“Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people's religion. And religion may, in a sense, be understood as popular misunderstanding of mythology. (8)”
Source: Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
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Joseph Campbell 140
American mythologist, writer and lecturer 1904–1987Related quotes
Epilogue, p. 1208
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978)
“One may as well preach a respectable mythology as anything else.”
Robert Elsmere, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Superman is nothing more than a popular retelling of the Christ story, or Greek mythology.”
Caught in the Act : New York Actors Face to Face (1986) by Don Shewey and Susan Shacter, p. 18
Context: Superman is nothing more than a popular retelling of the Christ story, or Greek mythology. It's an archetype, watered down and made in vivid colors for twelve-year-old's mentality. It's pop mythology, which extends to the actor, then seeps over to a demand that that actor reflect the needs of the worshipers. The worship doesn't only go on in the temples — it goes on in the streets, and restaurants, in magazines. But, you know, I'm from New Jersey, I'm not from Olympus or Krypton, so back off 'cause I can't take the responsibility.
“[…] Tradition is not a childish and outmoded mythology but a science that is terribly real.”
"A Conversation With Roger Zelazny" (8 April 1978), talking with Terry Dowling and Keith Curtis in Science Fiction Vol. 1, #2 (June 1978) http://web.archive.org/web/20070701010155/zelazny.corrupt.net/19780408int.html#2
Context: Yeah, the mythology is kind of a pattern. I'm very taken by mythology. I read it at a very early age and kept on reading it. Before I discovered science fiction I was reading mythology. And from that I got interested in comparative religion and folklore and related subjects. And when I began writing, it was just a fertile area I could use in my stories.
I was saying at the convention in Melbourne that after a time I got typed as a writer of mythological science fiction, and at a convention I'd go to I'd invariably wind up on a panel with the title "Mythology and Science Fiction". I felt a little badly about this, I was getting considered as exclusively that sort of writer. So I intentionally tried to break away from it with things like Doorways in the Sand and those detective stories which came out in the book My Name Is Legion, and other things where I tried to keep the science more central.
But I do find the mythological things are creeping in. I worked out a book which I thought was just straight science fiction -- with everything pretty much explained, and suddenly I got an idea which I thought was kind of neat for working in a mythological angle. I'm really struggling with myself. It would probably be a better book if I include it, but on the other hand I don't always like to keep reverting to it. I think what I'm going to do is vary my output, do some straight science fiction and some straight fantasy that doesn't involve mythology, and composites.
Source: In Defence Of Politics (Second Edition) – 1981, Chapter 5, A Defence Of Politics Against Technology, p. 102.