MYTHS TO LIVE BY: Lectures by Joseph Campbell, James Hollis

Eight Tuesdays

Course

James Hollis

Why should a modern pay any attention to the subject of myth? Joseph Campbell's quite readable lecture series Myths to Live By addresses the profound role that myth plays in our personal and cultural life. Coursing beneath the surface of daily life are charged images, persistent complexes, ancestral presences, buried scripts, fragments of history, unaddressed pathologies, as well as a continuing summons to the unlived life. As anthropologist Levi-Strauss observed, it is not whether we think in myths, but rather how they are thinking through us.

Whether we make these energy systems conscious or not, they make ourchoices for us, create patterns, and spill into our lives. Examining the encounter between science and religion, the mythologies of love and war, the creative-destructive powers of madness, and the daily unfolding of a personal mythology are the subjects for our presentation and discussion. Only by rendering the myths which move us more conscious can we live a more considered life.

Required Text: Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By

James Hollis, Ph.D. is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C., Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington, and author of fourteen books.