Laws of Hero

By Esa Knaapi

This book helps you understand the meaning behind Hero's Journey and you to start your own adventure. You will learn that you're The Hero, who's going through a story's plot called life, and you're going to see yourself standing with the heroes you admire. Why you think that the stories speak for us so strongly? It's because the stories are always deeply connected to yourself. Just dare to step on the road of adventure and venture towards your destiny and becoming who you really are.

 

I will provide you the tools to understand yourself and others through Archetypical Roles, Higher Self, Shadow, Core Values, and feelings. You will also learn how to build different Personas and learn how to use Synchronicity, Flow, Patience, Boredom and The Will of Fire. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Esa Knaapi
• Release date: Jan 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393701132

Book preview

Acknowledgments

This path has been long and challenging for me. There’s no way I could have written this book without having a lot of help.

I want to thank my parents, who introduced me into the world of stories and reading from a very early age. This fed my sense of wonder and has taught me a lot of wisdom during my life. I also want to thank my sister, whose uniqueness and creativity has always inspired me.

Finland public library system has also helped me a lot. It provided and still provides an endless supply of books for all who wish to immerse himself or herself into the world of stories or gather information about any field he or she likes. The public library system is the gift, which value cannot be overstated, and it’s likely many amazing things wouldn’t have happened without books they provide.

I absolutely must also thank local cafeteria called Marina Café Laituri and all its employees for becoming my friends and providing me a good and pleasant environment to write in. Without them, this would have been a lonely path.

Preface

Welcome to the adventure! Most essential point of this book is to learn to see the very life itself as the story and yourself as the hero and storyteller of that story. The storyteller is master of his own fate, who rides on synchronicity wave and trusts that the world provides what he needs to fulfill his goals and destiny. Learn the key points of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Hear out your own Call to Adventure and decide who you wish to become. Learn to understand yourself, others and the world through archetypes, core values, and different parts of the psyche.

Hearing and accepting the call to adventure is perhaps the biggest and hardest step the hero can make, but stepping on the path, doesn’t yet mean the hero can clear it. To be able to do that, the hero needs right kind skills and attitude. The hero needs to know the power of masks, learn to accept and use the darkness within himself, and open himself to Higher Self’s guidance. The hero must able to ground himself into the present and sacrifice himself to the progress through the void, boredom and the flow state. Progressive The Will of Fire, which drives the hero and whole humanity forward, must also be understood and respected. And perhaps most important of all, the hero must have patience and will to endure long and hard path. To do that, the hero needs to learn to enjoy the process of molding himself. When the hero has reached the level high enough, he starts to affect his surroundings in a positive way no matter where he is or what he’s doing.

Things written in this book should all be taken with a grain of salt. Take nothing written here as some absolute truth. Rather, keep questioning everything with an open mind and enjoy the ride. Don’t get stuck into singular sentences, but find the meaning behind the text as a whole. I would recommend reading Hero’s Journey chapter first. After that, you can read chapters in any order you like. 

Let the adventure begin!

Law 1: The Hero understands Hero’s Journey

Literature professor Joseph Campbell wrote about Hero’s Journey, where he describes pattern, which is commonly seen in archetypical myths and stories. That pattern can be used to analyze the structure of stories, but we can also use it in a different way. We can use it as a map to grow as a person. It can show us the way how to become who we really are.

Hero’s Journey is as old as humanity itself, and its pattern has been used in stories and myths for thousands of years. It’s kind of surprising that somebody noticed and wrote theory behind the pattern so late, Joseph Campbell being the first at 1949. Joseph Campbell got a lot of influence from psychologist Carl Jung, who had built theories around archetypes, patterns and similarities between different mythologies and religious, arguing that connecting thing between them is human psyche and collective unconscious. Joseph Campbell was a literature professor, who also studied mythologies and religions. He saw patterns and similarities between stories and formed Hero’s Journey theory accordingly. It shows step-by-step from start to end what usually happens in mythical and archetypical stories.

Understanding Hero’s Journey is the starting point to everything. The journey begins from safety of the home, where the call of adventure tears the hero away and forces him to start his journey to become who he really is. When the path has been travelled enough far, there’s going to be a threshold, after there’s no turning back. The hero doesn’t have to make his journey alone. There’s going to be friends who support and travel with him, mentors who guide and train him, and lovers who to entangle their lives with the hero and inspire him to become a better version of himself. Then there are obviously the best companions of the hero, the villains who challenge him and push the hero to his limits. In this way, the villains are the best self-development tool the hero can wish for. Often the hero gets his ass kicked so hard that he ends up at the rock bottom. These moments are hardest for the hero, but usually also serve as the best learning experiences. Hardships and ordeals are good for the hero, since those make the hero to grow stronger and more capable. At the end of the road, waits the archenemy. The hero must defeat that dragon or he cannot fulfill his destiny and become who he is. After the hero has traveled his path of destiny and has become who he was, he often returns to his home and turns everything around him for the better, starting a new era of prosperity.

