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The Power of Myth Study Guide - Humanities |, Study notes of Humanities

The Power of Myth Study Guide Material Type: Notes; Class: Humanities; Subject: Humanities; University: Tidewater Community College; Term: Forever 1989;

Typology: Study notes

2010/2011

Uploaded on 03/24/2011

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1. Igjugarjuk says "the only true wisdom" lies far from mankind, out in the great
loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering.
2. George Lucas is the modern American film series creator and director who says he
owes much to Joseph Campbell.
3. Japanese Shinto priest said "I don't think we have ideology. We don't have theology.
We dance."
4. The two functions of marriage are recognition of a spiritual identity, and
5. reconstruction of the image of the incarnate God
6. Joseph Campbell believes that modern society lacks a strong foundation in
mythology.
7. Joseph Campbell states that modern society lacks effective mythology and that there
are very few puberty rituals today. He says "if you want to find a society without any
rituals, read the New York Times."
8. The only creature facing the bull in Picasso's painting, Minotauromachy, is a young
girl with a candle.
9. Campbell's initial fascination with mythology came through the form of Native
American myths.
10. Campbell refers to the US one dollar bill when discussing the symbols of the
founding fathers.
11. According to Chief Seattle, Red and White men are brothers. They are all part of the
land, and the land can not be purchased.
12. According to Campbell, the four functions of myth are:
1. Mystical/Metaphysical prospect: religious/spiritual - "myth is meant to make
people experience the powerful feeling of the divine in their lives."
2. cosmological prospect: "render a cosmology, an image of the universe." (how
things like time, space, and biology work and are organized, location of heaven and hell,
universe's origin)
3. Social prospect: models for social behavior
4. Psychological sphere: stories symbolize important points in an individual's life.
CHAPTER 2
1. The result of the amalgamation of the serpent and the eagle is a dragon.
2. To find enlightenment, according to Campbell, one must "follow your bliss"
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  1. Igjugarjuk says "the only true wisdom" lies far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering.
  2. George Lucas is the modern American film series creator and director who says he owes much to Joseph Campbell.
  3. Japanese Shinto priest said "I don't think we have ideology. We don't have theology. We dance."
  4. The two functions of marriage are recognition of a spiritual identity, and
  5. reconstruction of the image of the incarnate God
  6. Joseph Campbell believes that modern society lacks a strong foundation in mythology.
  7. Joseph Campbell states that modern society lacks effective mythology and that there are very few puberty rituals today. He says "if you want to find a society without any rituals, read the New York Times."
  8. The only creature facing the bull in Picasso's painting, Minotauromachy, is a young girl with a candle.
  9. Campbell's initial fascination with mythology came through the form of Native American myths.
  10. Campbell refers to the US one dollar bill when discussing the symbols of the founding fathers.
  11. According to Chief Seattle, Red and White men are brothers. They are all part of the land, and the land can not be purchased.
  12. According to Campbell, the four functions of myth are:
    1. Mystical/Metaphysical prospect: religious/spiritual - "myth is meant to make people experience the powerful feeling of the divine in their lives."
    2. cosmological prospect: "render a cosmology, an image of the universe." (how things like time, space, and biology work and are organized, location of heaven and hell, universe's origin)
    3. Social prospect: models for social behavior
    4. Psychological sphere: stories symbolize important points in an individual's life. CHAPTER 2
  13. The result of the amalgamation of the serpent and the eagle is a dragon.
  14. To find enlightenment, according to Campbell, one must "follow your bliss"
  1. According to the Upanishads, heaven and hell are within us, and the gods are within us.
  2. Joseph Campbell says that dreams are an exhaustible source of spiritual information about yourself.
  3. Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers reference the book of Genesis from the Bible.
  4. The serpent is referred to quite a bit when comparing the book of Genesis with other myths.
  5. Everything in the field of time and space is dual. Duality is to separate oneself or one.
  6. Life feeds on life.
  7. Archetypes are elementary ideas. They are the common ideas of myths.
  8. Ramakrishna said "If all you think of are your sins, then you are a sinner"
  9. Campbell says that Jesus did not ascend to heaven, but instead gone inward to the place of which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all living things.
  10. Indra is the god of thunder and rain.
  11. Ants represent former Indras.
  12. The lean monster eventually ends up eating himself.
  13. Campbell says, "Eternity isn't some later time. Eternity isn't even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off." CHAPTER 3
  14. Myths live within us.
  15. When discussing myths that he has found helpful while moving into his "own last years," Joseph Campbell says, "The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle."
  16. The earliest evidence of anything like mythological thinking is associated with graves. Neanderthals buried their dead with weapons and animal sacrifices.

to be part of life, such as death, despair, and other things that HAPPENED to people on a regular basis.

  1. Stonehenge is believed to have been erected as a means of predicting the seasons according to the position of the sun with respect to the stones at various times of the year. It addresses the first major aspect of being alive because it explains the natural phenomenon of seasons.
  2. "Early myths to explain nature, and many early rituals (ceremonial dances as well as animal and human sacrifice) were efforts to control it."
  3. The Buddhist "dharma" constitutes the orderly principle that guides the universe, and it had no beginning. Therefore, the natural world, which is the outer garment of this order, must have always existed.
  4. A Greek explanation for the seasons was the love of Demeter for her daughter Persephone.
  5. The man saved the woman he was engaged to marry. He waited until the right time when the serpent was vulnerable, and beheaded it.
  6. The serpent grew 7 more heads. When the young man cut off the last one, the head flew away and promised threats of drought. Ghana had a drought for 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days.
  7. When shaking hands, you give someone your word.
  8. The circle is an archetype that affects our lives profoundly. CHAPTER 4
  9. According to Campbell, if you "follow your bliss," you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.
  10. "Wherever you are, if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time."
  11. "When a Sioux Indian would take up his calumet (peace pipe), he would first offer it to the sun, and then the four directions.
  12. According to Campbell, the tallest building in a medieval town was the cathedral.
  13. Likewise, the tallest building in an 18th century European town was the political palace.
  1. In the 20th century, the tallest buildings in a modern city are the office buildings, the centers of economic life.
  2. A priest is a functionary of a social sort. The priest becomes ordained as a functionary to carry out the ritual of worship. Priests are predominant in a planting culture.
  3. A shaman's powers are symbolized in his own familiars, deities of his own personal experience, not a social ordination. Shamans are predominant in a hunting culture.
  4. The story of the Hawaiian policeman who risked his life to save the life of a young man who was about to throw himself off the Pali is an example of someone giving himself over to "our true reality, which is found in our identity and unity with all life."
  5. Someone who is following their bliss would be placed at the center of the metaphorical wheel of fortune.
  6. "You may have success in life, but then just think of it - what kind of life was it? What good was it - you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life."