Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind

Page 5

As an adult of considerable cultural refinement and social polish, Joseph Campbell himself seemed amused by how much he identified with the rustic visionaries and antlered shamans of the "primitive," preliterate world.  There was never any doubt that he preferred the little Indian to General Crook.  A deeply felt connection with nature and psyche was pitted against collective patterns of thought and behavior; the Paleolithic versus the Neolithic worldviews; the hunters versus the planters, the shamans versus the priests of orthodoxy.  These value conflicts would become lifelong elements of his personal mythscape.
  Why, he asked, contemplating a culture with such obvious identity problems, should we remain rootless, when voices and visions since time out of mind beckon us to find our place in a timeless human community?  Campbell felt that by bringing ancient myths recurrently to the attention of the literate community, he was giving these root metaphors a voice--explaining why they, too, must contribute not only to our world, but to the shaping of our worldview.  His vision began, as we have seen, with an ear close to the soil of his  native land, and to the end of his life he was highly conscious, and mostly proud, of being an American.  Could we draw some nobility and some human wisdom, he wondered, from our own tragically conquered and subjected native population?

Preface to the New Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Acknowledgements

Part One (1904-31)

1. The Boy Who Loved Indians (1904-210)
2. The Man Is a Runner (1921-25)
3. The Dolorous Stroke (1925-27)
4. The Flight to the Mainland (1927-28)
5. Initiation (1928-29)
6. The Belly of the Whale (1929-30)
7. Woodstock Genesis (1930-31)

Part Two (1931-38)
8. The Road to Monterey (1931-32)
9. The Conspiracy Against Venus (1932)
10. The Grampus Adventure (1932)
11. Maverick (1932-34)
12. Le Château des Femmes (1934-37)
13. Jean (1937-38)

Part Three (1938-55)
14. The Skeleton Key (1938-40)
15. The Dragon with Seven Heads (1941-42)
16. Wizards (1942-45)
17. The Hero (1945-49)
18. Symbols (1949-54)
19. Journey to the East (Hindu India, 1954-55)
20. The Buddhist Realms: Sri Lanka to Japan (1955)

Part Four (1955-87)
21. The Masks of God (1955-63)
22. Myths to Live By (1963-71)
23. The Open Eye (1971-79)
24. Indra's Net of Gems (1979-83)
25. L'Envoi: The Last Paradise (1983-87)

Bibliography

Notes

Index

Stephen Larsen, Ph.D., is the author of The Shaman's Doorway and The Mythic Imagination. He is a practicing psychotherapist and a professor at Ulster County Community College. Robin Larsen, Ph.D., is an exhibiting artist and art historian. She is editor-in-chief of the tricentennial biography and anthology Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision. The Larsens co-direct the Center for Symbolic Studies in New Paltz, New York.

"Joseph Campbell was an amazing, abundant, humane man. This book, by incorporating his journals, letters, and a massive offering of his intellectual sources, helps us understand how, in this half-dead world, such a character comes to be."
Robert Bly, poet and mythologist

"A marvelous account of the life of a man who fell in love with stories and became our greatest teller of timeless myths. A feast for the mind, the imagination, and the heart."
Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly

"Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind ignites the soul of the reader with immortal longings. To read it is to swim in a river of old with Joseph Campbell, whose capacity for knowledge was as vast as his passion for living. This potent telling of the quest of one who brought life to myth and myth to life is the book of the year."
Jean Houston, author of The Search for the Beloved

MYTHOLOGY / BIOGRAPHY

“A marvelous account of the life of a man who fell in love with stories and became our greatest teller of timeless myths. A feast for the mind, the imagination, and the heart.”
--Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly

“Joseph Campbell was an amazing, abundant, humane man. This book, by incorporating his journals, letters, and a massive offering of his intellectual sources, helps us understand how, in this half-dead world, such a character comes to be.”
--Robert Bly, poet and author of Iron John: A Book About Men

“Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind ignites the soul of the reader with immortal longings. To read it is to swim in a river of old with Joseph Campbell, whose capacity for knowledge was as vast as his passion for living. [It is a] potent telling of the quest of one who brought life to myth and myth to life.”
--Jean Houston, author of The Search for the Beloved

Joseph Campbell forged an approach to the study of myth and legend that made ancient traditions and beliefs immediate, relevant, and universal. His teachings and literary works, including The Masks of God, have shown that beneath the apparent themes of world mythology lie patterns that reveal the ways in which we all may encounter the great mysteries of existence: birth, growth, soul development, and death. Biographers Stephen and Robin Larsen were students and friends of Campbell for more than twenty years. With exclusive access to his personal papers and journals, they weave a rich tapestry of stories and insights that catalogue both his personal and public triumphs.

STEPHEN LARSEN, Ph.D., is the author of The Shaman’s Doorway and The Mythic Imagination. He is a practicing psychotherapist and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at SUNY (Ulster). Robin Larsen, Ph.D., is an exhibiting artist and art historian. She is editor-in-chief of the tricentennial biography and anthology Emanuel Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision. The Larsens co-direct the Center for Symbolic Studies in New Paltz, New York.