MYTH BLAST
The magician made a modest request. Could he and his friends from the local chapter of the Society of American Magicians perform the “broken wand ceremony” at my grandfather’s open-casket, Catholic funeral? My resistance, bordering on physical revulsion, to the casual syncretism of wand and crucifix is difficult to explain and makes me sound like a cultural bully, but I think Joseph Campbell can help me out here. Throughout the history of the Christian cult,” he wrote in Creative Mythology, “the liability of its historicized symbols to reinterpretation in some general mythological sense has been a constant danger.” Or, put…
MONTHLY GIFT
Our gift to you this month is audio lecture titled Creative Mythology (Audio: Lecture II.2.5). Access this download for free until the end of the month.
FEATURED MEDIA
I.5.2.13 – The Sufi Story of Satan – an excerpt from this lecture.
George Lucas has often pointed to the influence of Joseph Campbell in crafting Star Wars: A New Hope. Campbell's work has continued to be influential throughout the creation of the rest of the Star Wars universe and still drives motifs in the latest expressions of the saga.
In this episode, John Bucher, Creative Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, hosts a panel discussion with some of the most interesting thinkers in the galaxy as they identify and discuss Joseph Campbell's ideas in The Mandalorian.
This conversation took place at the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, CA in May 2022.
Subscribe and listen whenever you get your podcasts. Link to episode in bio…
https://the-podcast-with-a-thousand-faces.simplecast.com/episodes/joseph-campbell-star-wars-and-the-mandalorian-a-panel-discussion
#josephcampbell #mythology #followyourbliss #starwars #themandalorian #josephcampbellfoundation #jcf #thepodcastwithathousandfaces
John Bonaduce contributes this week's MythBlast, "Wand Envy".
"The magician made a modest request. Could he and his friends from the local chapter of the Society of American Magicians perform the “broken wand ceremony” at my grandfather’s open-casket, Catholic funeral?"
Continue Reading…link in bio.
https://jcf.org/mythblasts/wand-envy/
#followyourbliss #myth #josephcampbellfoundation #mythblast #jcf #josephcampbell #mythology
Myth, Magic & Metaphor takes the reader on a journey into the heart of creativity: the book attempts to awaken the aesthetic sense and the creative muse who lurks within us all. Today, in a cognitive and technical society, people become more and more removed from the instinctive aspect of the psyche.
“My task as author is to enhance the creative spirit through myth and metaphor, to restore the sense of wonder adults experienced as children. My method is multi-sensory, interdisciplinary, and holistic. There are no limitations to what thoughts, ideas, observations, or research could and might be used to stimulate the creative process. The ultimate tool is the human heart (from the French, coeur, meaning courage). The medium is words. Philosophy, art, music, and linguistics are some of the disciplines used as stimulation.”
For more mythological resources visit https://jcf.org/resources/
Link in Bio.
#jcf #josephcampbell #mythology #psychology #followyourbliss #mythologicalresourcesdatabase
Our featured work this month is The Masks of God Volume 4: Creative Mythology.
Creative Mythology is the fourth and final volume of Joseph Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology, The Masks of God. In this installment, the pre-eminent mythologist looks at the European mythology of individualism as it took flower in medieval Europe and spread, through the Renaissance, to influence modernist thought, art, and literature.
The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks. On completing it, he wrote:
Its main result for me has been the confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge.
This new digital edition, part of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series, includes over forty new illustrations.
#jcf #followyourbliss #mythology #josephcampbellfoundation #josephcampbell
In this episode of Pathways, Joseph Campbell discusses the vision and imagery of James Joyce. It was recorded at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California on November 15th, 1968. Host Bradley Olson introduces the lecture and offers a commentary at the end.
Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts!
Link to the episode in bio…
https://pathways-with-joseph-campbell.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-21-imagery-of-vision-in-the-novels-of-james-joyce
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In this clip from Episode 2 of Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, Campbell talks about the great mystical realization of mythology…all of the gods, all of the worlds, are within us.
To find the whole series follow the link (link in bio).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiYnNom7SVRMjsi2WSpIGBlo1UDhlXyvz
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Mark C.E. Peterson contributes this week's MythBlast, "The Magic of Describing the Perfect Pizza".
"The wheel of the year ROTATes and the next card in the TAROT pops up. What card did we pull out of the Year of the Rabbit’s hat for 2023? The next one: The Magician."
Continue Reading…link in bio.
https://jcf.org/mythblasts/the-magic-of-the-perfect-pizza/
Image: The Magician from the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck by Pamela Colman Smith. Public Domain.
