
The priest presents for consideration a compound of inherited forms with the expectation (or, at times, even requirement) that one should interpret and experience them in a certain authorized way, whereas the artist first has an experience of his own, which he then seeks to interpret and communicate through effective forms. Not the forms first and then the experience, but the experience first and then the forms.
Who, however, will be touched by these forms and be moved by them to an experience of his own? By what magic can a personal experience be communicated to another? And who is going to listen?
-- Joseph Campbell
Mythic Dimension, The (p. 226-227)
Find more quotations at www.jcf.org/quotes

The Mythic Dimension: Selected Essays, 1959–1987
These 12 eclectic essays explore myth and its fascinating context in the human imagination — in the arts, literature, and culture, as well as in everyday life. The latest title in New World Library’s Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, this attractive cloth edition features pieces that exhibit Campbell’s trademark thoughtfulness and intelligence. These essays explore the topic for which Campbell was best known: the many connections between myth and history, psychology, and the daily world. Drawing from such varied sources as Thomas Mann, the occult, Jungian and Freudian theory, and the Grateful Dead, these dynamic writings elucidate the many ways in which myth touches our lives, our psyches, and our relationship to the world.