Part 2: Chapter 2, Sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 Summary and Analysis

"The Virgin Birth - Mother Universe" Campbell opens this section of his analysis with the statement that "The world-generating spirit of the father passes into the manifold of earthly experience through a transforming medium - the mother of the world." In other words, the male-generated life impulse (semen) of the father is given form by the female-generated life nurturing qualities (the womb) of the mother. "She is virgin," Campbell writes, "because her spouse is the Invisible Unknown [the Unmoved Mover, the Great Mystery, etc.]" He quotes at length from the opening books of the Kalevala, a Finnish collection of myths, in which the great mother (the sea) gives birth to all things, including the god-hero Vainamoinen.

"Matrix of Destiny" Campbell here describes this maternal figure as "the universal goddess" and suggests that in many mythologies...