Rose Perkins: Apotheosis (Class Reading)

     As I have been reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I have slowly seen the pieces of the Hero's Journey, both written in myth and symbolic, come together. One section of this hero's journey is Apotheosis, which occurs during the second stage, initiation. This stage caused me to form several questions, as I did not completely understand it. "What is apotheosis?" I asked myself. 

    Defined, Apotheosis usually means to elevate to the status of a god, or, in simpler terms, deification. However, in the book, this was a very long and confusing chapter. The process seemed to be described in many different ways through all of the mythical examples given, mainly through the unification of male and female forms that had been separated. Eventually, I began to understand it, at least in how I think it is supposed to be meant. 

    On the last page of this section, it says that in this stage, the initiate has the unification of the male (eternity) and the female (time) forms within himself. It also says that the male could symbolize the beginning of the journey and the female symbolizes the goal. In both of these cases, the two parts are one in the same. They are just separated by speech and invisible walls within the initiate. The initiate has to shatter the invisible walls and unite the parts within himself to move forward on his journey. In some cases, this is the initiate becoming a deity or becoming a figure like a deity. In other cases, it is just the hero making peace within himself which is required for an internal transformation. 

    This may not be the interpretation that Campbell was going for. This section had many different examples and created many paths. However, this is what it has began to mean for me. 


 

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