The Masks of God, 4 Vols by Joseph Campbell

The Masks of God, 4 Vols Reviews

• 
  Erik Graff

  Reading the whole set of Campbell's 'The Masks of God' tetrology took place over a number of years, but I believe it began when Rich Hyde--a friend from high school, college and, later, seminary--came up with me to grandmother's cabin near Lake Michigan one fall after we had matriculated at Grinnell College. He had a copy along with him, a copy which I borrowed, read and appreciated for its Jungian slant--reading everything I could find about Jung and his interests being a project I had entered into a couple of years earlier. Later I proceeded to "borrow" another volume from Mike Miley, then bought the set myself, albeit in paper, not the cloth editions portrayed here.
  Campbell was just one of the mythographers I read during the years from college through graduate schools, trying in all cases to get at the mindsets of those who made up and/or meaningfully appropriated such stories--something our mythology unit in freshman high school English class utterly failed to do.
• 
  Helaine Becker

  Wow. Just, wow.
• 
  J.R. Emry

  Joseph Campbell holds only a pretense of academic neutrality. Indeed, the entirety of his work was done through the perspective of Advaita Vendata through the cult of Sri Ramakrishna. He interprets all mythology through this school of Hinduism and, as such, takes no mythology by it's own system. Norse Mythology, therefore, is interpreted through Hinduism. Greek Mythology, therefore, is interpreted through Hinduism. Christian Mythology, therefore, is interpreted through Hinduism. All that Norse mythology says is discarded in favor of the Advaita Vendata. This is a serious flaw in this work, for it's commentary on each mythology is absent of even the possibility of understanding those mythologies.
  
  Worse is the narrative Campbell provides which illustrates the overall aim for his work.
• 
  Vince Quackenbush

  Actually entered as read, each individual volume. These books were crucial to my reading development. I can read them again and find more stuff! Particularly interesting is when Oriental mythology diverged from Occidental mythology. The Creative mythology volume is the most 'boggling'.
• 
  George

  Life changing look at religion and it's origins.