Life-giving myths

Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell (Souvenir Press £3) The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell (Souvenir Press £3.50) The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology by Joseph Campbell (Souvenir Press £3.50) The vastness of the universe, the succession of the seasons, the mystery surrounding every being are bound to elicit from us the question: "Why?" It is in attempting to formulate an answer that myth, in its strictest sense, is born.
Rite and ceremonial have been with us since man began: evidence abounds from the paleolithic cave to the latest cult In our own day. Man's inner strivings compel him to express in outward form his fears and frustrations, his sense of wellbeing, awe and love — in a word, his quest for God. Joseph Campbell explores the phenomenon of myth from prehistory onwards both in Western and Eastern cultures. concluding from his findings in The Masks of God that "God" is the mask and the human mind
the only positive mythogenetic zone existing.
So we read: "And the world is now far too small, and man's stake in sanity too great, for any more of those old games of Chosen Folk (whether of Jehovah, Allah, Wotan, Manu, or the Devil) by which tribesmen were sustained against their enemies in the days when the serpent could still talk."
In Myths To Live By Mr. Campbell maintains that mythic archetypes at the root of all mythologies, religious and profane, will remove the divisions among the peoples and should be used, as psychiatry and hallucinogenic drugs are used, for the fulfilling of our human potential.
Mr. Campbell appears to think he has found the ultimate solution to the deepest of human problems. His books touch on many sciences and display vast erudition. However, the study of similarities can be most useful provided divergences are given equal evaluation. otherwise one will resemble the man who could see a pin-head a hundred yards away and fell over a recumbent
COW.
Fr. Kenneth Green