Power Of Myth
Where to buy Power Of Myth books online?
Product Description
The perfect soundtrack from the phenomenally well loved PBS series whose message about myth, ritual, and spiritual potentialities exhilarated millions of people.
Contents:
Program 1: The Hero’s Adventure
Program 2: The Message of the Myth
Program 3: The First Storytellers
Program 4: Sacrifice and Bliss
Program 5: Like and the Goddess
Program 6: Masks of EternityAmazon.com Review
Among his many gifts, Joseph Campbell’s most impressive was the unique ability to take a contemporary situation, such as the murder and funeral of President John F. Kennedy, and help us know its impact in the context of very ancient mythology. Herein lies the power of The Power of Myth, showing how humans are apt to make and live out the themes of mythology. Based on a six-part PBS television series hosted by Bill Moyers, this classic is especially compelling because of its engaging question-and-answer format, making an simple, chatty approach to intricate and esoteric topics. For example, when discussing the mythology of heroes, Campbell and Moyers smoothly segue from the Sumerian sky goddess Inanna to Star Wars‘ mercenary-turned-hero, Han Solo. Most impressive is Campbell’s encyclopedic knowledge of myths, demonstrated in his ability to recall the details and archetypes of nearly any tale, from any point and history, and translate it into a lesson for spiritual living in the here and now. –Gail Hudson
Buy Cheap Power Of Myth Online
Related posts:
- Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History
- The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
- Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority
- The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
- Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self
Anyone contemplating the buy of this book should know some of the history behind it.
Joseph Campbell, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, made the study of comparative mythology his life work. It has been credibly argued that Campbell’s chief aim in his work was to counter the “decadence” of civilizations based on the Ancient & New Tribute. Fine so far as that goes, but the implication is, of course, and the charge against Campbell for years has been that, he is both Anti-Semitic and Anti-Christian. Futhermore a prospective reader should know that this book was launched in coordination with a Bill Moyers produced PBS series in the late 1980’s. In that series Moyers acted the part of a journalist in interviewing Campbell but failed to tell well-known concern’s about Cambell’s alleged Anti-Semitism. If that were not terrible enough, a prospective buyer should know that in producing the series (with the help of Uncle Sam through public television subsidies) Moyers entered into a contract to share in the profits from sales of this book (at least while it was still published by Doubleday).
Moyers, a liberal Democrat (he was Lyndon Johnson’s Press Secretary and Chief of Staff), despite being a trained seminarian has made copious public statements about the threat to democracy posed by the “Religious Right” getting involved in politics. But, as his affiliation with Campbell demonstrates Moyers is not just opposed to Christianity influencing politics, he is opposed to Christianity (and Judaism) influencing culture. Clearly Moyers (and probably Campbell) are rabid God-hating secular-humanists, disguised as moderate, and even semi-religious (in the case of Moyers) liberals. (For more on this see “PBS: Behind the Screen” by Laurence Jarvik available on Amazon.com).
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Reviewer Michael J. Edelman wrote of this book, “With Campbell as the putative sage and Moyers as his fawning acolyte, they place on a show that’s a parody of Socratic dialogue.” How right!
The essential contradiction in this sadly sacrosanct book of sophomoric sophistry is the statement to Campbell by Moyers, who has regularly claimed to be a Christian: “Far from undermining my faith, your work in mythology has liberated my faith from the cultural prisons to which it had been sentenced.” Campbell was an atheist and a Darwinist. Note to Bill Moyers: there are no slime-snake-monkey people in the body of Christ. We’re all descended from the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, through Noah and his wife. Did you get mixed up, Bill, and reflect Campbell was the apostle Paul?
I’ve spent years researching very ancient art. My findings, including image after image of the art itself (what I like to call “evidence”), appear in these books Athena and Eden: The Hidden Meaning of the Parthenon’s East Facade, Athena and Kain: The Right Meaning of Greek Myth, The Parthenon Code: Mankind’s History in Marble, and Noah in Very ancient Greek Art.
None of Campbell’s work was of any help at all to me in gaining a right understanding of what our ancestors were communicating to us in their art and literature. He didn’t grasp the simple point that, for the most part, very ancient art depicts HISTORY, not myth. Campbell’s books lead away from truth, not toward it.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This book is undeniably appealing, but be careful: myths are a product of the lower rational mind, as philosopher/scientist Jurgen Haberamas has shown. It is the same mentality that produces the rediculous Christian mythology which the readers of this book are rebelling against. Cambell admits that 99% of myth-involved folk judge the myths to be LITERAL. The additional 1% are mystical, transpersonal people who are merely expressing their experiences in the format of a myth as a refined way of expressing the eternal. So for the rational Westerner, this leaves us with lovely myths which merely correspond to a mystical region which we can at most intuitively sense is sort of there. So what do we do? – read Ken Wilber and start meditating to get to the place where we know myths to be an expression of the eternal. Reflect you’re there already? Reflect again. Meditate.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Professor Campbell had a broad knowledge of mythology and religion, but his analytical skills were dulled by his philosophical commitment to nondualism (or pantheistic monism), which he uses as a Procrustean bed: all symbolism and religion is interpreted along the lines that “we are one with the nondual transcendent” that lies at the core of our being. But, monotheistic religions have never taught this, and this alien worldview cannot be read into their scriptures.
Nondualism is also philosophically flawed since it denies the reality of restricted entities and experiences as finally real. If all is one and all is God, why do so many humans experience themselves as restricted, contingent, and theme to death and decay?
Nondualism, furthermore, disallows the reality of evil. Excellent and evil disappear into the nondual. But any worldview that denies the objectivity of evil is philosophically and existentially bancrupt. What of the terrorists who immolated themselves and three thousand others on September 11, 2001. Were these terrorists not evil?
Finally, Campbell claims that God is beyond logic and language. But this doesn’t stop him from building statements about what he claims is overwhelming–utterly beyond any statement. This is contradictory and, therefore, fake.
There is another worldview that recognizes the reality of restricted and sorrowful being, that knows and honors the difference between excellent and evil, and which is based on the self-disclosure of a personal and transcendent God. It is called Christianity.
Douglas Groothuis
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Power of Myth is one of the driest most uninteresting books I have ever read. Not only does it completely have no point, it is not in the least bit appealing. I would never recommend it to anyone for enjoyment or a class. I reflect Power of Myth is excellent only for a college doctorate class in myth. I can reflect of endless things I would change throughout this book to make it more appealing, but clearly that wasn’t the authors objective.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5