.
• PARSIFAL MEETS SIR BORS, WHO ENCOURAGES THE SEARCH
Even though we walk, live and die alone, hope, insight and encouragement from
others is essential to keep us going.
• THEY CLIMB A steep mountain
You always have to climb a mountain to reach Enlightenment.
• THEY cross AN evil-smelling swamp ON A path built by ancient kings
The fetid swamp is laced with almost submerged roadways left aeons ago by
ancient kings: symbolic of timelessness and our connection to the past.
It is also symbolic of how buried beneath the current mess of existence are ancient
true pathways, if we can but find and use them.
And, it refers to older, lost civilizations.
• THEY SPRING THROUGH FIRE
Fire is one of the five Initiations, Baptisms, etc. on the Path. It is a final
cleansing.
• THEY enter heavenly city in light
• JOY, PEACE, AND PLENTY SPREAD THROUGH THE KINGDOM
The connection between the Grail and the Individual and the Individual and
Humanity is seen. And it is good.

*****
 STEALING FIRE FROM HEAVEN

MEDIA ECHOES:

PROMETHEUS, STAND & DELIVER, LOGAN'S RUN, ONE FLEW OVER

THE CUCKOO’S NEST, DEAD POETS SOCIETY, GLORY, ENEMY OF THE
PEOPLE, MATRIX
In actual history you have the great leaders of rebellions fulfilling the
Prometheus archetype, from Spartacus the leader of the slave rebellion to Robin Hood,
from Che Guevera to Cesar Chavez.
Labor leaders, the women who pioneered suffrage for females, Martin Luther
King, Nelson Mandela, and anyone who campaigns for the rights of the oppressed are
following the archetype of Prometheus and Stealing Fire from Heaven.

THE MYTH:

The Greek myth of Prometheus tells how this Titan, one of the old gods, once
helped Zeus, king of the new gods, and won his favour. Later on though, the wise
Prometheus saw that humans needed fire, but it was only meant for the gods.
Daring to defy the gods, Prometheus went to the heights of heaven and brought
fire down for mankind. This caused him no end of grief as his former friend Zeus had
him chained to a rock.
Besides punishing Prometheus for helping humans, Zeus also wanted him to
reveal the name of the woman who would bear the child who would eventually
overthrow Zeus. But Prometheus never gave up the secret.
 Every day an eagle came and ate out Prometheus’s liver; every night it regrew
and the next day he was tortured once again. Eventually he was freed from his chains,
but he never talked.
Prometheus is seen as a solitary hero who dared rebel against the establishment
to help those in need and as an honourable man who kept his word even at great cost to
himself.
Many other cultures have similar stories, including the Rozwi people of Africa
who brought fire to the Shona of the Rhodesia and Zimbabwe area. Various teacher
gods also fall within the category of the “Stealing Fire From Heaven” Mythic Theme.
Some of these are the Egyptian Thoth, the Inca’s brother-sister team of Manco Capac
and Mama Ocllo, the Mesopotamian Dagon and MesoAmerican Quetzalcoatl.

*****

THE MYTHIC MEANING:

For some reason humans don’t seem able to accept the possibility that we have
come up with all the nifty inventions and systems that pop up again and again when
cultures reach certain concentrations of populace and age of continuity. We tend to
make up stories about gods, aliens, and exceptional human beings to explain leaps in
cultural evolution.
The process of Initiation, in which an individual progresses from one state of
conscious to another, is often accomplished through cultural rituals. Sometimes, in the
more advanced systems, an individual is required to initiate themselves.
Interestingly enough, the system of intiation often parallels the leap in cultural
accomplishments. What usually happens is that a few unique individuals bring in the
new ideas. The ideas are rejected at first by the establishment -- recall that Galileo’s
observation that the earth revolved around the sun was anathema to the Catholic
Church and he had to recant his ideas. Crafty fellow managed to hold his ideas
nonetheless.
The people who first invented the computer, the man who first invented devices
to capture electricity (Nikola Tesla), anybody who’s first is often punished by the
establishment. Typically then, someone else comes along and develops the pure
original idea and makes all the money and gets all the credit. The true first inventor is
left to bemoan the injustices of life and society as they, typically, suffer in poverty and
ignominy.
The story of Prometheus both follows and sets this pattern.
Things to remember about the Prometheus myth is that the hero is of the upper
or ruling class. He spies something severely lacking in the lower classes and out of the
sheer goodness of his heart, he determines to help them out.
Because there is a great inertia in culture and society, the system does not want
him to upset the balance of things-as-they-are. Just as Newton’s Second Law states that
“A body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion”, so
too do systems tend to resist change. Therefore, anyone or anything that threatens
change is seen as a threat. The establishment in this myth is personified as the old
Tital gods.
So angry are they at Prometheus’s perceived treason and defection to the lower
class that they inflict great punishment upon him.
The Mythic Meaning that can be applied in so many instances is that when you
begin to change the status quo there will be great resistance.
It will take great courage to bring about change and often, most often, one will
be doing it all alone.

