Outer Reaches of the Palindrome Page: 21
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CONCEPTUAL PARALLELS
Palindromes exist conceptually in many areas, and one of the more lucid parallels exists
in the human mind- in the form of mythology as well as psychology. According to mythologist
Joseph Campbell, the imagery of schizophrenic fantasy perfectly matches that of the
mythological hero journey, which consists of the three-part, universal formula: 1) separation, 2)
initiation, and 3) return.6 Campbell summarizes the structure of the schizophrenic breakdown,
based on a paper by John Weir Perry published in 1962 in the Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences, as follows:
The usual pattern is, first, of a break away or departure from the local social order and
context; next, a long, deep retreat inward and backward, as it were, in time, and inward,
deep into the psyche; a chaotic series of encounters there, darkly terrifying experiences,
and presently (if the victim is fortunate) encounters of a centering kind, fulfilling,
harmonizing, giving new courage; and then finally, in such fortunate cases, a return
journey of rebirth to life.7
This process can be likened to a palindrome conceptually because a palindrome bears a similar
textual voyage of departing from the left, following a sequence of letters (likened to a path
toward enlightenment) to an axis, or central point, then continuing toward the end of the
palindrome on the right, which unfolds in the same way as if the reader had reached the axis and
retreated back to the left.
Here we have a parallel between the structure of the hero/schizophrenic journey and the
structure of the palindrome - both can be approached in terms of an "ABA" axiom schema. Here
lies a point of departure for which we can view palindromes as being directly related to21
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McConnell, Michael Constantine. Outer Reaches of the Palindrome, thesis, December 2003; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc4407/m1/24/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .