El vuelo del ganso salvaje

by Joseph Campbell

¿Cuál es el «significado» de un árbol? ¿Y el de una mariposa? ¿Y el del sonido de un torrente? Las cosas, como los mitos, sencillamente son. Al contrario de la tendencia actual que considera la palabra «mito» como sinónimo de «mentira», los mitos no son invenciones, sino una clase especial de «acontecimientos», reconocidos por videntes y poetas, que pueden ser cultivados para el mayor bienestar de todos. En este fascinante libro, Joseph Campbell demuestra una vez más su inmensa erudición echando mano de prácticamente todas las ramas del conocimiento humano para respaldar sus argumentos. Explora los orígenes individuales y geográficos del mito, utilizando elementos tan variados como los cuentos de hadas de los hermanos Grimm, las fábulas budistas y jainistas, las interpretaciones de los sueños de C.G. Jung o las leyendas de los indios americanos. Con elocuencia y lucidez, Campbell subraya también la importancia de la mitología en la vida cotidiana. Pues los mitos no solo satisfacen una necesidad psicológica, sino que cumplen una función biológica; una función que resulta esencial para una maduración equilibrada de la personalidad.

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, Psychology, Philosophy, Religion, Anthropology, Essays

299 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles.

Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities. 


After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey.


Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.


Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is the “meaning” of a tree? of a butterfly? of the birth of a child? or of the universe? What is the “meaning” of the song of a rushing stream? Such wonders simply are. They are antecedent to meaning, though “meanings” may be read into them. They are, as the Buddhists say, tathāgata, “thus come,” the Buddha himself being known as the Tathāgata, “The One Thus Come”; and all things, we are told, are “Buddha things.” So, likewise, are the images of myth, which open like flowers to the conscious mind’s amazement and may then be searched to the root for “meaning,” as well as arranged to serve practical ends.

- Joseph Campbell, quoted from the book under review

I have been fascinated by mythology ever since I heard my first story from the Puranas at my grandmother’s knee. As I grew up, my fascination remained; but alongside grew scepticism. The possibility of these fantastic tales being factually true, I realised, was practically nonexistent. Yet they touched an inner nerve, some font of truth not amenable to cold, logical reasoning. I could not reconcile this dichotomy, until I discovered Joseph Campbell in my early twenties.

Campbell is one of the foremost authorities on myth: yet he does not approach it with the critical eye of the scientist, who takes a flower apart to find out the source of its beauty. Neither does he regard it with the adulatory regard of the believer, who prostrates himself before the ultimate truth with hardly an effort to understand it.

Joseph Campbell is a Jungian. But he goes beyond Jung’s clinical preoccupations, to look at myths as the collective dreams of humanity. “Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths,” as he loves to say.

Therefore, in sum: The “monstrous, irrational and unnatural” motifs of folk tale and myth are derived from the reservoirs of dream and vision. On the dream level such images represent the total state of the individual dreaming psyche. But clarified of personal distortions and propounded by poets, prophets, and visionaries, they become symbolic of the spiritual norm for Man the Microcosm. They are thus phrases from an image-language, expressive of metaphysical, psychological, and sociological truth.

The main key here is the mythical symbol. This is different from the sign, as made clear by Jung.

C. G. Jung, in many passages, has drawn a distinction between the terms “sign” and “symbol,” as he employs them. The first, the sign, is a reference to some concept or object, definitely known; the second, the symbol, is the best possible figure by which allusion may be made to something relatively unknown. The symbol does not aim at being a reproduction, nor can its meaning be more adequately or lucidly rendered in other terms. Indeed, when a symbol is allegorically translated and the unknown factor in its reference rejected, it is dead.

