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The Power of Myth

(Joseph Campbell and Power of Myth)

Joseph Campbell,

Bill Moyers

4.29 · Rating details · 40,188 ratings · 1,627 reviews

The Power Of Myth launched an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Joseph Campbell and his work. A preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher, he has had a profound influence on millions of people. To him, mythology was the "song of the universe, the music of the spheres." With Bill Moyers, one of America's most prominent journalists, as his thoughtful and engaging ...more

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Paperback, 320 pages

Published June 1st 1988 by Anchor

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Jun 25, 2007 Kelly rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: everyone- though you have to be a bit idealistic

Shelves: grand-opera, owned, 20th-century-postwar-to-late

I really do think that this should be required reading in high school, everywhere. Or beyond. Just in general. I read it in preperation for my AP year, and it really helps you to open your eyes quite a bit. Does Joe Campbell like to stretch his points? Yes. Are some of his ideas and allusions a little far fetched? Absolutely. Will you roll your eyes a few times? Of course! Unless you are more starry eyed than even I was.

However. What he says on the subject of myth and our current culture is so ...more

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Feb 29, 2012 Jason Koivu rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, fiction, history, psychology-philosophy, fantasy

The Power of Myth explores so much more than myth. It delves into the essence of life itself.

Joseph Campbell was mythologist, professor, writer, lecturer, historian...he was so much. His wealth of knowledge on faith, philosophy and humanity was astounding. He has left us, but he has left behind a body of work, a legacy of compassion and understanding for us and future generations. Thanks to this interview, conducted by journalist Bill Moyers, we have an encapsulated version of his teachings from The Power of Myth explores so much more than myth. It delves into the essence of life itself.

Joseph Campbell was mythologist, professor, writer, lecturer, historian...he was so much. His wealth of knowledge on faith, philosophy and humanity was astounding. He has left us, but he has left behind a body of work, a legacy of compassion and understanding for us and future generations. Thanks to this interview, conducted by journalist Bill Moyers, we have an encapsulated version of his teachings from Campbell's own mouth. The interview was and has been broadcast on PBS stations since the late '80s and includes some nice visuals, however, it's not necessary to view. This audiobook suffices.

You get some of what you'd expect from a title such as The Power of Myth: Heroes and legends from traditional sources such as the epic Greek poems and Norse gods; origin stories from Native America and Africa. But you also get Star Wars. The interview having been conducted at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, some of the discussion spoke on the use of mythical archetypes, which became intrinsic to the success of the movie's popularity. After all, where would Luke be without the Force, and what is the Force but faith?

Yes, religion goes hand in hand with mythology. In many, or most, cases it is one and the same. Campbell's take on religion is refreshing. Hearing him speak on the various kinds of world religions, their differences and even more so their similarities, is enlightening.

When I first saw The Power of Myth on tv, I was only interested in the Star Wars material and the more fantastical elements of mythology, the bits about the gods and monsters. Today, while listening to the discussion, I'm most interested in the aspects of the birth, life and death cycle and of faith. Not that I'm any more religious than the atheist teen I once was, but these are the everyman topics. It is the human experience that most enthralls me now. Luckily for young me and middle-aged me (and probably old me), there's a little something in The Power of Myth for all.
...more

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Oct 21, 2016 Roy Lotz rated it really liked it

Shelves: religion-mysticism-theology

I have bought this wonderful machine—a computer. Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine—it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy.

Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces is a book that, for better or worse, will forever change how you see the world. Once you read his analysis of the monomyth, the basic outline of mythological stories, you find it everywhere. It’s maddening sometimes. Now I can’t watch certain movies without ...more

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Oct 18, 2016 Bharath rated it it was amazing

If you were to read only one book in your lifetime, what book would you want that to be? Well, that is certainly an unfair question since it is difficult to make that choice. However, if I was given the option of choosing only 20 books to read in my lifetime, “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell would certainly be on that list.

This book is about popular myths from different cultures leading up to present day beliefs and practices. It is much more than that as well – it is about life, purpose If you were to read only one book in your lifetime, what book would you want that to be? Well, that is certainly an unfair question since it is difficult to make that choice. However, if I was given the option of choosing only 20 books to read in my lifetime, “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell would certainly be on that list.

