Joseph Campbell Foundation

Working Art: Joseph Campbell at His Desk Print |

In this installation, created from materials in the Joseph Campbell Collection at OPUS Archives and Research Center, the mythologist has stepped away from his desk, allowing us a glimpse of work-in-progress. Click on the logo above to view the installation and learn details and anecdotes about the items in Campbell's workspace.

This installation is part of a larger vision entitled Joseph Campbell: Nature, Myth and Art. Join us from April 18 - May 31 as we delve into Campbell's world of myth in a series of programs to be held on the Monterey Peninsula. In partnership with Celadon Arts, OPUS Archives & Research Center, and the Cherry Center for the Arts in Carmel, CA, we will explore timeless and timely myths through art exhibits, panel discussions, films, salon style dinners, lectures, performances and more.

More Information Here>>

The Myths & Masks of God Print |

A spiritual symbol, a religious symbol, a mythic symbol is valid and true here, now and for always. It is not a reference to something that happened somewhere else at another time. —Joseph Campbell

The five lectures in "The Myths & Masks of God" (Series I, Volume 3 of the Collected Lectures of Joseph Campbell), recorded early in Campbell’s career as a public speaker, explore the original sources of various images of divinity in religions around the world. They were among those Campbell kept in his study and used as the basis for later investigations of myth, symbolism, the psyche, and spiritual awakening. Provocative and exhilarating, full of wit and wisdom, they are windows into one of the greatest minds of our time.

You may now download Volume 5 as our Thank You with a donation of $25 to JCF. Click on the title or album cover above to learn more and request your download.

Mythic Imagination - Collected Short Fiction by Joseph Campbell Print |

JCF and New World Library are pleased to announce the publication of Joseph Campbell's Mythic Imagination.

Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people’s living rooms through his Power of Myth conversations with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at fiction, publishing his first short story at age 29.

Compelling in their own right, these six stories and one novella are essential reading for longtime Campbell fans and the many who continue to discover him afresh.

(Order through JCF's online bookstore, and everything else you place in your Amazon shopping cart and purchase within 24 hours, even if not a book, generates a small fee for the Foundation)

Order Mythic Imagination>>

Three New Joseph Campbell Lectures Print |

These lectures were recorded at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, during the summer of 1969, immediately following the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Any of three new talks in Series II, Volume 1 of the Joseph Campbell Audio Collection are now available for download as our Thank You gift when you donate $5.99 to JCF:

Lecture II.1.9 – Birth of the Perennial Mythology–Joseph Campbell explores the way myth expressed itself in the earliest human cultures.

Lecture II.1.10 – Birth of the Modern – Campbell discusses how myth manifested in the first cities, in classical India and East Asia, and eventually culminating in the birth of our modern world.

Lecture II.1.11 – Mythological Conclusions – in a talk never before commercially released, Joseph Campbell summarizes a brief history of world mythology, then discusses with his audience the ways in which myth and modern culture will affect each other.

MythNow Blog: The Disturbing Release of Personality Print |

New on the MythNow Blog: JCF Associate Brad Olson, Ph.D., psychotherapist and author of the acclaimed blog, Falstaff Was My Tutor, contributes an entry that examines Petrarch's mind-expanding "peak" experience to reveal a surprising resonance between disturbance and discovery.

Brad has been nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize in Nonfiction for "One Must Forget Much to Live Here," which appeared in the Mythopoetry Scholar e-zine at Stephanie Pope's Mythopoetry.com (a site worth a close look).

Read the MythNow Blog>>

AND LIVE REJOICING - Houston Smith Print |

Spiritual trailblazer Huston Smith has written comprehensive books about religion and a memoir of his own life, but nowhere has he merged the two elements of seeking and experience with such storytelling flair as he has in AND LIVE REJOICING: Chapters From A Charmed Life. Few have done as much as Smith to explore and illuminate the world’s religions and spiritual traditions, and none have done it with such accessibility, wonder, and delight. In this joyous volume, he looks back on his extraordinary life, describing riveting scenes with unforgettable characters in India, Africa, Tibet, and Japan. Smith’s charm and exuberance come through on every page.

Read memories Huston Smith shares about Joseph Campbell from AND LIVE REJOICING>>