Audiobooks by Joseph Campbell

"Brought to you by Altrusian Grace Media and narrated by Matthew Schmitz. Joseph Campbell was more than a scholar—he was a storyteller of the human soul, a guide through the myths that shape our lives, and a seeker of the eternal truths hidden within every culture. His words resonate not just as academic insight, but as living wisdom, illuminating the path for those who dare to follow their bliss. This audiobook is not merely a collection of quotes; it is an invitation—to embark on the Hero’s Journey, to see the patterns that unite all myths, and to recognize the divine adventure unfolding within your own life. Campbell’s insights draw from the ancient and the modern, the East and the West, weaving a tapestry of meaning that transcends time and place. Through his words, we discover that mythology is not a relic of the past, but a mirror reflecting our deepest desires, fears, and aspirations. We are reminded that every struggle, every trial, and every transformation is part of a universal story—one that we are all living. Let these words be a guide. Whether you are standing at the threshold of your own adventure, searching for deeper meaning, or simply seeking inspiration, Campbell’s voice echoes through time to remind us: 'Follow your bliss, and doors will open where there were only walls.' Now, let the journey begin. This audiobook includes an 'ambient version' set to meditative music for your listening pleasure."

Joseph Campbell (Author), Matthew Schmitz (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: Unlocking James Joyce's Masterwork

"Countless would-be readers of Finnegans Wake — James Joyce’s 1939 masterwork, on which he labored for a third of his life — have given up after a few pages and “dismissed the book as a perverse triumph of the unintelligible.” In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to understanding the fascinating world of Finnegans Wake. Page by page, chapter by chapter, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake outlines the basic action of Joyce’s book, simplifies and clarifies the complex web of images and allusions, and provides an understandable, continuous narrative from which the reader can venture out on his or her own. This edition includes a foreword and updates by Joyce scholar Dr. Edmund L. Epstein that add the context of sixty subsequent years of scholarship."

Henry Morton Robinson, Joseph Campbell (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

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Correspondence: 1927-1987

"Selected letters capturing ongoing conversations between famed mythologist Joseph Campbell and a remarkable group of artists, seekers, filmmakers, novelists, and scholars This brand-new collection of letters features illuminating conversations between Joseph Campbell and a fascinating cast of correspondents, ranging from friends and cowriters to renegade scholars and fellow visionaries. Including letters from both Campbell and his correspondents, and spanning the course of his entire adult life (1927–1987), the collection demonstrates the lasting influence of Campbell’s work, which inspired creative endeavors and radical shifts in so many people’s lives. Included are exchanges with artists such as Angela Gregory and Gary Snyder; colleagues including Alan Watts, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, and Maud Oakes; editors of his books, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces to The Mythic Image; and many others who engaged with Campbell in his exploration of humanity’s “one great story.” In selecting the letters, editors Evans Lansing Smith and Dennis Patrick Slattery discovered that the dynamic exchanges formed themselves into what Smith describes as a “narrative, with multiple voices and points of view, dramatic conflict and resolution, character development, and even mystery.” In the end, they found “a portrait not just of Campbell but of a remarkable generation of artists, dancers, filmmakers, musicians, spiritual seekers, poets, and novelists, all engaged in the creative powers unleashed by mythology.” With crucial historical context provided by the editors, this compelling volume provides vital new insight into Campbell’s personal life and mythological vision."

Joseph Campbell (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Mythic Imagination: Collected Short Fiction

"Before he was the engaging professor who brought mythology into people’s living rooms through his conversations with Bill Moyers, before he became known as the thinker whose ideas influenced Star Wars, and before his now-beloved phrase “follow your bliss” entered the popular lexicon, Joseph Campbell was a young man who tried his hand at writing fiction. At the age of twenty-nine, after years of Depression-era unemployment, when he lived off money he had earned playing saxophone in a jazz combo and read the world’s great literature in a syllabus of his own design, Campbell published his first short story. That tale, included in this collection, remained the famed mythologist’s only published piece of fiction, until now. In these stories, readers will find rich mythological symbolism, down-to-earth concerns with the ravages of the Second World War, and singular iterations of Campbell’s famous Hero’s Journey schema—all interwoven into a literary style that anticipates the genre that would years later come to be known as “magical realism.” Compelling in their own right, these seven stories are essential reading for longtime Campbell fans and the many who continue to discover him afresh."

