The Power of Myth

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers  320 pp.

Every few years (or several this time around) I pick up this book and reread it. I first learned about Joseph Campbell by watching the PBS series with Bill Moyers when it was broadcast back in 1988 and I came to love his work. This book is the transcript of the series with added material that was edited from the shows. Campbell, a professor, storyteller, mythologist, and philosopher explains the connections between the mythologies of the major religions and contemporary culture. Campbell's work uses the idea of the monomyth (all mythic stories are variations of one great story), the hero's journey (explained further in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces), and Jungian psychology. He is also standard bearer for the idea of following your bliss which is mentioned frequently in the book. At the time of his death Campbell was working on his Historical Atlas of World Mythology. That series remains unfinished and is out of print. I had copies of the volumes that were published but they were irreparably water damaged in my leaky basement. 😢