Raffa and Campbell

" . . . there are no models in our mythology for an individual woman's quest. Nor is there any model for the male in marriage to an individuated female."*

Discuss briefly crisis development models of human person. Explain this as an opportunity for heroism even in quiet times.

Briefly review anima and animus, and the Campbell theory of heroic quest. Refer to the ox-hunting pictures as necessary and to 1000 faces.

Discuss The importance of the calls (75bRaffa, and related material in Campbell).

Discuss later crisis as a crisis of integration or disintegration of opposites along a 4 fold schema. Explain her usage of "wholeness" in terms of (p. 111) [Matthew 5:48 and explain Hebrew (Shalom, Shalem).

Four Stages


Stage One: A time of Safety


Stage Two: A time for Leaving


Stage Three: A time for Dying


A time for Dying--the 7 clues on pp. 110-111

  1. the dislikes about others
  2. becoming more aware of real feelings and emotions
  3. paying attention to body clues
  4. facing fear of death and allowing self to grieve
  5. creative work
  6. recording and analyzing dreams
  7. conscious effort to understand femininity and feminine aspect of God

Stage Four: A time of Rebirth


Recommend consideration of her characterization of the better person

P.S.  These notes are to be used after a discussion of Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), his theory of the Monomyth and some of the ways this can be related to Jung (1875-1961).



*The introductory quote is from Joseph Campbell, "Joseph Campbell on the Great Goddess," Parabola: The Magazine of Myth and Tradition. Vol. V (4) (Fall 1980):74-85. (As quoted and cited by Jean Benedict Raffa in The Bridge to Wholeness: A Feminine Alternative to the Hero Myth (San Diego: LuraMedia, 1992), p. 16.)

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