Joseph Campbell Foundation: a Network of Information – a Community of Individuals
The text we’re highlighting this month is Correspondence: 1927-1987, which offers selections of Joseph Campbell’s correspondence over the last 60 years of his life. I have long loved reading the correspondence of people who...
The Dream of Joy (from The Sleep of Sorrow and the Dream of Joy) by Raffaelle Monti (marble, England, 1861. Photo by Chris Beckett; used through a Creative Commons license). Having read and reread...
“We speak of the symbolism and metaphor of myth – but why? Why do myths have to use symbols to communicate? Can’t they just be clear about what they mean?” This frustration was voiced...
A Journey into the Unknown by Bastian Schmidt. Used through a Creative Commons License How do we know what we know? When does an introduced idea cross that threshold from something encountered to something...
I love those moments in which Joseph Campbell, the world-class scholar of myth, also becomes a story-teller, often drawing a line of Native American wisdom. In The Flight of the Wild Gander, he opens...
In 1987, the Hindu epic The Rāmāyaṇa was serialized for Indian television. It immediately became immensely popular and was treated with ritualistic honor throughout the country when episodes aired. When it was announced that the...
The story of Dame Ragnell and Sir Gawain is one of the most popular tales to come down from late medieval England, and scholars generally attribute it to Geoffrey Chaucer. In “The Wife of...
One of the definitions of Renaissance is that it is a time of rebirth and revival. The romantic ideal that many have of the notion of Renaissance, however, could just as well be defined...
The recent OK, Boomer brouhaha both amused and bemused me, and made me think (surprise!) about Star Wars and Joseph Campbell, not that I needed an excuse. If you managed to miss it, so-called...
The Grail by Alice Popkorn. Used through a Creative Commons license As we begin the new year, I express my gratitude to Evans Lansing Smith for so skillfully editing Joseph Campbell’s research and writing...
Our family had a sacred ritual we practiced every Friday night while I was growing up. We traveled to a video store called Movies and Sounds and paid homage to the higher forces that...
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Deleted: Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is — T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” This December at JCF,...
The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti once wrote that he was waiting for the rebirth of wonder (“I am Waiting”, A Coney Island of the Mind, 49). In an age where technology has simultaneously brought us...
In his 1986 publication The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Campbell turns to a Navaho sand painting of a Blessing Ceremony which depicts a rite of passage for the initiate. Campbell sees this painting...
Here in America, November marks the celebration of Thanksgiving, and we at JCF have adopted the theme of gratitude for the MythBlasts this month. Gratitude is an interesting assortment of feelings, a complex emotion...
Gratitude……….. (photo by smile7/flickr.com; used through a Creative Commons license) For me, it has been a challenging privilege to brush shoulders with this month’s theme of gratitude. Gratitude, to me, is simply appreciation, but...
My life long, I’ve loved the relationship between a big mind’s biography and the themes and patterns of their oeuvre. The two mirror one another comparatively, opening up the symbolic dimensions, refracting, reflecting, reiterating...
On the 146th night of Scheherazade’s captivity, as told in Joseph Campbell’s edition of The Thousand and One Nights, The Story of the Birds and Beasts and the Son of Adam keeps her sovereign...
One of my earliest memories is centered around a lit stage draped in a red velvet curtain, inside a small theater in Colorado, watching a magician named Max Hapner pour a gallon of milk...
Back in November of last year, an opinion piece in The New York Times entitled “Fighting the Spiritual Void,” about the challenges faced by returning combat veterans, came to my attention and I was...
What did Joseph Campbell mean when he said, “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be” (Joseph Campbell and the Power of...
Scars are curious things given an even more curious name: the word scar is derived from the Greek word eschara, meaning “place of fire.” The word does not mean “caused by fire,” nor does...
I myself have been traveling around quite a bit, these years, from one college campus to another, and everywhere the first question asked me is, “Under what sign were you born?” The mysteries of...
Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: “Follow your bliss.” More…
