This monumental series delves into the profound origins of myth and religious thought across diverse cultures. The author explores ancient stories and rituals to uncover the unity of the human spirit and its universal longings. It offers a fascinating look at how myths have shaped our understanding of the world and how their archetypal images resonate in personal lives today. This is a journey towards comprehending humanity's shared spiritual heritage.
The author of such acclaimed books as Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology.
V.1. Primitive mythology. v.2. Oriental mythology. v.3. Occidental mythology. v .4. Creative mythology.
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.
In this climax to his series of studies on world mythologies, the author examines a process he sees as beginning in the mid-twelfth century in the west - an accelerating disintegration of the orthodox tradition.