Celebrated scholar Joseph Campbell shares his intimate and inspiring reflections on the art of living in this beautifully packaged book, part of a new series to be based on his unpublished writings.

    His teachings and literary works, including The Masks of God, have shown that beneath the apparent themes of world mythology lie patterns that reveal the ways in which we all may encounter the great mysteries of existence: birth, growth, soul development, and death. Biographers Stephen and Robin Larsen, students and friends of Campbell for more than 20 years, weave a rich tapestry of stories and insights that catalogue both his personal and public triumphs.

    Here are audio cassettes of which Campbell brings listeners in touch with our mythic heritage.

    It has been told asa tale of bravery, as a lesson on the dangers of hubris, as a paeon to youth and love too quickly lost. It has never been told like this before. Here, then, is the story of the Sandman's only begotten son; Orpheus, the offspring of the Endless.

    Hutton draws upon a wealth of new data to reveal some important rethinking about Christianization and the decline of paganism.

    This book is Paris's contribution to imaginative feminism.

    A study of Arthurian romance and legend which draws together the different strands of Arthurian myth, from sources as diverse as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Malory, Chretien de Troyes, the Mabinogion, and the English Gawain cycles.

    Here are case studies in which myths have helped Dr. May's patients make sense out of an often senseless world.

    The book relates the story of creation, of the four worlds (ages) through which the earth has passed and the three worlds yet to come. Past are the worlds of Love (when the love of the creating Great Mystery was poured on the earth), Ice (perhaps some racial memory of the Ice Age), Water (when whites came to Turtle Island, the primeval land mass of Indian myth) and Separation (recalling not only humanity's divorce from creation but also continental drift). Now is the dawning of the World of Illumination, from which we will pass through the World of Prophecy to the World of Completion, when all of creation will be reunited as one. With its emphasis on interdependence and the equality of all parts of creation, the book's heart is in the right place, and parts of it reflect the genuine oral tradition of the IroquoisSeneca are an Iroquos tribe per Jace . However, laden with New Age jargon and often impenetrable, this work ultimately will leave even sympathetic readers pondering its sincerity. — Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

    There are 350 substantial entries, in alphabetical order from Aban, a 6th-century saint, to Weather, all with full references to sources, a synopsis of relevant stories, and discussion of their origin, nature and development. These are complimented by a genre-list of material under various headings, such as Mythical Lore, Fianna Cycle, Ulster Cycle, King Cycles, Peoples and Traditions, Religious Lore, and Folk Custom and Belief. There is also a wealth of genealogical detail, indicating how historical and social circumstances have influenced the growth and spread of Irish lore. DAITHI O HOGAIN, Associate Professor of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin, is an international authority on folklore and traditional literature.

    The author provides a comprehensive tour of otherworldly journeys common from immemorial times among shamans, magicians, and witches, and illustrates their connection with such modern phenomena as altered states of consciousness, out-of-body experiences, and near-death experiences.

    In so doing, he seeks to fill a void in our understanding of human history, revealing secrets of Vedic and ancient civilization.

    In this companion volume to Eric Carle's Animals Animals, he celebrates mythology and legends from around the world, and breathes life into the creatures that inhabit them. Illustrating poetry from such authors as Anne McCaffrey, X. J. Kennedy, Myra Cohn Livingston, and John Gardner, Eric Carle invites readers of all ages to enter the fabulous world of Dragons Dragons & other creatures that never were.

    Presented here is the first of two parts of the first of two volumes.

    Bhakti-yoga, the science of devotion, teaches us this art. And there is no greater teacher than the Vedic sage Narada.Narada's 84 jewellike aphorisms on devotion, known as the Narada-bhakti-sutra, reveal the secrets of love of God -- what it is, and isn't; what its effects are; what helps or hinders our progress along the path; and much more. For the sincere seeker of life's ultimate goal, the Narada-bhakti-sutra is essential.The first part of the Narada-bhakti-sutra contains the commentary of his Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prubhapada, recognized by scholars and spiritual leaders worldwide as the most distinguished teacher of Indian culture and philosophy of the modern age. The latter part has been explained by Satsvarupa dasa goswami, one of Srila Prabhupada's senior disciples and the author of more than two dozen books on bhakti.

