Supernatural Aid in the Hero’s Journey

One of the archetypes in the Hero’s Journey that can be the most misunderstood is the ‘mentor’ archetype. In Joseph Campbell’s original text where he outlined the stages of the journey: “The Hero With A Thousand Faces”, he explores a stage in the first section of the hero’s journey he termed ‘Supernatural Aid’.

This is the where the hero is grappling with a big challenge or calling, in preparation for the first (and most significant) ‘crossing’.

If the supernatural aid (or mentor) is ignored, or the hero remains unaware of the support waiting to be ‘activated’, they may not move into the next stage of their evolution.

There’s been a call to adventure (via incident or accident), a refusal of the call (consciously or not) and finally, a ‘mentor’ appears to fortify them for the road ahead (‘supernatural aid’). They often leave a gift, physical or otherwise. It’s always a message, and one only the hero can decode.

If the hero listens, receives, hears and accepts that gift the mentor has given for this express function of getting them across the threshold, they then have the necessary courage to move into the ‘Special’ world or the second act.

The meat of the story. The initiation. The ‘Supreme Ordeal’ or important goal of the story.

Because the Special World is where the real challenges and change can begin.

But that crossing point is pivotal. And the mentor figure, along with ‘supernatural’ aid (which might be one and the same thing), is key to the character shift so crucial to the story’s progress.

The Purpose of the Meeting with the Mentor in your Narrative

So how DO we acknowledge, sense or see the supernatural forces (seen and unseen) coming to our aid at these times?

Because often we’re so caught up in the chaos of change and all the challenges asking us to let go in the moment…

That we don’t see those moments of choice often paradoxically hold the most unseen support, as well.

A gift.
A message.
A helper.
A person.

A dream. An object. An event. A lightning bolt insight that turns you from a bawling mess to laughing hysterically, back in the present moment where there is no past and there is no pain!

If you consider that every archetype of the hero’s journey is an aspect of the hero, too, the ‘supernatural aid’ as mentor can help shape and define how you ‘receive’ the gifts hidden in the ordinary weavings of extraordinary times of change in our lives.

A personal story to reflect on ‘Supernatural Aid’

To share a personal story (so you truly understand this), I’m currently waiting for knee surgery.

My knee has a torn flap of meniscal cartilage that can randomly ‘lock’ me into place like a doorjam, anytime or anyplace. When I tore it, in September last year, it was misdiagnosed and never actually investigated properly. I thought it had healed and grown together again, because I was back moving freely again since the 12 week recovery from the original injury.

But I had to be carried to the ER a few weeks ago as it locked in between steps.  I looked like someone in a movie who had been ‘paused’, mid-flight! My left leg was ‘locked’ half up and half down!

One endone, a trip to the ER and 4 hours later, a miracle worker physiotherapist named ‘Winnie’ who also works with aerial skiiers (!), had ‘unlocked’ me so i could put my foot on the floor again lightly enough to get home and rest.

But now, I’m ‘on call’ for surgery, which was apparently what should have been done last year, becuase the ‘horn’ of the ligament is floating around in there, and could act like a doorstop any time or any place. I can walk on flat surfaces (for now) but who knows if or how or when it might ‘lock’ again?

It hasn’t locked since the emergency visit, but I might be in surgery next week, because the surgery is so urgent I’m not even going on a waitlist.

It’s a bewildering situation. And it’s impossible to control. The only thing I CAN control is how I view myself (and my life!) in this bizarre, day-by-day existence that may (or may not!) end in hospital each day.

I’ve been waiting for a call-back for 5 days on the surgery appointment, and was also told not to keep my phone far away. It’s all being ‘arranged’ behind the scenes… out of my hands.

Nothing I do can speed it up and nobody is available to brief me on what to expect. I can’t call them anyway, as I need to keep my phone ‘free’ because the hospital calls from an unknown number.

So last Thursday, while I was subconsciously holding all this in my awareness, looking at my diary and wondering when i’d be able to book anything with anyone, like a movie or a visit or a phone call, I heard a baby magpie squealing in cries of being attacked just outside the back door.

Earlier that day in a crystal shop, I’d drawn the ‘death’ card in a random oracle deck, which didn’t reassure me much about the upcoming surgery, which is frankly quite frightening.

But, back to the bird.

I took three steps and saw the young bird face down, beak in the grass with one wing outstretched, unmoving.

I thought it was dead.

Then I heard quiet painful squeaks, which meant even worse than dead, it was suffering! Now I didn’t just have a poor dead bird but a suffering young one I needed to put out of its misery!
I remembered a line from the Death card interpretation: “The only thing worse than death is things that need to die but cannot…”

Oh no!
while this was all flowing through my mind, I also observed an adult magpie walking nearby, suspiciously fine about the whole thing..