Science works with signs, and mythology with symbols. Campbell, a fan of Eastern philosophy, considers the ultimate truth – that of man’s oneness with the universe, the space-time continuum – to be essentially unknowable except through personal experience; the “neti, neti” (not this, not this) of the Upanishads, cutting through layers and layers of conscious thoughts, beyond even the well of the subconscious; to reach the understanding of “tat tvam asi” (thou art that) of the Chandogya Upanishad. This is the job of the shaman of the hunting societies (albeit in a much cruder, experiential way); the mystic of medieval society; and the artist in the modern society. This is the “supreme wild gander” (paramahamsa) who flies away from mundane reality, only to return. It is a form of madness, but unlike the schizophrenic, it is within the control of the individual.

The mad are those who, when they have broken contact with the mode of meaning, with the integrating component of thinking consciousness, cannot again restore it—whereas the great artist, like the shaman, like the paramahamṣa, the “supreme wild gander” of the titanic yogic flight, can be carried away and return.

***

This book can be called a condensed version of Campbell’s massive four-volume Masks of God series, where he traces the gradual evolution of myth through the various stages the evolution of human civilisation, from the hunter-gatherer to the agrarian to the inhabitant of the hieratic city state. During this journey, the mythical orientation passed through four stages: (1) where the individual was totally subordinate to the societal myth; (2) where individuals broke away in search of release, or moksha (to use an Indian term); (3) where the individual realised that he didn’t have to go away from the society to attain release, that detachment can be practiced even within it; and (4) where the individual understood that enlightenment of the essential truth – the tat tvam asi - was enough; that everyone was essentially a Buddha, the fact had only to be realised: allowing one to act in the world without being of it.

As I said before, being a fan of the East, Campbell says that this fourth stage has already been attained in the Orient (I would agree in theory – however, as far as practice goes, I have a huge caveat). He calls the religions of the East (Buddhism, Vedanta, Tao) the Religions of Identity, where the identification with the Godhead is seen as the ultimate aim of existence. Whereas the religions of the Levant (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are Religions of Relationship, where God is separate from His creation and man can hope only for a special relationship with the deity.

Gods and Buddhas in the Orient are, accordingly, not final terms—like Yahweh, the Trinity, or Allah, in the West—but point beyond themselves to that ineffable being, consciousness, and rapture that is the All in all of us. And in their worship, the ultimate aim is to effect in the devotee a psychological transfiguration through a shift of his plane of vision from the passing to the enduring, through which he may come finally to realize in experience (not simply as an article of faith) that he is identical with that before which he bows. These are, then, religions of identity. Their mythologies and associated rites, philosophies, sciences, and arts, are addressed, in the end, not to the honor of any god “out there” but to the recognition of divinity within.
...
However, in contrast to the Oriental—Buddhist and Vedantic—ways of interpreting the symbolism of the guarded gate and passage to the tree—as referring, namely, to an inward, psychological, barrier and crisis of transcendence—the authorized Christian reading has been of an actual, concrete, historic event of atonement with an angry god, who for centuries had withheld his boon of paradise from mankind, until strangely reconciled by this curious self-giving of his only son to a criminal’s death on the Cross.
...

God in this system is a kind of fact somewhere, an actual personality to whom prayers can be addressed with expectation of a result. He is apart from and different from the world: in no sense identical with it, but related, as cause to effect. I call this kind of religious thinking “mythic dissociation.” The sense of an experience of the sacred is dissociated from life, from nature, from the world, and transferred or projected somewhere else—an imagined somewhere else—while man, mere man, is accursed.

The Levantine religion has taken over the west. But the essential mythical orientation of the region derives from the Greek myths – where individuality and rebellion of man over the Gods is celebrated (remember Prometheus). This is a factor which is missing from both the Orient and the Levant. So how does the West reconcile itself to this dichotomy?

Apparently, through amorous love. This is what Campbell calls the “secularisation of the sacred”. Amour is different from Eros (lust) and Agape (unconditional love of all). It is romantic love, but with the sexual element underplayed. This theme (developed by Campbell at length in Creative Mythology), talks about doomed medieval love affairs, Abelard and Heloise, Tristan and Isolde, the loves of the troubadours and the Grail legend. Here, the artist/ writer has taken over the role of the shaman; and the amour he sings of is the flight of the wild gander.

