American Education The Horror of Experience published in American Soul Spring: The Journal of Archetype and Culture Summer/98 Greg Nixon Prescott College Prescott, AZ (in 1999) Abstract In this piece I wonder within what archetypal configuration(s) American schooling largely takes place. I look at the present and give a brief review of the past to conclude that education denies archetypal experience by denying experience itself, thus itself being “godless” (except for the senex aspect of all institutions). Experiential learning—the life of soul and senses—is left to popular culture. Comparing Joseph Campbell’s four mythological functions to the function of education, I find function three is the both the raison d’être and the modus operandi of most American schooling. By looking at the reaction to the loaded term “drugs” as a metaphor, I conclude both American education and the “general public” deeply fear transformative experience. I suggest no reforms, but offer only this lament.