January 26, 2020
[caption id="attachment_19557" align="alignright" width="213"] Ramayan (1987 TV series) poster[/caption] In 1987, the Hindu epic The Rāmāyaṇa was serialized for Indian television. It immediately became immensely popular and was treated with ritualistic honor throughout the country when...
October 21, 2019
Back in November of last year, an opinion piece in The New York Times entitled “Fighting the Spiritual Void,” about the challenges faced by returning combat veterans, came to my attention and I was pleasantly...
July 15, 2019
“…to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act . . . Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes.” —Joseph Campbell, Sukhavati: Place of Bliss...
July 8, 2019
Once heroes have endured the longest nights and defeated the mightiest monsters, once they have stared death in the face and survived to tell the tale, their journey is by no means over. What may...
May 20, 2019
Looking at my life, I cannot escape a basic fact: my individual existence is enmeshed in the life of the collective—not only my immediate family and friends, but in the larger institutions and systems that...
May 6, 2019
My first memories of Joseph Campbell are through my dad’s love for him. Dad played Campbell’s lectures on cassette tapes on long, sun drenched drives to visit our family’s patriarch in the desert. Ironically, what...
March 25, 2019
The deeper my relationship with Joseph Campbell, the more I see him everywhere—and not just what I come across for the Campbell in Culture posts I help curate. The references we hear about, the overt mentions, are...
March 11, 2019
Searching for the Face of Heroism in the Modern Era Joseph Campbell famously suggested that the hero has a thousand faces. While time and space have molded that hero into a vast number of different...
January 21, 2019
The Role of Story in Crafting New Beginnings for Our Lives [caption id="attachment_17226" align="alignright" width="300"] The Hero's Journey® (from Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Novato, Ca: New World Library, 2008), p. 210....
January 14, 2019
[caption id="attachment_16392" align="alignright" width="182"] James Joyce, author of Ulysses, c. 1915 (Photo by Alex Ehrenzweig)[/caption] I recently had the pleasure of reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming—a story, eponymously, about Michelle’s “becoming,” grateful for the accessibility of...
September 23, 2018
As we at the Joseph Campbell Foundation wrap up our celebration of the month of September with the theme of Timeless Tales, I want to return to an exploration of the Grail Romances and the...
August 3, 2018
Editor's Note: After a year and a half of editing this MythBlast series for the Joseph Campbell Foundation, the time has come to hand the editorial pen to the next set of writers and imaginers....
March 27, 2018
[caption id="attachment_7632" align="alignright" width="300"] Star Wars, 1977[/caption] Mythology and the Hero’s Journey became pervasive throughout film culture and history as generation after generation turned to Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces. With...
November 7, 2017
Editor's Note: This month, we are celebrating gratitude...our gratitude for Campbell's ideas and work in the world, and for all of the thousands of people who are a part of JCF's mythological community around the world....
October 5, 2017
The work of Joseph Campbell continues to resonate with people all over the world. Currently, fifteen of Campbell’s books are published in overseas markets covering twenty-three languages. Of particular note is the success of The...
August 31, 2017
Want a quick dose of Joe? Watch an intriguing conversation about Campbell's work and ideas and how they're relevant in today's world in a video from The Hero's Journey® Foundation, totally free! Watch here! Living the Hero's Journey® with...
August 1, 2017
This past week, from Sunday, July 23rd through Friday, July 28th, Joseph Campbell Foundation President Bob Walter led a workshop called, Your Hero’s Journey® Redux: A Mythological ToolBox® PlayShop. Bob is a theatrical playwright and director,...
May 4, 2017
Are you hungering for a quest? Join JCF President Bob Walter for Your Hero’s Journey® Redux: A Mythological ToolBox® PlayShop this July. Five days of inspired, inspiring, creative, chaotic, joyful, and challenging play at the extraordinary...
April 25, 2017
American poet T.S. Eliot opens his masterpiece The Wasteland with a section titled "The Burial of the Dead": APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots...
April 10, 2017
We're delighted to announce the release of the first two lectures in Series II, volume 6 of the Joseph Campbell Audio Collection: Mythic Ideas and Modern Culture. Joseph Campbell presents mythic ideas and concepts with a...
March 21, 2017
Why do we tell stories about quests? In traditional, warrior cultures, such tales make a certain practical sense: they're a way to give a sense of purpose to young men who have nothing to do...