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I couldn't finish this book (and that's pretty unusual for me). I know I'm in the minority (at least review-wise) in not really liking it, but I couldn’t get past the author's condescending attitude toward all people who truly believe in the literal teachings of their religion. I think he makes some interesting points, but I just disliked the tone of the book. He actually says that anyone with at least a kindergarten education can't possibly believe that the events depicted in religions (i.e. th...

Pretty good; definitely some interesting content here.However, as a reader, I thought not all of the lectures were particularly linked, and sometimes it seemed like certain topics weren't covered that should have been. It seemed like he was trying to say that the myths of all cultures are the same, but he didn't ever do a good job of showing this in my opinion. Also, the title was misreading and irrelevant, and even the subtitle wasn't particularly appropriate.The later lectures were definitely

I liked this book, but I only really liked the chapters on Buddhism and science. I'm told this is his most accessible book. After reading (and failing to comprehend a lick of) The Hero With a Thousand Faces, I believe it. My problem is with the format. JC did not write this book, he delivered a series of disconnected lectures and later transcribed them here. It makes for disjointed reading. Not to mention there are several passages I can tell he delivered/wrote while nursing his fifth scotch. My...

When people think of Joseph Campbell, they often think of "The Power of Myth," his series with Bill Moyers that aired over 25 years ago. Campbell was knowledgeable and engaging. On some of the audios of his that you can buy you can hear that same quality that makes him such a fascinating speaker. But his books...the academic in him rears its ugly head here.This is a good -- not great -- book. It's really about 3 1/2 stars, but as always I give the benefit of the scale. I'd like to call it great,...

This book provides a thoughtful look at the parallels between different religions' stories and the links between these stories and various elements of existence. If that sounds vague, it's because the book's twelve lectures cover serious ground. The most interesting talks were "The Importance of Rites," "The Confrontation of East and West in Religion," and (surprisingly) "Schizophrenia--the Inward Journey." While many of Campbell's ideas aren't news, they are expressed in articulate and, at time...

A friend of mine recommended Joseph Campbell to me a while back, and I never got a chance to check him out until this book randomly fell into my lap at the bookstore I work at. This book was right up my alley. Campbell's thesis is that mythology plays a more important role in our lives than we give it credit for - by mythology, I mean religion too. When you get down to it, mythology is ultimately the resting place for dead religions. Anyway, the myths of a culture really go far in explaining who...

One of the first comparative religion texts I ever read. And, yes, Campbell is not really a comparative religion author, but, along with Frazier's The Golden Bough and Hero with a Thousand Faces, it provided me with enough tips (and ammunition) to smart down the dumb fundies in my college classes....

The essential Campbell in small, yet healthy portions'Myths to Live By', aside from the book length transcript of the televised interviews he did with Bill Moyers, 'The Power of Myth', is the only one of Joseph Campbell's books that I have read, not only once, but twice now. I still intend someday to read 'The Hero of a Thousand Faces' and his magnum opus, the four-volumes of 'The Masks of God.' When I read it the first time in the early 80's at a very desperate time in my life, I saw the title

Dnf b/c i remembered i don't trust campbell's interpretations. he obviously knows his myths & their history quite well. how he takes that info. & applies it to the whole of what was modern-life for the time he was in is what i can do without. It seriously dates the work, & some stuff was just off-base even for the times. When I arrived at p. 155, wherein he stated that the 'copter pilots (of that era) in Vietnam flew in & then flew out other soldiers from the ground as an act motivated by nothin...

This series of lectures is very interesting and a good read for those interested in religions. Campbell draws on sources from the world religions and shows many similarities. My favorite was the chapter on mythologies of war and peace, as I felt he clearly laid out the similarities and differences between various religions on that topic.Overall though, Campbell seems to come to conclusions that are unjustified by the data. Perhaps we could say he takes many leaps of faith. He focuses on similari...

This is the best introduction to Joseph Campbell, and very accessible. If you are new to his work, this would be the ideal place to start.

Although I have many other books by Joseph Campbell, this one probably influenced me the most. I think I've read the essay in this book entitled "The Separation of East and West" over two dozen times in the past 30 years I've had this book, going back to its insights over and over and over, deeply ensconcing his ideas into my understanding of our complex human world. Campbell's work is some of the most important knowledge a modern contemporary person can have - knowledge that helps bring a deep

Campbell is boring, yet amazingly interesting at the same time. Campbell is basically trying to connect primitive mythology, to modern religion/myth, and drug use or dreams, which all have similar context. Here are a few quotes that stuck:“things which once were in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.”“Myths are public dreams; dreams are private myths.” “the famous conflict of science and religion has actually nothing to...

How do we make sense of our lives? The days when religion could provide comforting answers are long gone, except for the terminally hopeful among us. Perhaps the search for answers is meaningless, and Gertrude Stein was right, “There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.” If there are no objective truths, no universal constructs, then the only meaning for our life is the meaning we give it ourselves. Despite all of humankind’s indivi...

Joseph Campbell reveals how mythology redeems the true value of religion, while reconciling it with advances in science, medicine and technology. Mythology, correctly understood, provides an insight into the human experience in ways the modern western worldview never will.He traces ancient occidental and oriental mythologies and parses out the truth of myth from religion. "I like to think of the year 1492 as marking the end--or at least the beginning of the end--of the authority of the old mytho...

One paragraph that hooked me very early on:"...in our present day - at least in the leading modern centers of cultural creativity - people have begun to take the existance of their supporting social orders for granted, and instead of aiming to defend and maintain the integrity of the community have begun to place at the center of concern the development and protection of the individual - the individual, moreover, not as an organ of the state but as an end and entity in himself. This marks an ext...

In essays that spin off Campbell's speeches before the Cooper Union Forum between 1958 and 1971, it's unsurprising that most passionate and intelligent piece spins off the first landing on the moon in 1969. Whether it's human sacrifice understood in plant-based communities that owed their survival to the life-death-life cycle of the natural world, or the modern day's strain to reconcile our stories of godly creation with the evolutionary evidence among us, Campbell convincingly argues that our m...

I've read parts of just about all Joseph Campbell's works, and since I haven't read too much literature on comparative spirituality, I always learn really interesting facts I didn't know. Lots of these essays had fascinating topics, and I loved learning that decapitated heads are an important part of some people's wedding rituals. . . yum! But, instead of a real review, I'd much rather reflect on the interesting ways in which this book is dated. F'rinstance, one of these essays (originally lectu...

Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By is a reminder that "there are more things in heaven and Earth... than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy." Human understanding of the world has been increased through the sciences, including mathematics, the natural sciences like physics and chemistry, the social sciences like economics, sociology, and history, and the humanities like literary and religious studies. Humanity needs these fields for the purposes of advancing what is beyond our natural ways of thin...