How we cite our quotes: (Page.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When we turn now, with this image in mind, to consider the numerous strange rituals that have been reported from the primitive tribes and great civilizations of the past, it becomes apparent that the purpose and actual effect of these was to conduct people across those difficult thresholds of transformation that demand a change in the patterns not only of conscious but also of unconscious life. (8.3)
This is the big enchilada, as far as Campbell is concerned. He claims that ancient customs were designed to do the same thing that modern customs do: connect us to something larger and maybe help expand our minds beyond our immediate surroundings in the process.
Quote #2
Most amazing is the fact that a great number of the ritual trials and images correspond to those that appear automatically in dream the moment the psychoanalyzed patient begins to abandon his infantile fixations and to progress into the future. (10.1)
Things are the same in some ways no matter what era we live in. The minute we tap into our subconscious – and whatever lies beyond that – the trappings of our 21st century life dissolve and we're on the same level as tribesmen in caves 3,000 years ago.
Quote #3
It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back. (9.2)
It's kind of ironic: we go backwards into earlier traditions in order to attain the wisdom and insight to move forward as a people… yet the more we move forward, the more distance we put between us and those traditions that helped us get here.
Quote #4
There can be no question: 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. (76.4)
The rational is the enemy of the spiritual, and while rationality has help us out (polio vaccine, super nice), we can't let it cut us off from the bigger things that life is supposed to be about.
Quote #5
Totem, tribal, racial, and aggressively missionizing cults represent only partial solutions of the psychological problem of subduing hate by love; they only partially initiate. Ego is not annihilated in them; rather, it is enlarged; instead of thinking only of himself, the individual becomes dedicated to the whole of his society. (144.1)
This is the importance of traditions, not to make us conform to something we're not, but to expand our way of thinking to help out other people… and to feel the ways that we're connected to them.
Quote #6
The outlines of myths and tales are subject to damage and obscuration. Archaic traits are generally eliminated or subdued. Imported materials are revised to fit local landscape, custom, or belief, and always suffer in the process. (228.2)
This is one of the reasons why, say, the story of Perseus and the Medusa may not hold an excessive amount of interest for us, but OMG did you see how awesome that last Captain America movie was?
By applying older concepts to our modern life, we see the relevance of those concepts, not as something from thousands of years ago, but as something that's with us here and now, every day.
Quote #7
In the later stages of many mythologies, the key images hide like needles in great haystacks of secondary anecdote and rationalization; for when a civilization has passed from a mythological to a secular point of view, the older images are no longer felt or quite approved. (230.1)
Again, the more we think about practical matters, the less connected we are to the big mysteries we should be contemplating. Those old traditions feel fussy and outdated. We need new ones… but they need to serve the same purpose as the older ones.
Quote #8
The simplicity of the origin stories of the undeveloped folk mythologies stands in contrast to the profoundly suggestive myths of the cosmogonic cycle. (268.2)
Everything in Campbell is a balance between opposites, and both sides need attention to maintain the balance. Here, he's talking about how simple older myths were—the straightforward "once upon a time" stories can usually be summed up in a few short minutes.
Quote #9
The heroes become less and less fabulous, until at last, in the final stages of the various local traditions, legend opens into the common daylight of recorded time. (291.1)
Heroes need to be larger than life in some ways. They have to be godlike and engage in wild adventures that we can never expect in our normal lives. That's a sliding scale – Jason Bourne is as much a Campbellian hero as Mr. Spock – but the addition of the fantastic is also a way of connecting us to realms of thought beyond our mundane world.
Quote #10
There is no final system for the interpretation of myths, and there will never be any such thing. (353.1)
Everything is a cycle, and when the cycle renews, it's never quite the same as it was before. Traditions change to meet new needs, and each generation figures out its own way of expressing itself. That's why there won't be any final word, and why the thread of traditions and customs links us to the past but doesn't bind us to it. It's how we move forward without forgetting what's behind. Pretty nifty trick, Joe.