“Who was that Masked Man?” A childhood memory, televised in black and white––yet I still feel chills up my spine in anticipation of the weekly revelation, followed always by the sound of thundering hooves, the strains of the William Tell…
Let’s play a game of mental association. I say “Joseph Campbell.” You say, “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” If I ask, “Which of Campbell’s ideas is the most influential?” There’s a good chance you’ll say “the Hero’s Journey.” When I…
In this fall season, when masks are donned in the celebration of our collective shadow, we may naturally consider Campbell’s own discussion of divine masks. However, when I revisit Campbell’s Masks of God, vol. III: Occidental Mythology, it is the…
In this, the month of October, we at Joseph Campbell Foundation are celebrating the theme of masks; a theme apropos, I think, for October and Halloween. After all, it is the time of the year when the comfortable infinite space…
When I was asked to lead the team of academics responsible for fact-checking and updating the archaeological discoveries, anthropological theories and migration patterns presented in the Primitive Mythology, the first volume in Joseph Cambpell’s four-volume opus, The Masks of God,…
As we at the Joseph Campbell Foundation wrap up our celebration of the month of September with the theme of Timeless Tales, I want to return to an exploration of the Grail Romances and the relevance these stories have to…
In “On the Great Goddess,” the introduction to Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, Joseph Campbell addresses “the challenge of the moment” for women, which is to “flower as individuals, neither as biological archetypes nor as personalities imitative of the male”…
Six years ago I was literally elbow deep in the Joseph Campbell archives, retrieving dozens of audio cassette tapes on whose delicate ribbons were etched hours of Campbell talking about goddess myths. Between 1972 and 1986 he gave over twenty…
The Romance of Tristan and Iseult – Artist’s representation of a 14th Century Tapestry The theme for the month of September at the Joseph Campbell Foundation is “Timeless Tales,” and what tales are more timeless than those of the Matter of…
Editor’s Note: After a year and a half of editing this MythBlast series for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, the time has come to hand the editorial pen to the next set of writers and imaginers. Thank you to everyone who…
MythBlast | The Radiant, Reordering Force of Art In a 1907 letter to his wife, Clara (a fine artist and sculptor in her own right, who had studied with, among others, Auguste Rodin), Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Only as though…
I’ve been thinking a lot about this month’s theme at JCF, the theme of independence, reflecting on Joseph Campbell’s often bold, independent nature, and what it means to become an independent human being. As Campbell describes in Pathways to Bliss, releasing…
Happy Independence Day! For Americans, this day falls on July 4th every year, celebrating a terrifying and exhilarating moment when thirteen colonies ratified their declaration to come together as a new nation. I think it is important that Americans mark…
Editor’s Note: We promised Joyce in June. Well, it’s July. And we had one more piece to share! But what is time, really? Enjoy. And stay tuned for our month of independence, ecstasy, and bliss…all that high summer should be. •••••…
As you know, this month JCF is celebrating James Joyce, who was an important influence on the work of Joseph Campbell, and continues to be an important influence for many of my colleagues and friends affiliated with the Joseph Campbell Foundation.…
For years I have been intrigued with what I perceive as a particularly Celtic sensibility, an ability to dance on the knife’s edge between insight and nonsense, tragedy and comedy, sacred and profane. Not to say that only those of…
Today, May 29, 2018, the date of the first full moon in May, is the day of celebration for the birth of the Buddha called Vesak. Mythology has it that on the night the Buddha was conceived, his mother, Maya,…
Editor’s note: This week we are sharing editor David Kudler’s forward to Campbell’s collection of essays Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal, in honor of its new release as an eBook and audio book. It provides some intriguing…
I have been rediscovering Campbell’s collection of essays on Asian mythology, Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal, as the Joseph Campbell Foundation and publishing partners have preparing to release it as an audio book and eBook.These are some of Campbell’s most accessible…
The Joseph Campbell Foundation will soon be releasing an ebook publication of Campbell’s Myths of Light, an utterly charming little book in which the attentive reader will be able to discern Campbell’s joy and exuberance in exploring Asian mythology. In…
This month, in honor of the re-releases of Mythic Dimension and Primitive Mythology in eBook and audiobook forms, the Joseph Campbell Foundation is celebrating how we use mythology in our lives.As a form of knowing that is deeply based in metaphor, myth holds hands…
As the Joseph Campbell Foundation explores ideas about how people use myth this month, I am reminded of one of the deep purposes of story: building community. As humans have done for thousands of years, we come together to tell…
This week I want to continue the exploration of what, in her MythBlast last week, Dr. Melander called “the use of myth.” The uses of myth are as various as they are abundant, and exert influences in every aspect of…
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