    The contributors survey specific bodies of archaeological, epigraphical, and papyrological evidence for magical practices in the Greek world, and, in each case, determine whether the traditional dichotomy between magic and religion helps in any way to conceptualize the objective features of the evidence examined. Contributors include Christopher A. Faraone, J.H.M. Strubbe, H.S. Versnel, Roy Kotansky, John Scarborough, Samuel Eitrem, Fritz Graf, John J. Winkler, Hans Dieter Betz, and C.R. Phillips.

    They are written so as to reach into the very heart of Blake's symbolic thought and for this reason may be read as an introduction to the whole of his imaginative vision.

    A Greek princess, raised by bears in the forest and then returned to her rightful place in the kingdom, refuses to marry unless the man can outrun her in a footrace.

    The contributors to this volume focus on these "many" Ramayanas.While most scholars continue to rely on Valmiki's Sanskrit Ramayana as the authoritative version of the tale, the contributors to this volume do not. Their essays demonstrate the multivocal nature of the Ramayana by highlighting its variations according to historical period, political context, regional literary tradition, religious affiliation, intended audience, and genre. Socially marginal groups in Indian society—Telugu women, for example, or Untouchables from Madhya Pradesh—have recast the Rama story to reflect their own views of the world, while in other hands the epic has become the basis for teachings about spiritual liberation or the demand for political separatism. Historians of religion, scholars of South Asia, folklorists, cultural anthropologists—all will find here refreshing perspectives on this tale.

    Line drawings.

    It deals with the pre-hispanic religion and its belief in a skyworld, an earthworld, and an underworld.

    It will appeal widely to medievalists, to Welsh and Celtic scholars and to those non-specialists who have felt the fascination of the figure of Arthur and wish to know more. Little, if anything, is known historically of Arthur, yet for centuries the romances of Arthur and his court dominated the imaginative literature of Europe in many languages. The roots of this vast flowering of the Arthurian legend are to be found in early Welsh tradition and this volume gives an account of the Arthurian literature produced in Wales, in both Welsh and Latin, during the Middle Ages. The distinguished contributors offer a comprehensive view of recent scholarship relating to Arthurian literature in early Welsh and other Brythonic sources. The volume includes chapters on the "historical" Arthur, Arthur in early Welsh verse, the legend of Merlin, the tales of Culhwch ac Olwen, Geraint, Owain, Peredur, The Dream of Rhonabwy and Trystan ac Esyllt. Other chapters investigate the evidence for the growth of the Arthurian theme in the Triads and in the Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and discuss the Breton connection and the gradual transmission of the legend to the non-Celtic world.

    Jung that Dr. Kluger undertook the interpretation of the Gilgamesh Epic, the oldest known epic-myth. A classic in world literature, it originated in the Sumero-Babylonian culture, a vital root of modern Western civilization. Rich in poetic imagery and archetypal content, it has not lost its meaning for modern man. In this book, based primarily on her seminars at the Zurich Jung Institute, Dr. Kluger deals with the psychological significance of the hero-king’s fateful adventures, from his building of the city walls to his travel to the "Babylonian Noah" in search of immortality, for which her expertise in the fields of comparative religion and Jungian psychology uniquely fit her. In her vivid yet scholarly presentation, she brings alive the implications of the fascinating episodes of this myth both on a personal and on a collective level; the changes of individual consciousness, and its reactions to unconscious (archetypal) contents, the evolving process of individuation, and the development of religion. Using modern dreams and examples from analytic practice, she shows the relevance of this ancient myth for today’s world and its concerns, from sexuality and homosexuality, the role of the feminine and the still living goddess Ishtar, to the current spiritual search of contemporary mankind.

