Eastern Mythologies and Religions extend over enormous spans of time and a human life is but a blink of an eye in such a context. Campbell claims that the Western focus on individual freedom and responsibility is a repugnant idea to the Eastern mind. Hindu women immolating themselves because of rigidly defined roles allocated to them by a closed society for the Western mind is equally repugnant and it was the discipline of Philosophy that provided us with the first systematic arguments against miracle and superstitious behaviour

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The Decline of the West is the theme for this essay and Campbell refers to a loss of form which was present in Athens but not in the larger social entities such as Rome, New York, London, and Paris. Freuds myth of the "Band of Brothers" is part of his conjectural history of the evolution of the civilising process and points to the taboo/law of equality. 1914 is the year Campbell believes the process of decline began but there is evidence that the process of decline began much earlier. Universities and their ceremonial rituals are not considered by Campbell.

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Delphic Podcast

The discipline of Psychology is "trans-scientific" which might account for the "conceptual confusion" in the subject that Wittgenstein pointed to. In 1870 research in accordance with the definition "The Science of Consciousness" followed a reductionist program that truncated the broader concerns of Psychology. Sensations, feelings and behaviour replaced wider concerns for the idea of Psuché (forms of life)

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Delphic Podcast