Editing Joseph Campbell (section)

===''Historical Atlas of World Mythology''===
{{Main|Historical Atlas of World Mythology}}
At the time of his death, Campbell was in the midst of working on a large-format, lavishly illustrated series titled ''Historical Atlas of World Mythology''. This series was to build on Campbell's idea, first presented in ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'', that myth evolves over time through four stages:

* ''The Way of the Animal Powers''{{snd}}the myths of [[Paleolithic]] hunter-gatherers which focus on shamanism and animal totems.
* ''The Way of the Seeded Earth''{{snd}}the myths of [[Neolithic]], agrarian cultures which focus upon a mother goddess and associated fertility rites.
* ''The Way of the Celestial Lights''{{snd}}the myths of [[Bronze Age]] city-states with pantheons of gods ruling from the heavens, led by a masculine god-king.
* ''The Way of Man''{{snd}}religion and philosophy as it developed after the [[Axial Age]] (c. 6th century BCE), in which the mythic imagery of previous eras was made consciously metaphorical, reinterpreted as referring to psycho-spiritual, not literal-historical, matters. This transition is evident in the East in [[Buddhism]], [[Vedanta]], and philosophical [[Taoism]]; and in the West in the [[Mystery cult]]s, [[Platonism]], Christianity and [[Gnosticism]].

Only the first volume was completed at the time of Campbell's death. Campbell's editor Robert Walter completed the publication of the first three of five parts of the second volume after Campbell's death. The works are now out of print. {{as of|2014}}, Joseph Campbell Foundation is currently undertaking to create a new, ebook edition.<ref>[http://jcf.org/atlas Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Digital Edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423145207/http://jcf.org/atlas/ |date=April 23, 2016 }}, as viewed on Joseph Campbell Foundation website, July 9, 2014.</ref>