    Drawing on a wealth of data made available by the encyclopaedia, Eliade began work on what was to become this compendium, in which the major religions are arranged in an alphabetical format. The history of 33 religions and information concerning religious events, notions and personalities are listed. The dictionary is arranged in two parts, with the Macro-dictionary containing summaries and explanations of 33 world religions, including Shinto, Shamanism, Taoism, South American religions, Slavic and Baltic religions, Confucianism, Egyptian mystery and Oceanian religions. The Micro-dictionary defines terms and topics of religions as well as providing references to longer explanations in the Macro-dictionary.

    

    Goddesses of war, fertility, and sovereignty ordered human destiny. Christian monks, in recording the old stories, turned these pagan deities into saints, like St Brigit, or into mortal queens like Medb of Connacht. The Morrigan, the Great Queen, war goddess, remains a figure of awe, but her pagan functions are glossed over. She perches, crow of battle, on the dying warrior CuChulainn's pillar stone, but her role as his tutelary deity, and as planner and fomentor of the whole tremendous Tain, the war between Ulster and Connacht, is obscured. Unlike the Anglo-Irish authors who in modern times treated the same material in English, the good Irish monks were not shocked by her sexual aggressiveness. They show her coupling with the Dagda, the 'good god' of the Tuatha De Danann before the second battle of Mag Tuired, but they conceal that this act - by a goddess of war, fertility and sovereignty - gives the Dagda's people victory and the possession of Ireland. Or they reduce the sovereignty to allegory - when Niall of the Nine Hostages sleeps with the Hag she is allegorical of the trials of kingship! With the English invasion and colonization, the power of the goddesses diminishes further. The book shows the fall in status of the pagan goddesses, first under medieval Christianity and then under Anglo-Irish culture. That this fall shows a loss in the recognition of the roles of women seems evident from the texts. This human loss only begins to be restored when, presiding over the severed heads in Yeats's The Death of Cuchulain, the Morrigu declares, 'I arranged the Dance.'

    The first chapter alone contains 2,153 entries of “Actions,” which are humanly important in the lives of people, and which also feature highly in the imagination of the people, and therefore have much symbolism attached to them.

    Caitlin Matthews' scholarship connects us to past, present, and future in the very depths of our femininity. ----Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst and author of Bone: Dying into Life. Sophia, or "wisdom" in Greek, has been revered in many forms throughout history--from the Dark Goddess of ancient Anatolia; to her Egyptian, Greek, Celtic, and Cabalistic manifestations; to her current forms as Mary and the orthodox St. Sophia. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Sophia sits with God until the creation. Then she falls into matter and becomes manifest in every atom, permeating all things "like the sparks that run through charcoal," as Matthews says. While God is "out there," the Goddess is "in here"-- the mother-wit of practical inspiration and compassion at the heart's core. This definitive work comprehensively establishes a realistic Goddess theology for Westerners in the twenty-first century: grounding spirituality in daily life and the natural world; learning to work playfully and play seriously; ending the gender war to enjoy sacred marriage.

    Here is a uniquely insightful and engaging look at how humans through the ages have responded to and been influenced by their amphibian neighbors.

    Full color.

    Each of these essays provides a Jungian interpretation of a well-known or rare fairy tale to reveal the universal psychic dynamics that affect us in our lives and collectively in the world around us. It is both lively and entertaining, and thoroughly informative. Volume 1 in a 3-part series.Volume 1 ContainsThe Structural and Archetypal Analysis of Fairy Tales;''Allerleirauh" (All-Kinds-of-Fur) - A Tale of Father Dominance, Psychological Incest, and Female Emergence"Beauty and the Beast" and "The Wonderful Sheep" - The couple in Fairy Tales"Cinderella" - An Interpretation"Cupid and Psyche" - Birth of a New Consciousness"The Dark Man's Sooty Brother - Male Naivete and the Loss of the Kingdom"The Fisherman and his Wife" - The Anima in the Narcissistic Character"Fitcher's Bird" - Illustrations of the Negative Animus and Shadows in Persons with Narcissistic Disturbances"The Goose Girl" - Puella and Transformation"The Goose Girl - Images of IndividuationDr. Murray Stein is a supervising training analyst and former president of The International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland (ISAP Zurich). He is the author of Jung's Treatment of Christianity as well as many other books and articles in the field of Jungian Psychoanalysis. Dr. Stein was also editor of Jung's Challenge to Contemporary Religion. From 2001 to 2004 he was president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He has lectured internationally and presently makes his home in Switzerland.Lionel Corbett, M.D., trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Dr. Corbett is a core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute teaching depth psychology. He is the author of The Religious Function of the Psyche and Psyche and the Sacred: Spirituality Beyond Religion. He is co-editor, with Dennis Patrick Slattery, of Depth Psychology: Meditations in the Field and Psychology at the Threshold: Selected Papers.Dr. Corbett and Dr. Stein have both presented webinars which can be found in the video library at the Asheville Jung Center website.