You are the hero of you own story.

Joseph Campbell

The reason Hero’s Journey and mythical stories resonate in our hearts so strongly is because we can relate to them. We ourselves are going through the same things as heroes in the stories. That doesn’t of course happen literally, but we are going through the same phases. Many of those phases happen again and again in our lives. The pattern keeps going around and around from our birth to our death. Hero’s Journey is a map which we can use to examine our own lives. It helps us to make a sense of things and helps us make our life more meaningful. After all, we all have our calls to adventures, trials, low points, thresholds, mentors, goddesses, temptresses, ordeals and even enemies.

Why you think stories are important to begin with? When we see certain patterns in stories, they can strike straight to our inner core of the psyche, because we can relate to them. Same things have happened to us, can happen to us, and will happen to us in the future. Life itself is a story, and we are the main character in that story. If you want to take control of your life, you have to become the storyteller of your own life and you can use Hero’s Journey to help with that. Your goals become your calls to adventure. Goddess can be your ideal love interest, who support your growth as a person. Trials and ordeals are things, which offers your challenges and help you grow stronger and towards your goal. Defeat is the point where life has kicked your ass and you are at the bottom. Rebirth happens when you arise from that beat down and continue your journey having more experience than before.

Next, I’m going to go through Hero’s Journey using George Lucas’ Star Wars as an example. There’re many other stories, which I could have used as an example, but as a big fan of the original trilogy I went with it.

Hero’s Journey with Luke Skywalker

Having a really good understanding of history, literature, psychology, sciences - is very, very important to actually being able to make movies.

George Lucas

When George Lucas was writing and directing original Star Wars Trilogy, he used Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey as a basis. This really shows in Luke’s character arc. When the story starts, he lives relatively peaceful life on a farm with his uncle and uncle’s wife. Farm life doesn’t however suit him at all. He dreams about adventures and fighting against the evil empire. Luke knows nothing about his father, but it’s later revealed that he was doing exactly the same thing in his youth that what Luke dreamed someday doing. It was in his blood and in his "Nature".

Luke’s aunt straight up says: Luke’s just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him.

Uncle Owen replies: That’s what I’m afraid of.

Owen was a good person. He knew what happened to Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. He knew that he turned into monstrous Darth Vader. That’s partly why he tried to suppress Luke and stop him from leaving. That’s not the whole reason. Owen like any parent worried that Luke would get hurt or even killed, if he let him go. Parents always worry about their children’s safety and letting them go. Luke’s aunt however told Owen that Luke can’t stay at the farm forever. They both knew it to be true, and that Owen was just making excuses and delaying the inevitable.

In summary, what does this mean? It means that you can’t and you shouldn’t suppress or try to kill what’s in person’s nature. There are two outcomes. Person either blows up internally or the spark inside will die. For example, what you think would had happened if uncle Owen quenched that spark inside of Luke and made him a farmer? It’s true that Luke would probably had been living his life more peacefully, but he would had been like a dead husk. Luke would never had become what he supposed to become. That’s not good. This doesn’t of course mean that there’s anything wrong with peaceful farm life. It all depends about a person does certain type of life suit him or not.

You can’t look the matter only from an individual’s point of view either. Not becoming who you’re supposed to be can be a personal catastrophe, but it can be disastrous for society as well. Just imagine what would had happened if Luke didn’t answer to his Call of Adventure. Who would have saved Leia, destroyed Death Star, redeemed Darth Vader and defeated Sidious? Nobody. Person has his own job to do and if he doesn’t do it, the entire society can suffer. Or like in Luke’s case, the entire galaxy.

What at the end got Luke out of the farm? First there was a distress call in the droid from Leia that they need Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke took droid to Obi-Wan and it’s revealed that he was archetypical mentor and wizard type of dude, who told Luke about his father, the Force and gave him the lightsaber. Even after that Luke said that he cannot leave from the farm and that he has responsibilities there. But when they got to farm, the empire’s troops had destroyed everything and killed Luke’s uncle and aunt.

