Show Notes
Recorded in 1963 for WNET-TV New York, this rare lecture features Joseph Campbell guiding us through the long, layered emergence of The Gods of Egypt, tracing how five millennia of cultural mingling - from Paleolithic hunters to Neolithic farmers to Near Eastern migrants - slowly shaped the myths that would define Egyptian civilization. Campbell follows the evolution of sacred animals, mother-goddess figures, burial rites, and symbolic art that culminated in the unification of Egypt and the rise of the pharaoh as a living embodiment of cosmic order. He then unfolds the great mythic drama of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the solar god Re, showing how themes of death, rebirth, and divine kingship became the spiritual heartbeat of the Nile. This bonus episode offers a vivid, revealing look at how Egypt’s iconic gods were not born fully formed, but forged across centuries of imagination and ritual
More from Pathways with Joseph Campbell
In this final installment of The Occidental Tradition, recorded during Joseph Campbell’s 1973 visit to the Blaisdell Institute, Campbell turns toward the role of myth, symbol, and ritual in modern Western life.
In Part Two of The Occidental Tradition, recorded at the Blaisdell Institute in 1973, this episode features Joseph Campbell leading an informal and wide-ranging discussion on education, mythology, and the Occidental tradition.
In this episode of Pathways with Joseph Campbell, we listen to a lecture Campbell gave at the Blaisdell Institute in Claremont, California, sometime in the mid-1970s. Speaking on what he calls “The Occidental Tradition,” Campbell explores the distinctly Western emphasis on the individual, the development of critical consciousness, and the courage required to follow one’s own path.
Welcome to Season 6 of Pathways with Joseph Campbell. Whether you’ve been listening from the very beginning or are just discovering the podcast, we’re glad you’re here. This new season continues our journey into the archived lectures and enduring insights of Joseph Campbell, exploring the ways myth continues to shape the human experience across time, culture, psychology, and spiritual life.
Recorded in 1966 at Sarah Lawrence College, this lecture follows Joseph Campbell through the symbolic ascent of Kundalini yoga - moving from instinct and desire at the base of the spine to the awakening of the heart, where the sacred syllable OM is heard as the vibration of being itself. The chakras become a psychological and spiritual map: religion begins, Campbell suggests, when fulfillment is no longer chased outward but discovered as a dimension within. Yet even heaven is not the end. The final barrier is the subtle illusion of “I” encountering God.