What do ancient myths and the Harry Potter saga have in common?

For thousands of years, mankind has come up with so many fairy tales and legends that it is impossible to count them. But scientists say that every story that resonates with listeners, readers, or viewers is based on the same pattern. What is this story and where did it come from?

Each of us is a hero who goes through difficult trials and discovers a new level.

Initiation is an important stage of human life

There is one common detail in the fates of people from different historical periods and classes. It unites both the ancient inhabitants, who recently emerged from the caves, and the modern inhabitants of the digital world. Here it is: each person must pass tests that help him rise to the next stage of development.

In a computer game, this can happen mechanically. When you have accumulated a certain amount of experience, the next level opens. In real life, everything is different. Every major transition involves a ritual of initiation. Or, as scientists call it, the process of initiation.

It may look different. But there is only one scenario.

• 1. The person loses their sense of comfort

  Living conditions that previously seemed normal cease to suit the hero. When the situation becomes unbearable, he decides that something needs to be changed.

  A person can put off change, try to adapt to reality. But sooner or later, he still understands that he should not hesitate any longer. He wants something new, yet unfamiliar. Otherwise, he will get disappointment and longing.

• 2. The hero enters a different environment and undergoes a serious test

  In this, a person is helped by the experience that he has accumulated at the previous stage. An important condition: the initiator knows perfectly well that he can fail. For example, an applicant takes entrance exams to a university for a creative specialty and may not pass the competition. Or the applicant does a difficult test task, but another person can be hired for an interesting and prestigious job.

  One of the analogues of such tests in antiquity is the rite of initiation into hunters. But this initiation was much more severe. It could happen like this: after a certain ritual, young people went to the forest to defeat a wild beast.

  Those who returned with trophies did a good job, they were honored as adults. Whoever failed and left the fight has not yet grown up. He will get a chance to be initiated again in a year. Well, if someone stayed in the forest - it's a pity. So, he could not return from the other world.

• 3. A new life stage begins for the one who passed the test

  The person gets a completely different role than before. He enters a new game with different rules. So, the hero begins to learn again.

  For example, at a new job, he has to master unfamiliar tools and cope with unusual responsibilities. But it is easy to get used to such changes. There are more serious stages - marriage and the birth of a child. They bring changes that a person might not have suspected before. Another important transition is death. Those who forever part with a loved one will confirm this.

  So all our lives we move from status to status, from one level to another. And then the cycle repeats again.

If we go our way, we always do something that makes us feel uncomfortable. Makes you pass some kind of test that a person needs. And he goes to it, overcomes it and somehow transforms in the process.

All the stories of the world are stories of initiations

The statement that a person needs to periodically leave the comfort zone was not invented by modern psychologists. Each of us, sooner or later, will have some circumstances when this can not be avoided.

The process of transition from stage to stage seems quite natural to us: humanity has been living according to this scenario since the Stone Age. Therefore, all myths, legends, tales, parables, ballads and other oral and written stories tell about the same thing. Their main goal is to show how a person goes through initiation, what helps him in this. And what should be known to those who are now only preparing for initiation.

The brighter the story, the more emotional information it contains for those who still face trials, the more valuable it is. And it's more likely that a legend, novel or movie saga will get a lot of devoted fans. After all, such stories testify that even from the most difficult trials you can come out alive and transformed. And they show what a hero must be in order to succeed.

In all the popular stories of the world there is one "thousand-faced hero"

The most famous study on the topic of stories common to all mankind was conducted by Joseph Campbell. In 1949, his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces was published. In it, he wrote in detail about the scheme, which can be found in fairy tales, and in biblical stories, and in ancient Greek myths. Modern bestsellers are also built according to this algorithm.

The monomyth that Campbell spoke of has three main stages:

• 1. Exodus. The hero can no longer or does not want to remain in the same conditions. He hears a call that invites him to leave the familiar environment and go to another world. Then the hero enters a completely different universe through some kind of portal, where he will have to go through serious tests.

• 2. Initiation. At this stage, the hero learns, meets helpers and meets with enemies. Then he passes all the required tests and gains strength. An example is the school year at Hogwarts. There, the heroes master all the wisdom of magic, and also face various dangers that they overcome with difficulty.

• 3. Return. The hero can return to the former world, but he no longer looks like his former self. He got new opportunities and opened up horizons that he had not even seen before. Now the hero can make his former world better.

When we watch or read a story, we often associate ourselves with the main characters. So, together with them we go through the whole path of change. It seems to us that we learn their lessons, get their experience, make discoveries together with them.

George Lucas made no secret of the fact that he created Star Wars exactly according to the scheme proposed by Campbell. Therefore, the author of the "Hero with a Thousand Faces" is considered the grandfather of "Star Wars". The same principle of plot construction underlies blockbusters about Iron Man or Spiderman. According to the same algorithm, the Harry Potter saga was created.

We read or watch these stories and get a little better too. At least we like to think so.

In order for a person to change, you need to go to a dense forest or into space; there you will encounter some kind of monsters. And with his fears, a person in the process of the path meets with himself. This monomythic path is the path to one's own depths.