For according to the principle of amor, as opposed to both agapē and eros, the particular person, the form and character of the individuation of perfection, continues to be of great moment, even of central concern, and “in every ethical sense” respected.

These are the bards of our times. In a godless society, they show us through their individual lenses their particular version of the Holy Grail: asking us to follow them, but through our own individual path, as no two are the same.

For there is, in fact, in quiet places, a great deal of deep spiritual quest and finding now in progress in this world, outside the sanctified social centers, beyond their purview and control: in small groups, here and there, and more often, more typically (as anyone who looks about may learn), by ones and twos, there entering the forest at those points which they themselves have chosen, where they see it to be most dark, and there is no beaten way or path.

Come, let us enter the forest. The Holy Grail awaits.

[Mesoscope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Along with "The Mythic Image" this is the Campbell book I'd recommend to newbies, more than "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and much more than "The Masks of God". In fact, if I were asked a single book on the study of mythology and religion to any interested party, this would very likely be the one.

While "The Mythic Image" capitalizes on Campbell's marvelous ability to spin countless stories in building chains of images and ideas, "Wild Gander" shows him at his hunker-down best, arguing with razor sharp analysis and a massive erudition his fans from PBS may very well not know he possessed.

The price of the book is amply repaid by the first chapter alone, which is an electrifying and detailed analysis of the evolution and dissemination of myth through the fairy tale genre in Europe, along with an equally masterful history of how that story came to be told by folklorists over the last 200 years, beginning with the Brothers Grimm.

Campbell goes on to deal with several of his perennial favorite topics such as the biological and psychological function of myth, and the importance of understanding the history of the diffusion of motifs through different cultural zones. He makes a strong argument on behalf of a trans-Pacific migration from Kyushu, Japan to Ecuador during the first millennium BCE, and an equally compelling argument for a unified equatorial cultural zone projecting out from Sumer west through the Mediterranean to southern Europe, and east through south Asia and Oceania to South America. It is a strongly-argued case with extensive evidence, and I found it fairly persuasive.

The crescendo of this book is its magnificent fifth chapter, which analyzes the evolution of mythology in terms of three great periods: the hunter-gatherer cultures with their shaman initiates empowering and supporting an individual relationship to the mysterium tremendrum, the agricultural cultures with their hieratic social structures and professional priests who facilitate the assimilation of the individual into the body of their society, and the humanist traditions in which individual potentialities are brought forth in unique configurations through the process of individuation, and human life is brought to fulfillment through the Romantic love first envisioned by the Troubadours.

This book is a masterpiece of the genre, and I expect I will return to it many times in the future.

[Daniel Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great piece. Campbell expounds upon ideas captured in his other works here, only the emphasis is on the personal experience from understanding the symbols of myth. My favorite part of the work was section five, which contains the name sake "flight of the wild gander." Throughout he weaves through different sources –-including Native American , Occidental, and Oriental mythology as well as modern psychology and novels-- to detail how stories are a metaphysical coping mechanism. However, the crux of his message in this book (and in his other works) is that there is a point beyond the symbol --as he quotes, "the space between two thoughts". A ultimate, transcendant wisdom that is unteachable. We come into contact with it through stories and art, which act as a bow and our souls the arrows. The tales catapult us past both the concrete world and the metaphysical world, elevating us, if only for a moment, into that realm. This penultimate identity is all we have to describe the ultimate, and this is what is captured in the flavor and texture of a myth.

