So far we've covered three functions: participatory awe, science-rules, and society-rules. The fourth is pretty easy to glom onto: lifespan-rules. How do you move from infancy to adolescence to adulthood to old age and then death? A good myth holds...

So we've gotten through function one (the rules) and function two (the science), and now it's time for function three: society. A good mythology wraps up the social structure in the same wallpaper as the science and the rules: you...

This one's easy -- unlike function one, which is a little woo-woo-spiritual, function 2 is simply to present a functioning model of the natural world. The Earth is at the center of so-and-so, or all matter is comprised of four...

This is where things get interesting. We're out of the Introduction at last and on to Chapter 1, "The Necessity of Rites" -- and even better, the first section is "The Functions of Mythology," which I've found to be one...

What I've often found when talking about Joseph Campbell (or life-planning in general) is that people don't feel quite comfortable talking about "bliss." And I don't know exactly why that is. But it's important, because it's a giant blinking neon...

Here's a theme that's frequently repeated in this book: it used to be that a mythological system would nurture us from birth; but these days, there's much less of that. You're not necessarily assumed to be under the protection of...

At this point in the introduction, there's a bit of a tangent relating to Hindu Vedantic tranditions and the Taittiriya Upanisad. I can't figure out how it relates to what we were just talking about; but since this book is...

So, yesterday, I was writing about how in the introduction to "Pathways to Bliss," Joseph says that you can really crack up if you hear that siren song. So, what do you do when you hear it? Follow it. Duh....

"Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is," says Joseph. (Good grief, we're still just in the introduction.) In other words, make your myths emotionally permeable. Luke Skywalker's an easy example; he's the...

There are a couple of key concepts in the Introduction to the book. (Can you believe we're still on the Introduction? The real show hasn't even started yet.) First, there's a little anecdote about how there are businesswomen in our...

In the Editor's Foreword, David Kudler recalls some words from Mr. Campbell about how, as he reviewed his work toward the end of his life, it became apparent that his career had had a thesis: that myths permit fulfillment --...

I'm going to start with Pathways to Bliss, a book that I've been reading over and over for the past, oh, two years. It's a collection of his lectures, and there is a staggering amount of useful information therein. It'll...