This book is about popular myths from different cultures leading up to present day beliefs and practices. It is much more than that as well – it is about life, purpose and what we can be if we can learn lessons from myths and the universe. The book is in a Q&A format based on interviews of Bill Moyers with Joseph Campbell.

I read Joseph Campbell’s “A hero with a thousand faces” a few years back. I found it a difficult (and hence a slow) read with its references to various cultures and legends. The scholarly nature and importance of the work was evident though and since then I have read several passages of his work, which have always been insightful and inspiring.

Joseph Campbell very easily picks stories from several cultures of the world and how they share common patterns. He is respectful, at the same time gently advising on the kind of lessons one must draw. Rather than being literal with myths – we need to understand them as metaphors to deeper truth and lessons. He describes how many rituals evolved as a way to reinforce outlook to life. A large part of that is now lost and people tend to live at the surface missing the depth of the metaphors. The examples are all excellent. For instance - viewing marriage from the perspective of myth makes you view it in a healthy longer term perspective rather than as a love affair (which is always temporary and will end).

There are interesting discussions on divinity, femininity, rituals, practices, non-duality. There are insightful passages on how - many of the myths encourage you to look inward to find yourself, and follow your bliss.

A book which is expansive, profound and inspiring, at the same time engrossing – strongly recommended as a must read! ...more

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Nov 11, 2017 Nishat rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, nonfiction, spiritual

In my daily life, I talk about suffering a lot. I have had trouble accepting the fact that terrible things happen to people everyday, that the voiceless, the weak have to undergo great cruelty everywhere.

Campbell says, for our sake we have to affirm the brutality, the thoughtlessness of our surroundings too. By doing so, we affirm our world and the experience of eternity here.

I once mentioned to an older friend, if our world were to be a circle and we the dots to complete it, then our existence ...more

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Jul 04, 2007 Colie! rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone remotely human

Joseph Campbell is seriously incredible. Read this, listen to the PBS audio tapes, read anything he writes... he's just brilliant, erudite, illuminating, fascinating, lovable, enlightening... he reveals things articulately that you always sensed in the shadowy regions of your instinct, and having them so clearly identified has a revelatory and refreshing effect. It makes you pensive and hopeful. It makes you feel good about being human, part of this thing we do called life. I don't know, I think ...more

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Apr 12, 2011 James Williams rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is my first first-person experience with Campbell. And I find it an incredibly frustrating book.

There are parts that are wonderful: when Campbell takes a few moments to tell some of the myths that have been floating around for years. Or when he compares the motifs in multiple myths from different cultures in different parts of the world. Campbell was clearly a master story-teller, and even in just a couple of sentences, he really makes these ancient stories come alive.

Similarly, the This is my first first-person experience with Campbell. And I find it an incredibly frustrating book.

There are parts that are wonderful: when Campbell takes a few moments to tell some of the myths that have been floating around for years. Or when he compares the motifs in multiple myths from different cultures in different parts of the world. Campbell was clearly a master story-teller, and even in just a couple of sentences, he really makes these ancient stories come alive.

Similarly, the comparisons really help draw me in to the idea of a single world-wide culture of humanity. As a sci-fi fan, this is hardly a foreign idea; but a shared mythology really drives home the point that all human beings share some really fundamental experiences.

Where Campbell starts to lose me is when he insists that these shared experiences (birth, adolescence, death, the physical act of eating something that used to be alive, etc.) are indicative of some Mystery that underwrites the universe. Here he becomes less historian or anthropologist and more of a mystic. By using the word "transcendence" a lot, he seems to think that it doesn't matter that there's no evidence or reason to think that this Mystery is real and not merely a by-product of our own brains firing in a pattern fixed by millions of years of evolution.

