The Power of Myth (1988) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• Yahweh: The "God of Israel" in the Hebrew Bible. Yahweh is a modern scholarly vocalization of the name as it appears in Hebrew.
• Adam: Add a description of this character.
• James Joyce
• Gawain
• Joseph Campbell: Professor of comparative mythology.
• Arthur Schopenhauer
• Brahma
• Osiris: Egyptian god of the dead. Husband to the goddess Isis.
• Vishnu
• Paul
• Mark
• Luke Skywalker

Quotes edit see section history

• “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life”

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• We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.

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• Preachers err, he told me, by trying “to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.”

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• 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.

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• The unpardonable sin, in Campbell’s book, was the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.

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• Marriage is not a simple love affair, it’s an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.

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• “The fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag.”

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• Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs.

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• But there is a fourth function of myth, and this is the one that I think everyone must try today to relate to—and that is the pedagogical function, of how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances. Myths can teach you that.

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• The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.” One of the many distinctions between the celebrity and the hero, he said, is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society.

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• They’ve moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you’ve got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can’t. You don’t have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience—that is the hero’s deed.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• India
• Egypt
• Europe
• United States
• Japan
• Chartres
• New York

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Joseph Campbell (Author)
2. Bill D. Moyers (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Betty S. Flowers (Editor)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 291.13

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Anthropology › Cultural
• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Authors, A-Z › ( C ) › Campbell, Joseph
• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Folklore & Mythology
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › Mythology
• Books › Religion & Spirituality › New Age
• Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy

More Books Like This edit see section history