Fwd: Happy Birthday, Joseph Campbell

[Ian Livingston]

Meant to reply to all.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: Happy Birthday, Joseph Campbell
To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>


Jung is indeed more than that, but others have used his work as a working
platform. I personally think Jung is as relevant as ever, maybe even more
than ever, in our bent out of shape world. Jung studied psychotics and
found relevance in their ideation that resonated with what he saw as
underlying predispositions among humans. Freud never worked with
psychotics, he trifled with neurotic rich women and called it psychology.
What he managed was to corral the free study of the mind into a sort of
formalized psuedo-science. That laid the course toward the drug companies'
successes in producing massive profits off people's random downers. Jung
directed his gaze toward what we all have in common. It's the similarities,
not the differences that point the way out of malaise, alienation,
defeatism. Jung was a remarkable fellow. By the way, he's a few years older
than Joyce, and was well along on his path of exploring personality types,
archetypes, and alchemy before either Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake.

Campbell has his own insights, and his monomyth bit is his own. It departs
from archetypal relationships and the alchemical journey, but it is its
daddy's own. You wanna learn more about Campbell and have a few bucks and
some spare time? Here's a very pretty location to study:
http://www.pacifica.edu/2013-1.aspx Pacifica is, of course, also a premium
place to learn about Jung and his relevance in contemporary culture.


On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 8:02 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jung is more than a springboard for anyone.
>
> He allowed himself to go crazy.  For truth.
>
> I know I sound besotted.  So be it.
>
>
> On Thursday, March 28, 2013, David Morris wrote:
>
>> OK, I'm ignorant of the source of Monomyth, and know Campbell only from
>> Video.  Haven't read FW either.  So my response to Monomyth was mostly from
>> reading Jung.  That's why I thought it a slur.
>>
>> But I still contend that Jung is Campbell's father.  I don't see how he
>> went further.  Please illuminate.
>>
>> I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Jung stole his mythology from Joyce.
>>
>> On Wednesday, March 27, 2013, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, monomyth comes from Finnegan's Wake. That's where Campbell
>>> claims to have lifted the idea. Jung pursues something different. He is
>>> looking at the connections between ancient mythology / gnostic traditions
>>> and psychological pathologies, especially among severe psychotics. He
>>> finds, of course, broader interpretations as he goes, and sees the same
>>> trends at work in literature, but he's a fair spell out another way from
>>> Campbell's monomyth thing. Campbell signed on to Jung's theories as a
>>> foundation for his own. Maybe springboard is a better metaphor. Both men's
>>> pursuits of connections seem quite elegant, bound as they are by the human
>>> cranium, which for all its capacity to wander vast abysses, always sees the
>>> depths shaped in the human iris. Jung is a pleasure to read as he waltzes
>>> through the lithic passages of the mind. Hardly a week goes by but I pull
>>> one of the Bollingen series off my shelf.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 8:23 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> "mono-myth" is a slur, sir.
>>>>
>>>> I'm sure you know that,  or should.
>>>>
>>>> Myths have always meshed, long B4 Campbell or, more really Jung.
>>>>  Geniuses and Mystics make connections that most can't.
>>>>
>>>> Read Jung, straight.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wednesday, March 27, 2013, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Hero With A Thousand Faces is the standard on the monomyth thing.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Lemuel Underwing <
>>>>> luunderwing at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> just picked up Robert Graves' The White Goddess and O' Goodness
>>>>>> what-a-book!
>>>>>> Haven't read any Campbell, though when I finally get around to
>>>>>> tackling Finnegan's Wake I hear his Skeleton Key is a MUST...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can anyone recommend a good book by him? (preferably lighter than The
>>>>>> White Goddess but Hey, I'm easy.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 8:31 PM, Ian Livingston <
>>>>>> igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
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