No tribal rite has yet been recorded which attempts to keep winter from descending; on the contrary: the rites all prepare the community to endure, together with the rest of nature, the season of the terrible cold.
Joseph CampbellRead
There are mythologies that are scattered, broken up, all around us. We stand on what I call a terminal moraine of shattered mythic systems that once structured society. They can be detected all around us. You can select any of these fragments that activate your imagination for your own use. Let it help shape your own relationship to the unconscious system out of which these symbols have come.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the value of fragmented mythologies in understanding ourselves and our relationship to our unconscious mind.
Joseph Campbell suggests that the remnants of various mythologies are present in our surroundings and are important for personal exploration. By engaging with these ancient symbols and stories, we can form a deeper connection with our own unconscious motivations and thoughts, thus allowing these fragments to inspire and guide us in shaping our identity and purpose.
Themes
MythologyImaginationUnconsciousSymbolsIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of storytelling at a creative writing workshop.
More from Joseph Campbell
All quotes →Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.
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Christianity isn’t moving people’s lives today. What’s moving people’s lives is the stock market and the baseball scores. What are people excited about? It’s a totally materialistic level that has taken over the world. There isn’t even an ideal that anybody’s fighting for.
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Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. The exclusivism of there being only one way in which we can be saved, the idea that there is a single religious group that is in sole possession of the truth—that is the world as we know it that must pass away. What is the kingdom? It lies in our realization of the ubiquity of the divine presence in our neighbors, in our enemies, in all of us.
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The demon that you can swallow gives you it’s power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.
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And if there was no Fall, what then of the need for Redemption? What god was offended and by whom? Some especially touchy cave bear whose skull had been improperly enshrined?
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