Let’s review what just happened: 

1. There’s calling, which Luke felt deep inside of himself and which encouraged him into a direction that suited perfectly for him and would help him become who he really is. "Be the hero!", his nature screamed from the inside. "This is who you are! "This is what you’re supposed to do!"

In a same way you can stumble upon something, which triggers the calling inside of you. Something which pulls toward it. It can be literally anything and it depends what kind of person you are, which calls for you. It depends about your temperament, personality, environment and practically about everything, what makes you who you are.

"What if I don’t hear the calling?" you may ask. That’s reality for most of us, most of the time. These advises are pretty cliché, but you need to get to know yourself. You can do it by taking action, doing personality tests, meditating, thinking about your life story, thinking about what has made you excited and tap into Flow-state. Many chapters in this book are going to address these matters in different ways.

But that’s not all. Even if some action excites you immensely, you must ask yourself is that action useful for somebody. For example, video games can excite and challenge you and get you into Flow-states easily. Does this mean you should just play video games? Well, nowadays the answer could be "Yes". You can become streamer, e-sport player or make YouTube-videos to entertain people. That’s not wrong at all. However, I don’t think that’s for most people who just like video games.

2. Luke meets the mentor. Obi-Wan had experience and had traveled the same path Luke had to travel. Obi-Wan was the perfect mentor for him. He knew about the force; he knew about Luke’s father and had gathered experiences and wisdom to share.

You’re not alone. People before you have traveled the same path you’re traveling. Most ideal would be, if you could find a mentor from real life. However, there’s nothing wrong with taking inspiration and guidance from masters of the past or some living person who’s doing what you want to do. Study, copy, steal and imitate hell out of them, if you feel it’s helpful for you on your journey. You can’t go fight against dragons or face Darth Vader without having enough skills and strength to do so. Best and easiest way to gain those things is getting them from mentors. 

3. Past needed to die. In Luke’s situation, it happened literally. The empire destroyed the farm and his uncle and aunt were dead. This is where Luke crossed Hero’s Journey’s first threshold of no return. Only way from there was forward towards to the future.

In real life it’s rarer to have real thresholds of no return. But there’s comes a point when you have done so much and travelled the path for so far, that you simply don’t want to turn back anymore. You have steeled your resolve, studied, trained and committed to the task so strongly that you simply cannot stop anymore or all that would had been in vain.

It’s time to leave comforts of home behind. There’s no way of telling what lies in the future. You can only wander and wonder. How long does your journey carry you? Are you up to the challenge? Don’t worry, I can at this point comfortability say that, if you’re taken enough meaningful and challenging path to follow, you’re going to get your ass kicked by trials and dragons. There’re no questions about it. It will happen. But if you’re going to know it will happen, you can expect it and not get crushed by it as easily. Getting your ass kicked is good. It usually serves as a biggest learning experience you can have.

Let’s continue our story. Luke and Obi-Wan leave from the farm, planning to hire a smuggler so he could take them to the Rebels with Death Star’s plans. They meet up with Han Solo, who is Anti-Hero-type of dude, who’s shady smuggler and only look’s after himself, his ship and his friend Chewbacca.

This is by the way interesting. In Star Wars it’s not just Luke who goes through his Hero’s Journey. Han Solo has his own Hero’s Journey to travel. Han Solo unlike Luke isn’t unexperienced or green. He’s actually very experienced, but he lacks true meaningful goal, unlike Luke. At this point of the story, they have a lot to learn from each other. Luke has to learn not to be a naïve idiot and Han Solo has to learn to believe and serve something bigger than himself. It’s exactly right to have multiple Hero’s Journeys going on at the same time. It makes the story more complex and richer.

Luke and his companions leave from Tatooine and start traveling towards planet Alderaan. When they get there, they notice that Death Star had destroyed the entire planet. Then Death Star pulls them inside of it by using tractor beam.

4. They are now in Belly of the whale, which is really the true point when there’s no turning back. At this point the old world and life are far behind and aren’t even visible anymore. From there, they literally cannot leave until they have completed their trials inside the whale. Luke and Han have to save princess Leia Organa and Obi-Wan has to shut down tractor beams and face his former apprentice Darth Vader.

5. In Death Star companions have to face The Road of Trials. At this point the person has accepted metamorphosis and change, which traveling through chosen path will cause. The change is usually at least somewhat painful. Trials you have to complete so you can change as a person are never easy to complete. Exactly, that’s why those challenges are meaningful and worth doing. By doing those labors, you will grow your inner seed and become more who you really are.