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barnaby Thieme's review: I read The Flight of the Wild Gander in the Seventies, and as Thieme's review might imply, it is the Campbell book I think about the most. Here Campbell seems, again, to be trying to piece together perceptions of current social evolution. I wonder if he was foreseeing the growing conflict between cultural fundamentalism (the organized, agricultural society) and the unacknowledged spiritual leadings of elemental human nature (the hunter-gatherer). As an editor I am ALWAYS impressed by Campbell's mastery of an enormous & complex topic -- so complete, so polished! As other reviewers have noted, Flight is not the typical Joseph Campbell book, it's not as much fun to read. It's almost as if we have a rare insight into the author thoughts NOT complete, not polished -- pushing the edges of his own understanding.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I once read somewhere (It’s probably something Campbell or Jung said but I don’t remember) that a true believer—no matter what his particular faith—is living inside the mythology of his religion, and so cannot recognize the myths for what they are, a set of symbols and rituals that must be considered metaphorically rather than literally or historically. To live inside the myth, for example, is to see only the extended finger of the pointing Christ, not to where he is pointing. In the essays in Flight of the Wild Gander, Campbell, as he always does, as the shamans and mystics he writes about do, directs our attention away from the symbol and toward the ineffable.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fairly early writing by Campbell is fascinating in spots, such as the great account concerning the evolution of folklore studies. The description of mythology's functions is powerfully illustrated with Native American tales. The chapters announce many of the greatest themes explored more fully in The Masks of God. But on many subjects Campbell does too much explaining and not enough showing. The discussion of Eastern wisdom relies on philosophical explanations more than stories, and gets extremely difficult to follow. I don't like to give Campbell a less than stellar rating, but this was basically a ground-breaking preliminary effort, and it's only great is some places.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gobsmacked.

[Anton Channing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really two slightly disconnected parts, the second really deserving to be a book by itself, and the first originally oddly placed with it in this volume. It is for the second part I recommend this book. If it was available on its own I'd give the book five stars.

The first part was originally published as a forward to a collection of Brothers Grimm folk tales. Its informative and quite interesting, but not really Campbell at his best. Really it has little relation to the subject of the bulk of the book.

The second part, 'Symbol Without Meaning', I consider highly recommended. It covers the evolution from mythology from the hunter gatherer societies, with their individualistic shaman, to the more regimented agricultural collectives and their priesthoods. It examines the symbol of the mandala as a symbol of the collective, which the hero individual must break free from. It examines three kinds of love, eros, agape and amor, and their relation to the collective and the individual, and how the agricultural myths will by necessity give way to new myths more fitting for the modern and future age, in which he argues for the reassertion of the importance of the individual. Superbly and compellingly written.

[David Melbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started: July 23, 2003 and finished: July 25, 2003.

My second reading. . . and, I actually started reading this a year ago! I read the first four chapters last summer whilst caring for Aidan, and then shelved it to start reading Baksheesh & Brahman: Asian Journals - India (which I did not finish until May, 2003!). Anyway, I adore this set of essays. I never tire of reading about this stuff! --From A Reader's Journal, by d r melbie.

[Marty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is mid-career summation by one of the leading recent students of myth. Another small volume, "the Inner Reaches of Outer Space" (1986) will recapitulate some of these themes towards the end of his life. This earlier version, quite consistent in general tone and outline, goes a long way to map out his thinking on the evolution of mythic thought including those most essential myths under the great Western religions.

[randi- · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Campbell described everything out there for me in the most descriptive yet cryptic way possible!!!

You sometimes stumble upon authors or books that just end up being astounding treasures hidden in your fathers library!! (literally)
As a lover of myths and the way we were shaped to be, curious over how the human was conditioned and influenced to such extremes, this book was the perfect lullaby.

It spoke of some of my favourite authors (the Grimm brothers), taught me facts of literature and spirituality, mythology and the great unknown in the most ethereal way! Joseph Campbell evoked literal gasps from me in the dead quiet of the library over his superior words and ways of defining and exploring.

It was in no way written as a demanding set of facts and truths, it was written in a way that allows the reader to wonder right along side him, to think of such statements in an open and free way that explores spirituality and myth in a pure and provocative way.

I appreciated this book, especially at a time like this (due to me writing my grad thesis on stories and their influence on humans), but i appreciate it for what it is and what it holds. Some magic is found in the most obvious yet untouched of places, as this book proved to be for me.

