In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell seeks the one universal hero he believes is both concealed and revealed in a multiplicity of cultural forms. In the Masks of God, the object of his search shifts to the one god; and the masks come to represent all the world’s mythologies. What remains when all the masks are lifted? What lies beyond the field of stories?

More than an academic theorist of myth, Campbell was a philosopher and, some say, a mystic. Above all, he sought truth with a big “T”; and he announced his quest in the first pages of his first book: “Truth is one,” he writes in Hero, “the sages speak of it by many names.”

According to Campbell, mythology is the closest we come to putting Truth into words, thus, the sages spoke in mythological language. Ultimately, Campbell felt that a great secret is occulted in myths. And this secret is completely discoverable once we learn to read myths properly.

In this course, we will explore the world's mythological record through Campbell’s eyes as we follow the threads of his work that elucidate his method, his philosophy, and the secret immutable truth he discovered. We will understand Campbell in the context of an intellectual era that became aware of the feminine godhead, advanced Jungian and transpersonal psychologies, and generated the Psychedelic Renaissance and the New Age. Each session is devoted to one or more books emphasizing their prominent mythological themes and Campbell’s philosophical conclusions.