Masks of the Gods Series

Recommended Reading Order

1. Primitive mythology

   • Joseph Campbell

   • 504 pages
   • 18 hours of reading

   The first volume in Joseph Campbell's monumental four-volume Masks of God series, originally published in 1959 and revised with up-to-date science and new illustrations in this Collected Works of Joseph Campbell paperback edition In this first volume of The Masks of God, the world's preeminent mythologist explores and illuminates the wellsprings of myth. Showing his exemplary combination of scholarly depth and popular enthusiasm, Joseph Campbell looks at the expressions of religious awe in early humans and their echoes in the rites of surviving primal tribes. Campbell shows how myth has informed our understanding of the world, seen and unseen, throughout time. As he explores and shares archetypal mythic images and practices, he also points to how these concepts inform our personal lives. Upon completing the Masks of God series, Campbell found that his work affirmed "the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history." He likened this unity to a symphony in which various parts create a "great movement." Perhaps more than ever before, Campbell's insight is not only illuminating but also inspiring.

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2. The Masks of God. Oriental mythology

   • Joseph Campbell

   • 576 pages
   • 21 hours of reading

   V.1. Primitive mythology. v.2. Oriental mythology. v.3. Occidental mythology. v .4. Creative mythology.

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3. Occidental Mythology

   • Joseph Campbell

   • 576 pages
   • 21 hours of reading

   The third volume in Campbell's monumental four-volume series, The Masks of God, traces the mythological underpinnings of Western religion: the shift from female-centered to male-dominated mythology Once upon a time in the West, the focal figure of all mythology and worship was the bountiful Goddess Earth. She reigned supreme as the mother and nourisher of life and as the receiver of the dead for rebirth. How, when, and why did this change? As Campbell here elucidates, She was more than a symbol of fertility; she was "a metaphysical symbol: the arch personification of the power of Space, Time, and Matter, within whose bound all beings arise and die." Campbell shows how the mythologies of the goddess were radically transformed, reinterpreted, and in large measure suppressed "by those suddenly intrusive patriarchal warrior tribesmen whose traditions have come down to us chiefly in the Old and New Testaments and in the myths of Greece." Campbell goes on to describe the mythological underpinnings of Western religion -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism -- and their historical influence on one another. No one who cares about history, mythology, or past or current events in the lands from whence we came can do without this venerable yet remarkably contemporary analysis.

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4. The masks of god, Occidental mythology

   • Joseph Campbell

   V.1. Primitive mythology. v.2. Oriental mythology. v.3. Occidental mythology. v .4. Creative mythology.

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