Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation
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Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

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Product Info

  • EAN: 9781577314714
  • Manufacturer: New World Library

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  • ISBN13: 9781577314714
  • Condition: New
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Editorial Reviews:

  • Joseph Campbell is one of this century's great disseminators of the psychological wisdom of mythology. One of the basic functions of myth, he contends, is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a travel guide to reach fulfillment — a map to discover "bliss." In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell once again draws on his masterful gift of storytelling to apply the larger themes of world mythology to personal growth and transformation. Looking at the more personal, psychological side of myth, he begins to dwell on life's more important questions — those that are often submerged beneath the frantic activity of our daily life. With characteristic wit and insight, he draws connections between ancient symbols and modern art, schizophrenia and the Hero's Journey, revealing the way myth helps identify one's heroic path.

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  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
  • Summary: Classic Campbell, If You are Interested in it for Your Own Personal Growth
  • Comment: This is an excellent introduction and/or review of the key themes of Joseph Campbell's entire body of work - the role of myth and archetypes in human experience, within both cultures and individual psyches, and within both religious and philosophical traditions. It is really a collection of essays and talks, grouped according to these topics. This collection is particularly focused on the practical application of his ideas in one's own life - this book is not focused on his more academic material. Because of that, it is Campbell at his most inspiring and insightful, in my view.

    However, to me all Campbell books seem a bit dated at this point. The presentation of Eastern spiritual teachings in particular seems simplistic and overly general. Campbell is best at making connections between traditions at a 'macro' level - when you get down to the details, there are often missing pieces. So in the end, I think this is best read as personal development material. If the ideas inspire you then use them, but don't use this as a historical or anthropological guide.
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
  • Summary: Joseph Campbell is Joseph Campbell
  • Comment: I have to give this one five stars because it's Joseph Campbell and then take one away because it's Joseph Campbell. That is, there are a few instances of what might be penetrating insights. There is ringing and memorable language. There are sweeping generalizations. There are gaping errors of fact and theory. The last mostly in the areas of anthropology and history. In general I feel a fool for buying this because it is available at the library and it is not a book I really want to keep and savor. But it is worth reading if you are interested in this sort of thing.
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
  • Summary: Cultural Mythology
  • Comment: This is a very hard book to read however it was very interesting. I've known for years that many ancient stories and biblical stories all go to one beginning point. Campbell takes you to the point of first contact. Most religion dogma believers could not handle the truth as it is not profitable (pardon the word reference). All Campbell books seem to do this and should be read as a college level historical reference guide in Cultural Anthropology.

  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
  • Summary: New Horizons: Do I Dare?
  • Comment: "Over and over again," writes Joseph Campbell, "you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons." (133) And the questions remains, "Do I dare?" I you do, read this spiritual and clever book. If you don't the journey that awaits you is even more necessary and all the more exhilirating. I recommend Joseph Campbell in any form and colour, in any book.
  • Customer Rating: Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5
  • Summary: useful but not his best
  • Comment: This is a strange book. For one thing it's really a series of lectures, but for some reason the cover and jacket don't say so. You have to read the notes at the end to find out why the presentation rambles so.

    Secondly, the title and subtitle are misleading. The reader has to get through four lectures--two on the history and purpose of myth and two on Jungian psychology: that's half the book--to get to the discussion on personal transformation. The lectures might be useful to beginners, but I bought this book because I lead classes and workshops on finding one's personal myth (not one's archetype: there's a difference), and all this was was old hat to me.

    Although Campbell was a man of his time, as all men are, his biases really show in this book. His grating stereotyping of "the Orient" as authoritarian and so forth recalls Edward Said's penetrating criticism of Western fantasies of Orientalism: Orient as mysterious, backward, and despotic. Campbell's comments about women's psychology are especially culturebound, as when he says women tend not to follow the call of the Hero because of the "natural" and "inevitable" call to duties like childbirth. This sounds less like mythological inquiry than like Republicanism's ongoing obsession with dynasty and reproduction. Maureen Murdock has answered this in part by writing her book The Heroine's Journey.

    Here and there, though, we see the Campbell most of us admire. "I think one of the great calamities of contemporary life is that the religions that we have inherited have insisted on the concrete historicity of their symbols" (p. 88). He also remarks that although he admires Abraham Maslow (I do not: I've read his journals), his list of survival values--security, prestige, self-development--"are exactly the values that a mythically inspired person doesn't live for." What does such a person live for? "A calling, a dedication," what seizes us, what drives us beyond mere considerations of comfort or biology or "the values for which people live when they have nothing to live for."

    He also gives a number of important suggestions for finding one's personal myth; we are finding, however, that the myth is often a good deal more specific than previously thought. Campbell mentions Jung's quest to understand his myth but does not mention Faust. In Freud's case it was the story of Oedipus, even down to following his daughter Anna out of Vienna just as the old king followed Antigone out of Thebes. On the web is a piece I wrote about Steinbeck living the story of Lancelot. What we do with these stories, how we learn them, deepen them and elaborate them: that is the fascinating part, built on the foundation left by Jung and Campbell.

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