The masks of God
The author of such acclaimed books as Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology
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3mentions
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2014–2024years
33% recommend67% neutral
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- The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell.
Deep examination of the human meta-mind.
- In the first volume of Masks of God, Joseph Campbell points out that you can break all creation myths down to 3 categories: Creationism (where there is a god that created the universe), Animism (where the universe itself is alive), and Participationism (where the universe is the result of some interaction).
He then points out that if you ask random children to make up the story of how the universe was created, the story they tell you will (essentially without fail) fall under one of these 3 categories, and you can also categorize which one the children tend to favor based on stages of development. Very young children tend to favor animism and participationism, while older children (who are becoming more self-aware of their dependence on their parents) tend to favor creationism of some kind.
- The Masks of God series by Joseph Campbell - http://www.amazon.com/The-Masks-God-Vol-Primitive/dp/0140194...
Various myths and themes persist across religions, history and geography.
American Caesar - http://www.amazon.com/American-Caesar-Douglas-MacArthur-1880...
Biography of MacArthur. Interesting for its disclosure of relationships between politics, the media and the military in the absence of real time communication. Also, watch the death of Victorian values during the 20th century.
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