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This book, as the title indicates, is devoted to the mythic image, as distinct from the problem of mythmaking. It is an impressive volume, of coffee-table dimensions, elegant in format and lavishly illustrated. The accompanying text is related to the illustrations and offers detailed, erudite interpretations of the images depicted, with careful reference to both ancient and recent sources. It is a book to be enjoyed both for its visual stimulation and its scholarly account of the mythologies of the world.
The book covers mythic imagery in many areas: the East and the West; nonliterate and literate cultures; Judaic, Christian, Islamic, and Buddhist religions. The themes include the origins of the earth and humanity; birth, death, and resurrection; the dream; sacrifice; unity with God and release from self.
There are few references to psychoanalysis, and these are mainly quotations from Jung's writings. The author mentions Rank and limits his reference to Freud to a quote from Jung, who says: "… anyone who penetrates into the unconscious with purely biological assumptions will become stuck in the instinctual sphere and be unable to advance beyond it, for he will be pulled back again and again into physical existence. It is therefore not possible for Freudian theory to reach anything except an essentially negative valuation of the unconscious. It is 'nothing but'" (p. 410).
To learn Campbell's thoughts on the nature of myth and mythmaking one must turn to his earlier writings. In these, especially in The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Campbell gives a detailed account of Freud's contribution to the understanding of human psychic development and the similarities of infantile fantasies and the myths of all cultures, but he denigrates the significance of this contribution in language that is more expressive than precise. For example, in this earlier work he accepts the concept that the "universal images" of myths "are developed largely from such