6. They also have The Meeting with the Goddess. Luke has accepted his fate as a hero and when it’s revealed for him that princess Leia is in Death Star, he immediately wants to rescue her. Luke knows that he cannot do it alone, so he persuades Han Solo to help him by promising him a reward, if they rescue the princess. Han Solo agrees, and they go through many dangers to rescue her. For men it’s often women, which awaken higher nobleness inside of us. Especially women who we have hots for. I don’t think it’s just about lust like Freud thought. It’s more than that. It’s about our own worthiness. Luke obviously thought Leia being attractive. He had seen her from Holo-message. Nobleness awakened even inside of Han Solo after they met up with Leia.

They get back to ship. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan has started his fight against his former apprentice Darth Vader. He has to sacrifice himself in order to others to escape. Obi-Wan let’s Vader strike him down and he becomes the one with the Force in order to continue guiding Luke on his path as a force ghost.

Luke, Han and Leia escape from Death Star to Rebel’s headquarters. From there, Han Solo wants to leave after getting his reward. At this point they know that Death Star is coming after them. It would be almost suicidal to stay and fight against it, even when they knew Death Star’s weak point. Chances of succeeding in a fight against such foe are one to million.

7. So, it’s not Luke who faces the Temptress, it’s Han Solo. On this occasion temptress isn’t literally a woman, but material wealth and self-interest, which tempts Han. There’s also a strong fear factor and will to protect yourself from harm. You can’t really blame Han Solo for wanting to escape. That’s a reasonable thing to do for any guy who isn’t completely insane.

The fight against Death Star starts, and it isn’t going very well. Darth Vader is dropping rebels one by one, and it’s very hard to hit Death Star’s one weak point. When Luke Skywalker is only one left, he hears a voice of Obi-Wan telling him to use The Force to hit Death Star’s weak point. Luke follows the guidance. Darth Vader feels the usage of The Force and is just about to destroy Luke’s ship when Han Solo reappears suddenly from nowhere, blowing up ship next to Vader, forcing him to retreat. Luke blows Death Star up just before it destroys Rebel’s headquarters. Vader had earlier warned Death Star’s officers about being too proud about their technical miracle, saying that it’s insignificant next to powers of The Force. Fighting against The Force is like fighting against currents of the fate. Vader knew that very well.

8. The Ultimate Boon has happened. The heroes completed their quest destroying Death Star. Luke used all skills he has learned during the adventure, The Force being the most major factor. Han Solo broke the chains of temptress and returned, saving everybody. They were celebrated rightly as heroes and given medals by princess Leia. Luke and Han both had cleared their own trials for now. Luke used The Force to destroy the Deathstar and Han Solo cast away his selfishness and cynicism for now. At the end, they had both grown a lot.

But this is just a beginning of Star Wars trilogy. Death Star was a major asset of Empire, but still it was just a one asset. Rebels aren’t even near brining Empire down at this point. Emperor and Vader are both still alive, and now they’re pretty pissed off. The next part of the story is rightly named The Empire Strikes Back. Luke is only at the beginning of his journey to become Jedi. He has touched The Force only few times briefly. He hasn’t mastered The Force, learned Jedi Philosophy, or met his ultimate master Yoda yet.

In Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker once again gets guidance from Obi-Wan’s ghost, which tells him to go to planet Dagobah, where he will find THE Master Yoda, who will train him to become Jedi. Luke’s journey there is symbolically super interesting. Luke entering Dagobah is like Descending into Underworld. It’s a swamp planet which resembles descriptions about underworld. The sun never shines there and its place where Luke descends to gain knowledge from ancient master, who have been training Jedies over 900 years.

Yoda doesn’t want to teach Luke without testing him first. First thing he does is to act like a fool to test Luke’s patience and how well he controls his emotions. It turns out Luke doesn’t have patience or control over his emotions at all. Only reason Yoda agrees to train Luke is that Obi-Wan’s ghost once again helps him out and says Luke can finish the training he starts. This is an important part since that humbles Luke, which is essential for a person who wants to learn.

It’s estimated that Luke trained with Yoda about 4-6 weeks, which is a short amount of time for Jedi training, but during that time Luke progressed rapidly. Getting one-on-one training from former Jedi Grandmaster is no joke.

One of those trials was that Luke had to face his own Shadow. Luke descents into the cave and faces his worst fear, which is a vision of Darth Vader. Luke loses control and chops Vader’s head off. Darth Vader’s mask explodes open, and Luke sees his own face under the helmet. At that very moment Luke understood there’s darkness inside of him, which he must be cautious off or he can turn into a monster like Darth Vader.

