I read 'Hero With a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell first, and although I found it to be insightful, I thought it was a bit sterile, scholarly, and downright technical for my taste. My prejudice was, science should be cold and sterile while myth should be warm and lively. With this publication of 'Pathways to Bliss', I decided to give Mr. Campbell another read. I am glad I did. This book, in contrast to 'Hero', I found to be warm, friendly and engaging. The overall style of the book, in my view, matched the subject matter. In it, Campbell defines myth as 'other people's religion' and provides a lively history of our religious symbols through time, how they effect us as a society, and finally how myth impacts us personally and today. His mythology is rooted in existential causes i.e. tropical societies noticed fruits fell to the ground, died, and produced more fruit thus offering a glimpse into the necessity of death where a rebirth is required, while land based societies looked upon the animals they killed as kin, and thus came up with rituals to offer the animals rebirth by pouring their blood out onto the ground, an agreement between hunter and hunted that life would continue for the animal. But Campbell also realizes there is something perhaps more significant at play where myth is concerned than purely environmental causes, and offers the viewpoints of C.G. Jung and Sigmund Freud concerning the unconscious, the psyche and the self, and the role they may have played in developing the stories that have shaped our lives so profoundly. It is amazing to me that a comet thousands of miles away is more predictable than my next door neighbor, but Joseph Campbell helps me understand myself, and perhaps my fellow man, just a little bit better with this wonderful little book.
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