Joseph Campbell (Author), Christopher Lane (Narrator)

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The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion

"In this work, beloved mythologist Joseph Campbell explores the Space Age. He posits that the newly discovered laws of outer space are actually within us as well, and that a new mythology is implicit in that realization. But what is this new mythology? How can we recognize it? Campbell explores these questions in the concluding essay, “The Way of Art,” in which he demonstrates that metaphor is the language of art and argues that within the psyches of today’s artists are the seeds of tomorrow’s mythologies. Campbell writes in his introduction: “My desire and great pleasure in the preparation of this little volume has been as rendering a return gift to the Graces for the transforming insights of these recent years, which...we have been testing out in a broadly shared spiritual adventure.”"

Joseph Campbell (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

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A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

"Find your self in myth “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” —Joseph Campbell One of Joseph Campbell’s most popular, most quoted works, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration, thought-provoking in its depth, poetic in its scope. Drawn from a month-long workshop at the world-famous Esalen Institute, the Joseph Campbell Companion captures Campbell at his best: wise, funny, intelligent and inspiring."

Joseph Campbell (Author), Braden Wright, David De Vries, Tom Parks (Narrator)

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Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

"Woven from Joseph Campbell’s previously unpublished work, this volume explores Judeo-Christian symbols and metaphors—and their misinterpretations—with the famed mythologist’s characteristic conversational warmth and accessible scholarship. Campbell’s insights highlight centuries of confusion between literal and metaphorical interpretations of Western religious symbols that are, he argues, perennially relevant keys to spiritual understanding and mystical revelation."

Joseph Campbell (Author), Tom Parks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV

"Explore the power of myth as it exploded from medieval Europe into the modern world In this fourth volume in The Masks of God series—Joseph Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology—the preeminent mythologist looks at the birth of the modern, individualistic mythology as it developed in Europe beginning in the twelfth century A.D. up through the modernist art of the twentieth century. The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks. On completing it, he wrote: “Its main result for me has been the confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge.”"

Joseph Campbell (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

Audiobook

Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume I

"Explore the power of myth as humanity first discovered it In this first volume of The Masks of God — Joseph Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology — the preeminent mythologist looks at the wellsprings of myth. From the earliest expressions of religious awe in cave paintings and sculptures to the rites and art of contemporary primal tribes, myth has informed humankind's understanding of the world, seen and unseen. Exploring these archetypal mythic images and practices, Campbell examines the basic concepts that underlie all human myth, even to this day. The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks. On completing it, he wrote: Its main result for me has been the confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge. This edition is part of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series. Joseph Campbell Foundation has worked with scientists and academics to bring the anthropological information Campbell explores in line with the best twenty-first century scholarship."

Joseph Campbell (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Ecstasy of Being: Mythology and Dance

"Joseph Campbell’s collected writings on dance and art, edited and introduced by Nancy Allison, CMA, the founder of Jean Erdman Dance, and including Campbell’s unpublished manuscript “Mythology and Form in the Performing and Visual Arts,” the book he was working on when he died. Dance was one of mythologist Joseph Campbell’s wide-ranging passions. His wife, Jean Erdman, was a leading figure in modern dance who worked with Martha Graham and had Merce Cunningham in her first company. When Campbell retired from teaching in 1972, he and Erdman formed the Theater of the Open Eye, where for nearly fifteen years they presented a wide array of dance and theater productions, lectures, and performance pieces. The Ecstasy of Being brings together seven of Campbell’s previously uncollected articles on dance, along with “Mythology and Form in the Performing and Visual Arts,” the treatise that he was working on when he died, published here for the first time. In this new collection Campbell explores the rise of modern art and dance in the twentieth century; delves into the work and philosophy of Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and others; and, as always, probes the idea of art as “the funnel through which spirit is poured into life.” This book offers the reader an accessible, yet profound and provocative, insight into Campbell’s lifelong fascination with the relationship of myth to aesthetic form and human psychology."

Joseph Campbell (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

Audiobook

Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume III

"Explore the power of myth as it flowered in the ancient Near East and the Classical World In this third volume of The Masks of God—Joseph Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology—the preeminent mythologist looks at the pagan religions of Greece, Rome, and the Celts, as well as the Abrahamic religions—Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Exploring the West’s shift from female-centered to male-centered mythology, Campbell examines the distinguishing characteristics and the shared root concepts of these mythologies. The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks. On completing it, he wrote: “Its main result for me has been the confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge.”"

Joseph Campbell (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

Audiobook

Oriental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume II

"Explore the power of myth as it flowered in Asia In this second volume of The Masks of God—Joseph Campbell’s major work of comparative mythology—the preeminent mythologist looks at Asian mythology as it developed over the course of five thousand years into the distinctive religions of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and Japan. The Masks of God is a four-volume study of world religion and myth that stands as one of Joseph Campbell’s masterworks. On completing it, he wrote: “Its main result for me has been the confirmation of a thought I have long and faithfully entertained: of the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology, but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge.”"

Joseph Campbell (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

Audiobook