Why don't you like Joseph Campbell?

The idea that human narratives all fall into the same patterns is a useful one, and Campbell deserves some credit for that. But the hero’s journey is really just Hegelian dialectic applies to narrative. Hegel’s the genius here.

He turns an obvious acknowledgement of comparative mythology into a dumbass pseudo-cult.

I do like him but only from a literary perspective desu. I found him helpful in self-analysis though.

Rene Girard never talked about myth?

How is that Luciferian?

I'm surprised by these responses, Veeky Forums.

Campbell is a good dude. He produced a few good works, and some just-paying-the-bills books. The hero's journey is overblown, it's a meme among neophyte screenwriters in tinseltown who think it will make them as rich as Lucas or Rowling. It takes real work to get it right, but is typically implemented without feeling and we get bullshit movies like Moana instead. Campbell's Masks of God set is valuable information, and he's a good jumping off point for swimming into other comparative mythology heads and Jungians: Eliade, Edinger, von Franz.

Anyone ITT talking about a cult or heresy is overstating and distorting Campbell's observations of human identity in crisis situations, and probably confusing Campbell for a Platonist.

t. Campbellfag

Uhhh.

muh brain chemicals

Lucifer is supposed to be an archetype representing the divine spark, universal consciousness, light of god/universe that we all have inside of us.

“We have said that Lucifer came to the world to wake man up, to help him remember his divine origin, the divine origin of his Spirit, and to help him free himself from the body-soul in which he is trapped, and from created time and matter.”

If you study different occult schools of thought, old religions, and the new age you see they are fundamentally saying the same things but in different ways

gnosis, enlightenment, moksha, christ consciousness

I see. Very interesting. Thank you.

Was Campbell an anthroposophist..?

He's entertaining -- I like listening to him -- but he seems kind of shallow and mawkish at times.

There are two types of academics, those that work with grand unifying theories of everything, leaping across disiciplines and making claims that would revolutionize the way we understand the world, and those that work with little tiny details, doing the difficult and unglamorous legwork to use copious amounts of evidence to make small claims.

The first kind is much more attractive to people but also much more dangerous and that danger is fully realised in Campell. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story is a saying that Cambell has taken to heart. He is so interested in the massive macroscopic elements of his theories that he ignores all the little facts that get in his way. He is on record for telling one of his students doing their thesis to not worry too much about the evidence getting in the way of your theory.
I've read several of his books and they all have this massive problem about them. He makes an enormous claim that would completely change the way we think about a topic and his evidence is a single telling of a myth from an entire continent. I've read folklorist condemn him for taking a story of which we have hundreds of variations and cherry picking one of the only ones of those variations that has the element that contributes to his point. An example that springs to mind is where he thinks that all the religions of the middle east and India come from a single source and the only piece of evidence he provides for the middle east is a single bit of clay with some writing on it. The reason why this is the only evidence he provides is because it's the only early evidence he can find that helps him but the leaps in logic are huge. He assumes that this tablet represents a non-indigenous idea, he assumes that if it isn't indigenous then it must be from India, and he assumes that this tablet represents widespread common beliefs rather than of an individual, or family or city or region.
Let me repeat that. His grand unifying theory of mythology that if correct would be one of the biggest upsets in the field since it was a discipline has as the only piece of evidence to tie Egypt to India is a single fragment of a tablet which while interesting can't be used as evidence to support his theory until more evidence (and a hell of a lot of it) is provided.

He is rightly maligned in contemporary academia and if it weren't for his early television appearances leading to the popularity of a couple of his non-academic books he would have been completely forgotten by now.

