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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Horizons In Space, September 17, 2002
THOU ART THAT is the first volume in THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL which contains materials gathered from previously uncollected essays, letters, diaries, articles and lectures. As such it presents a broad sampling of Campbell's work on mythology and the Western religions.Campbell believes that the stories in the Bible should be read metaphorically. By interpreting events historically institutional religions create a problem. When people realize that the events probably did not take place, then the power of the message is diminished. Examples of such events are the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Exodus from Egypt. A fairly thorough discussion is introduced in Chapter VI of Judo-Christian symbols such as the Virgin Birth, Judas and the Flight into Egypt. Here we see why Campbell is so much admired for the breadth of his knowledge of mythology and his ability to bring this learning to bear on Jewish and Christian origins. In one of the more interesting parts of the book Campbell describes the basic differences between the world religions of creed which are Buddhism, Christianity and Islam and the leading ethnic religions of birth which are Hinduism, Judaism and Shintoism. Often Campbell points out that our ideas of the universe are being reordered by our experience in space. There are no horizons in space causing many people to retreat into fundamentalism. For a small book THOU ART THAT is filled with much food for thought. I highly recommend it and am looking forward to reading future volumes in this series.
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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasant taste of metaphor study., September 26, 2001
This is a wonderful taste of the large, unpublished work of Campbell yet to be shared. I would recommend this book to those who want a good introduction to Campbell's work. Hopefully it will inspire them to read more about mythology and deepen their knowledge. This book is concerned mainly with mythos (meaning) versus logos (symbol) and how many people get caught up in symbols, thus missing the meaning (the mistake most fundamentalists are trapped in). As always with Campbell, his explanations are so eloquent and educated that one cannot help but want more. The only complaint I have about this book is its size--only 100 pages of Campbell's writing (mostly from lectures and notes). It certainly could have been expanded to twice that with very little effort. However, for those used to Campbell's written work, they will be pleasantly surprised how different his lecturing is.
One mistake the editor, and many a reviewer, make is to try and say that Campbell focuses on the Judeo-Christian aspect of symbol abuse. If one were to read all of Campbell's work, they would find this to be quite wrong. Campbell is not so shallow. His concern is mythology, all of it, world-round. In fact, the majority of his work focuses on primitive mythology. He certainly spoke and expounded on the Judeo-Christian aspect much in his lecturing, but this is mostly because that is what his audience was interested in, especially the new-agers who desperately clung to Campbell in the last decades of his life.
But I encourage those interested to dig deeper than this book into Campbell's work where can be found a rich, scholarly depth and breadth of mythos/logos study.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finding new meaning in old metaphors., October 31, 2001
"Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people's religion," Joseph Campbell observes in this first volume of his Collected Works. "And religion may, in a sense, be understood as a popular misunderstanding of mythology" (p. 8). Campbell abandoned the Roman Catholic Church at age 25 when, as a student of mythology, "he felt the Church was teaching a literal and concrete faith that could not sustain an adult" (p. xvii). At his death in 1987, he left a significant body of unpublished work: uncollected articles, letters, diaries, notes, as well as recorded lectures (p. ix). This new volume is derived from that material and may be read as "an extended lecture" on finding new meaning in the metaphors of the Judeo-Christian tradition (p. xvi). Campbell examines the biblical myths, "not to dismiss them as unbelievable but to lay open once again their living and nourishing core" (p. xv)."If we listen and look carefully," Campbell believed, "we discover ourselves in the literature, rites and symbols of others, even though at first they seem distorted and alien to us. Thou art that, Campbell would judge, citing the underlying spiritual intuition of his life and work" (pp. xii-xiii). Campbell makes a compelling argument in this book that the language of religion is metaphorical (p. 19), and that religious symbols "point past themselves to the ultimate truth which must be told: that life does not have any one absolutely fixed meaning" (pp. 8-9). He encourages us to search out the "deeper, vital meanings of symbols whose surfaces are so familiar that they have become static and brittle" (p. 43). For instance, the Virgin Birth may be viewed as a rebirth of spirit that everyone can experience, and the Promised Land may be viewed as the geography of the heart anyone can enter (p. xvii). The Kingdom of God is spread upon the earth, Campbell says, only men do not see it (p. 19). When they realize that, the end of the world as they know it has arrived (p. 83). This book covers some familiar territory, which will provide readers new to Joseph Campbell with a good introduction to his work. Mythology, he writes, serves four functions. Myths awaken us to the mysteries of the universe (pp. 2, 24). They present us with a consistent image of the order of the cosmos (p. 3). Myths validate and support a specific moral order (p. 5), and they carry us through the passages and crises of life (p. 5). He encourages us to find our own paths through the forest, and to reach for the transcendent by studying poetry (p. 92). One must "search out one's own values and assume responsibility for one's own order of action and not simply follow orders handed down by some period past" (p. 30). "The heart," he tells us, "is the beginning of humanity" (p. 99). Revisiting Campbell's ideas through this book reminded me how reading his HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES (1949) and POWER OF MYTH (1988) were life changing experiences for me. My only real criticism of this book is that at just over 100 pages, it is too short. But as an inauguration to the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, it should not be missed. G. Merritt
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