[Shawn Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of essays by the greatest historian of mythology there ever was. Everything he has written I’ve been delighted with.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I don't like Campbell because his writing feels too academic

[Tristy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Joseph Campbell and while the majority of his books are very accessible and easy to read, this book is not one of those. I actually tried getting through this about 15 years ago and the language was far too dense and academic for me (and I am a student of anthropology!). I picked it up again this month to have another go, and while I was able to get through it this time, it took a lot of re-reading certain sections to really understand the points he was making. I checked in with some mythology scholar friends and both confirmed that Campbell wrote this particular book as a way to "legitimize" the study of mythology, so he had to take a much more academic approach in writing it. This book is not for the average person (and I'm shocked other reviewers say this is the first Campbell book to start with!).

The first section, that discusses Grimm's Fairy Tales was also a bit distracting for me, because I have read Jack Zipes excellent introduction to The Complete Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm Volume 1 where he points out that the Grimm Brothers did not, in fact, record the "true" fairy tales shared with them by the old German women they met. They in fact CHANGED the stories to add a Christian morality, so Campbell's theory (at least about the Grimm tales) is actually based on inaccuracies (although, Campbell had no way of knowing that, at the time). Still, all of this being said, this is an incredible book and the connections Campbell makes around the origins of both the stories of the Bible and other key, cultural myths is essential to our deeper understanding of our psychological culture as a whole.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't bad, but it was not nearly as good as Campbell's other books.
The first section on the Grimm Brother's was great and really pulled me in. After that it slowly turned to a lot of historical information. History is awesome, but it was just hard for me to get into things in B.C.E. from places and peoples I had no context for. Campbell's texts generally have a very conversational tone. That was missing here. This book was often more technical. And, when provided mathematical equations as representations of ideas, I found the explanation in words just worked better for me.
The last portion of the book was definitely the heaviest. My instructor warned that this is the hardest Campbell book to get through. It was very, very meaty and intense.
He made some comments about religion that I found rather shocking. Though I had previously identified his awe for and tendency toward Eastern traditions and religions, I was surprised here to see a blatant discount for Western (namely Christian) religion.
Overall, I would say I am still digesting this text.

[Zach]

Flight of the Wild Gander is a wonderful collection of early Joseph Campbell essays (1944-1968) wherein Campbell sets forth compact, well argued versions of ideas he would later explore much more expansively and exhaustively.

It's hard to pick a favorite essay, but his "Intro" to Grimms' Fairy Tales is phenomenally informative. "Primitive Man as Metaphysician" stands out for its luminous qualities. Anytime Campbell is going to walk elemental ideas through Native American mythologies to Brahminical mythologies with pit stops in Greek myths, Goethe's world, & Joyce's mind -- complete with a resolution in Kantian terms, I want a front row seat. The final pair of essays, "The Symbol without Meaning" & "The Secularization of the Sacred" are transcendent.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listening to in bloom. Experiences in this temporal reflection. There is a significance for everything. These are the things for men to know and remember. Think. The more meaning you will see. Prisoner of the mandala. Dimensions beyond time and space. The timeless forest. The integrity of a resolute heart. Man is but a dream of a shadow. Condemned to be free. Life values screamed at us from pulpits and media. Quiet places. Here and there. Where there is no beaten path.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

i really hope his other books are better.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book but the hero with a thousand faces is the bigger, better version of similar text...

[Mills College Library]

291.13 C1887 1990

[Maan Kawas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great and engaging book by Joseph Campbell. I particularly loved chapters one and five.

[Lancelot Schaubert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather than write a review of this man's life work, I'd rather just cite the various posts I've written about him in the past:

• Monomyth Definition: A Defense of The Hero’s Journey
• Hindu Monotheism : The Upanishads and Vedanta
• Follow Your Bliss : Results of Joseph Cambell’s Advice
• The New
Hero: Tolkien and Subversion
• Joseph Campbell Religion :: Did Joseph Campbell Believe in God?
• Joseph Campbell Religion :: Did Joseph Campbell Believe in God?
• Was Joseph Campbell atheist?