Edit: I forgot to mention the incident where someone with a PhD specifically devoted to Indic religion commented after seeing one of his lectures that he has no idea what he is talking about. He's so broad he misunderstands the details of everything which prevents it from even being possible that his bigger ideas can be trusted.

t. jealous virgin academic

>He makes an enormous claim that would completely change the way we think about a topic and his evidence is a single telling of a myth

I've also read several of Campbell's works, and can't remember him making this claim. In the Masks of God he does show similarities in myths between geographically proximate peoples. And as I recall he does attempt to provide a simple taxonomy for myths from different parts of the world and build a record of transmission. He offers some interpretation and insight for these stories from a Jungian perspective, as the mind of man as a thing still in evolution. But he never makes a claim for a grand unifying myth, and his evidence for doing so would be non-exhaustive anyway. Stay mad die mad, user.

>and can't remember him making this claim
By the very first sentence of the second chapter on page 9 of the Oriental Mythology book in the Maks of the God series he has already set up his grand unifying theory.

Transhumanism is the strongest menace to society at the moment.

damn straight

It sounds like Lucifer is doing the Lord's work, and not demonic at all in your example, and yet the word Luciferian certainly has demonic connotations. Was that in any way your intent, to link self-awareness and Awakening/Enlightenment to demonic influences?

I equate Enlightenment to sainthood, to fulfilling your role in the Divine plan.

In my opinion, Joseph Campbell was the archetype of the pseud.

You're overstating your case. The passage you cited mentions the common traits between oriental and occidental creation myths. It's an attempt at beginning a taxonomy. Classification by species-wide common tropes, not a claim of common origin. It's Campbell beginning his taxonomy, and you're a brainlet who can't into reading comprehension.

>Was that in any way your intent, to link self-awareness and Awakening/Enlightenment to demonic influences?

I mean that is very explicitly the case in the Story of Eden

I like Joseph Campbell. I hate pseuds who used his work as a formula for narrative. I hate that professors assign his books in creative writing courses in lieu of books that address storytelling, craft, or style. I dislike that Hollywood spec screenwriters, mainly Christopher Vogler, have made untold millions of dollars dumbing down what was already a fairly straightforward idea into the now ubiquitous "12 Steps."

If one commits to intellectual pursuits, they'll find quickly that it leads to very dark realizations. It drives men mad. The pull of knowledge, of cerebral safety, tears at us every day. We feel we need a snippet of something in the next thread, book, status, video, to satiate something we can't quite rationalize other than an "emptiness" within. The curse of comprehending reality, as infantile as we do, in our mortal beings, without the resolve of plants or wild beasts, and becoming terrible frightened by it all.

That's a pretty cruel trick to play on a poor animal.

"However original and unique each of the ancient civilisations may appear to be, not one of them came into being independently.... We are confronted with a great historical movement or, more precisely, with a concatenation of movements which, in the last analysis, radiated all from a common source."
This is a quote by Heine-Geldern which he uses to buttress his point made just prior which I shall also quote.
"...we need no longer be amazed or metaphysically edified when the homologies amounting to identities appear in the myths and rituals of the Orient and the West."
This was said merely a page after he quotes someone saying how commonalities between religious beliefs are based on independent discoveries based on similar human conditions and psychology, a point to which he is clearly refuting.
Another quote from Campbell. "The extent to which the mythologies-and therewith psychologies-of the Orient and the Occident diverged in the course of the period between the dawn of civilisation in the Near East and the present age of mutual rediscovery..."

All this taken together shows that he believed that Europe, the Middle East and Asia have a single common origin that formed the basis for their religious beliefs.

>I equate Enlightenment to sainthood, to fulfilling your role in the Divine plan.

Are you secular or religious at all, or what is your belief system? The conflict between Christianity and this is that Luciferianism and the likes see humans and god as the same, while in Christianity there is a clear distinction that humans are corrupted by sin and are only saved through Jesus's sacrifice. Thus it seems Lucifer is deceiving people in this way, saying they can become god and that we are all god.

This seems overly complex to me. Would not the Devil work through lower emotions like fear, convincing mankind of its innate corruption and making them doubt their own worthiness of God's love? Putting a barrier, needlessly, between the parent and the child seems more evil to me than saying that the parent resides always inside the child's own heart.