*****
PLOTPOINTS - STEALING FIRE FROM HEAVEN:

• Hero has access to or possession of valuable Item forbidden to lesser mortals.

• Hero sees lack in lives of mortals which could be helped by the Item.
• 1st Setback - Hero warned not to give Item to mortals.
• Hero pretends to acquiesce; seeks way to disobey.
• Hero braves descent to mortal world, must find mortals willing to accept and use
gift of Item.
• 2nd Setback - Misunderstood, rejected by mortals.
• Retreats to find new approach. Gains new insights, tools, tries again.
• 3rd Setback - Hero betrayed by mortal / or by own weakness / or by fellow God.
• Escapes with Item into mortal world. Or escapes but Item left behind or taken by
fellow God(s).
• Hero must run/hide out from vengeful Gods. Rely on own abilities, needs to
develop new one to survive.
• 1st Assist - Mortal befriends / or reluctantly trusts Hero. Helps Hero escape fellow
Gods.
• Hero learns new survival ability from Mortal(s). Renews plan to give Item to
Mortals.
• Opposition from Gods escalates.
• 2nd Assist - fellow God offers help. Trust? Or not?
• Mortals get Item, begin to use it.
• Gods incensed, increase search for Hero.
• Hero almost escapes Gods.
• Item left in hands of Mortals.
• Hero captured by Gods, punished.
• Mortals use Item, better themselves.
• Gods grumble. Hero suffers. Mortals gain.
• In some versions, the Hero is eventually released from captivity and torture.

*****
 THE WAKEUP CALL

My soul has been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage.

Sir Francis Bacon

MEDIA ECHOES:

PERSEUS, THESEUS, KING ARTHUR, MOSES, SLEEPING BEAUTY,

PARSIFAL, BUDDHA, GHANDI, Sword in the Stone (Arthurian), Oscar Wilde’s fairy
tale THE STAR CHILD, LUKE SKYWALKER, JOAN OF ARC, THE ACCIDENTAL
TOURIST, ROMANCING THE STONE, shirley valentine, REGARDING HENRY,
WORKING GIRL, SHINE, THE DOCTOR, PLeasantville, AMERICAN BEAUTY,
MATRIX, SPIDERMAN
*****
THE MYTH:

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest [1895]