And because I like having fun, the Zero with 1,000 Faces

Mark: Got a new lighting rig and arrangement that I want to test out, but I need something that changes and moves around a bunch. You up for a challenge?

Lancelot: [silence. I’m thinking…]

Mark: Day… in the… studio?

Lancelot: New lighting set up?

Mark: Yeah, it’s–

Lancelot: What if I tapped into my old thespian and modeling skillset and tried to give you as many faces as possible?

Mark: So… you’d… wait. Like trying to get me to mix it up as you mix it up?

Lancelot: Yes. You’ll keep me on my toes, making sure the faces are all different. I’ll keep you on your toes so you switch your style.

Mark: Sounds fun.

Lancelot: We’ll call it… [Dr. Evil voice] THE ZERO WITH 1000 FACES.

Mark: [Quiet for awhile, then:] Okay.

Well we got into the studio and I brought exactly four billion props and costumes.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review of the audio edition. The narration is clear; and, consequently, enjoyable. This essay series by James Campbell on the origin of myth and related information is probably essential to the library of anyone interested in this subject. I wouldn’t mind owning a hard copy in order to spend time with some of the passages and study his perspective on certain subjects. There is a wealth of information here and it takes time and complete attention to absorb; and, of course, the language is old school ivory tower.

[Csongor Szoke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph Campbell egymásra teszi a világ összes mitológiáját és összefüggéseket talál és elemez. A hős útja igencsak meggyőző séma és ebben a könyvben különböző aspektusokat elemez a válogatott esszéiben. Mindenképp elgondolkodtató (néhol vitatható) és új fénybe helyezhetik a világot, lehetőséget adva, hogy az emberiséget egy emberként lássuk. A mítosz az emberiség kollektív tudatalattijának, ahogy azt Karl Jung is nevezte.
E könyv olyan összefüggéseket elemez, ami valóban rávetít az ember pszichés összetételére. Rengeteg dolog jelent meg ősi történetekben, amit ma már tudományként kezelünkm

[Heather Pagano · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic read with lots of archaeology to follow. There was also less storytelling than I've come to enjoy in other Joseph Campbell reads. Though it took more effort to read, there were some fantastic points concerning broad eras of human history. It was also less focused on any particular culture than some of his books, and very focused on why we see the same myths and patterns across different cultures.

[Tatiana Peña Valencia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un autor para profundizar

Recomiendo el libro a personas que estén incursionando en todo lo relacionado con los mitos y la búsqueda espiritual, para obtener en el campo anteriormente mencionado una percepción de la visión oriental y occidental a lo largo de la historia. Este libro brinda una visión general, sin embargo, hallo prudente profundizar en otros de los títulos del autor para ahondar en el asunto de la mitología y las religiones comparadas.

[Paul Belserene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I return to this book again and again and again. Joseph Campbell puts his finger on one of the great sources of tension in our world: the individual, lonely call of the spirit, reflected in shamanistic practices, and the civilizing religions that were spawned out of agriculturally-based cultures where the challenge was how to live together. Spirituality vs religion.

[airy xie · Rating 5 out of 5]

'For it is simply an incontrovertible fact that, with the rise of modern science, the entire cosmological structure of the Bible and the Church has been destroyed and not the cosmological only but the historical as well.'

Human intelligence will always betray religion and vice versa.

Never good in reviewing, but I always find something new in Joseph Campbell' s write.

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually love me some Joe Campbell. Maybe my mindset wasn’t in the right place for this. Or maybe it was disjointed and a rehashing of his usual mythological topics. Some fine sections, but couldn’t get into it.

[Laura Prades · Rating 5 out of 5]

El hombre es la criatura incompleta cuya realización completa se produce dentro de una determinada tradición social. Así pues, cada uno de nosotros no es más que una parte, un fragmento o una inflexión de lo que pudiera haber sido.

Joseph Campbell.