To answer your question, I'm the product of both Christan and Hindu parents, so these questions have always fascinated me. I have always seen parallels between Catholicism and Hinduism and am surprised others haven't noticed. I do pray for guidance, but feel that God is within me, in my in my heart. I suspect He is everywhere, in all parts of me.

What you described is Rajo guna. It's activity without purity, roaming the world either physically or mentally looking for satisfaction, which, is if course, unattainable without balancing activity with knowledge of Truth (Sattwa guna).

Tamo guna is NEET Pepe the frog btw.

>satanic panic moralizing

These themes are ubiquitous among the occult because they are true, I myself have met with this spark you call Lucifer and it was quite incredible, it told me all about the nature of reality... I recommend it

>Europe, the Middle East and Asia have a single common origin that formed the basis for their religious beliefs.

I don't know how you can misread so badly. Neither Campbell nor Heine-Geldern claimed a single origin, unless that be a set of tropes that are almost inborn in the human psyche. All humans began with a mother and a father, sky above and earth below, and secret dark places leading to an underworld. These circumstances are going to generate commonalities between any two mythologies anywhere on the planet. And that's what Campbell was talking about.

As far as his specific argument about an Orient-Occident schism, it seems perfectly clear to me he's talking about the inheritors of the Mesopotamian myths. People who migrated east and west and took their stories with them.

Learn to read.

>nor Heine-Geldern claimed a single origin
Every single post you have insulted my ability to read so maybe you should learn to do what you accuse of me. I never said that Heine-Geldern claimed anything. I claimed that Campbell used the quote by Heine-Geldern to prove his point.

>unless that be a set of tropes that are almost inborn in the human psyche
This was literally addressed in the very quotes to which you are responding. Maybe if you didn't have the intelligence of a retarded dag that fell out of the arse of a rape victim you might have noticed.

>it seems perfectly clear to me he's talking about the inheritors of the Mesopotamian myths
Perhaps instead of just pulling shit out of your arse, as much as you love to do it, you might want to actually provide evidence. You know, just the thing I have been doing.

Please explain with relevant citations to the text how each of my quotations are wrong. Don't just say they are wrong, actually cite examples of how they are wrong because the quotes I lead to lead a strong argument for my case. If you argument is simply I'm right and you are wrong then you can rot in whatever academic hell it is that Campbell will burn in.

>inb4 mad
Maybe if you weren't rude I wouldn’t' have been rude back and this could have been a civil conversation about a mere disagreement about an interpretation of a book, but no you tried to wank your ego in my face. You're argument is I don't need to address your evidence because you are wrong and I can just say I am right with no evidence because I am right.

t. a little bit mad.

I was using your citations. I was offering an interpretation you seemed to have missed. Your claim of a "single source" is not the same as what is in the text you quoted, ergo my learn to read comments.

Don't be mad, user. I'm not mad. Just buttfrustrated that you insist on creating a claim that isn't in the text. That's misrepresenting Campbell, who I think did make some valuable contributions.

>suck a dick once, it won't make you gay!

nah i'm good. gonna have to say when you die there might be some unfortunate surprises in store for you. maybe you can rope in some other living idiot to shift your newfound burden.

Why are you guys so anti-luciferian? I'm talking about luciferian-esque philosophy rather than the christian lucifer/satan imagery.

Just curious. Not criticizing.

Like I understand the part about humbling yourself before God and not worshiping yourself, but I'm still a bit unclear why you're SO against it, particularly when Christ says similar stuff about inner light, etc.

Have you just never read about it?

sucking one dick doesn't erase any sexual relations you've had with women.

>implying we're merely a poor animal

nah, the Story of Eden is never trust a woman.

>This seems overly complex to me. Would not the Devil work through lower emotions like fear, convincing mankind of its innate corruption and making them doubt their own worthiness of God's love? Putting a barrier, needlessly, between the parent and the child seems more evil to me than saying that the parent resides always inside the child's own heart.

