The Power of Myth

Without their story, a culture has not future, or something like that. Joseph Campbell spent his life giving us our 'story'. Who are we, why did we come here and where are we going. We are all on a hero's journey to test if we are worthy of our home on the other side, or at least that's what Campbell found as he waded through the mass of confusing, and sometimes childlike myths that have followed us through the centuries. I love this particular book because it's an interview between to really gifted men who respect each other, and seem to have a wonderful time just talking about what they love. It's much easier to grasp some of Campbell's concepts because frankly, he can make your head spin with his theories and concepts. This book is like being a fly on the wall while two men talk over dinner. Most of it I can understand, but I have to admit, sometimes things get a little over my head. They were talking about life in general and Campbell says this: "I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful opera--except that it hurts". page 81 I don't know how you can sum up life any better than that. Life is wonderful and it does hurt. Then Campbell talks about the 'hero' which everyone one of us is. "The hero is the one who comes to participate in life courageously and decently, in the way of nature, not in the way of personal rancor, disappointment, or revenge." page 82. There you have it. To do life right, you need to be the hero and you need to be courageous and decent. Campbell wrote the book Hero With A Thousand Faces, a compilation of the mythology of the world and this is what he came up with. Screen writers use Campbell's work to outline movies because it's journey we all recognize either on the surface or down in our subconscious, and we know that we are the hero of our own journey. "So Jesus says, Judge not that you may not be judged. That is to say, put yourself back in the position of Paradise before you thought in terms of good and evil. You don't hear this much from the pulpits. But one of the great challenges of life is to say "yea" that that person or that act or that condition which in your mind is most abominable." page 32. What I grasp from this statement is that Campbell is trying to say that we need to look at things from a higher level. A poisonous snake is not evil it just is. When you kill it to save someone, you're saying no to the situation, you're not saying that the snake is evil. I love the genius of Joseph Campbell and this is an easy(comparatively) book to understand him and what he's trying to say without your head exploding. His opening up the world of myth makes him a hero in my book.

Fantastic book. It is the transcripts of an interview over several days that Bill Moyers conducted with Joseph Campbell, world renowned mythologist. My wife knows me better than I know myself. Didn’t think I’d be interested in myths at all, but the patterns are fascinating. Campbell is so knowledgeable. The illustrations add a lot to your understanding of the discussion. Some versions don’t have many illustrations. This one is good. Is there a version with more illustrations? Would be good to compare.

Simply amazing. This book has literally changed my world view and helped me strengthen my wavering level of spirituality. Regardless of your religious beliefs this book will increase your understanding of your own religion as well as help you to understand the others. The book is actually the dictation of a 7 part (one hour each) interview which can be found on youtube. As someone with a degree in computer science with a minor in math I consider myself a fairly intelligent person and I found myself very humbled (to the point of feeling stupid) by Campbell's vast intellect. Joseph Campbell speaks with so much knowledge, wisdom and experience that I found myself having to re-read many of the passages 2 and even 3 times for me to understand and take in all he has said. This is definitely a book that isn't light reading and I can easily see myself re-reading many times over the course of my life. I'm sure each time I will get just as much new understanding as I did my first reading. There's simply too much in this to comprehend in a single read-through (in my opinion). I liked this book so much I just had to get more of Joseph Campbell so I bought " The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) " TLDR: Buy this book you won't regret it!