You may have noticed that most heroes are missing at least one parent: King
Arthur and Luke Skywalker, Hercules and Helen of Troy, Moses and Rose of TITANIC,
the little boy in THE SIXTH SENSE and Neo of MATRIX, plus scores of other ‘poor
little orphans and half-breeds’.
There’s a really good mythic reason for this: they are not encumbered with a role
model of the traditional sort and are forced to look within, outward, and upward for the
archetype of female or male-ness. Orphans are natural seekers, outside the norm. Plus,
they make really great stories and examples of aspiration and heroism for the rest of us.
 Though heroes most often work alone, they serve the Group whether that Group
is a family, tribe, city-state, nation, religion, planet and perhaps some day the solar
system, dimension, galaxy, etc. if current science fiction proves as prophetic as some
mythologies have done.
These heroes are not part of the Group in the ordinary sense. Though usually of
"royal" or "immortal" blood they are often hidden away at birth because omens have
foretold they will have an unsettling impact on the status quo. Kings who hear from a
soothsayer that their new-born child will de-throne or kill them are not wont to be fond
of that child.
These noble cast-offs are often brought up incognito by a single parent, simple
foster parents, by royalty in another land, or sometimes even by animals (dysfunctional
family takes on a new dimension here). This archetype of the poor little orphan or
half-breed often plays out the Mythic Theme of the Wake-up Call where at some point,
usually at puberty or as they are about to become adults, they re-discover their true
heritage. Most then take on the mantle of duty and honour and save the day.
Other than being born posthumously [a Latin word meaning born after the
death of the parent, usually the father, for all the obvious reasons], another reason the
hero might be missing a mortal parent is because they’re the offspring of immortals.
Lots of our favourite gods and heroes are half-breeds, from Jesus to Gilgamesh [who was
two-thirds god, an odd genetic combination that’s never been adequately explained], the
Irish hero Cu Chulainn to Pallas Athena and many more. The unique parentage often
includes gods, angels, dead heroes, animals, acts of magic, acts of weather, or otherwise
seemingly simple acts like stepping over a stream or a fire.
Birds are a favourite disguise of gods when they come to visit mortal women.
One wonders why? I mean, did girls in very very ancient times hang around with birds,
is it a distorted memory of earth-girls mating with aliens from the skies, or is it simply
because birds represent the spiritual aspect in so many cultures and are often seen as the
embodiment of the Breath of Life?
 At any rate, you have the Greek king god Zeus turning himself into a swan to
seduce the elegant Leda. There’s a lot of art depicting this event and its results:
dangerously beautiful Helen of Troy, her sister the vengeful Clytemnestra and her loyal
brothers Castor and Pullox. In a lot of the art depicting the Christian version of Jesus’
conception the Virgin Mary was visited by the Holy Ghost as a white dove which
impregnated her.
Bulls are often parenting children, as in the case of Cretan Queen Pasiphae
mating with a white bull to produce the Minotaur, a miserable half-breed who ended up
causing no end of grief. Legend has it a Mongolian princess also mated with a bull.
The resulting baby was locked in an iron cradle and cast into Lake Baikal, then luckily
was found by a shaman who raised the child to become founder of the Bulagat clan.
Sometimes this child is said to be Genghis Khan.
Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud had a field day with sons and fathers and death-
wishes. We don’t take it all so seriously now, but back then, these ideas were endemic
in his circle. The Classically educated minds of his day, having all been reared with the
Greco-Roman myths (including Freud’s favourite Oedipus), would have been very
familiar with some of the following dysfunctional family stories.
Greek King Acrisius imprisoned his daughter Danae to avoid the prophecy of
her future son killing the old man. But Zeus (this time cleverly disguised as a shower of
golden rain) fell into Danae’s prison courtyard and fathered Perseus, who with his
mother Danae was then cast adrift in a wooden chest. Found and raised by fishermen,
the boy was mentored into the warrior way by the immortals Hermes and Athena and
he went on to slay the terrible Medusa. He also performed the requisite "save the
maiden from the dragon" feat and acquired his wife Andromeda. By the way, he did
eventually kill his grandfather, but it was in a sporting accident.
The Athenian hero Theseus grew up apparently fatherless in his mother's home
village but when he lifted a huge stone and retrieved his father/king's sword from under
the stone his royal heritage was recognized. Besides righting a lot of local wrongs, the
brave youth slew the Cretan Minotaur (which see above) with his bare hands and
stopped the grisly tribute of seven youths and seven virgins every nine years. Upon his
return to Athens, Theseus was declared king but resigned and formed a commonwealth
of citizens. He continued to be a noble warrior-leader of liberty and democracy through
many more adventures.
In a shift of the usual paradigm, Jewish legend tells that Moses was an
ordinarily-born Israelite baby with two mortal parents. He was set adrift in a basket,
found by the Pharoah's daughter, reared in the royal palace, and trained in the Egyptian
priesthood until he reluctantly answered the Israelite god Jahweh's call to step into the
Hero shoes and get his fellows out of town and out of slavery.
Romulus and Remus were twin sons of the war god Mars and Rhea Silvia, mortal
daughter of a dethroned king. The babies were cast out on the Tiber River, found and
raised by wolves and a woodpecker. They grew up and founded Rome after a lot of
revenge, internecine strife, and acquisition of the neighboring Sabine women by
forceful persuasion.
The legendary Briton King Arthur was of a magical conception involving his
father King Uther Pendragon appearing to the beautiful Igrainne in the guise of her
(recently) dead husband, whisked away at birth by the Merlin and raised as foster son
of kindly Sir Ector. The young Arthur humbly performed squirely duties until
stumbling upon his rightful heritage to the sword Excalibur and through it, the role of
War-Duke and the throne of Briton. Note the similarity of the sword and the stone
with the Greek Hero Theseus.
Greek hero Hercules’s heritage sprang from the king god Zeus, who like Uther
visiting Igraine in the guise of Duke Gorlois to beget King Arthur, disguised himself as
the mortal Alcmene's husband, renown general Amphytryon. Terribly strong, Hercules
was not terribly smart and relied on his physical prowess to accomplish his great deeds.
[The contemporary TV series portrays him more kindly than do most of the myths and
legends.]
 Mesopotamian ruler Gilgamesh followed the typical trail of a prophecy-wary
grandfather enraged by his "secluded" daughter's giving birth to a son by an unknown
man. The infant was tossed over the city walls but saved by an eagle to go on to great
deeds. Another version has him one-third human and two-thirds divine from a goddess,
a rather odd proportional mix of DNA.
Irish hero Cu Chulain was the son of the sun-god Lug and was astonishingly
devoted to the Warrior Path. In battle the "hero's light" shone from his forehead and a
black-red column of blood spouted from the top of his head. To assure death on his
feet, Cu Chulain lashed his dying self to a standing stone.
The Egyptian god Horus was a posthumous child, conceived when his mother
the queen-goddess Isis had reassembled his father the king-god Osiris’s hacked-up body
and given him a special kiss that revived him just long enough to get her pregnant.
Horus eventually gained justice over his wicked uncle Set who had slain Osiris.
Greek Warrior-Goddess Pallas Athena was the daughter of king-god Zeus alone,
born from his splitting headache. No wonder his head hurt, she was born fully grown
and fully armed. She’s a rare thing -- only one parent and that one a god.
Greek hero of the Trojan war Achilles' parents were mortal King Peleus and the
sea nymph Thetis.
Alexander the Great's mother Olympias claimed that his father was not the
mortal King Philip of Macedon but actually the god Ammon-Zeus. We aren’t told
much of what King Philip thought about all that.

