A review by ovenbird_reads
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion by Joseph Campbell

4.0

Joseph Campbell is extraordinary. This particular work was pretty complex, and I skipped the last chapter on art, but the parts about the principle of Kundalini from yoga and the reinterpretation of some elements of the bible were fascinating. You're never going to look at the serpent in the garden of Eden the same way again. I was absolutely amazed by the comparative study of world religions presented here. Campbell shows that most religions, even when geographically isolated and separated by hundreds and thousands of years, contain eerily similar elements--specifically the idea of Kundalini that is reiterated in truly diverse cultural and social contexts as an aspect of spirituality. The result is a mind bending argument that suggests a universal experience of human spirituality that has worked its way into multiple systems of spiritual thought. The specifics vary culturally but the core idea remains too similar to be discounted as pure coincidence.