MYTHS TO LIVE BY

Campbell, author of The Masks of God and a respected mythologist, conceived these essays originally as lectures for Cooper Union's Forum series. They still resonate with echos of the hall as he recapitulates the themes of his more scholarly works: namely, a Jungian view of the nature and origins of myth, and a conviction that myth is still (as it has been always and everywhere) the prerequisite to social stability and genuine self-realization. An anecdotal and comparative survey of the world's mythological lore is given here chiefly, however, as a touchstone for finding equivalent verities in our own time. This can lead to some startling speculations — e.g., that contemporary western soldiers suffer from want of a "war myth" which would "psychically induct" them to their role — and questionable conclusions, e.g., his celebration of the space race in that it reveals a powerful new "affect image" of earth as "the one oasis in all space," a "kind of sacred grove. . . set apart for the rituals of life." Ritual is the key word (for Campbell, life seems meaningless without it): the church, for instance, is in decline simply because it is not making an "affective display" of its rites and symbols, and schizophrenia (after Laing and Perry) is accepted as a benign parallel to "shamanistic crisis" and archetypical voyaging. But ritual per se is not enough to reconcile the curious east/west split in the author's own conservative thought, which would have progress and nirvana too. Best read as first heard, for the erudite incidentals and enthralling podium style.