Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation [Hardcover]

Joseph Campbell (Author), David Kudler (Editor)

Book Description

Series: The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell | Publication Date: October 26, 2004

Joseph Campbell is one of this century's great disseminators of the psychological wisdom of mythology. One of the basic functions of myth, he contends, is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a travel guide to reach fulfillment — a map to discover "bliss." In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell once again draws on his masterful gift of storytelling to apply the larger themes of world mythology to personal growth and transformation. Looking at the more personal, psychological side of myth, he begins to dwell on life's more important questions — those that are often submerged beneath the frantic activity of our daily life. With characteristic wit and insight, he draws connections between ancient symbols and modern art, schizophrenia and the Hero's Journey, revealing the way myth helps identify one's heroic path.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This ninth volume of Campbell's previously unpublished material deftly marries his sweeping grasp of myths with the needs of contemporary people looking for meaning and inspiration. Expert editor and seasoned Campbell authority David Kudler makes the mythic-stature-mythicist come alive again. Fans will recognize Campbell's comforting cadence and intimacy, conveyed by use of the second person and by his masterful storytelling. Campbell realized he was essentially saying the same things over more than two decades. As such, this volume breaks no new ground, but does give explicit directions for identifying and connecting oneself to a meaningful mythic overview, unbounded by specific cultures or historical facts. Campbell gives adequate coverage to the historical development of myth as it pertains to the individual, especially through the eyes of Jung. The final chapter, a distilled jewel of the hero's journey mono-myth that Campbell made famous, is followed by "Dialogue," several pages of conversation between Campbell and anonymous people, exploring the application of gender differences to the hero's journey. Campbell assesses life now as pathless: "We are in a sort of free fall into the future." He is, however, perennially hopeful that if we discover our own mythological underpinnings, carried on the wings of artists and poets, we can find our way to individual bliss. This is a fine volume for old friends and new followers.
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Review

If you followed the television series with Bill Moyers or have read any of Campbell's books, this book presents a new look at some of his ideas and a clearer picture of how to interpret myths for your own journey. --Bayswater Books

Wonderful insight into the essential Joseph Campbell... a guidebook for finding one's own inner hero or heroine, and for finding the guts to listen to one's own story.  --Bloomsbury Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: New World Library; 1ST edition (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1577314719
• ISBN-13: 978-1577314714
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Fairy Tales
  • #82 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Comparative Religion

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mythology Self-Help Book!, November 15, 2006

By 

P. ROBINSON "Phil Robinson" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation (Hardcover)

Everyone with the slightest familiarity with Joseph Campbell, of course, knows the famous catch-phrase: "Follow Your Bliss". And everyone pretty much knows what it means, as well: Figure out whatever your passion is, and responsibly and diligently move forward, and pursue it... for the rest of your life... above and beyond anything else.

Sounds like words of wisdom from a worthy and knowledgable teacher.... but how exactly does one go about following their bliss?

That's what this book aims to answer.

Joseph Campbell, of course, died in 1987, yet this book didn't appear on store shelves until 2004. That's because it has been assembled posthumously by the Joseph Campbell Foundation from many of Campbell's unpublished notes/lectures/interviews/drafts/etc... Their aim is to bring the great mythologist's unfinished works into a form suitable for public consumption. With that as their aim, the Foundation had the inspired idea to organize a whole book around the premise: How To Follow Your Bliss.

So, it's the usual brand of Campbell's 'Mythology as Psychological Resource', albeit this time around in the guise of a sort of 'mythological self-help book'. A satisfying one nonetheless.

As ever, Campbell's basic premise is that the grand purpose of mythology is to ground an individual in relation to an order of being that is larger than himself. Through metaphor and through ritual, an individual is brought into accord with:

1. The great mystery
2. The physical world
3. The societal order
4. The appropriate stage in one's own development as an individual

(These you may recognize as Campbell's four functions of myth.)

The book starts by laying out all four of these as the foundation for the overall theme, and then focuses on the fourth one, the 'personal development' function of myth, throughout the remainder of its pages. A typical scenario where the fourth function of myth may be considered is the following:

All is well, of course, when an infant lives in a dependency on its mother. It is not alright, however, when a thirty-year-old man depends on his mother for decision-making capabilities. Obviously, at some point between infancy and maturity must come the realization that the correct value is to become an autonomous being. Often these realizations that come at specific transition points in the lifecycle are challenging for a developing ego to embrace.

