Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine [Hardcover]

Joseph Campbell brought mythology to a mass audience. His bestselling books, includingThe Power of MythandThe Hero with a Thousand Faces, are the rare blockbusters that are also scholarly classics.

While Campbell’s work reached wide and deep as he covered the world’s great mythological traditions, he never wrote a book on goddesses in world mythology. He did, however, have much to say on the subject. Between 1972 and 1986 he gave over twenty lectures and workshops on goddesses, exploring the figures, functions, symbols, and themes of the feminine divine, following them through their transformations across cultures and epochs.

In this provocative volume, editor Safron Rossi—a goddess studies scholar, professor of mythology, and curator of collections at Opus Archives, which holds the Joseph Campbell archival manuscript collection and personal library—collects these lectures for the first time. In them, Campbell traces the evolution of the feminine divine from one Great Goddess to many, from Neolithic Old Europe to the Renaissance. He sheds new light on classical motifs and reveals how the feminine divine symbolizes the archetypal energies of transformation, initiation, and inspiration.CAJoseph Campbell(1904–1987) is widely credited with bringing mythology to a mass audience. His works, including the four-volumeThe Masks of GodandThe Power of Myth(with Bill Moyers), rank among the classics in mythology and literature.Praise for Joseph Campbell:

“No one in our century—not Freud, not Thomas Mann, not Lévi-Strauss—has so brought the mythical sense of the world and its eternal figures back into our everyday consciousness.”
—James Hillman

“Campbell has become the rarest of intellectuals in American life: a serious thinker who has been embraced by the popular culture.”
—Newsweek
1. Intro — Them