Gyroscopic Investing

I enjoy listening to and reading Joseph Campbell's work.

There are some good videos on Netflix and The Hero With a Thousand Faces is great.

I recently became aware of a series of audio recordings compiled from lectures he gave in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  They are about an hour each and they cost from $5.99 to $9.99 on iTunes and $5.99 on Amazon.

On the site www.jcf.org you can get compilations of five lectures for $25.

I have purchased several of these and it's hard to describe but I find them both stimulating and relaxing.  Campbell was obviously a person of great insight, but his delivery is also entertaining and soothing.

Any other Joseph Campbell fans here?

I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell.  He definitely has a way of stirring the soul, and does it through a no nonsense approach which is very refreshing.

Another way to become initiated with his work is to read through this summary of the Monomyth.  Then watch The Matrix, Gladiator, or Star Wars, to see how it all works together.  There is a lot more to his work, but this is likely the most popular aspect.

I read 'The Power of Myth' in junior high or high school and loved it.

MediumTex wrote: Any other Joseph Campbell fans here?

Is he related at all to Bruce Campbell, your namesake?

I saw the Screwhead Edition of Army of Darkness in the bargain bin for $5 at Kmart the other week and couldn't resist.  I can count on less than one hand the number of DVDs that I own...

MachineGhost wrote:

MediumTex wrote: Any other Joseph Campbell fans here?

Is he related at all to Bruce Campbell, your namesake?

I saw the Screwhead Edition of Army of Darkness in the bargain bin for $5 at Kmart the other week and couldn't resist.  I can count on less than one hand the number of DVDs that I own...

Army of Darkness is a shadow of Evil Dead II, but I'm glad they made it.  If they hadn't I always would have wondered what if?

I came across this transcript of a speech given by Carl Jung back in 1939 called, "The Symbolic Life":

We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul - the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill - this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are "nothing but." . . . Everything is banal; everything is "nothing but," and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, "Thank heaven, now something is going to happen - something bigger than ourselves!"

These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.

For those who don't know, Carl Jung had a massive influence on Joseph Campbell, which is why I posted it here.

Great quote, Gosso. We all really do crave to be part of something bigger than ourselves, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

Ha, I just realized that my post above was number "666" -- how's that for symbolism!

Tortoise wrote: Great quote, Gosso. We all really do crave to be part of something bigger than ourselves, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

This is definitely a part of the human condition.  But what I gathered from Jung's speech was the importance of not allowing the rational mind to completely run the show...we need the religious instinct to shine through as well, which has been repressed in this secular world.  The journey is inward!

Gosso wrote: Ha, I just realized that my post above was number "666" -- how's that for symbolism!

Tortoise wrote: Great quote, Gosso. We all really do crave to be part of something bigger than ourselves, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

This is definitely a part of the human condition.  But what I gathered from Jung's speech was the importance of not allowing the rational mind to completely run the show...we need the religious instinct to shine through as well, which has been repressed in this secular world.  The journey is inward!

That is so true.

When I was younger I just pictured myself just getting smarter and smarter and more and more rational as I moved through life.  What I have found, though, is that without a source of wonder, rationality will often leave you feeling alienated and incomplete.  There are those people like the odd scientist or philosopher who can seemingly be completely satisfied by just wallowing in rationality and little else.  For most people, though, I think that things like love, children, nature, and other mysteries of existence are important counterbalances to a life spent pounding the mind into a more perfect form of rationality, like a blacksmith working a piece of steel for the sole purpose of making it harder.

IMHO, humility is a much clearer lens through which to see the world than one tinted with one's own ego.  Arrogance of any kind (including the rational arrogance of people like Richard Dawkins) strikes me as an unintentional tightening of the aperture through which we perceive reality.  When I hear people like that speak so dismissively of people with whom they disagree, I always wonder to myself "How does a person like that ever learn anything?"

+1
Insightful posts, you guys.

Speaking of Dawkins (who I've never been a fan of), this article seems really timely:

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... reats.html

Here is a great blog post from Outlaw Psych called "The Importance of Religious Symbols".  It shows how Bill Maher's Religulous is making the same mistake as the fundamentalists by literally interpreting the Bible, which can also be said of Richard Dawkins.

[quote=Outlaw Psych]One of the things that worries me most about our earthly predicament is the misunderstanding of the role religious symbols play in our lives. I’m reminded of Religulous. It was a film by Bill Maher which consisted mainly of interviews with various religious adherents to debate their views. The point was to expose the foolishness of their beliefs, as the title suggests. I thought Maher was funny, intelligent, and entertaining — as far as logic goes. The fact is, though, when it comes to religious symbols and ideas, it doesn’t go very far.

Many of the points Maher made were sound, even irrefutable — within those confines. He succeeded in making the folks he interviewed look foolish only because they weren’t as smart as he was. Though he had a tender wood to split, I can say the movie was amusing. I understand his viewpoint; I once thought the same way. But, by the time the film was over, I felt only sad for all the misconceptions — for my own, for his, and for theirs. Surely such a perceptive intellect could challenge itself in more meaningful ways.

“How can a snake talk?”? he condescended, his smugness masking an ignorance which is just as uninformed as any literal interpretation of symbols. Allegorical thinking, at the very least, is a building block for self-reflection, though admittedly in a less than ideal stage of development. Maher, in his rejection of it, thought perhaps he had delivered it a final blow. In the end he did not much more than advertise his imprisonment in his own thinking.

The literal interpretation of symbols not only robs them of any depth of insight they may offer, it unwittingly pushes those who think in the same terms, but with opposing views, to discard them as wrong. The denial of them prohibits even the scant development the Church so backwardly gave lip-service to in its rude and self-serving attempts at interpreting them. But, that’s the task we’ve been given, and there are no short-cuts. The tortuous struggle to understand our moral foundations is an on-going process of development. Without an understanding of the past, we can’t know where we are or where we’re going.
[...Read the rest at provided link above]
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