Yes that appears true on the surface but this can also be seen as a deception. You see Satan actually plays both sides. Just like the dualities that make up our world; yin/yang, masculine/feminine, Sun/Moon, Good/Evil, Light/Dark, this is also the case with Satan/Lucifer. Satan represents the darkness of fear, evil, and malevolence; Lucifer represents a false light, a deception of love, hedonism, and pride. Lucifer is more like saying that there is no need for a parent, the child can be the parent.

It's because what Satan really wants is a universal one world religion. It's a Hegelian dialect of Satan = Thesis, Lucifer = Antithesis, and NWO = Synthesis.

>It's because what Satan really wants is a universal one world religion.
Wait...what? That's literally what the Church wants to achieve. How did Christ's teaching differ? Also, I understand the story of the Tower of Babel is a similar idea you're describing that God didn't want all together?

>The monomyth is bullshit, I'm gonna prove Campbell wrong!

he said, before shelving that sixth attempted novel only 20,000 words in. Later he realized that Campbell was probably right and he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by focusing on writing a good story instead of making a mad dash for Artiste™-hood. Alas, he had matured as a writer, but at what cost?!

No one here knows what lucifer means. It's Latin for "bringer of light" and Satan was never described as a lucifer, in fact Jesus was.

desu I think lucifer is a test to see who is willing to assert that the idea of lucifer is absurd.

Hop off the Bill Cooper and Fritz Springmeier.

This is the best criticism I've heard. His works are very interesting (I've read The Hero With A Thousand Faces and something else by him I forgot, I think) but kind of fluffy, unscholarly, mawkish, and overly simplified. A more original, encompassing, and intellectually challenging version of everything he says can just be found in Jung, anyway, as well.

>mfw reading this post
>mfw remembering that a normie on faceberg recognized and praised Campbell being on my bookshelf

>I was using your citations. I was offering an interpretation you seemed to have missed.
You offered an explanation but one that had no evidence and no reference to the text. I gave you evidence and an argument and your argument was merely asserting that I am wrong and you are right.

Explain to me why he would quote Heine-Geldern as a response to Coomaraswamy and then spend the rest of the chapter attacking Coomaraswamy's position (which is the position you say that Campbell holds). Also since you are so fond of insulting my ability to read you will notice that your assertion that I am making a claim about the beliefs of Heine-Geldern is born entirely from your antagonistic disposition towards me. It does not matter what Heine-Geldern believes only that Campbell believes that the quote is useful for his argument. You also have suggested how I am misreading it with references to the book.

>unless that be a set of tropes that are almost inborn in the human psyche. All humans began with a mother and a father, sky above and earth below, and secret dark places leading to an underworld.
You just assert this when I provided direct evidence from the text which roundly refutes the idea that this is what Campbell believes. He quotes Coomaraswamy who is saying what you are asserting here and then spends pages talking about why it's wrong.

Let me quote what Campbell says directly after Coomaraswamy.
"The Implication of this suggestion is that analogous mythologies (Ed here his talk of analogous mythologies is exactly the idea you say he is expressing in this book) might have developed independently in various parts of the world according to common psychological laws; and this was a favoured view of much nineteenth and early twentieth century scholarship. However, (Ed this will be the last editorial insertion due to the messiness of it but you will notice how he puts forward your position and then says however and carries on in that fashion) since most recent archaeological discoveries indicate specific culture hearths from which shared varieties of grain, domesticated beasts, techniques of fashioning new artefacts, etc, have been diffused to the corners of the earth, the old arguments for a parallel development of originally isolated civilisations through the operation of "natural" economic, sociological, or psychological "laws" has now been generally abandoned.

If the work is only a work of comparative mythology and that he doesn't believe that they an enormous amount of our religions and folklores derived from a single source why would say that the idea of analogous mythologies that spring up independently due to common elements of human nature be wrong and then immediately follow it up talking about how at the time academia was leaning towards the idea of a root civilisation?

Now instead of merely saying that I can't read, and that I am misinterpreting the quotes provided show us your own textual evidence.

Edit: You also have suggested that I am misreading it without references to the book.