As a rationalist or realist or materialist or skeptic or whatever label you find on me, I find this sort of spiritualism pointless and silly. Beyond that, I think that focusing on this fanciful mystery so heavily can really lead to serious problems with living. At one point, Campbell says something to the effect of "But you can't try to make life better. This is all there is. You have to learn to accept it." But that's absurdly untrue. Thanks to people who refused to learn to accept it, we've built democracies that are more-or-less egalitarian (and thousands of times better for the average citizen than the brutal civilizations that gave us some of these myths). Thanks to people who refused to learn to accept life, we've developed communications technologies that allow mothers to not have to give up their children to distance in quite the same way that they had to before. We've developed medicine that give people more time than ever with their loved ones (including Campbell himself who was in his eighties when this conversation took place). And, it's entirely possible that we'll defeat death one day. Not in the mythical way that Campbell celebrates death leading to rebirth of a new generation. But actually making it so that death just doesn't happen anymore (at least, not death of old age: that's the first goal and it seems perfectly attainable in the next couple of centuries).

Think of that.

And none of this could ever happen if people took Campbell's advice of taking nature-as-it-is as the the only good way of the world. This approach made perfect sense to tribal hunter-gathers a thousand year's ago. I think it's possible that, as a species, we've moved past that just a little. While nature is red in tooth and claw, maybe we can do a little better than that.

Campbell also commits one of my major pet peeves. At one point, he says something to the effect of "scientists don't know what a particle is. Is it a wave? Is it a thing? They don't know!". From this, he concludes that there must be a magic energy field in the universe which gives everything life. Or something. It's "transcendent" so he doesn't feel that he has to be specific.

This perversion of science really annoys me. Aside from getting the particle physics wrong (it's not that we "don't know". It's that the duality is actually what's going on. Or something. I'm also not a physicist so I won't pretend to have a real understanding of any of this!), he also really fails to understand the point of science. Scientists (and, through them, our entire civilization) are trying to understand the innermost workings of the universe. You can never do that if, when you find a question you don't know the answer to, you give up and say "Magic!".

The saddest thing is that this book has far more bad spiritualism than it does good history. Hence my low rating. Ultimately, I think the myths of our past have more to teach us about who we were and we are. Campbell thinks they also teach us what we should be. I find that notion to be abhorrent: we can be so much better than we are or were; and if we're going to settle for that, then we may as well give up. There's no more point to us.

Since the book is so much of this, I can't love it or even like it. Fortunately, there's enough in here that I do like (in bits and pieces), that I'm still looking forward to reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I understand that this is more historical and factual. Also, Campbell wrote it when he was much younger. So I'm hoping that the religious and spiritual life he made developed later in life won't pervade it so much.

I suppose I'll just have to find out. ...more

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Oct 03, 2015 Safat rated it it was amazing

There is something very fishy about our existence. We are unaware of it most of the time, but it tickles us all from time to time.

Suddenly we realize we 'are', we actually exist. That's a weird thing. One day we open our eyes, and there’s a world outside.

These things trouble me. Since when do I exist? How come I wasn’t here, then I suddenly came out of nowhere? How’s it possible that something as concrete as ‘I’ actually came out of nowhere? And exactly at what time did I come into being? At my ...more

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Mar 01, 2019 Morgannah rated it it was amazing

The Power of Myth is based on a series of interviews Bill Moyers conducted with Joseph Campbell in the mid 1980's.
"Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life," explains Joseph Campbell near the very beginning of the narrative. His definition of myth, rather than being that myths are examples of the search for life's meaning, is that myths are the ongoing search for "the experience of life". According to Campbell, what myths tell us is that the meaning of life is the ...more

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Dec 25, 2007 Malynda Alice rated it it was amazing

I don't know how he does it, but every time I read/hear/stumble upon some vague quotation of Joseph Campbell's work, my day gets better. The sensation I get when reading his work is of relief, that all the seemingly static and infallible truths of the world stem from very simple needs. Somehow knowing that frees me to pursue the quenching of the needs, rather than the physical trappings we have set up around that need. It is very interesting.
This book is a sort of revised and embellished ...more

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Mar 05, 2017 Lauren rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mythology-folktales, culture, religious-history, philosophy

Re-read this one after several years, and it was even more powerful this time. I think the time and the age between helped in my understanding and comprehension. Very accessible text, and I am sure I will revisit this one again someday - maybe I can finally watch the PBS special too.

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Jul 08, 2008 brian tanabe rated it really liked it

I started reading the hardcover version of this and immediately realized it is a companion to a PBS series between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. So I decided to switch to the audio version – highly, highly recommended over the book.

