The Cave Experience

“The cave that you refuse to enter holds the treasure that you seek.” – Joseph Campbell

It's a common story: a protagonist stands at a crossroad, the success of his quest balanced on the edge of a knife. This individual is not yet a hero, for he has not yet completed what he set out to do. He cannot go forward until he decides what forward looks like. The future hero arrives at a landmark, where he must press on alone and confront a vision, pass a test, or overcome a challenge. Whatever the particulars, the experience will change him forever.

I like to call this event the “cave experience,” because it usually takes place in a cave or some other dark, enclosed space. An example from antiquity is the dark confrontation between Perseus and the Graeae, the three old women who reveal to him the means of killing the gorgon Medusa. The classic modern example is Luke Skywalker’s chilling encounter in the Dagobah cave from The Empire Strikes Back. The experience almost always happens alone, for the good to be gained from it is for the hero alone. Many times, the hero finds some boon that will aid him in his quest, such as Aladdin finding the genie’s lamp in the Cave of Wonders. Other times, the boon he discovers is knowledge, perhaps about himself, whether through a vision of the past or a glimpse of the future. After looking in the Mirror of Galadriel, Frodo Baggins sees that the Fellowship of the Ring will splinter and it drives him to carry out his mission on his own. Whatever the hero finds in the cave will heavily influence his upcoming decisions, and it will set the course for the rest of his adventure.

The cave experience is special, because it is a turning point in the life of the character. It’s a moment where all paths are laid before the hero and he must choose which one he will take. And once the decision is made, he cannot go back. The cave experience can be deliberate, like Huck Finn’s decision not to turn in his friend Jim, even though it will cause him to “go to Hell”. Or it can be totally accidental like young Indiana Jones’s run-in with the tomb raiders in Utah. But no matter what, it is always the hero’s choice on what to do with the experience.

The cave experience can also serve as a quick glimpse of the future, a foreshadowing that warns or prompts. Young Luke Skywalker’s cave experience shows him that if he doesn’t hold true to the Jedi way, he could become like his own dark father, a warning that he ultimately heeds. Macbeth’s encounter with the three witches, who prophesy he will become king of Scotland, pushes the otherwise noble and heroic warrior to scheme for the throne. Bruce Wayne’s encounter with a bat gives him the inspiration for the caped avenger Batman and changes his life forever. The experience pushes the hero to a place where he can make important decisions that he may not have had the courage to make on his own.

Ultimately the cave experience is meant to equip the hero for the future of his choosing. The vision of him becoming like Darth Vader gives Luke the strength to resist the pull of the dark side. Without it, he may have fallen into the same trap which ensnared his father Anakin. Theseus, the slayer of the Minotaur is equipped for his mighty task by finding the sword of his father buried under the earth. It can be as simple as receiving an iconic brown fedora or as complex as discovering the creature that will become the symbol of your vengeance upon the city that murdered your parents. The cave experience gives the individual whatever it is he needs to accomplish his great task.

Such encounters seem to be archetypical to the human experience and can be found throughout all the great stories. The Bible is full of them. Moses spoke with God through a burning bush and received a new calling. St. Paul had an encounter with the ascended Christ on the road to Damascus and turned his life completely around. The patriarch Jacob wrestled with a physical manifestation of God for an entire night and received a limp, a new name, and a promise. As a boy, Samuel spoke with God for the first time at the advice of Eli the High Priest. Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish. Cornelius had a vision. Even Jesus Christ had his cave experiences in the wilderness when he was tempted by Satan and in the garden of Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion.

We shouldn’t be surprised to find the cave experience in history either. The story of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple is a modern-day cave experience. Something as simple as a falling apple stimulates one of the greatest minds in history to study one of the strongest forces in the universe. Baseball legend Mickey Mantle tells of his first season with the Yankees when a major slump caused him to be demoted back to the minor leagues. Inside the darkened confines of his apartment, he was galvanized into playing better by a visit from his father, who rudely shook him out of his self-pity, ending his slump. Within months, he returned to the majors. Abraham Lincoln must have had a slew of cave experiences, probably after each of his defeats when running for public office. With every one of his famous failures, he had a chance to give up and go back to his Illinois farm. Lucky for us, he didn’t, and today we celebrate him for changing the world.

Each of these people had a moment that they could look back to and say, “There’s were I changed from that into this. I wouldn’t be where I am today without that experience.” Like our heroes, it’s important for all of us to have cave experiences in our lives. In fact, it’s impossible to avoid them. The breaking of a relationship, a tragic passing, a close brush with death, or picking up an instrument for the first time; all of these events can be cave experiences. They are times when we examine our lives and choose to change. Cave experiences are what push us to grow and evolve into the people whom we are meant to become. They act as a journal of our lives when we can look back on our past successes and failures and measure how far we have come.

The cave experiences of our heroes, whether drawn from the Bible, the great myths, fictional tales, or modern cinema, should inspire us to have cave experiences of our own. And here in the modern day we put these principles into our own writings because we know that any story worth reading has parallels to our own. The cave experience is unique to us, the human race, due to our ability to think, reflect, and change. Generations of cave experiences have been passed down through our stories and through our lives and will continue to be passed down as long as humans walk this earth and immortalize their deepest moments through story.