Joseph Campbell

Thou Art That

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Woven from Joseph Campbell’s previously unpublished work, this volume explores Judeo-Christian symbols and metaphors — and their misinterpretations — with the famed mythologist’s characteristic conversational warmth and accessible scholarship.

Campbell’s insights highlight centuries of confusion between literal and metaphorical interpretations of Western religious symbols that are, he argues, perennially relevant keys to spiritual understanding and mystical revelation

Reviews:

“[A] romp through the Judeo-Christian tradition — a lightning-paced tour with an extremely knowledgeable and provocative guide to illuminate some intriguing, untrammeled paths.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“It is Campbell the armchair speaker who shines through, buoyant with life and with comments that are eerily relevant to current times.”

Parabola

“The work confirms the commonality of the human experience. A much-needed prescription in today’s world.”

San Francisco Chronicle
This book is currently unavailable
262 printed pages
Original publication
2017
Publication year
2017
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  • Yanna Buryakshared an impression4 years ago
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Quotes

  • Yanna Buryakhas quoted6 years ago
    we listen and look carefully, however, we discover ourselves in the literature, rites, and symbols of others, even though at first they seem distorted and alien to us.
  • Yanna Buryakhas quoted6 years ago
    If we speak of “The Emergence of the Goddess,” we refer really to the “The Emergence of the Heroine.” A person is a hero or a heroine when he or she is functioning in the interest of values that are not local to the person but are of some greater force of which the person is a vehicle. The woman becomes a heroine as she becomes a vehicle of a force that brings forth life.
  • Yanna Buryakhas quoted6 years ago
    Myth has many functions. The first we might term mystical, in that myth makes a connection between our waking consciousness and the whole mystery of the universe. That is its cosmological function. It allows us to see ourselves in relationship to nature, as when we speak of Father Sky and Mother Earth. There is also a sociological function for myth, in that it supports and validates a certain social and moral order for us. The story of the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai is an example of this. Lastly, myth has a psychological function, in that it offers us a way of passing through, and dealing with, the various stages from birth to death.

    Kennedy: You have written of the difficulty of one mythological system’s being able to speak to a world which has become so varied. The agrarian and hunting myths that once spoke to everyone no longer apply quite so easily. But you have also said that, with some reflection, we can understand that the ancient stories of heroes and their adventures are the same as our contemporary search for meaning.

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