For this purpose, the ego needs the hero. The notion of the hero
in Jung’s analytical psychology represents that particular aspect of the ego
that ventures into the darkness of the shadow, searches for “the treasure, the
princess, the ring, the golden egg, elixir of life, etc.,” which, as Daryl
Sharp says, all are “metaphors for one’s true feelings and unique potential.” By
means of its hero-function, the ego turns toward the Self and a vital and dynamic
relationship between
them is made possible. As Joseph Campbell succinctly says, “The effect of the
successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow
of life into the body of the world.”
….The central, nuclear myth of Jungian psychoanalysis
is the Hero-myth, because the
psychological essence of the hero is to abandon the kingdom of the ego, to
challenge the norms and obsessions of collective consciousness and the
persona—the face of social adaptation—and to search for meaning. The absence of
meaning is the essence of neurosis, which, Jung says, “must be understood,
ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.” When
Sartre says that man is “the incontestable author” who, condemned to freedom,
“is responsible for the world and for himself as a way of being,” he speaks of
heroic man. (pp. 17-18)
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