I found myself connecting with a lot of the passages, but one passage in particular definitely stands out, tackling the meaning of life. While I have a great amount of respect for Moyers, I was slightly annoyed at times with his attempts to assert his equanimity to ...more

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Nov 04, 2009 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

My 100th book for goodreads should be a memorable one.

TRUE STORY: I was facing one of those milestone birthdays where you find yourself asking the big questions like, “What the heck am I doing?” “Am I on the right course?” "Who am I?"

I wandered into a local bookstore thinking “Surely there’s a book in here with some answers for me.” I walked out with “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, the companion book for their PBS series of the same name.

A few pages into their dialog, I ...more

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May 05, 2009 Katerina rated it it was ok

Apparently everyone loves this book, which shocks me. I found a lot of his references very interesting but I really despised a lot of the author's commentary on them (as well as the hundreds of times the author contradicts himself). Yes, he did come up with some pretty deep conclusions, but at other times I found his ideas to be so infuriatingly ridiculous that I, in fact, threw the book at the car window at one point when I read a particularly infuriating nugget of absurdity (I believe it was ...more

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Jul 04, 2016 Graeme Rodaughan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mythology, philosophy, non-fiction

"One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light."

The Power of Myth is a beautifully illustrated collection of interviews of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers.

This is a very accessible and enjoyable book that presents a concise summary of the core ideas distilled from a lifetime of scholarly effort in the worldwide ...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Parvathy rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Philosophy & Comapritive Mythology lovers

Recommended to Parvathy by: goodreads

Shelves: informative, favorites, mythology, mystery

Myths are often stories that explain how the world and human kind came to be in their present form. I have always been inexplicable drawn to these stories and often felt that they have a quality beyond what they seem to be. The undeniable pull of myths have in the human psyche and the society that surrounds them are often met with scrutiny and criticism. When you say that you are interested in mythology the question naturally comes as to why this particular subject is of interest? What role does Myths are often stories that explain how the world and human kind came to be in their present form. I have always been inexplicable drawn to these stories and often felt that they have a quality beyond what they seem to be. The undeniable pull of myths have in the human psyche and the society that surrounds them are often met with scrutiny and criticism. When you say that you are interested in mythology the question naturally comes as to why this particular subject is of interest? What role does myth have to play in our modern world? Why is it important?. Whenever questions like this were directed at me I was often placed in a situation where I know what drives me towards myth but was at loss when it came to explaining this same driving factor. But that was until I read this book which gave me valuable insights in to the world of myth and urged me to consider those dimension of mythical aspects which I was completely ignorant off."The Power of Myth" is based on the interviews between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers that became a famous television series. Consisting of nine chapters that explain the importance of myth in various aspects, it deals with the universality and evolution of myths in the history of the human race and the place of myths in modern society. The first chapter is on myth and modern world which tries to explain myth as an integral part of the society and the transition required in the myths to make it more adaptable to present day world. He talks about reasons for forgoing old mythological motifs and using them to create new global mythologies that is more acceptable to the modern psyche. The role of rituals in the modern society starting from the court room procedures to the gang initiations of adolescents is emphasized to such an extent that they can be viewed as functions to give individuals a sense of belonging to a larger social group. Then the discussion moves to the concept of marriage. True marriage, in Campbell's opinion, embodies a spiritual identity and invokes the image of an incarnate God. The main intention of marriage is to identify ones other self and thereby become whole. The analysis of the national symbol of united states "The Great Seal" is used by Campbell to illustrate the ability for myths to incorporate the beliefs of a whole society and to provide the mythology to unify a nation. He ends this discussion with the possibility of the emergence a new myth which is centered around mother earth or Gaea. The second chapter takes about the Journey inward to ones spiritual self and how myths help you achieve this end. Then comes the story of the first storytellers, the animal self, the cycle of life and death, the center of the world and rituals associated with these concepts in various part of the world. The next chapter explains the shift of the society towards an agricultural society and the change in myth motifs according to these changing perspectives. The following chapters talks about a hero's journey which contains some of the major aspects pointed out in Campbell's previous books, the change of society from a goddess centric female dominated society into a male dominated society and their reemergence in the 12th and 13th century, tales of love and marriage and masks of eternity that identifies with infinity and the power of circle as a symbol. Needless to say this book contains a wealth of information that changes your perspective of the human spirit and its capabilities. There are only very few books that can transform your entire thought process and "The Power of Myth" is definitely such a book for me. ...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Sean rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, non-fiction

