The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Power of Myth
Book Review: Brilliant, brilliant book.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is absolutely brilliant. It is a transcript of the conversations of Joseph Cambell and Bill Moyers. It is a fairly easy read, yet the ideas and genius of Campbell are ingenius and transformative. Reading this book, it brought to life the meaning and magic of myths and stories. I would recommend this book to everyone. Every person will walk away from reading this with something incredibly valuable.Book Review: Campbell is GREAT!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading The Power of Myth, I became so excited about what Joseph Campbell had to say that I made a special trip to the library. I was searching for anything involving Campbell's works. As luck would have it, the library just happened to have the six video recordings between Campbell and Bill Moyer on the Power of Myth. Was I ever in for a treat. After reading the book and watching Campbell & Moyer in the videos, I was completely mesmerized by Campbell. I then took time to read "A Fire in the Mind", a book which covers the life of Campbell and written by Stephen & Robin Larsen. Campbell is so great in expressing himself and so knowledeable in his field, that I was totally captivated by him.I can't seem to read enough of Campbell's works, and so far, it's all been worth the time and effort.
Book Review: Campbell's cross
Summary: 4 Stars
The Power of Myth is a transcription of Bill Moyers' marvelous series of interviews with comparative mythology expert Joseph Campbell. In the Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell asserts that all salient mythological tales suggest a universal, transcendent, and most importantly spiritual reality of the human existence. According to Campbell, myths comprise a vast body of wisdom that recognize the essence of our transcendent existence, and that modern society should not arrogantly dismiss these expositions of the human experience as primitive tall-tales. More tersely, Campbell himself concluded, "Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life." (5)
One conspicuous element of this book is Campbell's extraordinary knowledge of myths. Remembering this book is essentially an interview, for Campbell to quickly and successfully invoke myth after myth, tale after tale, book after book with both clarity and exactitude is simply astounding. Using his plethora of mythological invocations, Campbell asserts that one must comprehend religions and myths alike metaphorically rather than literally in order to glean their true significance. Surveying Native American and East Asian myths and religions, Campbell shows the power of symbols in elucidating the truth of those "spiritual potentialities."
However, Campbell seems to have a problematic relationship with monotheisms such as Christianity. Raised a Catholic, he continually suggests the need for the Monotheistic religions - Islam, Judaism, Christianity - to adapt from a dogmatic insistence on literal truth. Indeed, while Campbell constantly uses Christ to evoke the transcendent and spiritual messages of myths/religions, he also teases heresy by suggesting a metaphorical rather than literal significance of Christ. In fact, he asserts that Christ - like Buddha - merely experienced the spiritual being of existence with the greatest of magnitudes. His conspicuous allusions to gnostic descriptions of Christ further intimate what Campbell constantly dances around and what I believe he really wants to and - based on his thesis - should say: the explicit blasphemy that Christ is not the son of God, nor does one get to 'heaven' or 'spiritual bliss' only through him.
Christ is the principal example of another unfortunate trend within Campbell's allusions. This trend is the selective 'hand-picking' of stories and passages of mythological and religious tales/texts that suit Campbell's thesis. With Christ, Campbell discriminately invokes passages and axioms that reaffirm the spiritual/universal motifs of all religious/mythic traditions - "Love thy enemies," or the monistic/gnostic aphorism "He who drinks from my mouth will be as I am, and I shall be he." (69) Such quotations, while appropriate in buttressing Campbell's contention regarding the significance of a symbol, ignore Christ's specific and overt references to messianic stature, divinity, etc. This exclusion is understandable - Campbell does not believe such literal value to religion/myth.
