Heroic Endeavors—Part Two: Initiation

Attention, crew of the Enterprise. This is James Kirk. Mr. Spock has resigned commission and advanced me to acting captain. I know you were all expecting to regroup with the fleet but I’m ordering a pursuit course of the enemy ship to Earth. I want all departments at battle stations and ready in ten minutes. Either we’re going down or they are. Kirk out. –James T. Kirk

In my last post (Part One: Departure), I described the Departure stages of Joseph Campbell’s heroic journey theory using examples from James Kirk’s story in the latest Star Trek film. This will be part two of three in which I will cover the Initiation stages. So without further delay…

Initiation – 1. The Road of Trials

The heading for this stage should give you the basic idea. The path is fraught with danger and pain. Obstacle after obstacle must be fought and overcome. The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and perilous path of initiatory conquests. There will be momentary victories, glimpses of the promised land, unretainable ecstasies. Anyone who undertakes the journey into the crooked lanes of the spiritual labyrinth will find himself surrounded by symbological figures, any of which may swallow him. From Campbell:

“The psychological dangers through which earlier generations were guided by the symbols and spiritual exercises of their mythological and religious inheritance, we today must face alone, or, at best, with only tentative, impromptu, and not often very effective guidance. This is our problem as modern, ‘enlightened’ individuals, for whom all gods and devils have been rationalized out of existence.”

Example: This should be a bit self-explanatory. All of the obstacles and conflicts that Kirk faces are his Road of Trials. Some moments include: the space jump onto the drill above Vulcan, Spock banishing him from the ship and exiling him on Delta Vega, provoking Spock so he could take command of the Enterprise, the fight on the Nerada to save Earth and rescue Captain Pike, etc.

Kirk's Road of Trials

Initiation – 2. Meeting with the Goddess

“She is the paragon of all paragons of beauty, the reply to all desire, the bliss-bestowing goal of every hero’s earthly and unearthly quest… She is mother, sister, mistress, bride… Incarnation of the promise of perfection… The soul’s assurance that, at the conclusion of its exile in a world of organized inadequacies, the bliss that was once known will be known again.” I think you probably get the point. The goddess in this stage is the Universal Mother, a source of desire but also a nourishing and protecting presence. But she also has a destructive aspect. Life and death are both necessary. The goddess is not meant to be greater than the hero, but she can seem to be beyond him at a certain point. She is part of what must be earned in the process of the journey. She is luring him, guiding him, motivating him to rise above his current state and achieve greatness. The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love, which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity.

Example: This is my favorite example, because it’s pure symbol. Kirk’s goddess is the Enterprise. Often, ships are referred to using feminine pronouns. Scotty refers to the Enterprise as a “well-endowed lady.” But here’s an excerpt from the novelization that illustrates this point nicely:

“He only had eyes for one of them, its markings stood out clear and sharp against the ivory-hued metal and composite skin: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701. He remembered the first time he had set eyes on her, unfinished, skeletal, with gaping holes in her sides where her multiple outer hull had yet to be completed. She had been striking then, awkwardly balanced within a web of construction scaffolding on the hard, cold plain of central Iowa. Incomplete and out of her element she had appeared ungainly and graceless, an adolescent starship. Finished and sitting in her service dock she was a thing of beauty. He could not wait to embrace her.”

Kirk Meeting His Goddess

Initiation – 3. Woman as the Temptress

Here enters a different kind of feminine energy. This woman is all about the desire of the flesh. She keeps the hero’s focus on the physical world and the pleasures to be experienced here. Not in a good way. This temptation distracts the hero from his quest and delays his success. “Not even monastery walls, however, not even the remoteness of the desert, can defend against the female presences; for as long as the hermit’s flesh clings to his bones and pulses warm, the images of life are alert to storm his mind.” Sometimes, once the hero has broken free of the spell, there is a feeling of revulsion that’s directed toward all the acts of the flesh, the acts of life. Then woman becomes a symbol of defeat and sin instead of life and glory. But this is a diminishment of her role. The hero must find a way to balance the goddess and the temptress, love and accept both as pure and natural.