*****

THE MYTHIC MEANING:

So what do all these tales of half-breeds and orphans tell us, and why do we tell
ourselves these stories? One explanation of the bull-as-parent story is that it explained
the astronomical shift in the equinoxes from the zodiacal sign of Taurus the bull to the
sign of Aries the warrior.
For those searching for evidence of visiting aliens and the star-seed theory of
human evolution, there’s plenty of room for interpreting some of the stories that way.
Particularly curious in that vein is a passage from the Judeo-Christian Bible, “And it
came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were
born unto them, that the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and saw that
they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose,” Genesis 6:1-2. This
theme is echoed in many sci-fi stories and we’ve seen any number of Star Trek episodes
where Captain Kirk goes about inseminating half the galaxy in a gods-from-above style.
The esoteric interpretation of these stories is that humanity is part animal/part
immortal. We are the kingdom where matter, soul, and spirit come together.
According to most mythologies, humanity is in exile from its true heritage, cast adrift in
the natural world. We learn well from our foster-parent Nature or the human side, but
our mixed makeup as both animal-man and spiritual-man is both our blessing and our
bane. The poignant nostalgia for something half-forgotten that sometimes pains our
soul is born of a higher loneliness than this life alone affords. It is the higher home
and higher parent we seek and serve.
In Freemasonry reference is often made to the “widows & orphans”.
Traditionally the Widow is Isis, Egyptian goddess queen and mother of the mysteries.
Orphans are disciples on the spiritual path.
The sense of being in exile, of not belonging, is an inherent aspect of the heroic
makeup. By very definition the hero rises above the masses and does great deeds which
will benefit others, often at great sacrifice to self. Heroes upset the established order
(those terrified dads and granddads), which knowing it is doomed, nonetheless resists
and tries in vain to maintain its entrenched power. But because they embody higher
Purpose, Power, & Will, heroes often presage shifts in cultures and civilizations.
 What does this mean to us today in real life? We’ve seen that our True Heroes
seldom come from traditional families, far from it. Yet modern fundamentalists are
touting a return to “family values” as though that would solve all the ills of modern
life. It is unfortunately a very short-sighted view of family life since the nuclear family
of two parents of opposite sex and their progeny alone in a single dwelling is a recent
phenomenon prevalent in the western world, particularly America. There is really
nothing “traditional” to return to. To blame all our ills on the disintegration of the
nuclear family distracts us from the real societal problems and their multiple causes.
Perhaps the breakdown of the nuclear family is the first painful step to bringing
all humans to a higher familial awareness. To bringing them to a surer individuality.
To heightening their sense that the role of parent can be played by anyone, but the true
parent is greater and higher and is called God, the Christ, the higher self, the great
spirits, etc.....
An interesting way to view this breakdown is that the natural state of life and
families is for them to be expanded, extended, extensive, interconnected. By isolating
small units of humans into regulated systems of working father, stay-at-home mom and
the 2.2 kids you are trying to force a large entity into a small container. People need
larger groups with which to interact in order to be healthy. So perhaps this
“breakdown” is simply the way that nature is sneaking around a restrictive human
imposition and creating step-families, community-raised children, children raised by
grandparents, multiple caretaker situations, child care facilities, etc. By default we still
have extended families, they just aren’t all blood relations.
So where have we seen this paradigm in more modern stories? The Mythic
Theme of “The Wakeup Call” gives us examples of these ‘poor little orphans and half-
breeds’ coming alive to their true nature and then struggling to become who they really
are. The Wakeup Call shows how an individual regains knowledge of their true identity
through a series of hardships, adventures, failures, and eventually -- success.
 This theme strikes a very deep chord in humanity. Some say because we are
