Fascinating!
I have loved this series for years. What an education! Teacher, writer, wise man Joseph Campbell is interviewed by Bill Moyers (PBS) and asked all kinds of questions about myths, Gods, Goddesses, spirituality, and the religions of the world. Campbell seems to understand the threads of commonality in all religions, and explains this as only he can do. Beautiful graphics and native art are interspersed throughout the interview. I highly recommend this and the other videos of this series. I am so grateful that this man's brilliant and unmatched wisdom was recorded prior to his passing away. Bravo to Bill Moyers.

From unity springs duality
Or, if you're a Pythagorean, the monad gives birth to the dyad.

The cover illustration on the video shows what Joseph Campbell refers to as "the MASK of God". A pair of opposites springs forth from the central image.

This is a visual depiction of the movement from the sphere of unity (Eden) to the sphere of polarities and opposites (the daily New York Times).

This discussion with Moyers take place in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, unlike the other five.

Campbell discusses the difference between the gods east and west of Suez: There, the primal forces ARE considered to be God, or rather the masks of God; in other words, the immanence of God in all things, and the metaphorical nature of the depictions of divinity, are taken for granted east of Suez.

Also touched upon is the notion of "the sublime" in art. Here as always, Campbell makes his point by invoking Schopenhauer, Joyce, and the experiences of men and women who have been exposed to "tremendous space or tremendous power". Moyers elegantly returns this volley by relating an interview he once had with a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. Being told of the tremendous power and might of the seemingly unstoppable German advance, Moyers had asked him:

-What was it like?

- It was sublime.

The conversation begins to take on elements of Wlliam Blake as Campbell points out that there must be pain and suffering for there to be a world at all, and hence there must be "devils" and "angels", creators and sustainers. And, as always, God is impersonal and no respecter of personalities.

Very fascinating is the discussion of "trickster gods" who, while nevertheless "God", are not sombre presences which intimidate, but rather laughable characters which allow our emotional machinery the freedom to perceive *beyond the mask* to the transcendent reality - "God" - being referenced. It is a central tenet of Campbell's that religions are metaphorical, and to "get stuck to your metaphor", to interpret the DEnotation rather than the CONnotation of such traditions, as our entire Christian world has done for two millennia, invites the chaos we see in the Middle East, where the three great western religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, because they have three different names for the same God, cannot get along with each other.