"The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers is one of the most amazing books you will ever read or experience. Campbell, the late professor of Comparative Mythology at Sarah Lawrence University, wrote on ideas touching upon every facet of life and his ideas have inspired all types of artistic and creative expression. It would be impossible to write about every idea that Campbell discusses in this book but it suffices to say that his work touches upon many profound aspects of what it "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers is one of the most amazing books you will ever read or experience. Campbell, the late professor of Comparative Mythology at Sarah Lawrence University, wrote on ideas touching upon every facet of life and his ideas have inspired all types of artistic and creative expression. It would be impossible to write about every idea that Campbell discusses in this book but it suffices to say that his work touches upon many profound aspects of what it means to be alive.

The book is actually the transcript of a famous PBS television special with journalist Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell where they discuss what is mythology and what role does it have in modern life. It was one of the most highly rated programs of the 1980's and has continued to stimulate discussion. There are eight chapters, each which discuss a plethora of topics. For example, Chapter 1 examines the role of myth in modern life, Chapter 3 discusses the concept of sacrifice and bliss, Chapter 5 (perhaps the most interesting chapter) looks at the hero and heroic myth, and Chapter 7 discusses love and marriage. He discusses a wide range of ideas and symbols

One of Campbell's deepest ideas is the concept that mythology makes up the ideas of being alive, the business of living. Mythology is the stuff that makes up our interactions with each other and society at large. It transcends religion and society towards something deeper and higher, that great mystery. Mythology and mythological concepts are a reflection of our internal landscape- our human psyche. The commonality between all mythologies is a reflection of the fact that mythology reflects our human experiences, of being born, growing, and dying. It speaks not to tradition but to experiences and to the experience of living which is at once suffering and bliss. One of my favorite quotes is from when he is describing the challenge of modern life as reflected in the film series "Star Wars," which was one of his favorite examples of modern, contemporary myth. He writes "Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes? How to you relate to a system so that you are not compulsively serving it?...The thing to do with learn to live your period of history as a human being."

The book really has something for everyone and even though I did not find every idea of this book interesting, one will find something that speaks to them. Campbell is probably the first instance I've seen of someone who is spiritual as opposed to religious. He had a profound sense of himself and his relationship to the world. This book seems to be an excellent synthesis of his ideas and you get a real sense of his beliefs and influences. It also has given me many, many different places to look for new ideas and inspiration. At times, I wonder if it might be better to read the illustrated version of this book as opposed to this non-illustrated version. But given this books ideas, it should be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what it means to be human. ...more

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Jan 21, 2016 Heidi The Reader rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, favorites, know-thyself

Though a bit rambling at times, The Power of Myth is a great introductory text on archetypes found within all world mythologies from almost every time period. Campbell explains why the underlying stories are the same from all over the world and what they mean in both cultural, personal, and world contexts.

He breaks down some of the major archetypes like the sacrificed god and resurrection, virgin births, goddesses, trees, snakes, and more. As someone who has studied tarot and The Tree of Life ...more

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Apr 27, 2010 Arun Divakar rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

In my part of the world, the gods live everywhere. Every automobile you get into has an image of an elephant headed god or a crucified christ & if the owner is a very fervent believer you will have incense burning inside the vehicle. Such beliefs according to them keeps mishaps at bay. Calendars & walls are adorned with such images and even movies begin with chants evoking the celestial ones.Growing up in such a society my mind kept wavering between comfort & confusion on what it all In my part of the world, the gods live everywhere. Every automobile you get into has an image of an elephant headed god or a crucified christ & if the owner is a very fervent believer you will have incense burning inside the vehicle. Such beliefs according to them keeps mishaps at bay. Calendars & walls are adorned with such images and even movies begin with chants evoking the celestial ones.Growing up in such a society my mind kept wavering between comfort & confusion on what it all could mean. The confusion to me started increasing when I took the matter of my personal relgious belief out & started looking at world religions as a whole and as to what they symbolize. This little book is a flashlight that helped me walk a good mile down this confusing road of myth,lies,half baked ideas and somewhere around the corner...realization ! The real power of this book was not in being just a flashlight but in telling me where other larger torches & lanterns rest.

