I - Departure
4 - The Crossing of the First Threshold
"With the personification of his destiny to guide and aid him, the hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the 'threshold guardian' at the entrance to the zone of magnified power. Such custodians bound the world...standing for the limits of the hero's present sphere, or life horizon. Beyond them is darkness, the unknown and danger."
"....This brings out the sense of the first, or protective aspect of the threshold guardian. One had better not challenge the watcher of the established bounds. And yet - it is only by advancing beyond those same bounds, provoking the destructive other aspect of the same power, that the individual passes, either alive or in death, into a new zone of experience....The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades."
Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
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