Myths to Live By (1972)

Very few understand myth as does Campbell. Even fewer love myths as he does and even less understand how trenchant mythic truth really is. Read this book and attempt to live by these myths and you will affect society more than you can imagine. ( )

We've been bombarded with the "hero's journey" and starry-eyed explanations of modern movies with the steps intercut. However, this book still has magic for me, in affirming the heroic nature of our lives, in assuring us our path has been walked before, and in allowing ourselves to make difficult decisions. Most of all, it brought about for me that rare feeling of connectivity, of being part of this world, and impressed with it. ( )

At the time he wrote these essays, Campbell was a professor on a campus, surrounded by young people whom he found hard to understand. For example, in his essay "The Moon Walk--the Outward Journey" he relates his own feelings of awe on viewing the Apollo moon landing and contrasts them with the reaction of a student who wrote "So What" on a photo of the moon landing posted on a campus bulletin board. In another essay "Schizophrenia--the Inward Journey" he contrasts the use of mind-altering drugs by shamans and psychotics (including the LSD induced version) as the difference between divers and non-swimmers in "the waters of the unviersal archetypes of mythology."

"Mythologies of War and Peace" addresses the underlying belief systems of participants in the Mideast crises. Campbell says that "killing is the precondition of all living whatsoever: life lives on life, eats life, and would not otherwise exist...it is the nations, tribes, and peoples bred to mythologies of war that have survived to communicate their life-supporting mythic lore to descendents." He suggests that "we" in the West "have been bred to one of the most brutal war mythologies of all time." He cites Deuteronomy and Isaiah and follows with excerpts from the Koran such as Sura 2, verse 216.."Fighting is prescribed for you." ( )