There is no contention in my mind to the degree of erudition that Joseph Campbell would have been a master of. He speaks from a wide variety of sources to bring before the reader a very valid point : There is a common thread of Mythology at play across the world. I have at times even with my limited reading felt that all the tales ever told are part of one grand tale. Campbell explains in detail how across Civilizations, Continents,Time,Wars,Monarchies & Papacies, Famines,Floods & Devastation a few central themes shine through in the theatre of World Mythology. The quest of the hero,the divine (virgin) mother figure, the death-resurrection cycle, heights of love & pits of damnation : themes such as these have donned different coats of paint all throughout history to sing ballads of the humans for all to hear and revel in.

As a reader, I found the structure of this book to be a very calming one. The reason is pretty straight forward for the interviewer and the scholar are very much at ease with one another and that amicable feel flowed into me as well. Campbell has had experiences travelling widely & also of tireless reading and these transform into his words. You only need to look at a few passages to know what a first rate grasp he has on world mythology, philosophy, psychology, history among other topics. There is a brief mention of what a student in Campbell's class once said that the reading assignments alone that he gave would make a student stagger under its sheer volume. Hinduism, Biblical Mythology & Buddhism are the key religions which at a first glance seem to have influenced this man the most, for time & again he returns to them and shows us little nuggets which speak more than any book ever could.

I knew I would love this book after I read the first few pages of it. It's the kind of book to be re-read every once in a while. After that re-reading I might be tempted to dig up the myths that Campbell talks about and devour them all....and then keep repeating it ever so often with different myths & different tales. For as Campbell says : Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life . ...more

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Aug 24, 2013 Paula Cappa rated it it was amazing

This book is full of wisdom. I read it slowly, kept it on my night table and read a page or two a night. Of course, Joseph Campbell is brilliant. I ended up underlining because so much is profound and so much goes deep into not only the world we live in but the personal soul. He talks a lot about going inward and finding your own harmony. The Great Silence! The silence beyond sound. Myth and storytellers, the hero's adventures, gift of the goddess, and the female principle all lead up to, not so ...more

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Feb 08, 2017 Lanko rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, favorites, rc2017n-e

Fantastic.

It's an interview with various themes of human life centering around mythology. It's not about stories, books, movies... just the myths, how and why they appeared, how and why they shaped and still shape lives and society, how they adapt (or we adapt them) and so on.

He also tackles on issues that even almost 30 years after the book's publishing are still rampant, or even more rampant than before, like violence, issues in love, maturing too late, fanaticism and so on and I think he ...more

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May 12, 2012 Gine rated it did not like it

Jesus Christ does old Professor Joe Campbell knead and massage his precious little thesis until it is a pile of steaming crap sitting in front of me. How many different ways can you boil a potato. Yes, OK, myth, storytelling, wow amazing. NEXT.

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May 19, 2016 tJacksonrichards rated it really liked it

Just as 'Public Communicators' like Cousteau, Sagan and deGrasse Tyson have translated sprawling, complex phenomena of the natural sciences into digestible, imperative docutainment, so did Joseph Campbell—with socratic cheerleading from interviewer Bill Moyers—distill leading mythological scholarship of the humanities and social sciences, including his own substantial work, into a kind of cultural and ecological advocacy intended for a late 1980s american television audience.

CAMPBELL: I think of Just as 'Public Communicators' like Cousteau, Sagan and deGrasse Tyson have translated sprawling, complex phenomena of the natural sciences into digestible, imperative docutainment, so did Joseph Campbell—with socratic cheerleading from interviewer Bill Moyers—distill leading mythological scholarship of the humanities and social sciences, including his own substantial work, into a kind of cultural and ecological advocacy intended for a late 1980s american television audience.