And myths are often stories that show us, through metaphor, that it is possible to negotiate these thresholds-- often they even point a way as to HOW these thresholds may best be negotiated. In a nutshell, what the great stories tell us is this: let the you that you are now DIE so that something new can be born in its place. Let your current incarnation go.

Following the development of the above ideas, the book continues on into the territory of Jung and the idea of one's personal myth. Each of us may become sensitive to one particular myth over another because it has something essential to tell us specifically about our own unique particular journey.

Finding one's own myth, and living it, in essence, is one's pathway to bliss. Campbell gives suggestions to his students (and to us readers) as to how to find, identify and live one's personal myth.

So, here you get the flavor of the book. If you like the ideas behind The Power of Myth and/or Hero With A Thousand Faces and find them to be a nourishing resource in your own life journey, here's a book that attempts to express and focus on those ideas in a way that makes them seem much more immediately relevant and applicable to one's own life journey.

So, if that's what you're into, you'll find it in this book. Because 'mythology as resource for one's psychological development' is what primarily compells me above all else when it comes to myth, I devoured this book and then cried like a little baby when I finished the last page because I was sad it was all over. Those who can't stomach Campbell should move along move along, because they'll find more of the same here as to what they're used to.

* As a bonus, for everyone out there who finds Campbell's ideas of the Hero's Journey to be somewhat not inclusive of women, this book tries to address that as well. The final chapter is a transcript of dialogues in which many of Campbell's students (male and female) challenge him to broaden the conception of the Hero's Journey to include women in a fuller way. It brings what many consider a sour omission from Campbell's writings to light and is definitely worth the read for anyone who follows that discussion closely.

- Phil Robinson
http://www.PhilRobinson.net
"Paint the walls of your cage with a dream."

106 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Practical" Mythology, December 8, 2004

By 

Stephen L. Gerringer "bodhibliss" (Modesto, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation (Hardcover)

I am drawn to Pathways to Bliss because it is very much "practical Campbell," focusing directly on the wisdom that myth presents pertaining to our individual lives. "Pathways" offers practical observations for life based on Joseph Campbell's study of mythology.

I find "Pathways" a delightful read. Campbell's's voice is fresh, his words full of wit and wisdom - definitely has more of an intimate feel than some of his heavily referenced scholastic tomes. There is no mincing of words, either - Campbell makes very clear that ancient myths remain guideposts for our individual lives today - if we know how to read them ... as in the following passage:

"Now all of these myths that you have heard and that resonate with you, those are the elements from round about that you are building into a form in your life. The thing worth considering is how they relate to each other in your context, not how they relate to something out there - how they were relevant on the North American praires or in the Asian jungles hundreds of years ago, but how they are relevant now - unless by contemplating their former meaning you can begin to amplify your own understanding of the role they play in your life."

Here Campbell makes clear that his books aren't just for armchair scholars, as he brings mythology out of the Academy and into the street

... which is indeed unnerving for many in specialized disciplines. They might study myth, but to apply patterns discovered therein to one's own life carries the same stigma as an "objective" anthropologist "gone native."

For Campbell, though, the same elements of story that power myth remain active in our lives today.

Of course, another reason i enjoy Pathways is that David Kudler has done a wonderful job of stitching together these lectures into one seamless whole - far from easy to do. The result, though, should not only appeal to the Campbell afficionado, but will also serve as an excellent introduction for those new to the work of this original thinker.

62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Right from Campbell's mouth., December 29, 2004

By 

G. James (Colorado Springs, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation (Hardcover)

The wonderful thing about the last three collections of Campbell's work (Pathways..., Myths Of Light, Thou Art That), is the personal manner of thought. These works are mostly transcribed lectures, many of which can be found on tape. They differ from his formal published work in that there is a direct, concise transmission of ideas--almost a 'folksy' manner of speaking at times. This lends itself to a more enjoyable understanding of Campbell than the more 'scholarly' of his works.

Or to re-state this on a more critical level, these works allow Campbell's own thoughts about myth to be portrayed, instead of the heavy lens of his teachers shadowing him such as in his early works.