The psychological dangers through which earlier generations were guided by the symbols and spiritual exercises of their mythological and religious inheritance, we today (in so far as we are unbelievers, or, if believers, in so far as our inherited beliefs fail to represent the real problems of contemporary life) must face alone, or, at best with only tentative, impromptu, and not often very effective guidance. This is our problem as modern, "enlightened" individuals, for whom all gods and devils have been rationalized out of existence.
Joseph CampbellThe schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight. Edgar Cayce made the same observation in his readings
Joseph CampbellEvery myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.
Joseph CampbellThe psyche is the inward experience of the human body, which is essentially the same in all human beings, with the same organs, the same instincts, the same impulses, the same conflicts, the same fears. Out of this common ground have come what Jung has called the archetypes, which are the common ideas of myths.
Joseph CampbellFor the bliss of the deep abode is not lightly abandoned in favor of the self-scattering of the wakened state.
Joseph CampbellLove is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. The stronger the love, the more the pain. Love itself is pain, you might say -the pain of being truly alive.
Joseph CampbellLife lives on life. This is the sense of the symbol of the Ouroboros, the serpent biting its tail. Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order. Death is an act of giving.
Joseph Campbell