CAMPBELL: I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.
MOYERS: A poem?
CAMPBELL: I mean a vocabulary in the form not of words but of acts and adventures, which connotes something transcendent of the action here, so that you always feel in accord with the universal being.

He maintains an approachable didactic middle-brow collapsing psychoanalytic theory, western metaphysics, religion and indigenous epistemologies into the field of comparative mythology with compelling anecdotes, cerebral takeaways and ready mantras ("Religion turns poetry into prose."). But what distinguishes Campbell here from the likes of Durkheim and Levi Strauss, then, is his overtly prescriptive, hence wholly unobjective, investment in the material:

MOYERS: What happens when a society no longer embraces a powerful mythology?
CAMPBELL: What we've got on our hands. If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.
MOYERS: And you'd find?
CAMPBELL: The news of the day, including destructive and violent acts by young people who don't know how to behave in a civilized society.[...]This is why we have graffiti all over the city. These kids have their own gangs and their own initiations and their own morality, and they're doing the best they can. But they're dangerous because their own laws are not those of the city. They have not been initiated into our society.

That last bit is unusual for its egregious white-privileged entitlement, yet Campbell remains an unapologetic proselytizer for myth all throughout: making no qualifying judgements toward any peoples or practices in any epoch except his own, JC doses out his episteme as ubiquitous cultural panacea, would our late-capitalist PoMo anthropocene only remystify itself with the spiritual utility of myth and ritual:

CAPBELL:[...]The only mythology that is valid today is the mythology of the planet - and we don't have such a mythology. The closest thing I know to a planetary mythology is Buddhism [...] The only problem is to come to the recognition of that [...] and then to act in relation to the brotherhood of all of these beings.

Ie. if global warming is a myth then JC would heartily embrace it as such. And while authoritative conviction in the face of ecological crisis is essential to deGrasse Tyson, et al.'s marketability, TPOM's academic integrity is consistently undermined by Campbell's often reductive monomythologizing—"the (Joseph) Campbell soup of myths"—and zealous spiritualism ("You are God, not in your ego, but in your deepest being, where you are at one with the nondual transcendent.", etc). Likewise, more than a few inspired exchanges are nearly derailed when, by situating JC as a kind of christian curative, occasionally both he and Moyers veer abruptly (and hilariously) into cultish territory:

MOYERS: Far from undermining my faith, your work in mythology has liberated my faith from the cultural prisons to which it had been sentenced.
CAMPBELL: It liberated my own, and I know it is going to do that with anyone who gets the message.

Campbell doesn't always need Moyers for self-parody, either, at which points you're basically getting some geriatric hippy psychonaut's pseudoscientific piffle between bong rips...

CAMPBELL:[...]Fear is the first experience of the fetus in the womb. There's a Czechoslovakian psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, now living in California, who for years treated people with LSD. And he found that some of them re-experienced birth and, in the re-experiencing of birth, the first stage is that of the fetus in the womb, without any sense of "I" or of being..."

All that being said, TPOM's flaws are really also its charms, stemming as they tend to from Campbell's ripened personal eccentricities (ardent spiritualist, libertarian(?), tinfoil-hat-numerologist whose etymological chops here favor stuff like "atonement, at-one-ment") and so absolved by his typically captivating and unpretentious intellectual vigor, his knack for ringing all the most resonant interpretive notes of any particular mythic element, as well as his expansive cultural and historical bandwidth for contextualizing myths within their materialist origins:

MOYERS: What would it have meant to us if somewhere along the way we had begun to pray to "Our Mother" instead of "Our Father"? What psychological difference would it have made?
CAMPBELL: It certainly has made a psychological difference in the character of our culture. For example, the basic birth of Western civilization occurred in the great river valleys -- the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, and later the Ganges. That was the world of the Goddess. The name of the river Ganges (Ganga) is the name of a goddess, for example. And then there came the invasions. Now, these started seriously in the fourth millennium B.C. and became more and more devastating. They came in from the north and from the south and wiped out cities overnight. Just read the story in the Book of Genesis of the part played by Jacob's tribe in the fall of the city of Shechem. Overnight, the city is wiped out by these herding people who have suddenly appeared. The Semite invaders were herders of goats and sheep, the Indo-Europeans of cattle. Both were formerly hunters, and so the cultures are essentially animal-oriented. When you have hunters, you have killers. And when you have herders, you have killers, because they're always in movement, nomadic, coming into conflict with other people and conquering the areas into which they move. And these invasions bring in warrior gods, thunderbolt hurlers, like Zeus, or Yahweh.

