Summary of Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 I have selected and arranged a baker's dozen of talks on mythology that I gave between 1958 and 1971. The topics and titles I owe to the fertile mind of Dr. Johnson E. Fairchild, the chairman of The Forum, who kept that blithesome institution running for nearly 25 years.
#2 The medieval concept of the earth was that it was a flat, floating dish surrounded by a boundless cosmic sea, in which there were all sorts of dangerous monsters. The more seriously considered medieval concept was that the earth was a solid, stationary sphere in the center of a Chinese box of seven transparent revolving spheres, in each of which there was a visible planet.
#3 The medieval view of the universe was that it was perfectly ordered, and the Christian Empire was an earthly reflection of the order of the heavens. The entire southern hemisphere was believed to be water, with the Mountain of Purgatory rising out of it.
#4 When Columbus set out to explore the world, he believed that it was a flat disk surrounded by a ocean. When he reached the northern coast of South America, he noticed that the quantity of fresh water there was enormous. He believed that the fresh waters were coming from a river of Paradise, which was pouring into the southern sea from the base of the great antipodal mountain.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Folk Tales
• Fairy Tales
• Legends
• Fairy tale
• Mythology

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822501768
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I have selected and arranged a baker's dozen of talks on mythology that I gave between 1958 and 1971. The topics and titles I owe to the fertile mind of Dr. Johnson E. Fairchild, the chairman of The Forum, who kept that blithesome institution running for nearly 25 years.

#2

The medieval concept of the earth was that it was a flat, floating dish surrounded by a boundless cosmic sea, in which there were all sorts of dangerous monsters. The more seriously considered medieval concept was that the earth was a solid, stationary sphere in the center of a Chinese box of seven transparent revolving spheres, in each of which there was a visible planet.

#3

The medieval view of the universe was that it was perfectly ordered, and the Christian Empire was an earthly reflection of the order of the heavens. The entire southern hemisphere was believed to be water, with the Mountain of Purgatory rising out of it.

#4

When Columbus set out to explore the world, he believed that it was a flat disk surrounded by a ocean. When he reached the northern coast of South America, he noticed that the quantity of fresh water there was enormous. He believed that the fresh waters were coming from a river of Paradise, which was pouring into the southern sea from the base of the great antipodal mountain.

#5

The end of the authority of the old mythological systems was marked by the 1492 voyage of Columbus. The earth was beginning to be systematically explored, and the old, symbolic, mythological geographies were being discredited.

#6

The Old Testament, which is the basis of all the Jewish legends of Creation, Exodus, and the Conquest of Canaan, was not written by God or anyone named Moses, but was compiled from various dates and authors after the period of Ezra.

#7

The peoples of all the great civilizations have been prone to interpret their own symbolic figures literally, and so to regard themselves as favored in a special way. The polytheistic Greeks and Romans, Hindus, and Chinese all thought of their own gods as superior.

#8

The loss of myths, which are the supports of societies, leads to uncertainty and disequilibrium. Without them, life becomes difficult, and people are left with nothing to hold on to.

#9

The traditional view of myth is that it is a record of events that happened a long time ago. However, when these stories are interpreted not as reports of historic fact, but as merely imagined episodes projected onto history, they become clear that they represent facts of the mind.

#10

The first law of magic is that like produces like. The second is that things that were once in contact with each other continue to affect each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. Frazer believed that magic and religion were addressed to the control of external nature, and that they would eventually fade away as science took over.

#11

There are two different approaches to mythology: one, by Carl Jung, who believes that the imageries of mythology and religion serve positive life-furthering ends; and two, by Sigmund Freud, who believes that myths are symptoms of repressions of infantile incest wishes.

#12

The history of civilization is a history of the development of novelties in consciousness, reason, science, and new facts. But when societies refuse to allow any such interplay to develop, they reject the novelties of consciousness, reason, and science.

#13

The most important fact about the scientific revelation is that science does not and cannot pretend to be true in any absolute sense. It is a tentative organization of working hypotheses that takes into account all the relevant facts now known.

#14

The Vedas are the Hindu equivalent of the Torah for the Jewish religion. They are the oldest scriptures, and they date from around 1500 to 1000 B. C. The dating of the Vedas has recently been reduced, and it is being assigned to something like 1500 to 1000 B.

#15

The Indian myth of the churning of the Milky Ocean for its butter of immortality is a parable for our world today, an exhortation to press on with the work beyond fear.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The most evident distinguishing sign between human and animal psychology is the organization of the human life in accordance with mythic aims and laws. Food and drink, reproduction, and nest-building are important aspects of human life, but what separates us from animals is our awareness of ourselves as individuals who will one day die.

#2

The first great impulse to mythology is the recognition of mortality, and along with this comes the realization that the social group into which the individual has been born, which nourishes and protects him, has existed long before his birth and will exist after his death.

#3

The first and primitive stages of the history of our species saw a general movement of peoples into distance, with the various populations becoming increasingly separated. But since we are all being brought together again in this present period of world transport and communication, those differences are fading.

#4

The stories in the first books of the Bible, such as the creation of the world in seven days, the Garden of Eden, and the Flood, are all fictions. But they are fictions that have had a universal vogue as the founding legends of other religions.

#5

The Bible’s image of the garden is a symbol of the soul. It is not a reference to any geographical scene, but to a landscape of the soul. When read as a reference to events in the field of space and time, the symbol will be misread and its force deflected.

#6

The Indian Buddha legend, which has enchanted the entire East, has a tree of immortal life guarded by two terrifying guards.