Campbell's scholarship

From: Julian Lord <julian.lord_at_wanadoo.fr>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 23:05:49 +0200


Peter :

> >Sure Bliss in Ignorance may use native American
> >parallels (though my copy of Campbell says that they
> >are just variations on the sacrificial kingship
> >theme).
>
> I begin to see why John Hughes dislikes Campbell's
> scholarship. It would be far more accurate to
> describe sacrificial kingship as a variation of
> human sacrifice theme.

Campbell does indeed say so (somewhere in his oeuvre).

Campbell's problem is that he boils everything down to catholic dogma, and IIRC he even toys with the idea that human sacrifice (while evil and sinful) was a kind of ignorant pagan version of the eucharist. Somewhat reductionist in other words.

Julian Lord


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