The Myths and Masks Of God (Joseph Campbell Audio Collection) [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Joseph Campbell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

JOSEPH CAMPBELL (1904-1987) was a prolific writer, dedicated editor, beloved teacher, inspiring lecturer, gifted storyteller, avid scholar, and a foremost interpreter of myth. Among the many books he wrote and edited, he is best known for The Hero with a Thousand Faces, his four-volume The Masks of God, and his magnum opus, Historical Atlas of World Mythology.

From AudioFile

This series of lectures about myths, symbols and the divine will thrill any Joseph Campbell devotee. The late literature professor's down-home approach to mythology is entertaining, insightful and frequently iconoclastic. His storytelling is brilliant and often funny, but the series is not without blemishes. Campbell's rambling style and abstract content can be overwhelming for some listeners, and his anti-Judeo-Christian prejudice off-putting. Taped before a live audience, the program has variable audio quality as Campbell moves around. In spite of the historical importance of the tapes, no data is provided about where and when the lectures occurred. S.E.S. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Highbridge Audio; Unabridged edition (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565112830
• ISBN-13: 978-1565112834
• Product Dimensions: 4.5 x 3.5 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,144,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #77 in Books > Books on Cassette > Radio Shows

More About the Author

Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles. Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. These encounters led to Campbell's theory that all myths and epics are linked in the human psyche, and that they are cultural manifestations of the universal need to explain social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.
After a period in California, where he encountered John Steinbeck and the biologist Ed Ricketts, he taught at the Canterbury School, and then, in 1934, joined the literature department at Sarah Lawrence College, a post he retained for many years. During the 40s and '50s, he helped Swami Nikhilananda to translate the Upanishads and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He also edited works by the German scholar Heinrich Zimmer on Indian art, myths, and philosophy. In 1944, with Henry Morton Robinson, Campbell published A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. His first original work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, came out in 1949 and was immediately well received; in time, it became acclaimed as a classic. In this study of the "myth of the hero," Campbell asserted that there is a single pattern of heroic journey and that all cultures share this essential pattern in their various heroic myths. In his book he also outlined the basic conditions, stages, and results of the archetypal hero's journey.
Throughout his life, he traveled extensively and wrote prolifically, authoring many books, including the four-volume series The Masks of God, Myths to Live By, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and The Historical Atlas of World Mythology. Joseph Campbell died in 1987. In 1988, a series of television interviews with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, introduced Campbell's views to millions of people.

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51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Campbell without blemishes, June 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Myths and Masks Of God (Joseph Campbell Audio Collection) (Audio Cassette)

In the editorial review printed below from some audio magazine, the reviewer accuses Campbell of having anti-Christian biases. If anything, Campbell cuts Christians too much slack in this series of lectures. Here Campbell explores the reasons for the decline of Christianity in our culture, and concludes that the problem lies in organized religions tradition of emphasizing the Christian mythology as historic fact. Campbell claims that this diminishes the effect of Christian symbolism, because when we discover scientific evidence that proves the mythology could not have been actual fact, we abandon the underlying truths the mythology was meant to illustrate. Campbell calls this a problem of reading poetry as prose, of reading metaphor as fact. This is the only thing in this series that could be remotely considered anti-Christian, and then only by a myopic pinhead. Anyone--Christian or otherwise--whose head wasn't firmly embedded in the nether regions of his or her anatomy would realize that this line of thought was liberating rather than negating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A series of Joseph Campbell lectures recorded, August 9, 2007

By 

bernie "xyzzy" (Arlington, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Joseph Campbell Audio Collection Volume 5: The Myths and Masks of God (Audio CD)

Born: 26 March 1904, Died: 31 October 1987, he was raised Catholic but had a fascination with Native American myths at a young age. He is well know for several books and "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and different lecture series.

The Myths and the Masks of God include:

Interpreting Symbolic Forms
Using the Garden of Eden and the symbols including the two trees and a few beings, they are compared to earlier versions from societies 7000 BCE through 1900 CE. Concluding with "feel free to read any form you like into these symbols and realize it will be a symptom of you."

Mythic Vision

Experiencing the Devine

History of the Gods

The Religious Impulse

This series of lectures was given in the seventies and it is interesting to see how it holds up today. He brings a different vision for most of us when he compares a religion where we identify with God vs. having a relationship to God. Of course those that have followed Joseph Campbell Already have the concepts but find it useful to hear his thoughts and compare them to what we already know.

The nice thing about the lectures is that every time we hear them we get a different slant on what we originally heard or glossed over. Learn more www.jcf.org

5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Myths And Masks Of God: Joseph Campbell Audio Collection, December 14, 2004

By 

Mattthew A. Searles "zar-matt-a-thustra aka g... (Boston area, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Joseph Campbell Audio Collection Volume 5: The Myths and Masks of God (Audio CD)

The subject of the question of if Joseph Campbell's attitude towards the christian tradition suffers from a certain sort of prejudice is a somewhat complicated subject in Campbell's body of work. As another reviewer has noted, Campbell's criticism of christianity is of its emphasis of facts... as a pose to the poetry... But I think Campbell himself would acknowledge ..or its a part of Jung's work.. who Campbell follows... that an emphasis of subject over object, or object over subject.. has more to do with psychology typology then truth.. That is God is about transcending the idea of God... Which is to say.. you can sort of argue that Campbell is right in his criticism and Christianity is right for talking about its valuing of a factual grounding as being one of the virtues of the Christian tradition... What I'm saying is that this is a complicated subject.. and in some way I think we have to try and understand Campbell's position in a historical perspective and what it meant in relationship to that historical perspective.. And anyway.. one can come to one's own positions on these sorts of things

Further.. this stuff is a little complicated for anyone who hasn't spent some time with Campbell... but on the other hand.. one of the virtues of a book on tape is you can always listen to it more then once.. So I don't think the issue of the complexity of the material should be taken as a strike against it.. if anything.. I'd argue that it adds to the value.. because it gives you a reason to listen to it again and again.. to contemplate it.. etc..

The last thing to be said is that Campbell is at his best as a lecturer.. Sure, his books are great.. but there's a whole other dimension to the man that is really only to be captured in his lectures.. on tape.. and In my view.. this is the best way to take in Campbell..