#followyourbliss #myth #josephcampbell #mythology #josephcampbellfoundation #jcf #mythblast #tarot #themagician
Peter Brook’s career, beginning in the 1940s with radical productions of Shakespeare with a modern experimental sensibility and continuing to his recent work in the worlds of opera and epic theater, makes him perhaps the most influential director of the 20th century. Cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company and director of the International Center for Theater Research in Paris, perhaps Brook’s greatest legacy will be The Empty Space. His 1968 book divides the theatrical landscape, as Brook saw it, into four different types: the Deadly Theater (the conventional theater, formulaic and unsatisfying), the Holy Theater (which seeks to rediscover ritual and drama’s spiritual dimension, best expressed by the writings of Artaud and the work of director Jerzy Grotowski), the Rough Theater (a theater of the people, against pretension and full of noise and action, best typified by the Elizabethan theater), and the Immediate Theater, which Brook identifies his own career with, an attempt to discover a fluid and ever-changing style that emphasizes the joy of the theatrical experience. What differentiates Brook’s writing from so many other theatrical gurus is its extraordinary clarity. His gentle illumination of the four types of theater is conversational, even chatty, and though passionately felt, it’s entirely lacking in the sort of didactic bombast that flaws many similar texts. –John Longenbaugh
For more mythological resources visit https://jcf.org/resources/
Link in Bio.
https://jcf.org/resources/the-empty-space-a-book-about-the-theatre-deadly-holy-rough-immediate/
#jcf #josephcampbell #mythology #psychology #followyourbliss #mythologicalresourcesdatabase
"There are now no more horizons. And with the disillusion of horizons we have experienced and are experiencing collisions, terrific collisions, not only of people but also of their mythologies. It is as when dividing panels are withdrawn from between chambers of very hot and very cold airs: there is a rush of these forces together…. That is just what we are experiencing; and we are riding it to a new age, a new birth, a totally new condition of mankind – to which no one anywhere alive today can say that he has the key, the answer, the prophecy, to its dawn.
Mythologies, in other words, mythologies and religions are great poems and, when recognized as such, point infallibly through things and events to the ubiquity of a “presence” or “eternity” that is whole and entire in each. In this function all mythologies, all great poetries, and all mystic traditions are in accord; and where any such inspiriting vision remains effective in a civilization, everything and every creature within its range is alive. The first condition, therefore, that any mythology must fulfill if it is to render life to modern lives is that of cleansing the doors of perception to the wonder, at once terrible and fascinating, of ourselves and of the universe of which we are the ears and eyes and the mind."
-Joseph Campbell
From Myths to Live By pg. 263
#mythology #followyourbliss #josephcampbellfoundation #josephcampbell #jcf
In this clip, Campbell discusses the differences in the stages of life.
Myth lets you know where you are across the ages of life- as a child, at 40 or at 80.
Watch the full clip on YouTube or via our homepage www.JCF.org (link in bio)
https://youtu.be/VgOUxICCHoA
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Norland Tellez contributes this week's MythBlast, "The Edge of the Precipice".
"As we begin a new year, our calendar seems to have a magical effect upon us, triggering a certain archetypal response in our souls which may be appropriate for all new beginnings and ends. Thus our Gregorian calendar, with its hidden archetypal background, is preparing us to face the new challenges and problems of the new year."
Continue Reading…link in bio.
https://jcf.org/mythblasts/the-edge-of-the-precipice/
Image: "Cliffs of Moher" by Zach Werner, licensed by Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
#mythology #followyourbliss #josephcampbell #mythblast #myth #josephcampbellfoundation #jcf #tarot
Composed in the early thirteenth century, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival is the re-creation and completion of the story left unfinished by its initiator Chrétien de Troyes. It follows Parzival from his boyhood and career as a knight in the court of King Arthur to his ultimate achievement as King of the Temple of the Grail, which Wolfram describes as a life-giving Stone. As a knight serving the German nobility in the imperial Hohenstauffen period, the author was uniquely placed to describe the zest and colour of his hero’s world, with dazzling depictions of courtly luxury, jousting and adventure. Yet this is not simply a tale of chivalry, but an epic quest for spiritual education, as Parzival must conquer his ignorance and pride and learn humility before he can finally win the Holy Grail.”
For more mythological resources visit https://jcf.org/resources/
Link in Bio.
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If you haven’t listened and subscribed yet, now is the time to check out JCF's newest podcast, "The Podcast With A Thousand Faces". Our first six episodes are available now, and a new episode…a JCF panel on Joseph Campbell, Star Wars, and The Mandalorian, is set to release the first week of February.
In each episode we explore how Joseph Campbell's work in mythology has influenced contemporary culture. From the arts, to science, spirituality, anthropology and beyond, these conversations reveal how and why Joe's work, and mythology in general, is relevant to all of us here and now.
Scroll through to check out our interviews with Jack Kornfield, Duncan Trussell, Jessica Ewing with Brynn Elliott, Levison Wood, Sebastian Siegel and Lonny Jarrett.
To listen and subscribe, follow the link in our bio, or sign up wherever you get your podcasts.
https://the-podcast-with-a-thousand-faces.simplecast.com/
Subscribe and listen!
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Our gift to you this month is The Forest Adventurous (Audio: Lecture I.6.5).
Joseph Campbell concludes the story of Percival’s exploits. Plagued with doubt, beset with travail, and tormented by temptation, he wanders the wilderness for five years, steadfastly pursuing his quest for the Holy Grail. It is in the forest adventurous, Campbell reminds us, that we meet our adventures when we are ready for them. Our Grail hero is at last united with his brother, succeeds in his quest by virtue of his noble character, and becomes the Grail King. Campbell continues his investigation of the Grail Legend by exploring a central theme, that of the Waste Land, the place where everybody is living an inauthentic life.
To download, follow link in bio…
https://jcf.org/product/lecture-i-6-5-the-forest-adventurous/
(We recommend downloading on a non mobile browser. Best results on Desktops/laptops.)
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