Campbell remains inflexibly averse to acknowledging that many myths do not have this spiritual significance, nor do all myths evoke this spiritual/transcendent essence of human experience. In fact, many myths convey primarily aetiological and historical value, and while any scholar prone to over interpretation can 'infer' all the meaning he/she wants, this does not detract from the truth that not all myths conform to Campbell's thesis. When certain myths do contradict his premise, he simply dismisses them as 'folk tales' rather than myths. (Paul Bunyan is the example Moyers invokes)
Campbell adroitly and poetically ties together many spiritual themes and messages of disparate cultures and beliefs, and while I do believe in his essential premise regarding myth, his flagrant disdain for western society and its materialism does lead to a biased investigation of the past. At one point, Campbell exalts the Iroquois' and north-eastern Indians emphasis on 'return to the source' sacrifice of tribesmen. Telling how these tribes exercised complete and fatal torture upon war captives, and how exhibiting suffering through facial/oral displays was a sign of weakness, he recounts with disgusting admiration such a culture and the story of a young boy who was 'happy' toward such an end. It is this unhealthy nostalgia that leads him to other examples of ludicrous romanticism for the myths/cultures of our albeit more spiritual past. A great example is Campbell's absurd nostalgia for the spiritualism of the middle ages, at which point even Moyers stepped in and contested Campbell's claim, reminding him that the Middle Ages was a terrible and inegalitarian time. Not everything in our past - no matter how spiritual - was good, nor is everything in our present - however materialist - bad.
Ultimately all the faults of Campbell in this book must be forgiven for the simple fact that this book is an interview! Campbell was speaking extemporaneously at times, and could not and did not benefit from the circumspect contemplation, discretion, revision, etc. that one retains when writing at one's own leisure instead of speaking upon another's questioning. In the end, I agree with Campbell: turning our backs on our spiritual past is imprudent, just as is refusing to import spiritual meaning to our material existence simply due to the 'literal' inconsistencies/contradictions of past spiritual expositions and their present personal exponents. We could all benefit from a critical and metaphorical examination of the similarities of myths, which are so alarmingly similar as to suggest either cultural diffusion or the homogeneity of the human psyche. Campbell definitely leans towards the latter. I also agree with Campbell's heretical assertion that the major religions: must adapt, must relinquish their claims to literal truth and physical sovereignty, and must understand that they are one fabric of a vast veil under which lies man's true spiritual being.
Book Review: Campbell's work is always brilliant...
Summary: 5 Stars
... and yet he talks so generally. I was very intrigued by this book, especially by the references to voodoo, and so I also bought Ross Heaven's Vodou Shaman. You can see Campbell's influence (as well as Frazer's) in Heaven's book, but somehow there is more depth to it. I will always admire Campbell and enjoy his work, I only wish he could have looked more deeply at one single tradition rather than drawing generalist conclusions. Still, not many can do it better, even now.Book Review: Crazy Joe
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the transcript of the Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell done with him years and years ago-a stunning interview-a stunning book. Readers will enjoy the book format because let's face it-when Crazy Joe Campbell was talking-sometimes we needed more time than which was given to "absorb what was said." From talking about the Great Seal on the American dollar bill and it's mythological connections-to pouring over a letter from Chief Seattle to George Washington about the purchase of land, this book is never uninteresting.And to give Bill Moyers due credit as well as an excellent journalist who always knows the right question to ask-and whom unlike a lot of journalists today-actually cares about what he is and was covering. In fact, sometimes Moyers says something quite insightful on his own-it is the coming together of two great minds in a question and answer format-that produces the end result of genius-pure genius. If you are unfamiliar with the Bill Moyers interview, I would recommend purchasing it on here, the 6 tapes, or waiting until PBS airs it again-they always do. Afterall, it's one of PBS's all time ratings grabber. The reason I say that is hearing the way Joe Campbell speaks, seeing in flesh just how engaging of a man he is-allows the reader to "imagine him speaking through the book." To me-that makes a huge difference.
This book is a winnner all the way-regardless of what religious background you hail from-what sort of philosophy if any you engage-this book will certainly impress you the reader. It could actually change someone's life in the context of stimulating someone's interest enough in mythology-to begin looking into it. Or, it can broaden your insight into your own spiritual life in of which you have already established. Any way you toss this book up-it's heads. So buy it.