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Previous posts took an introductory look at Joseph Campbell's Monomyth and a more in-depth view of the first and second rites of Campbell's monomyth, the separation and the initiation. Today, in the third part of the series, the focus turns to the end of stories—and the return.

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Return. At the end of the story, knowledge—the forgotten truths of the past and the necessary revelations for the continuance of the future—await both the character and the reader. The initiation rites ensure that, for the character, any and all discovered truths will be hard-earned. What has been submerged, repressed, forgotten, hidden will now, at the end, arise back into the world and into consciousness. Jung wrote that "he who cannot lose his life, neither shall he have it" (13). The first rite separates a character from his life; the second rite destroys that life and forces the character to build a new one. This final rite—the return—is the resolution of that conflict between the character and the chaos he has confronted.

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It is wrong, I think, to look at "a successful conclusion to the quest" as a necessary requirement of the return. The victory of the return is the achievement of the ultimate goal of the character's journey—a higher knowledge that remained, before, beyond his grasp. Each story requires a character to see something deeper within himself, some embedded truth that must be brought into the light. The hero brings this knowledge back to the world, to, as Campbell asserts, "teach again what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind's prudent folly" (218). The hero must "communicate to people who insist on the exclusive evidence of their senses the message of the all-generating void" (218).

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Spiritual change, a higher knowledge, a truer revelation of the structuring principles of life—these signal the successful initiation and consequent return. Symbolized by returns, resurrections, rebirths, enlightenments, and the like, the return of the protagonist represents the return of some life-renewing knowledge into the present world. As Karen Armstrong states in her Short History of Myth, "Every time men and women [take] a major step forward, they review their mythology and [make] it speak to the new conditions" (11). In doing so, they "address our most essential fears and desires" (11).

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That's the Monomyth. A character—either by choice, chance, or a combination of the two—leaves the world he knows to confront the essential, timeless fears and desires of humanity. But for who?—for what?

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For us, the readers, of course. To show "people how to cope with their own interior crises" (11). To "give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life." To force us to "change our minds and hearts." To give "us new hope." To compel "us to live more fully." To "transform us."

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It is we, the readers of stories, who leave the text and return to our worlds. In opening the book and entering its world, we have separated from our own world, and as we continue through page after page, the text initiates us into its new terrain.

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Why this way? If indeed this is the One Way to enact the ritual of storytelling for the gods, what does its three-part structure reveal about those gods? About the purpose of stories? About our own humanity? Perhaps the gods act as metaphors for our own inner forces, those desires and powers whose essence and origin always remain beyond our grasp. How does one attempt to explain the unexplainable? To know what cannot be known? To see completely what can only be glimpsed?

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One writes a story.

Separation. Initiation. Return.

The One Way.

Amen.