really from the stars, or fallen from heaven, or that it is simply the way we are built to
experience self-consciousness which makes us feel separate from the vast pool of the
One Life. The philosophers urge us to “Know thyself” and “To thine own self be
true”. But how can we do that? Science has now isolated the part of the brain that
governs the sense of self and other; yet we don't know quite how its triggered, why it
works, or what it really means.
When we have hidden from ourselves vast parts of our own nature and skills --
whether as some philosophies say for the long-term soul purpose of experience, because
of repression or oppression in the character's timeline, or perhaps because of
psychological frailties or injuries -- it often takes harsh awakenings to bring us back to
our true and full identity. This process of awakening makes for fascinating story-
telling.
It makes for fascinating stories where a character doesn’t know who they really
are and through the course of the story discover their true nature and identity, usually
through trial and error. It’s a wonderful theme because it reflects the search of the
individual personality for its own higher, spiritual heritage and meaning. It’s the story
of those pressing questions we all face: Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the
meaning of all this? How can I give back to the world around me?
The concept of reincarnation offers an excellent paradigm for an individual to
re-connect with qualities she might not be expressing in this particular time and place.
Though all is available to all, the Soul usually chooses to learn certain lessons in each
lifetime, so a few in particular will stand out as those life’s “problems”.
Other paradigms seconded by modern science (in particular "String Theory") are
those of multiple dimensions, or varying lives and alternate realities.
And certainly psychology delineates many types of personality disorders based
on or hinging on denial, repression, projection, and other avoidances of the truth about
oneself.
 What often happens in a “Wakeup Call” story is that the heroine doesn’t even
know she has a problem until there is a sudden setback. She often tries to solve the
symptoms without really identifying the problem, which of course comes to no good.
Eventually, (see Plot Points), the heroine identifies her patterns, resolves those deeper
issues, and then incorporates the skills and wisdom into her current life and affairs.
“The Wakeup Call” is a marvelous vehicle for drama because it’s rife with
inherent conflict for the main character, and because change of any kind is always met
with resistance. Sometimes the resistance is internal on the part of the heroine,
sometimes it’s the people around the heroine who don’t want their world shaken up,
and sometimes it’s the physical environment. Remember the classical physicist Isaac
Newton’s First Law of Inertia: "A body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion
tends to stay in motion".
The dramatic conflict in a story on this Mythic Theme is about breaking the
inertia of inaction and then guiding the inertia of the new directions. It's about
meeting, facing, conquering and moving beyond the fear of change.
This theme offers great opportunity for the audience to root for the heroine
since we usually know more than she does about her problem. Whether it’s sympathy
or suspense you’re after, this is a perfect foil for it. And of course, it’s a theme which
will hold up a valuable paradigm for the audience to assess their own lives and find
those situations which might need changing, too.

*****
PLOT POINTS: THE WAKEUP CALL

• LIFE IS NORMAL BUT CONSTRICTED

• SEE REPRESSION IN PARTICULAR AREA
• 1ST OPPORTUNITY FOR BREAKING OUT
• SEE FEAR OF CHANGE, TURNS DOWN OR FAILS TO BREAK OUT
• OLD WAY MORE UNSATISFIED, UNCOMFORTABLE
• THREAT TO STATUS QUO
• 2ND OPPORTUNITY PRECIPITATED BY THREAT
• OLD WAYS DON'T SAVE THE DAY; NEW APPROACH MUST BE TRIED
• EXHILARATION OF NEW WAY; DO OLD THINGS IN NEW WAY
• SHOT DOWN BY RUBBER-BAND EFFECT OF OLD HABITS, FRIENDS
• REVEAL TRAUMATIC EVENT, INITIAL CAUSE OF REPRESSION
• NEW FRIENDS, SKILLS ASSIST NEW ATTEMPT TO BREAK OUT
• RELATIVE SUCCESS
• 3RD OPPORTUNITY INCLUDES MAJOR TRAUMA
• GATHER ALL FORCES, NEW SKILLS
• SUCCESS / or / FAILURE
1) IF SUCCESS, SEE ESTABLISHMENT IN NEW ARENA AND ABILITY
TO PASS ON THE SKILLS TO OTHERS
2) IF FAILURE, TRAGEDY ALLEVIATED BY KNOWING GOAL AND
DETERMINATION TO LEARN MORE AND TRY AGAIN SOMETIME
3) DEATH-DEFEAT BUT GOAL HAS BEEN INTERNALIZED BY SOUL

