The happenstance, event, or circumstance that elevates the aspiring hero from his everyday life—or ordinary reality—into a new, totally unexpected reality that will test and develop the person, if he is successful in meeting certain challenges, into a genuine hero. One of the most crucial points is that the challenges the inspiring hero has to face and conquer cannot be entirely preplanned, manufactures, or staged. Part of the reason is that the challenges come from the aspirant’s own unconscious and represent the internal demons and terrors (archetypes) the aspirant has to conquer within himself. They can no more be completely planned or staged than what one dreams at night can be willed. This is why the best heroes are shaped as much by external circumstances not fully under their control as they are by formal training and education. A good part of the hero’s adventure consists of his leaving the everyday World—making a clean break—to encounter a World of mystery. And the mystery is not merely “out there in the World” but is, to a good degree, deep inside one as well, i.e., in the unconscious, underworld of forces (archetypes) with which the aspirant is struggling. The battle, thus, is with the person himself. However, if so, how can the hero in today’s World identify, let alone do battle with his internal mysteries if they are constantly in the media spotlight? Where can potential aspirants go in modern societies to get away sufficiently from ordinary reality in order to confront themselves? Notice that we are not talking about the phony mystification of pseudo celebrities or the deliberate withholding of public information by responsible officials. Rather, to develop, the hero needs to go off, to separate, to develop himself so as to reenter society and possibly change everyday reality.  

There is no doubt whatsoever that we have been and will continue to be highly successful in developing the technical means to produce characters and images. However, if manufacturing technology and its end product should not be confused with the social process that it takes to produce genuine heroes and leaders. Technology may be able to produce characters, but it is not able to produce character. The confusion, lack of understanding between these two is one of the prime characteristics of our culture. Why has it become increasingly difficult to secure genuine heroes and leaders in contemporary American and what does this tell us further about unreality? Two hundred years ago, when the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution, America had a population of only three million, yet six World class leaders contributed to the making of that extraordinary document. Today, there are nearly 323 million Americans, and we have massive debt. Clearly, if American is not to become a kind of MF Global, we must do better. Leaders come in every size, shape, and disposition, but they have in common the vision which is compelling to other people, and, by fully deploying themselves, the ability to make their vision manifest. They have, in other words, a passion for the promises of life. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison had that passion, as did Abraham Lincoln, John and Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. None of our current so-called leaders has it. Today, passion is out, and selfish ambition is in. 

As 18th century America was notable for its geniuses, and 19th century America for its freewheeling adventurers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and scientists, 20th century America has been chiefly notable for its bureaucrats and managers, and the 21st century and known from massive debts, drug problems, dysfunction, and celebrities. What those Philadelphia geniuses created, and their rowdy successors embellished, the organization men—in both government and business—have remade, or unmade. Unlike either our Founding Fathers or the industrial titans, the managers of America’s giant corporations and the bureaucrats, elected and appointed, who run the government have no gut stake in the enterprise and no vision.  More often than not, our leaders today, they are mere hired dictators, following the money so they can enrich themselves and appear to care about the community and the people, when they actually do not. Many of their actions are purely selfish and meant to pacify the groups who holler the loudest. Free cellphones for the poor, who cares if your kids can afford Wi-Fi to get online and do homework, as long as they look cool. A new billion-dollar sports complex for a team who is not very good, who cares if 3.5 million kids die from hunger each year. Free paint, cheap furniture for the lobby, and higher utility rates for the tenants, who cares if the people are actually safe or can afford the cost increases. News with personality and shiny bright graphics, who cares if the reporting is irresponsible.  The end result of looking cool and giving people what they want, not what they require, is that unreality has become our general substitute for our lack of vision. Where once our psychological energy was invested in people, animals, planets, nature, and dreams, we invest it now in technology and pseudo heroes. As both business and government both got bigger, they began to get in each other’s way. The bureaucrats-imposed rules and regulations on big business. Corporate managers countered by flooding Washington with lobbyists, and a new era began: America of, by and for special interest. A stalemate developed as bureaucrats and managers traded favors. Nothing much grows in a stalemate, of course, but managers and bureaucrats are less gardeners than mechanics—fonder of tinkering with the machinery than making it go. 

The Winchester Mystery House

A tour through The Winchester Mystery House cleverly presents a supernatural story that will keep you guessing. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/