I'm fairly certain that, were Campbell around today, he would be a voice of righteous condemnation against our vapid CGI-superhero-spectacle cinematic drivel, impatient with our meta/base-reality narrative complexes, validated by our post-apocalyptic zombie/wasteland fixations, fascinated by our YA dystopian trends, thrilled by transhumanists, and cautious about our ever broadening atheist-identifying social groups. Meanwhile, awkward evangelizing aside, TPOM is an endearing keeper, providing stimulating, accessible comp-myth banter between a couple of well-intentioned, well-educated old american weirdos that rewards both close reading and more casual perusals, too.
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Oct 09, 2010 Jafar rated it liked it

It can be joy to read this book which is entirely a conversation between the mythologist Joseph Campbell and the PBS journalist Bill Moyers – both being uber-erudite. Whether the joy turns into boredom and annoyance or continues to the end depends on your mindset. For Campbell myths are what we humans conceive to make sense of the world and our lives and our relation with the world. All stories and rites and traditions should be looked at in this perspective. Myth are not things of the ...more

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Aug 04, 2015 Erika Schoeps rated it it was amazing

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I actually never thought I'd be writing a review and typing out the sentence, "this book changed my life." But I can't really get around it. It feels dramatic and sweeping and ridiculous, but this book really changed my life. It was also a matter of good timing, and I was also given some thoughts from watching "The Wind Rises" at the same time as I was reading.

Joseph Campbell speaks about his knowledge as if it is unequivocal, unarguable truth. I was charmed and yet annoyed. I was firmly rooted ...more

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Jan 04, 2016 John Morgan rated it really liked it

If you want to get to know Campbell's ideas, there are better works - especially "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and the four-volume "Masks of God" - to read, but this series of interviews, which one can also watch on video, remains a good introduction to his worldview and approach, and had a big impact on me when I first encountered it in my 20s. The psychological approach to myth can hardly be called "traditional" in the Guenonian/Evolian sense but it remains a useful one nonetheless, since it ...more

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Jun 01, 2013 Jorge Campos rated it did not like it

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Professor Campell leaves the reader wanting a more profound insight regarding the human person's social, anthropological, and religious need for myth; instead we are left with, well, to use one of his anecdotes: "We don't have a Philosophy, or a Theology... we dance."

And dance he does.

Campbell jumps from one myth to another; dwelling in the fact of its existence and never going beyond to study its meaning, relevance, depth, or "power," making his bias towards Buddhism unblushingly obvious and ...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Ramona P. rated it it was amazing

This book changed my life. Joseph Campbell opened the world of Mythology to me and introduced a new way for me to relate to my life journey. His insights and ideas about the power of myth help us understand how important it is to be aware of the traditions inherent in our cultures and how they play out personally and collectively.

I am able to look for the "soul-story" resonating in diverse cultures and know that I am looking at the myth that is informing their values, ideas, ideals, religion, ...more

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Dec 17, 2015 Bill Bowyer rated it it was amazing

A great tool for any writer or aspiring novelist in the fundamental knowledge of myth and its interaction with religion and history. Joseph Campbell proves here that he is the master of mythology, and his wisdom oozes from the pages like honey. As a writer, the gift of such wisdom far exceeds most other resources that you have at your disposal.

Perhaps the most important teaching from Campbell is his insisting that constant reading is the prime path for one to acquire great amounts of knowledge. ...more

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Jul 31, 2014 Biafra rated it it was ok

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summary

George Orwell, in Politics and the English Language, notes the following: 'Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not […] The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. ...more

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About Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell

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Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles.

Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.  

After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey. 

Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people. 
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Other books in the series

Joseph Campbell and Power of Myth (6 books)

Books by Joseph Campbell

The Masks of God, Volume 1: Primitive Mythology

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

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Trivia About The Power of Myth

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Quotes from The Power of Myth

“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 with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” — 881 likes

“Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.” — 658 likes

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