Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation Hardcover – October 26, 2004

Classic Joseph Campbell at his best. Pathways to Bliss is a collection of lectures, interviews, and seminars that Campbell gave between 1962 and 1983. If you've read Joseph Campbell before, then this book may seem redundant at parts, but for those of us who could use a little reminding and repetition it's good to hear some of the same stories and points that Joseph Campbell is so well known for.Some of my favorite ideas I'll list below:A myth isn't a lie... a myth points past itself to something indescribable. A myth is a metaphor.Eternity is now. It is the transcendent dimension of the now to which myth refers.Follow your bliss: that deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself. If you can hang on to that, you are on the edge of the transcendent already. Your bliss can guide you to that transcendent mystery, because bliss is the welling up of the energy of the transcendent wisdom within you.The only way to affirm life is to affirm it to the root, to the rotten, horrendous base.One can know God only when one knows that God far surpasses anything that can be said or thought about God.The real, important function of the Church is to present the symbol, to perform the rite, to let you behold this divine message in such a way that you are capable of experiencing it. Unfortunately, when you have a dogma telling you what kind of effect the symbol is supposed to have upon you, you're in trouble.Perfection is inhuman. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love --and I mean love, not lust-- is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real person, compared to the ideal of your animus or anima, peeks through, say, This is a challenge to my compassion.It is a fashionable idiocy of youth to say the world has not come up to your expectations. "What? I was coming, and this is all they could prepare for me?" Throw it out. Have compassion for the world and those in it. Not only political life but all life stinks, and you must embrace that with compassion.The only way one can become a human being is through relationships to other human beings.Each of us has an individual myth that's driving us, which we may or may not know.Mythological images are the images by which the consciousness is put in touch with the unconscious. That's what they are.What is the great thing for which you would sacrifice your life? What makes you do what you do; what is the call of your life to you-- do you know it? The old traditions provided this mythic support for people; it held whole culture worlds together. Every great civilization has grown out of a mythic base.Maslow's five values are the values for which people live when they have nothing to live for. Nothing has seized them, nothing has caught them, nothing has driven them spiritually mad and made them worth talking to. These are the bores. - "A bore is one who deprives us of our solitude without providing companionship."That awakening of awe, that awakening of zeal, is the beginning, and, curiously enough, that's what pulls people together. People living for these five values (Maslow) are pushed apart. Two things pull people together; aspiration and terror.There is no aspiration that's been put in front of us to pull people together, nor any overwhelming fear to drive us together.Now, that's the big thing, to activate your imagination somehow. You can't do this by taking suggestions from somebody else. You must find that which your own unconscious wants to meditate on.The work of the artist is to present objects to you in such a way that they will shine. Through the rhythm of the artist's formation, the object that you have looked at with indifference will be radiant, and you will be fixed in esthetic arrest.What is it we are questing for? It is the fulfillment of that which is potential in each of us. Questing for it is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself. There's nothing you can do that's more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, you become a signal, transparent to transcendence; in this way , you will find, live, and become a realization of your own personal myth.You see, in my youth, in the days of the Depression, people who were what might be called counterculture had been kicked out of the society entirely. There was no room for them. That's different from the ones who leave out of resentment or with the intention to improve it.What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? There's always the possibility of a fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss.I think the world lives on crazy things. The economics will work themselves out later -- you can count on it. But it's the scope of the aspiration that really matters.Sometimes the drudgery itself can become part of the hero deed. The point is not to get stuck in the drudgery but to use it to free you.

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.

I read this on an iPad, running the Kindle application. The format of the book was near flawless. Footnotes were easily accessed and easily dismissed to continue with reading.This is an easy, enjoyable read. I completed this book in just a few days and under a week.I found the flow of the content easy to follow and the stories fascinating. The Kindle app allowed me to highlight content that I will refer to later. I intend to use this book as a reference, going back to passages I will want to recall in future readings and thoughts.It should be known that I am a great admirer of Professor Joseph Campbell. I followed is lectures when they hit my local PBS in the early eighties.