As I approached the distressed and (apparently) dying bird I said ‘darling, my darling’ to steel myself to get a closer look so I might know what to do…

When it turned its head from the grass, stood up, and flew away!

Now, you might think that’s just a weird bird event (!), but when I put it in the context of what I’m grappling with… it was my supernatural aid!

I couldn’t call a wildlife rescue person because the hospital had explicitly told me to keep the phone free…

I had to just ‘approach’ it curiously, not call for help, not work myself up about it, because it needed to be dealt with, and I was the only one who could do it.

…but it was all fine anyway because it wasn’t dead!
Once I went back inside, I sent a text to my cousin, because I couldn’t call her, and she knows a lot about birds (and nature).

Her response: Baby magpies play dead to throw adult birds off the scent from attacking them. They’re expected to find their own worms pretty much as soon as they leave the nest, and adult birds get really territorial with the young magpies. If playing dead doesn’t work, they get up and fly away!

The whole thing was a game. The bird was acting!

When I reflect on my feelings, my perceptions, the way I approached the experience and described it as it happened…in my head and via text to my cousin…

….If the function of ‘supernatural aid’ or the ‘mentor’ is to get the hero perceiving the challenge or journey ahead with courage, strength and a shift in perception….

Then both the ‘death’ card and then the bird that was dead and then definitely NOT dead…were Supernatural… and definitely provided ‘aid’!

Because the only thing worse than getting up and walking away after my surgery (which is clearly how I’m going to recover, thanks baby magpie for showing me how THAT can look…)

Is suffering through something that NEEDS to end with NO deadline (thanks phone call that took 5 days to receive for showing me THAT!)

The next day, I finally got my appointment date with the surgeon: August 17.

Like my knee (another mentor) saying ‘take it one step at a time’ I’m just focusing on that, and not getting worked up about it. Nothing about any of this has made any sense or gone according to the normal laws of nature. Not my knee, which i tore rolling over in bed (!), nor the hospital I went to when it happened in September last year, completely misdiagnosing the whole thing and sending me home without even a paracetemol (or a scan of my knee!).

But like that baby magpie, who has to learn fast how to survive in the bird kingdom that doesn’t molly coddle once they’ve flown the nest, I can use my own wits and skills to work through this.

As I get carted into surgery, with or without a general anaesthetic (apparently it’s optional?! I definitely want numbing), I’ll remember that sneaky funny baby magpie, face down in the grass…

Then standing up like a punk, shaking off its feathers, and flying away!

How smart birds are, how creatively they learn to adjust once they ‘remember’ and learn how adult birds are going to treat them!

Like humans!

Your (Inner) Story is Your Life: Write a good one!

You’re the main character in this lifetime, and you get to furnish the set AND write the script. And when you ‘re stuck in a bad scene or the ER or waiting for a call-back that takes 5 days not 5 hours…You get to ‘fly away’ any time you please!

When you master your perception of reality.

Your Higher Self – like the narrative of a story – talks in symbols, in patterns and in themes.

This is where we all receive supernatural aid in our lives, and this is how the mentor appears.

The message and the archetypal function is the same: to get you moving forward with more courage than you had before the encounter.

But you have to listen, really listen, because your Higher Self is not a yappy screaming voice, it’s a softer one that asks for space between thoughts and assumptions.

Reflection.

Supernatural aid is always there. Because it’s you, all of it is you, meeting yourself again and again in symbol form.

For example: I was afraid of death, yesterday.

Literally: Death. No biggie!

And then… a baby magpie showed me, in a very sneaky, cheeky way…

Rebirth can happen quickly and easily. And there are worse things than death (like suffering!).

It’s all just a playful game anyway.

The Hero’s Journey as a Tool for Perspective Shifts

Do you love to consider your life (and challenges) from a higher perspective?

I do. That’s why I love to use the stages and archetypes of the hero’s journey as a tool to shift my perceptions around challenges and experiences.

And literally move from powerless to powerful, with that simple shift in perspective.

Because whether you know it or not, you are a Divine being in human form, on a journey to remember who (and what) you are.
Whether you’re in hospital or ambulance or standing next to a locker with a frozen knee like a character mid-move in a film when someone has pressed ‘pause’

The 12 stage monomyth is a conscious storytelling tool that, when you use it to ‘decode’ your experiences and your inner narrative, can transform the way you view life.

This is why I teach it deeply inside the Art of Memoir and use it in my own reflective practise.

If you’d like to learn more, you can download my free guide to the 12 stage journey below.