Example: Kirk is a legendary lothario. He’s well in touch with the pleasures of the flesh, a consummate flirt. I learned from the novelization that it is Kirk’s affair with Gaila, Uhura’s Orion roommate, which allows him to “cheat” on Spock’s test, thus landing him on probation. Uhura is another temptation for Kirk, but she is the unattainable one.

Kirk with His Temptress

Initiation – 4. Atonement with the Father

The son must grow in to his birthright and take his father’s place. One cannot be reliant upon a parent’s nurturing or protection, nor can one suffer their judgments or punishments. The time has come for the hero to be fully his own person. This requires accepting the dualities of the father—vengeful and merciful, arbiter of justice and wrath. For the son, the father is a sign of the future task. For the daughter, he’s a sign of the future husband. The father can’t pass along the duties of his office to a child who isn’t ready. The son must be able to rule justly without motives of self-aggrandizement, personal preference, or resentment. This is the moment where the hero achieves a perspective on the tragedies of life and lets go of his judgment about them.

Example: Since his real father is dead, we’ll use the moments when Kirk rescues Pike from the enemy ship and then relieves him as Captain of the Enterprise, thus taking on the role that his father assumed just before he died.

Initiation – 5. Apotheosis

Boom. Hero achieves his godlike potential. He transcends ignorance, fear, change. Pain and pleasure do not enclose him, he encloses them—and with profound repose. God is love, that He can be, and is to be, loved, and that all without exception are his children. This is not a state that is necessarily meant to be maintained. We are still talking about a human journey. Some of us have experienced moments of illumination, moments of broadened perspective and understanding. But we don’t stay there. These moments are meant to be drawn upon later, reminders to us of what is possible to achieve. But this isn’t a way of functioning in the world on a day-to-day basis. Once the hero attains this place, the task becomes holding onto it as best he can. Reminding himself that the people he encounters are merely lost souls and that we all have this godlike potential, we’re just not all aware of it, or in the same place along the path. But the truth is that the sufferer within us is that divine being as well. We and the protecting father are one. And, that protecting father is every man that we meet. So the “hero does not abandon life—he perceives without the same ocean of being that he found within. And he is filled with compassion for the self-terrorized beings who live in fright of their own nightmare.” The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth.

Example: I’m not sure Kirk has one of these moments during the course of the film. But there are two places near the end where a more experienced and level-headed Kirk is shown. One, after escaping from the Nerada with Captain Pike, upon observing a moment between Spock and Uhura:

“The briefest of glances was exchanged between the Enterprise’s science officer and its communications chief. No one noticed it but Kirk. Varying from the sly to the snide several suitable comments took shape in his mind. Ultimately he voiced none of them. Like lightning, maturity can strike anyone unexpectedly and at the most peculiar moments.”

And then when he offers assistance to the crew of the Nerada as their ship is going down. A show of mercy. Not exactly an apotheosis, but a sign of a broader perspective. There are undoubtedly more films to come in the series. I am sure he will get there.

Initiation – 6. The Ultimate Boon

Gods and goddesses in the mythical realms are not meant to the be the end in themselves. They are guardians or bestowers of power. They have the elixirs of life, the creative fire, the grace of immortality to give the hero. What the hero seeks from them is their grace, the power of their sustaining substance. The gods can either choose to give the power to the hero who has overcome all his obstacles to reach them, or he may have to trick them in order to get it, as Prometheus did to Zeus. “When is this mood even the highest gods appear as malignant, life-hoarding ogres, and the hero who deceives, slays, or appeases them is honored as the savior of the world.”

Example: At the end of the film, James Kirk is made captain of the Enterprise by the threshold guardians—Starfleet Academy Administration—who were operating against him at the beginning. And Spock, who was his accuser, has become his friend and first officer. The Enterprise, his goddess, is under his command.

That’s it for the stages of Initiation. Think we’re done? Not yet! There’s still one phase left: The Return. I’ll continue next time…

Kirk as Captain of the Enterprise