*****
 MYTHIC INITIATION

The Ajna Center

This Mythic Theme is actually about a single character.

You can weave this personal pattern in to the Plot Points of any of the Mythic Themes.

MEDIA ECHOES:

Frodo Baggins by the end of The Lord of the Rings stories; Gandalf all the way through.

Neo by the end of Matrix. Patton all the time. Henry V.

Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in the Star Wars films are on the Ajna Center, but
Darth Vader drops, seriously.

Spiderman, at the end when he really takes up his mantle and gives up the girl. Batman
in Batman and the Phantasm, when he also gives up the girl, because she went over to
the dark side.

Pushing Tin — Ajna Centers are essential to do the flight traffic controler job, but Billy
Bob Thornton’s and John Cusack’s characters drop into unbalanced hyper-competition.

Kate Beckinsale’s Flora Poste in Cold Comfort Farm is an Ajna Center character on a
comic vein.

In the musicals Hello Dolly and The King and I, heroines Dolly Levi and Anna
Leonowens both hold an Ajna focus and manipulate others, to the greater good.
The Truman Show, with Ed Harris an Ajna at the beginning, being the observer, and
Jim Carrey getting there by the end, as he himself goes from observed to observer.

The Largo Winch game.

In real life, examples are Alexander the Great’s Empire, The Roman Empire, The British Empire,
Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, Air Traffic Controllers — while doing the job,
Commanders in Chief — during battle, Media producers and directors — while doing the job.

*****

MYTHIC MEANING:

This "New Mythology" follows the ancient esoteric practice of integrating the physical, emotional, and
mental bodies into one focus at the Ajna Center. The Ajna Center is named for the Hindu warrior-
prince Arjuna, who is pictured in his war chariot: it is drawn by three horses (physical, emotional, and
mental bodies) and is driven by the blue-skinned god Krishna (the Soul). The Ajna Focus is placed as a
small golden sun three inches in front of the forehead. Not the same as the Third Eye, it is however in
about the same location. The Third Eye is actually a function of the Ajna Center.

The Ajna Focus does not suppress any one body, but rather coalesces them into a unit
which is itself then subject to:

♦ input from the overshadowing soul via the Crown Center,

♦ powered, motivated and qualified by the Heart Center,
♦ utilized by proper function of the Throat Center in
speaking the words of creation, etc.

The Ajna Focus is a function, not a place. One who has developed an Ajna Focus (it is
hoped) will operate from the highest motives for the greatest good... i.e. with the
alignment above listed.
However, an Ajna Focus can drop. Hitler's very powerful Ajna Focus had dropped to a
Solar Plexus focus and was obsessed with tribal/racial power struggles. Charlie Manson's
charismatic Ajna Focus resided in the Sacral Center and the results were grisly.

Self-initiation into an Ajna Focus is the first real conscious step on the Path... other
steps will have been motivated by discomfort with one's life and/or an emotional
yearning for the Higher Self/Soul. This Initiation requires conscious thought. You have
to wake up to do it.

The Challenges to this Initiation come mostly from one's own self and one's own
environment. At each level there are barriers, challenges, helpers, tools, and gifts which
must be Met, Acquired, and Mastered before you can successfully move on to the next
level.

Once you have an Ajna Focus, you can become Consciously Creative.

*****
PLOT POINTS:

The Mythic Plot Points can be rearranged according to the length and structure of each story, but each
point must be covered in some way. You can use flashbacks, exposition, dreams and vision to let the
audience know the Hero has had certain experiences if you do not wish to take us through them with
her. You can have rituals to emphasize the passages from one focus to another, or simply a line of
dialogue, a look. Your character's dialogue will alter as their level of awareness altars; it's one of the
subtlest and most powerful ways to illustrate their growth and change.

1. INTRODUCTION/HOLOGRAPHIC LAYOUT

The Hero is somewhat adept in one particular body [physical, emotional, or

mental] but is a wreck in the other two. The people/situations which illustrate this will
be resolved later in the story.

