About Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)
American professor, writer, scholar and orator in the fields of mythology and comparative religion. He passionately studied myth and its similar, seemingly cohesive threads among all human cultures, ie that all myths originate from a common source - the communal past of the human race. He believed all the religions of the world, all the rituals and deities, to be “masks” of the same transcendent truth which is “unknowable.” He often quoted a Vedic Scripture saying, "Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names".
He is author of several books, including:
. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1948)
. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (1995)
. Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation (2004)
. The Power of Myth (1991)
Campbell encouraged others to read all the myths of the ages and peoples as he did -
"Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message."