I agree with your assessment of the various antipathies toward the searcher and the search. I also will have to be more open-minded to the possibility that my assessments are subject to similar weaknesses within myself.

yeah, always try to be more open-minded (sometimes it is scary because as this girl asked me today, how do you know if you are not letting in the wrong ideas when you have your mind opened). the reward is that one day you will gain the whole world. hmmm, now i sound like, ..... hmm, you are more learned so you tell me.

Back to Joseph Campbell for a minute. He is a Jungian with a vengeance, isn't he? I had forgotten that much of my distaste was based on New Age appropriation of him. Mea culpa! I will reread Hero..having banished my historical prejudices. Re-education.

Is Hero w/ 1000 Faces a better book than Myths to Live By? Someone highly recommended the Myths book to me a couple of years ago but it wasn't the right time for me to read it. I guess one also need to meet books at the right time and the right mind to appreciate them, just like people. Why did Campbell write so many books? Sometimes I feel one only needs to write one book on one subject if one knows what he wants to say, unless one is a artist. What is a Jungian? Who's Jung and what does he know, or claims to know?

I used to think Taoism is for old people who want to be "detached" and peaceful, but now I think it is actually poetry of the eternal wisdom.

-- email conversation with JA.