The hologram of the introduction should include hints of what is to come.

Recall the opening of "STAR WARS" where we see a spacecraft and then a really big
spacecraft. We know there's going to be a David & Goliath aspect to the story, it's going
to have a lot of technology, and the scope is really big.

The Hero
1) receives a challenge from his current situation
2) sees and desires a higher goal
3) is tempted to a lower focus
2. THE PHYSICAL REALM - PHYSICAL PROWESS

The Hero receives a physical challenge and must learn to be aware of his
physical body, must learn to appropriately defend himself from attack [be it germs or
gangs or UV rays], and must acquire the necessary skill.

A secondary character will still reflect the problem. The Hero will later help this
character resolve the problem by what the Hero has acquired in this realm.

He will see that many people create their lives from Fear.

He will learn not to create from Fear.

3. THE EMOTIONAL REALM

The Hero is caught up into a swirl of overwhelming polarized emotions. Highs

and lows, rights and wrongs, hates and loves -- all the opposing, head-knocking blaming,
recriminations, angst, whining, commanding....etc.

The push/pull of power plays on a personal and/or sexual level hurls the Hero
into conflict.

To conquer this realm the Hero must see that the goals of his opponent are very
like his own goals and that by refocusing higher up there may really be no conflict...
like the screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's the hero and Hero finally realize "aha!"
they really want the same thing and can work together to achieve it.
 This is where the shift from Pairs of Opposites [in opposition] is made to the
Polar Opposites [which like the poles of a bar magnet create a magnetic field].

After conquering the challenge of EMOTIONAL BALANCE, the Hero takes his
newly acquired skill [like how the martial arts use the attacker's anger energy and
deflect it] back into his world and becomes a peace-maker in a conflict situation.

4. MENTAL REALM

The confusion of conflicting logics assaults the Hero at this level.

Rhetoric, sophistry, arrogant dialogue, hard solid facts without heart, puzzles,
mazes. These are the challenges in this arena.

MENTAL PRECISION and DISCRIMINATION is his goal. To discern illusion

from reality.

After conquering this realm, the Hero must make a wise decision based on
seemingly logical but conflicting facts. He must be Solomon, able to discern fact from
fiction though both seem logical.
5. INITIAL AJNA FOCUS

In this section the Hero has managed to pull together an Ajna Focus with the
Physical Prowess, the Emotional Balance, and the Mental Precision.

He is proud. He begins to wield the power of this integrated focus but lacks
Heart. He uses the Focus for his personal selfish goals.

He succeeds briefly but it backfires. The focus disintegrates.

At the end of this section he remembers or is reminded of the Soul Connection

and looks up towards that goal.

6. OPENING THE HEART

The Hero has scrambled his way back and reclaimed a spot in the Ajna Focus.
He holds it waveringly but with great determination. He eyes the Soul Connection via
the Crown Center but teeters on the brink.
Suddenly he either:
1) remembers a lesson about the heart [not the emotions or sentiment,
but that great unconditional love for all]
2) his Guide reminds him about the importance of the Heart Center and
helps him open it up
 He must find a way into the Heart Center. Which he either does on his own by:
1) overcoming one of his own major fears (related to his seeming initial
prowess in either physical, emotional or mental realms); or
2) is assisted by his Guide

The Hero enters the Heart Center and makes some SACRIFICE of a portion of
himself to aid Humanity as a whole. [Or at least a large portion of it.]

With the Heart Center open he is ready, albeit with some trepidation, to attempt
the full Ajna Center connection and mastery of Conscious Creativity.

7. INITIATION = CONSCIOUS CREATIVITY

The Hero again makes the Ajna Focus, connects to the Crown Center, and the
Heart. With all this working, he can then create through the Ajna Focus, using the
Third Eye as a lens to project his will into outer reality.

The Hero takes this same focus into his real life and affects change to the major
challenge he was given in the first section.

