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attain
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The Hero With a Thousand Faces
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Professor Toynbee uses the terms "detachment" and "transfiguration" to describe the crisis by which the higher spiritual dimension is attained that makes possible the resumption of the work of creation.†
p. 12.4

attained = gained or reached something with effort
The cosmogonic cycle is presented with astonishing consistency in the sacred writings of all the continents,4' and it gives to the adventure of the hero a new and interesting turn; for now it appears that the perilous journey was a labor not of attainment but of re-attainment, not discovery but rediscovery.†
p. 30.9

attainment = the gaining or reaching of something with effort; or something gained with effort
The cosmogonic cycle is presented with astonishing consistency in the sacred writings of all the continents,4' and it gives to the adventure of the hero a new and interesting turn; for now it appears that the perilous journey was a labor not of attainment but of re-attainment, not discovery but rediscovery.†
p. 30.9
"No creature," writes Ananda Coomaraswamy, "can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.†
p. 77.8

attain = gain or reach something with effort
The remembered image is not only benign, however; for the "bad" mother too—(I) the absent, unattainable mother, against whom aggressive fantasies are directed, and from whom a counter-aggression is feared; (2) the hampering, forbidding, punishing mother; (3) the mother who would hold to herself the growing child trying to push away; and finally (4) the desired but forbidden mother (Oedipus complex) whose presence is a lure to dangerous desire (castration complex)—persists in the hidden land of the adult's infant recollection and is sometimes even the greater force.†
p. 92.6

unattainable = not able to be gained or reached with effort

standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unattainable means not and reverses the meaning of attainable. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
She is at the root of such unattainable great goddess figures as that of the chaste and terrible Diana—whose absolute ruin of the young sportsman Actaeon illustrates what a blast of fear is contained in such symbols of the mind's and body's blocked desire.†
p. 92.8
and (4) Tantra, texts describing techniques and rituals for the worship of deities, and for the attainment of supranormal power.†
p. 95.3

attainment = the gaining or reaching of something with effort; or something gained with effort
Olioll, Brian, and Fiachra, likewise, went on the quest and equally attained to the identical well.†
p. 98.4 *

attained = gained or reached something with effort
Like the Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance.†
p. 127.8

attains = gains or reaches something with effort
This is the release potential within us all, and which anyone can attain—through herohood; for, as we read: "All things are Buddha-things"; or again (and this is the other way of making the same statement): "All beings are without self."†
p. 127.9

attain = gain or reach something with effort
If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion
will arise within your hearts;
If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit
to serve others ye will be;
And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye
meet with me;
And finding me, ye shall attain to Buddhahood.†
p. 136.8
The verb nirva (Sanskrit) is, literally, 'to blow out,' not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw.... Deprived of fuel, the fire of life is 'pacified,' i.e., quenched, when the mind has been curbed, one attains to the 'peace of Nirvana, 'despiration in God:— It is by ceasing to feed our fires that the peace is, reached, of which it is well said in another tradition that 'it passeth understanding'†
p. 139.2

attains = gains or reaches something with effort
And so it may be said that the modern therapeutic goal of the cure back to life is attained through the ancient religious discipline, after all; only the circle traveled by the Bodhisattva is a large one; and the departure from the world is regarded not as a fault, but as the first step into that noble path at the remotest turn of which illumination is to be won concerning the deep emptiness of the universal round.†
p. 141.9

attained = gained or reached something with effort
The greatest talc of the elixir quest in the Mesopotamian, pre-biblical tradition is that of Gilgamesh, a legendary king of the Sumerian city of Erech, who set forth to attain the watercress of immortality, the plant "Never Grow Old."†
p. 158.3

attain = gain or reach something with effort
But if thy hand attain to that plant, thou wilt return to thy native land.†
p. 159.8
Ursanapi, this plant is the one...
By which Man may attain to fidl vigor.†
p. 161.1
On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero's wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becames a lively, often comical, pursuit.†
p. 170.5

attained = gained or reached something with effort
The beautiful, noble, glorious Budur, discovering her male affinity beside her, and perceiving that he had already taken her ring, unable either to rouse him or to imagine what he had done to her, and ravaged with love, assailed by the open presence of his flesh, lost all control, and attained to a climax of helpless passion.†
p. 195.7
Jesus, for example, can be regarded as a man who by dint of austerities and meditation attained wisdom; or on the other hand, one may believe that a god descended and took upon himself the enactment of a human career.†
p. 275.1

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Definitions:

(1) (attain)
to gain or reach something with effort
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)

attain in The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Auto-generated)

attain
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The Hero With a Thousand Faces
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