The Mythic Imagination

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.

Introduction: The Mythic Imagination

Part One: Psychology, Myths, and Maps
1. The Roots of Personal Mythology
2. The Relevance of Myth to Everyday Life
3. Seeing Through the Imagination
4. The Living Landscape
5. Depth Maps of the Psyche

Part Two: Dismembering, Dreaming, Remembering
6. Into the Shadowlands
7. Beasts and Birds of the Mind
8. The Inner Cast of Characters
9. The Inner Guide

Part Three: Conscious Mythmaking
10. Creative Mythology
11. Symbolic Play
12. Creative Mythology Exercises

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Stephen Larsen, Ph.D., is a practicing psychotherapist and teacher who is also co-director of the Center for Symbolic Studies in New Paltz, New York. He is the author of Joseph Campbell, A Fire in the Mind, The Authorized Biography.

"Stephen Larsen has achieved a synthesis of mythic story, psychological theory, and clinical experience that extends the work of his teacher, Joseph Campbell, toward a more practical understanding of the relevance of myth for each of us."

David Feinstein, Ph.D., author of Personal Mythology

"An extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging compendium of the psychological uses of mythology. Stephen Larsen has given us stimulation for the mind, a feast for the imagination, and a multidimensional road map for the soul in quest of its truth."
Roger J. Woolger and Jennifer B. Woolger,
Authors of The Goddess Within and Other Lives, Other Selves.

MYTHOLOGY / PSYCHOLOGY

“Stephen Larsen has approached this most venerable of subjects with new eyes and new sensibilities. The Mythic Imagination is a real pleasure to read.”
--Marilyn Ferguson, author of The Aquarian Conspiracy

“Stephen Larsen has achieved a synthesis of mythic story, psychological theory, and clinical experience that extends the work of his teacher, Joseph Campbell, toward a more practical understanding of the relevance of myth for each of us.”
--David Feinstein, Ph.D., co-author of Personal Mythology and Rituals for living and Dying

“An extraordinarily rich and wideranging compendium of the psychological uses of mythology. Stephen Larsen has given us stimulation for the mind, a feast for the imagination, and a multi-dimensional road map for the soul in quest of its truth.”
--Roger J. Woolger and Jennifer B. Woolger, authors of The Goddess Within and Other Lives, Other Selves

Mythology is the universal tongue of the human imagination. As a tool for self-discovery, mythology is also a way of gaining access to the secrets of the psyche. The Mythic Imagination is a quest for the ancient source of vision and meaning in the realm of dream, myth, and archetype. In the footsteps of his teacher Joseph Campbell, Stephen Larsen guides us on a journey through the landscape of our psyche. He shows us that we are all engaged in creating personal mythologies that reflect the larger myths of the culture and our own deepest desires and aspirations.

The Mythic Imagination is a guide for bringing the deeper mythic structures of experience into awareness, for learning to recognize the archetypal content embedded in our dreams and daydreams, feelings, behavior, relationships, and conscious creations. The author argues not for creating new myths but for awakening to the presence of mythic themes in our own lives. By doing so we can reintroduce tradition, meaning, and wonder into our lives.

STEPHEN LARSEN, Ph.D., is a practicing psychotherapist and co-director of the Center for Symbolic Studies in New Paltz, New York. He is the author of The Shaman’s Doorway and Fire in the Mind,the authorized biography of Joseph Campbell.