*****
 STORY SOURCES
AESOP'S FABLES - Laura Gibbs
ALCHEMY & MYSTICISM – Alexander Roob
BEYOND THE HERO’S JOURNEY - Pamela Jaye Smith [CDs/audio tapes]
BHAGAVAD GITA, MAHABARATA, RIG VEDA, UPANISHADS - Hindu classics
BIBLE
BULLFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY
Joseph Campbell...... All his works. In particular:
THE POWER OF MYTH - from the Bill Moyers TV show
HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES (aka the Hero's Journey)
INNER REACHES OF OUTER SPACE, Metaphor as Myth & Religion
THE MASKS OF GOD - 4-pt analysis of mythology through time
CANTERBURY TALES - Geoffrey Chaucer
DECAMERON, THE - Giovanni Boccaccio
GOLDEN BOUGH, THE - Sir James Frazer
GREEK MYTHS, THE - Robert Graves
GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES - the Brothers Grimm
LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S MYTHS AND LEGENDS - Peter Bedrick Books
MEMORIES AND VISIONS OF PARADISE: EXPLORING THE UNIVERSAL MYTH
OF A LOST GOLDEN AGE – Richard Heinberg
METAMORPHOSIS - Vergil, Roman poet and mythologist
MOTHER GOOSE, compilations of folklore and fairy tales
MYTHIC PAST, THE - Thompson [on the myths of the Bible]
MYTHOLOGIES (of many cultures, separate books) Geoffrey Parrinder
MYTHOLOGY - Edith Hamilton
NEW LAROUSSE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHOLOGY
POWER OF THE DARK SIDE, THE – Pamela Jaye Smith
STORY OF CIVILIZATION, THE - Will and Ariel Durant

TALES FROM THE OPERA – Anthony J. Rudel

WHEN THEY SEVERED EARTH FROM SKY: HOW THE HUMAN MIND SHAPES
MYTH – Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber

WHITE GODDESS, THE - Robert Graves

*****
 More Mythic Tools™ to help you improve
your creativity and your craft —

INNER DRIVES
How to Write and Create Characters
Using the Eight Classic Centers of Motivation
Michael Wiese Productions www.mwp.com

PITCHING TIPS FROM ANCIENT AUTHORS

MYTHWORKS www.mythworks.net

POWER OF THE DARK SIDE

Creating Great Villains & Dangerous Situations
Michael Wiese Productions www.mwp.com

Seminar and workshop CDs and tapes:

ALPHA BABES, ARCHEPATHS, BEYOND THE HERO'S JOURNEY,
CREATING OUR NEXT MYTHS, and many more
MYTHWORKS www.mythworks.net

Story Consultations, Writing, Coaching

Speaker, Teacher, Panelist, Workshop Leader
www.mythworks.net
pjs@mythworks.net
323-874-6042
PAMELA JAYE SMITH is an Author, Consultant, Speaker, and award-winning
Producer/Director with over thirty years experience in the media industry. She has
worked at major Hollywood studios and with wildly independent companies, always
enjoying the process of bringing creative ideas to the worldwide screen.

Smith is the founder of MYTHWORKS www.mythworks.net and the author of INNER

DRIVES: How to Write and Create Characters Using the Eight Classic Centers of
Motivation and THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE: Creating Great Villains and
Dangerous Situations, both published by Michael Wiese Productions www.mwp.com

Pamela's interest in mythology began in 5th grade. She took a degree from the
University of Texas at Austin in English and Latin and her first short screenplay was
based on an episode from Homer's Iliad. Pamela has eight years formal study in
Comparative Mysticism and is a certified teacher of the Mystery Schools, source of
many world mythologies.

She has appeared on national TV and radio programs as a mythology expert, including
on the “Forbidden Secrets” TV series. She was also the on-camera spokesperson for
Microsoft’s “Age of Mythology” on-line computer game.

Pamela helps others enhance their stories and scripts with the power of myth: themes,
symbols and imagery. She also brings the insights and effectiveness of archetypes to
storytellers’ character development. These classic tools work for any style and any genre,
in any stage of development -- plus, they’re fun to use.

Clients and credits include Microsoft, Disney, Paramount, Columbia-Sony, Universal,

RAI-TV Rome, UCLA, USC Film School, American Film Institute, Thot Fiction
Marseille France, Natl. Film Institute of Denmark, Pepperdine University, Natl. Assoc.
of Broadcasters, and various film festivals and story conferences. She was named a Star
Speaker at Screenwriting EXPO 2006.

Various projects have taken Smith to the Arctic, the Andes, SE Asia, Europe, and New
Zealand. She has filmed on the largest off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, slept in
grass huts and eaten guinea pig under Ecuador’s highest volcano, caught her own sushi
in the Leyte Gulf, and rappelled into the jungles of Mindanao searching for lost WWII
Japanese gold.

Pamela is an avid reader, drives a ’77 Bronco, and enjoys opera. A dilettante approach to
sports has included surfing, skiing, snorkeling, flying, go-cart & auto racing, and driving
an off-shore oil rig and an Army tank -- both under close supervision.