We are excited to have our first open lecture for the Pacifica Post be Dr. Christine Downing's lecture from her class Greek and Mythology I in Pacifica's M.A./Ph.D. Mythological Studies program. Click the play button arrow below to listen to the full lecture.

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A guest post by Fujio Mandeville

There are many ways to think of and experience violence: we can consider it as war, brutal acts upon our person; as passive forms of violence that is expressed as oppression, impoverishment, or the marginalization of those in a particular class, gender or ethnicity; or as disturbances within our personal and collective psyche. Regardless how we view this phenomenon, we cannot ignore it nor can we resist it. Violence, whatever its form, is complex and mythic -- deeply embedded within our psyche.

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A guest post by Evans Lansing Smith

In the summer of 1988, after returning home from my first teaching job, at a small college in Switzerland, I saw segments of the PBS series, “The Power of Myth,” in which Joseph Campbell told Bill Moyers about his days as a student in France during the 1920’s. With characteristic zeal, Campbell recalled his daily visits to the Cathedral of Chartres, during which he identified every single figure in its Biblical pantheon, whether stained in radiant glass or carved in immemorial stone. He became such a familiar figure that one day the sexton entrusted him with an extraordinary task.

“Would you like,” said the sexton, “to come up with me into the belfry to ring the noontide bells?”

Who could say no?

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