I was never really interested in mythology in school, coming from a far more mathematical/analytical frame of mind. Alas, I was fortunate to have two wonderful teachers teach me in undergraduate courses in NYU and make me dive into a completely alien subject two years ago. I felt that Joseph Campbell is very clear (and not to mention original!) in explaining the different conceptions of life that altogether constitute mythology. In the interview, he said that his autodidactism came from a ready access to books - and this is very evident from the large length and depth of literature he has studied. It is pointless to go into the content of the book because that is what reading it is for. By reading this book, it helps you understand (or reaffirm) beliefs like viewing comparative mythology as a road to uniting tales and legends common to many cultures into a theoretical framework. Incredibly, you can find that most narratives created by human cultures have very common underlying themes: the most prevalent example is the idea of the 'hero', an ordinary person who lives in confusion, is met with an opportunity where he is forced to go on a journey that ultimately results in an inner reawakening leading him to return to his previous tribe and change it - a common theme in historical epics and religious texts. He mentions different conceptions of the hero, but this interview is a repetition of his ideas written with more detail in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) '. Campbell mentions instances from a large range of traditions, not only the large dominant ones but the smaller ones including those found in tribes isolated from civilization. For someone like me who is not well versed at all in this subject, the book's accessibility came to me as a great relief. He mentions great points about how the decline of classical education leads to a lack of spiritual reference point to self-reflect in the western world. Some ideas made me understand a few religious concepts far more clearly, such as the idea that people associate Jesus with love because he is more relatable as a human and not a perfect and overbearing figure like God. However, the brilliance of his work is how doesn't dwell excessively on the grandiose and transcendent and instead focuses on the day-to-day challenges faced by us. He talks wonderfully about marriage and the importance of rituals. This same importance is why despite not being a particularly religious person, I keep all my fasts during the month of Ramadan - purely due to the experience itself and not due to the perceived validity of it. Campbell brilliantly expresses how a lack of myth results in spiritual bankruptcy as all cultures (including the scientific worldview that trace our descent from Darwinian forces) use narratives to create moral justifications: A Muslim would say that incest is wrong because it is prohibited by scripture, a person who holds a Darwinian view would say that our repulsion towards incest comes from cultural programming that survived because rules that prohibited inbreeding allowed for a reduction in the possibility of hereditary problems - allowing those subscribers to survive and carry on the tradition through a memetic process. After all, myths are something that we live and die for regardless of our philosophical inclinations. An interesting comparison is how myths drive people towards the idea of sacrifice - letting go of the ego and possessions to integrate into the larger community, the family, then the tribe, country and against all possible odds, perhaps into humanity itself (e.g. Mandela, Abraham when ordered to sacrifice his son). Some of his ideas bare great resemblance to recent history, such as the anarchy created when modernity is imposed at a rapid pace on primitive (or rather less developed countries) by colonial powers - threatening people's myths and by extension their very identities. I think this book is a treasure and it is a good defense against the Dawkins-like Atheists who reject religion altogether by focusing on religions lack of epistemological basis while ignoring the fact that religion has survived for so long because it is an integral part of the human experience and carries useful heuristics ("don't take on debts") . Furthermore, the ideas in this book by extension challenge the view that the modern secular worldview relies on pure objective analysis of morality and social relations - after all, even modern cultures have a belief in some myth, be it progress, liberalism, futurism or the ability for economics to secure human happiness. I am not disregarding the validity of any of this philosophical viewpoints - simply that no culture can exist with the complete absence of a narrative that drives the community. It unveils the irony of atheist groups that reject mythology and group into their own cults, giving credence to the very ideas they claim to reject. Campbell deals with a couple of other interesting ideas including the understanding that "the myth is a public dream and the dream is the private myth". For him, when the union of these two ideas is disturbed when one's private myth is not compatible with the larger mythology of a culture - it results in the birth of a 'hero' that reawakens a culture by molding his culture in accordance to his newfound personal convictions. This is the dramatic explanation of how cultural innovation is thought to take place and why tracing a tradition's history of itself, its birth comes from the journey of a hero. (Muhammad meditating in his cave, Moses seeing God in a tree in the Sinai desert during his exile). Campbell also tackles a central tenet of mythology, the use of language to express the transcendental. He talks about how language stimulates the imagination despite its limitations of being reductive, powerfully reducing incredible inexpressible experiences into short tales and stories. However, the ambiguity of language could mean that it captures the metaphysical with astounding beauty by virtue of the use of abstract words, or not meaning anything at all in the first place. Someone with an analytical background might say that mythology has no epistemological bases and while mythologists might say that science itself doesn't have the power to determine morality and meaning. Both sides have their virtues and it wouldn't be wise to disregard either view without first pondering on both sides of the arguments. Finally, let me start with my criticisms of the book or rather mythology in general. I don't like how Campbell always talks about dreams as meaningful experiences, not emphasizing the possibility that they don't mean anything at all. Yes, dreams are very important to fables, tales, stories and legends but while scientific method is testable through experiment, mythological explanations can be attributed in hindsight to nearly any narrative. Despite this, I firmly believe that the knowledge of common narratives and patterns can be used as an important mental tool. Again, the use of vague and overbearing language and terms often means that anything and nothing can be interpreted in mythological terms - hence making it unfalsifiable. However, giving credit to Campbell - he doesn't seem to believe in hippy or new age mish-mash and simply gives metaphor the importance it deserves. Lastly, I feel that Campbell should have openly taken the stance that while people may use experiences like drugs to journey into consciousness, these attempts are rather futile because self-knowledge arises from years and years of challenges and by immersing into knowledge and not through the hedonistic urge to consume a substance. However, altogether I loved this book and it was a great read. Kudo's to anyone who understands rather than rejects! _____ PS: As a childhood Star Wars fan, I was intrigued to see that George Lucas actually took advice from Campbell while filming the movie, that not too surprising as I could not help but notice that mythological elements in the character of Anakin Skywalker myself.

Large pocket-sized version of the classic (w/o illustrations). The meat of the issue in a useful, compact format.

Great book!

I ordered this book as a required material for a college class on Religion, Faith, and Theology. I must say, I've haven't been this intrigued by required reading since Orwell in high school. Campbell is insightful, clear, and profound in his ideas, thoughts, and explanations about the role myths play in society and the human race. Moyers asks all the right questions, inserts his own knowledge in an intellectually provoking way, and aids the reading in understanding of the metaphysical aspects discussed. The term "myth" is given a new definition, a new life from what we interpret it as in our culture. The importance of myth is so well plotted out by Campbell that it's changed my agnostic, skeptical mind into realizing that myth can serve a great purpose. Campbell and Moyers explore Myth in great detail, from the role in society to the comparative differences and similarities across time to the human spiritual potentialities. I bought several books by Campbell after reading this. It's a wonderful telling of the truths you know in your heart, and Campbell puts them into words without making them sound like a fantasy. The illustrations are also interesting and relate to the narrative well. Great work!

LIFE-CHANGING! Not only was this book somehow able to connect EVERY (I simultaneously thought about my favorite children's books, classics from school, and even my absolute favorite, Harry Potter) piece of literature I have ever read, it has inspired me to read Joseph Campbell's books as I am so enthralled by the common threads in stories/myths/legends found multi-culturally. I read half the book in one sitting! I spent all day thinking about it, and told everyone I saw that they HAD TO READ IT! (I have never LOVED a book this much) While the ideas that Moyers and Campbell discuss are often multi-faceted with complicated intricacies, it's an easy read. The interview format lends itself to inductive reasoning, allowing the reader to reach their own conclusions alongside Moyers and Campbell. It's a great introduction into Campbell's life work, and I cannot wait to read and learn more. "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." - Joseph Campbell, "The Power of Myth"