    A lifetime of wisdom infuses the collection of stories gathered by centenarian Jos Miguel de Barandiran, patriarch and interpreter of ancient Basque tales, a sample of which are available for the first time in English in A view from the Witch's Cave.

    The author declares his conclusion to be a possibly surprising one--that a single man, perhaps from the island of Euboea, invented the Greek alphabet specifically in order to record the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer.

    A stunning combination of master storytelling and deft translation, with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder.

    

    

    

    Exactly 100 spreads provide a detailed history of world mythology in bulleted form, with fantastic images and artwork to illustrate, as well as fascinating fact panels.

    Each

    They deal with the themes of creation, nature, mutual respect, and ethnic relations and conflicts. Told here for the first time in English and illustrated with Mayan images, these stories and fables speak eloquently of an ancient culture, at once preserving its history and recreating its tradition. Includes figure and illustrations.

    

    Krishna has always been a favourite with children, who have for centuries enjoyed the exciting and dramatic adventures of this brave and handsome young god. He was born to fight evil and help the good, but behaved too like any other child, being naughty and cheeky, and often getting into trouble. Krishna lived life on a grand scale, battling with demons and monsters of all kinds; yet he also stole butter and teased village girls. Marilyn Heeger's illustrations highlight the rich variety of events in the young god's life, and the stories will help children to understand the differences between good and evil. The rhythm and beauty of these tales will surely delight both young and old.

    The work of the ancient critics provides some access to the interpretative conventions of the original reading community, whiletheir theories of fiction and genre may also shed light on the problems of the truth-value of epic fiction and the kind of belief that poetry generates. Focusing on the poets themselves, Feeney explores the themes associated with each poet, including the fiction of Apollonius, allegory in the workof Statius, and anthropomorphism in Ovid's work.

    Others search for "lost Egyptian wisdom" rather than see how the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom could be built with the simple tools and cumbersome mathematics of the time.Mott T. Greene reexamines the remnants of ancient life using conceptual tools seldom brought to bear on such material. The result is a fresh appraisal of what the evidence will yield about natural phenomena and modes of thought in the distant past. Greene builds on the work of modern scholars but contributes scientific precision and tenacity to debates in areas as diverse as archaeology, early art history, Egyptian fractions, Indo-Iranian religion, classical Greek verse, and Plato's "problem of knowledge."

    In the Aztec tradition, Coyote is "God's Dog." As a minor deity, Coyote is at home in the world we know and in the world of magic and the gods. In this series of coyote adventures, he gets involved with a parish minister in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They meet for donuts and go on drives through the desert and mountains in an old VW Thing. They discuss just what you'd expect form a minor deity and a philosophical clergyman--death. lying, progress, why Jesus was crucified, what money will buy, and the nature of the universe.

    ISBN: 0553353403

    An enlightening study which contrasts effectively with Campbell's presentation of The Western Way.

    The result is a vital and long-needed companion for anyone seeking to understand the Jewish world now and in past centuries. The book describes all the main characters and the legends that have grown up around them; Jewish methods of Biblical interpretation; the framework of Jewish law, literature, and poetry; the festivals of the Jewish Year; the different languages and subgroups within the Jewish community; and the many countries that Jews have lived in, as well as the importance of the Holy Land. But another side of Judaism is also revealed: a world populated by angels and demons, sages and Kabbalists, mythical creatures, lucky and unlucky days and numbers, and the hope for a Messianic age.