Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind

This is an inspiring and deep look at a highly authentic and original trail blazer. Reading his personal journal entries and his prolific and insightful letters as he struggled to discover and follow his bliss provides a rich context and understanding for his huge body of work. Campbell's love of research, learning, and extensive study is mindboggling. He learned new languages and dived deep into local cultures and traditions as he lived, traveled, and studied in Europe, India, Japan, and other countries in the early to mid-20th century.I highly recommend A Fire in the Mind for anyone familiar with and interested in Campbell's work. Readers don't need to be familiar with his work to enjoy and gain insights and guidance from this engaging and well written story of an authentic life very well lived.I drew from Joseph Campbell's pioneering work on mythology in writing my only work of fiction, Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work. Campbell's life work focused on exploring how religions, philosophies, arts and "the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic ring of myth."Campbell wrote and edited dozens of books on comparative mythology and religion. His books and thousands of lectures focused on finding the "monomyth" and core spiritual and psychological themes that all societies for thousands of years have used to deal with the challenges of life and find successful passage through life's stages. George Lucas was highly influenced by Campbell's classic 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces when he wrote and produced his blockbuster Star Wars movie.Campbell often summarized his core philosophy with advice to "follow your bliss." He doesn't mean living a hedonistic life of pleasure seeking. Following our bliss is answering the call to adventure by embarking on our "hero's journey" searching for our "holy grail" -- finding our deep personal meaning and living an authentic life true to our values and reason for being. The great trap is following someone else's path or what parents, friends, spouses, institutions, or society calls success.This book is an inspiring story of a remarkable life.

The book was thorough, incredibly well researched and annotated. Therefore, as a launching off place for someone doing research into Campbell's life and work, it is a great place to start. The whole sweep of this truly maverick thinker's life and career is here, who the major players were, where and when he traveled, wrote, etc. As thorough as the book is on the externals of Campbell's life, however, it was decidedly thin on insight as to the workings of the inner man. Perhaps this was done because the book was the "authorized autobiography" and whoever was doing the authorizing didn't want it, or perhaps it was done in deference to Campbell himself who, according to the authors, was vehemently opposed to speaking or writing about himself autobiographically. To Campbell, the work was all that mattered and he, the man, was of little to no significance. It's fine for Campbell to have taken that attitude, but not, in my opinion, for the authors. By failing to more thoroughly plumb the depths of Campbell's early life experiences, especially in regard to his fraught relationships with his parents and ne'er-do-well brother, the authors shortchange the reader of an essential aspect to understanding the life of their subject and the body of work he created. Campbell was a man of tremendous energy, discipline, imagination, ambition and drive. The body of mythological and religious study he created showed connection among humankind across time and cultures in a way that had never been done before. Campbell's capacity to do that, indeed, his need to do that, didn't come out of nothing.

Joseph Campbell has been walking beside me since I read Hero with a Thousand Faces in the early 70s, which was then the bible for the yoga society I was initiated into. I met him at a small lecture in Cleveland sometime that decade, and bought and read his Mask of God books. But I didn't know Joseph Campbell the individual until I read this book, which is a master piece of weaving Campbell's early journals and correspondence into an necklace of jewels that now seem to hang around my neck like a mala. Campbell's life path and his writing are perfectly blended in this book so that his teaching of the underlying mythos that informs each of our lives is brought to the surface of consciousness and given to you as a gift from the Goddess Herself.I cried when the hero dies at the end of this book, and even as I write these words my heart catches and holds this delicious sorrow. During this week as I finished the book I was also watching the DVD set of Mythos I got for Christmas. I recommend your doing this: invest in both the book and one of his DVD lectures. Reread Hero, if you have not already read it. Awaken the power of Mythos within you and as Campbell says: Follow your Bliss.

I've admired Campbell's writing and video documentaries for years, but not until I read this book did I come to feel as though I knew him. This history of his life is complete, with many details I never knew about. For example, he fell in love with John Steinbeck's wife when he was a young man and lived on the west coast. Campbell, being a highly moral person, never took their intimacy as far as sexual intercourse. But he suffered over this lost relationship for years and wish he had met her before Steinbeck did.The book is full of revealing, insightful anecdotes. Now I know who Joseph Campbell really was--at least I think I do.

Well written but it's clear to see Joseph Campbell is his own best fan.

Got this as a gift for my bro. He love it. I read it and really liked the Steinbeck chapters.

Enjoyed reading his life but expected more about his direction...