This is a very important lesson for all of us. There’s darkness inside every one of us and if we aren’t aware about it, it can control us without us even noticing it. You can’t be a good person without admitting that you really aren’t totally a good person. There’s another thing about shadow self as well. Without it, you lack edge. It’s actually so important that there’s going to be own chapter about it.

When Luke leaves from Dagobah to face Darth Vader, Yoda warns that he isn’t yet ready to face him. Luke doesn’t listen Yoda, because he needs to rescue his friends. Then he has a fight with Vader, gets his hand chopped off, and then gets to hear shocking revelation. Darth Vader is his father. Vader temps Luke with Dark Side, but Luke chooses Atonement with the Abyss instead. Luke on purpose let himself fall down, thinking he would die. Instead of that, he is rescued by Leia, who heard Luke’s call for help through The Force.

Luke has experienced Death/Defeat and in the beginning of Return of the Jedi Luke is Reborn. There, when he faces Jabba the Hutt and his minions, it’s like Luke is a new person. He has learned from his defeat against Darth Vader, has completed his training with Yoda, and is sweeping through those minor pests with absolute ease. Only people in galaxy who could challenge him properly at this point are Darth Vader and Darth Sidious.

In the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke goes through Atonement with the Father and redeems Darth Vader. When Vader sees his son Luke getting tortured to death by Sidious, Vader snaps and gets turned back to Light and saves Luke by killing Darth Sidious while sacrificing his own life in the process.

This is what Yoda meant when he said that before Luke can become the Jedi, he has to face Darth Vader. Vader was Luke’s last trial, his dragon. The way Luke defeated Darth Vader was perfectly aligned with Jedi Philosophy. Luke didn’t literally kill Vader, but metaphorically, he did exactly that. He turned Vader back into Anakin Skywalker, which was practically same as the death of Vader. Managing to defeat his dragon, Luke Skywalker has cleared his Hero’s Journey.

There’s only one thing left to do. Joining with his friends and having epic party to celebrate the success!

Law 2: The Hero answers to Call to Adventure

First step on Hero’s Journey is living in a safe and stagnant state. In that state you are living your life in a relative comfort without really fulfilling your real purpose. On second step, you will receive Call to Adventure and that’s purpose is to awaken you from that stagnant state. The thing which is calling for you comes from inside of your psyche. Carl Jung called that side of the Self "Magus Soul. It’s higher part of your mind, which tries to guide you towards your real purpose in life, so you can become who you really are. It’s possible that you won’t hear the call for a really long time. It’s possible that you just feel like everything lacks meaning for no real reason". Even if everything in your life was in order and you should be happy and comfortable, there can be this empty feeling inside of you. You can try to fight against that feeling many ways, like with alcohol or making yourself so busy that you don’t have time to feel how anxious you really are.

But when you are lying in bed in silence and darkness trying to sleep, your inner mind will try to draw a map or path for you to follow. It can happen in a flash, you can see instantly a path inside of your head, which you can follow and which would make your life more meaningful. That’s your call to adventure. It could also happen when you’re walking around town, watching a movie, reading a book, listening to podcast, exercising, having interesting conversation etc. Something triggers inside of your mind and you can see the path and hear the Call to Adventure. "Follow this path and become who you are" it says.

People in third world countries rarely have that choice, so they don’t even have to think about it. That’s probably one of the major reasons, why mental health issues have been raising so much in Western countries compared to other countries. Here so many of us have an actual choice to choose self-actualization, so it’s way more painful for our psyche, if we deny the calling. We need purpose in life, but here we live even without having one, and then we try to medicate the problem away. It doesn’t work like that. You need the real purpose and path to follow or you don’t really live. When you have little, you can get your meaning by just struggling to survive. The struggle to survive is the most meaningful act we can do. Only when we have some security, we can start getting our meaning from more creative and individual pursuits.

Maslow summed it up with his Hierarchy of Needs. The ancient Indians made exactly the same system during 1500–500 BC. Indians called them chakras, and there’s a lot of superstitious mumbo jumbo behind them, but the psychological idea behind them is solid. Those both go from more primal needs to higher spiritual and self-actualizing pursuits from bottom to top.

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Now let’s go through a list of examples. This is going to be pretty lopsided list. Most examples are going to be from Disney-movies. There’s a reason for this. They have been doing their stories as archetypical Hero’s Journeys on purpose, so those are excellent examples for all the steps. That’s especially true for Call to Adventure.

Most of Disney’s heroes are fairly young and in beginnings of their life journeys. At that age, the call to adventure is usually happening as