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| Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph Campbell
Creator: David Kudler
Publisher: New World Library
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
Buy Used: $4.24
You Save: $15.76 (79%)
New (39) Used (23) from $4.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 9290
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 1577314719
Dewey Decimal Number: 201.3019
EAN: 9781577314714
ASIN: 1577314719
Publication Date: October 26, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Mythology Self-Help Book! November 15, 2006
47 out of 47 found this review helpful
Everyone with the slightest familiarity with Joseph Campbell, of course, knows the famous catch-phrase: "Follow Your Bliss". And everyone pretty much knows what it means, as well: Figure out whatever your passion is, and responsibly and diligently move forward, and pursue it... for the rest of your life... above and beyond anything else.
Sounds like words of wisdom from a worthy and knowledgable teacher.... but how exactly does one go about following their bliss?
That's what this book aims to answer.
Joseph Campbell, of course, died in 1987, yet this book didn't appear on store shelves until 2004. That's because it has been assembled posthumously by the Joseph Campbell Foundation from many of Campbell's unpublished notes/lectures/interviews/drafts/etc... Their aim is to bring the great mythologist's unfinished works into a form suitable for public consumption. With that as their aim, the Foundation had the inspired idea to organize a whole book around the premise: How To Follow Your Bliss.
So, it's the usual brand of Campbell's 'Mythology as Psychological Resource', albeit this time around in the guise of a sort of 'mythological self-help book'. A satisfying one nonetheless.
As ever, Campbell's basic premise is that the grand purpose of mythology is to ground an individual in relation to an order of being that is larger than himself. Through metaphor and through ritual, an individual is brought into accord with:
1. The great mystery
2. The physical world
3. The societal order
4. The appropriate stage in one's own development as an individual
(These you may recognize as Campbell's four functions of myth.)
The book starts by laying out all four of these as the foundation for the overall theme, and then focuses on the fourth one, the 'personal development' function of myth, throughout the remainder of its pages. A typical scenario where the fourth function of myth may be considered is the following:
All is well, of course, when an infant lives in a dependency on its mother. It is not alright, however, when a thirty-year-old man depends on his mother for decision-making capabilities. Obviously, at some point between infancy and maturity must come the realization that the correct value is to become an autonomous being. Often these realizations that come at specific transition points in the lifecycle are challenging for a developing ego to embrace.
And myths are often stories that show us, through metaphor, that it is possible to negotiate these thresholds-- often they even point a way as to HOW these thresholds may best be negotiated. In a nutshell, what the great stories tell us is this: let the you that you are now DIE so that something new can be born in its place. Let your current incarnation go.
Following the development of the above ideas, the book continues on into the territory of Jung and the idea of one's personal myth. Each of us may become sensitive to one particular myth over another because it has something essential to tell us specifically about our own unique particular journey.
Finding one's own myth, and living it, in essence, is one's pathway to bliss. Campbell gives suggestions to his students (and to us readers) as to how to find, identify and live one's personal myth.
So, here you get the flavor of the book. If you like the ideas behind The Power of Myth and/or Hero With A Thousand Faces and find them to be a nourishing resource in your own life journey, here's a book that attempts to express and focus on those ideas in a way that makes them seem much more immediately relevant and applicable to one's own life journey.
So, if that's what you're into, you'll find it in this book. Because 'mythology as resource for one's psychological development' is what primarily compells me above all else when it comes to myth, I devoured this book and then cried like a little baby when I finished the last page because I was sad it was all over. Those who can't stomach Campbell should move along move along, because they'll find more of the same here as to what they're used to.
* As a bonus, for everyone out there who finds Campbell's ideas of the Hero's Journey to be somewhat not inclusive of women, this book tries to address that as well. The final chapter is a transcript of dialogues in which many of Campbell's students (male and female) challenge him to broaden the conception of the Hero's Journey to include women in a fuller way. It brings what many consider a sour omission from Campbell's writings to light and is definitely worth the read for anyone who follows that discussion closely.
- Phil Robinson
http://www.PhilRobinson.net
"Paint the walls of your cage with a dream."
Western Myth, Indeed November 1, 2006
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
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.
One of my favorite Joe Campbell "books" October 24, 2006
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Over the past few years I've become an avid Joseph Campbell fan, my only regret is that I didn't have the honor to attend one of his lectures. His scholarly works, such as Primitive Mythology, Occidental Mythology, etc. delve more deeply into the actual interpretation of specific myth, and I love these books. But I find so much wisdom in those "books" that are actually a compilation of interviews and or lectures. Joe Campbell has a unique ability to dish out life-changing nuggets of wisdom in a sentence and that comes across clearly in his conversations and lectures. Of these conversational books, this is one of my favorites. As some of the other reviewers have stated, its a great introduction to Campbell's ability to translate mythic archetypes and metaphors into meaningful dictives about life and our own personal journeys. My book is adorned with bright yellow ribbons of highlighting on nearly every page. Inspiring in every sense of the word!
Fantastic Campbell October 12, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is wonderful for everyone! Whether you are a long-time fan of Joseph Campbell or new to his teachings, it is great.
I am a long-time fan and it is nice to see his philosophy presented so clearly and conscisely in one easy-to-read volume.
Buy and read it today!
Absolutely Perfect August 7, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book was in perfect condition for a second hander, it was soo reasonably priced and it's just one of those diamonds in the rough. Joseph Campbell is such a unique individual who has such insight. He's like an academic spiritual writer, who speaks from the heart about myth and it's place in the world so we can better understand ourselves. I'd give it 10 stars if I could.
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