Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell (New York City, March 26, 1904 - Honolulu, October 30, 1987) was an American professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion.

Quotes

• ?Participate joyfully in the sorrows of life? - this was not an endorsement of masochism, but rather a recognition that life contains hardship and an individual should embrace the experience of being alive by living affirmatively in the face of inevitable sorrow and suffering. This was an echo of a Buddhist teaching that calls for "joyful participation in the sorrows of the world."
• ?Follow your bliss.? - Campbell believed that at the heart of every hero myth was just that message. After the Power of Myth series aired it became a bit of a catch-phrase. Campbell intended it to mean that one should follow the natural order and cycles of life, though, like Aleister Crowley's ?Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,? it has been misunderstood by critics as a call to craven libertinism.

Joseph Campbell explains his maxim to Bill Moyers:

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:BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of... being helped by hidden hands?

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:JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do 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. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

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• "Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message."