Jul 1, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min · 14 segments
In this episode of **Pathways with Joseph Campbell**, we listen to a lecture Campbell gave at the Blaisdell Institute in Claremont, California, sometime in the mid-1970s. Speaking on what he calls…
Well, with Xerox machines and tape recorders, I think anybody in my position has just given up the idea of copyright laws.
And there's a new pleasure in knowing that what you say is being scattered to the winds in all directions under all possible forms.
I'm first to thank this wonderful group for inviting me out here again.
particularly our host and my special hosts.
It's been really a refreshment of the experience I had a couple of years ago, and now I feel myself moving in a little more deeply into the sense of this Institute.
And Bill had asked me to talk to the point of what the direction might be now of the Institute.
As I get it, there are six headings of designating the areas of concern, the India and Japan and the Judeo-Christian tradition, the folk cultures, Islam and science and values.
When I read that over, I missed a couple of things that I thought very important, and one of them is the Occidental tradition.
And next, Bill had suggested that I start off with the material or the point of view indicated in that last chapter of which he's been speaking.
And so, putting all this together, and the problem of Blaisdell in Claremont in relation to an academic institution, I have composed a little series of thoughts that I hope will be useful here.
And if there not useful or sound as though they might be, please interrupt me and I'll try to adjust my course, as they do with these rockets on the way to the moon.
Just one little shot from the ground control and we can change the direction entirely.
The first point, of course, is Blaisdell and Claremont.
First, we can ask what the character of a college is.
I don't think we should judge from what colleges have been in the past ten years.
This was a disaster period for colleges.
There were hundreds and thousands of students in college simply to get out of the draft, and they knew that that's what they were there for, and were trying to denigrate the whole civilization to justify their own dropout, you might say, and they took it out on the universities.
It was, to me, a very, very unpleasant time in which to be on a campus.
Devastating not only the campus but also their colleagues' rooms, students having to lock their rooms and so forth.
I think we can sort of forget all this very heavy social accent that the colleges have been subject it to.
Properly, they're areas for communicating information to people who want the information.
A number of my colleagues have said, what students want these days are gurus.
Well, what's the difference between a guru and a teacher? It's an enormous difference.
And we aren't teachers properly, and I don't think the guru role belongs to us, and it doesn't belong to Blaisdell either.
Well, with Xerox machines and tape recorders, I think anybody in my position has just given up the idea of copyright laws.
And there's a new pleasure in knowing that what you say is being scattered to the winds in all directions under all possible forms.
I'm first to thank this wonderful group for inviting me out here again.
particularly our host and my special hosts.
It's been really a refreshment of the experience I had a couple of years ago, and now I feel myself moving in a little more deeply into the sense of this Institute.
And Bill had asked me to talk to the point of what the direction might be now of the Institute.
As I get it, there are six headings of designating the areas of concern, the India and Japan and the Judeo-Christian tradition, the folk cultures, Islam and science and values.
When I read that over, I missed a couple of things that I thought very important, and one of them is the Occidental tradition.
And next, Bill had suggested that I start off with the material or the point of view indicated in that last chapter of which he's been speaking.
And so, putting all this together, and the problem of Blaisdell in Claremont in relation to an academic institution, I have composed a little series of thoughts that I hope will be useful here.
And if there not useful or sound as though they might be, please interrupt me and I'll try to adjust my course, as they do with these rockets on the way to the moon.
Just one little shot from the ground control and we can change the direction entirely.
The first point, of course, is Blaisdell and Claremont.
First, we can ask what the character of a college is.
I don't think we should judge from what colleges have been in the past ten years.
This was a disaster period for colleges.
There were hundreds and thousands of students in college simply to get out of the draft, and they knew that that's what they were there for, and were trying to denigrate the whole civilization to justify their own dropout, you might say, and they took it out on the universities.
It was, to me, a very, very unpleasant time in which to be on a campus.
Devastating not only the campus but also their colleagues' rooms, students having to lock their rooms and so forth.
I think we can sort of forget all this very heavy social accent that the colleges have been subject it to.
Properly, they're areas for communicating information to people who want the information.
A number of my colleagues have said, what students want these days are gurus.
Well, what's the difference between a guru and a teacher? It's an enormous difference.
And we aren't teachers properly, and I don't think the guru role belongs to us, and it doesn't belong to Blaisdell either.
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3 of 6
Teacher Versus Guru Showdown
Campbell clarifies how mentorship differs across cultures
Tribal God vs. Universe
Campbell challenges monotheism's exclusive tribal origins today
Entering The Pathless Forest
Hear a medieval tale inspiring personal journeys
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