Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

by Joseph Campbell
Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

by Joseph Campbell

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Overview

Joseph Campbell famously defined myth as “other people's religion.” But he also said that one of the basic functions of myth is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a sort of travel guide or map to reach fulfillment — or, as he called it, bliss. For Campbell, many of the world's most powerful myths support the individual's heroic path toward bliss.

In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell examines this personal, psychological side of myth. Like his classic best-selling books Myths to Live By and The Power of Myth, Pathways to Bliss draws from Campbell's popular lectures and dialogues, which highlight his remarkable storytelling and ability to apply the larger themes of world mythology to personal growth and the quest for transformation. Here he anchors mythology's symbolic wisdom to the individual, applying the most poetic mythical metaphors to the challenges of our daily lives.

Campbell dwells on life's important questions. Combining cross-cultural stories with the teachings of modern psychology, he examines the ways in which our myths shape and enrich our lives and shows how myth can help each of us truly identify and follow our bliss.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781577314714
Publisher: New World Library
Publication date: 10/26/2004
Series: The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell
Pages: 224
Sales rank: 312,686
Product dimensions: 5.76(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Joseph Campbell was interested in mythology since his childhood in New York, when he read books about American Indians, frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History, and was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. He earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Columbia in 1925 and 1927 and went on to study medieval French and Sanskrit at the universities of Paris and Munich. After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 1940s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. The many books by Professor Campbell include The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Myths to Live By, The Flight of the Wild Gander, and The Mythic Image. He edited The Portable Arabian Nights, The Portable Jung, and other works. He died in 1987.

Table of Contents

About the Collected Works of Joseph Campbellix
Editor's Forewordxi
Introductionxv
Part IMan and Myth
Chapter IThe Necessity of Rites3
The Functions of Mythology3
Myth and the Development of the Individual10
Myths for the Future18
Chapter IIMyth through Time21
The Surface and Substance of Myth21
The Birth of Myth: Primitive and Early Societies26
The Birth of East and West: The High Cultures36
Part IILiving Myth
Chapter IIISociety and Symbol47
The Mechanism of Myths: How Symbols Work47
Society, Myth, and Personal Development49
The Ego: East and West53
Chapter IVMyth and the Self63
Jung and the Polarities of Personality63
The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious68
Chapter VPersonal Myth85
Jung: What Myth Do I Live By?85
The Functions of Mythology in Tradition and Today104
Part IIIThe Hero's Journey
Chapter VIThe Self as Hero111
Part IVDialogues
Chapter VIIDialogues137
Notes161
A Joseph Campbell Bibliography167
Index171
About the Author185
About the Joseph Campbell Foundation193
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