The Inner Reaches of Outer Space by Joseph Campbell

Originally published in 1986, this is the last work of Joseph Campbell published in his lifetime.  It consists of three essays.

In the first essay, Campbell examines human history to date.  He finds that humans are very concerned with nourishing themselves, reproducing themselves and acquiring and accumulating power and territory.  As for compassion, he finds that this is something extended only to people in the in-group, whether it be village or nation.  Campbell points out that we live in the space age but our myths are still those of the bronze age, still myths of in-groups. A space age mythology, he feels, must be one that involves universal compassion.  Our planet is too small now for in-groups.

In the second essay, Campbell looks at what myths are and how they can be applied correctly.  Myths, he thinks, are something that gets denoted by language and images of the phenomenal world but which connote something that transcends the phenomenal world and cannot be described by language or represented by images.  He calls this thing eternity.

In the final essay, "The Way of Art", Campbell compares the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, James Joyce and ancient India.  Art, he says, is something which can generate mythologies, and it can lift us out of our limited understanding of the world and put us in touch with the great mystery of existence.

The Inner Reaches of Outer Space is not as easy to read as some of Campbell's other work, but it an impressive work of thought and scholarship.  I enjoyed it greatly.

Publishing details: The Inner Reaches of Outer Space - Metaphor as Myth and as Religion by Joseph Campbell (New World Press, Novato C.a., 2002. pp.146)