Show Notes
This episode of Pathways with Joseph Campbell, titled "The Harmony and Discord of Religions," was recorded at Brandeis University in 1958. At the time, Joseph Campbell was 54 years old and nearing the completion of Primitive Mythology, the first volume of his Masks of God series. In this lecture, Campbell offers an affirmative defense of comparative methodologies, exploring both the commonalities and differences among the world’s religious traditions.
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.