This article is adapted from Campbell’s Monomyth: The Quest for the Mythic Hero, our 72-page guide to understanding the monomyth. To preview the guide, visit our Hero’s Journey shop.
The Hero’s Journey: Evoking the Shadow Journey
by Reg Harris
Resistance is not Refusal
The denial and the resistance to the call are important steps in the journey of the hero. They demand an inner decision.
Friedemann Wieland, The Journey of the Hero
Most discussions of Campbell’s monomyth present the Call Refused as a normal stage in all journeys. They explain that the hero first rejects the Call before making the decision to take the journey. However, this interpretation is inaccurate, and we need to make an important distinction: rejecting the Call temporarily is not the same as refusing the Call completely.
In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell makes the point that not all heroes refuse the Call. He writes, “Often in actual life, and not infrequently in myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered, for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interests” (1949, p. 59). Simply put, “often” is not “always.”
Wavering or hesitating is part of every journey. When initiates face the Exit Threshold, the gateway to the unknown, they begin to consider the risks and dangers they will face. This “threshold resistance” forces the initiates to understand and commit to the transformation ahead. As Jungian psychologist Friedemann Wieland writes in The Journey of the Hero (1991), “The denial and the resistance to the call are important steps in the journey of the hero. They demand an inner decision.” (p. 18). Threshold resistance is not refusal, and is better symbolized by the Threshold Guardian. (See “Threshold Guardians: Gods or Demons” elsewhere on this site.)
It’s when initiates cannot overcome this initial resistance and turn away from the quest that we encounter the Call Refused. We are dealing with two levels of rejection: the temporary hesitation that is part of every journey and the complete rejection that we find in some journeys, or the Call Refused. Here I will focus on the Call Refused.
Consequences of Refusing the Call
Refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one’s own interest.
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
In truth, the refusal of the Call is not really a stage in the journey; it’s an exit from the journey and into a “Shadow Journey.” It’s a rejection of our need to grow and adapt. As Campbell explains in Hero,
refusal is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one’s own interest. The future is regarded not in terms of an unremitting series of deaths and rebirths, but as though one’s present system of ideals, virtues, goals, and advantages were to be fixed and made secure. (1949, p. 59-60)
In other words, when we refuse the Call, we are denying the natural flow of life’s energy: the natural process in which one stage of life “dies” to make room for another, more enlightened stage. Refusal occurs most often when we cling to our ego, our comfortable self-image and the perspective, beliefs and behaviors that sustain it. However, clinging to our ego and denying or repressing life’s transformational energy can lead to serious problems because that unexpressed psychic energy doesn’t just disappear. In The Call to Adventure, gestalt psychologist Paul Rebillot explains,
Any undischarged energy held in the body too long becomes poisonous, and the process of self-victimization begins… As the cycle continues, the pattern intensifies, turning poisonous, almost murderous. We become victims of our own controls. (Rebillot, p. 108)
Campbell recognized this danger, writing that refusing the Call, “converts the adventure into its negative” (1949, p. 59). In this “Shadow Journey,” experiences that would have offered growth and liberation become threats to our ego. They remind us that, by refusing the call, we have sabotaged our future to protect our present. We have “solved” the problem by sacrificing our potentials.
The Walls that Protect also Imprison
The subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved.
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Living in the Shadow Journey is threatening and painful, so to protect our ego, we build defenses and try to avoid responsibility for our circumstances. We build a protective labyrinth of rationalizations, excuses and delusions. Eventually, however, the wall we build to keep painful reminders out becomes a prison that keeps us in. Then our world contracts and, as Campbell tells us,
Walled in boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland…and his life feels meaningless …All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration (1949, p. 59).
To understand the dire nature of refusing the call, simply consider how the lives famous heroes would have changed had they refused the Call. For example, what would have happened to Odysseus had he not honored his oath to protect Helen? Could he have lived with himself after he broke his code of honor? Would his people have respected him? How would Harry Potter have felt if he had rejected his invitation to Hogwarts, knowing that a greater life called him, but he refused?
Both Odysseus and Harry Potter would eventually have fallen into bitterness and regret. They might have spun a web of rationalizations in an attempt to protect their egos and self-respect, but eventually they would have locked themselves into the “Shadow Journey” of the Call Refused.
Not All Who Hesitate Are Lost
Sometimes the predicament following an obstinate refusal of the call proves to be the occasion of a providential revelation of some unsuspected principle of release.
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Fortunately, even when we refuse the Call, our situation may not be completely lost. In Hero, Campbell tells us that if we are lucky, a person or an event will appear and help us face our fears, giving us another opportunity to restore vitality and flow to our lives. Ironically, our own resistance may bring about this opportunity for our salvation. The problem we created for ourselves by refusing the Call may trigger a situation or an insight that will change our perspective and open us to the journey we need.
Should we ignore this second Call, however, we could slide irrevocably into the darkness of the Call Refused: a world of bitterness, frustration, anger, regret and isolation. Without help, self-destruction—physical or psychological—could result.
Whatever house he [who has refused the Call] builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his Minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration (Campbell, 1949, p. 59).
Learning from Refusal
In the Call Refused, our fears, guilt and limited perspective assume control of our life. If we allow this to happen, we face a future filled with defensiveness, bitterness and isolation. However, if we can understand the Shadow Journey, its causes and its dangers, we can expand our perspective and better navigate the challenges we will face as we work to realize our potentials. I close with the words of Friedemann Weiland from The Journey of the Hero:
It is a difficult task to follow one’s inner calling. As long as there is the possibility of avoiding it, a person might refuse to go. But even if he continued to live as if nothing had happened, it is as if his spiritual and emotional centre of gravity has already moved into a new world. A chain of signs and experiences keep reminding him, until one day the hero goes on his way. It is only then that a person comes in contact again with his own center (1991, p. 18).
References
Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
Rebillot, P. (1993). The Call to Adventure: Bringing the hero’s journey to daily life (1st ed.). NY: HarperCollins.
Wieland, F. (1991). The Journey of the Hero: Personal growth, deep ecology and the quest for the grail (1st ed.). Dorset, England: Prism.
