DeMythologizing Religion with Joseph Campbell

a theological essay by Sheila T. Harty

During my freshman year in college, I was fortunate to take classes in Ancient History and Latin
from Dr. Albert Gessman, a multilinguist who wrote, spoke, or read 23 languages.
What he shared about the origins, connections, and underlying meanings of things was so intriguing.
His teaching prepared me well for my later theological studies.
On reading Joseph Campbells 4-volume The Masks of God, I recognized myths in the history of
religion that Dr. Gessman introduced decades ago
myths of creation, heroes, virgins, siblings, and serpents.

n completing The Masks of God, 1 Joseph Campbell wrote that this 12-year enterprise
confirmed for him: the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual
history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony. 2

The cultural history of mankind can be

studied as a unit, because themes like fire-theft,
flood, virgin birth, resurrected hero, sibling
murder, forbidden fruit, and tree of life have
worldwide distribution. No human society has yet
been found without such myths. Humanity
apparently cannot maintain itself in the universe
without belief in some arrangement of this general
mythic inheritance. 3 Explaining this universality,
Joseph Campbell cites four functions of myth:
1.
2.
3.
4.

to reconcile one to the mystery of the universe;

to render a cosmology for interpreting it;
to reinforce a moral order; and
to unveil the psyche.

Despite which function the myth serves, all myths

emerge within cultures in two ways:

As Art, myth reflects a spirit of fantasy and play to instruct as well as entertain. Greek myths
emerged as Art with classical heroes Hercules, Theseus, and Perseus studied as literature; and

As Religion, myth poses as factual or revealed truth to confer spiritual authority. Judeo-Christian
myths emerged as Religion with Hebrew patriarchs Noah, Moses, and Abraham studied as history.

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, vol. 1; Oriental Mythology, vol. 2; Occidental Mythology, vol. 3;
Creative Mythology, vol. 4 (New York NY: Viking, 1964).
2
Ibid., Introduction to each volume.
3
James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore (New York NY: Avenel Books, 1981); Jessie Weston,
From Ritual to Romance (Cambridge UK: University Press, 1920); F.R.B. Godolphin, Great Classical Myths (New York NY:
Random House, 1964); Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton NJ: University Press, 1973); Carl G.
Jung, Symbols of Transformation, translated by R.F.C. Hull (New York NY: Pantheon, 1956); Robert Graves, The Greek
Myths (New York NY: Penguin, 1955); and Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, translated by
Willard R. Trask (New York NY: Harper & Row, 1959).

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SCIENCE UNVEILS THE MYTHS

he unveiling of myth began in modern times through early 19th century scholarship in archeology,
anthropology, philology, and psychology. This scientific unveiling was particularly disruptive to
religions that had inherited their myths as revealed truths. Most of Genesis in the Hebrew
scriptures could no longer be accepted as literally true. Such demythologizing shook the Jewish and
Christian claim to divine authority.

Archeology

he Rosetta Stone was discovered 4 as the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, which revealed a civilized
religious literature 2,000 years earlier than the Greek or Hebrew. Two decades later, excavations of the
ancient cities of Ninevah and Babylon unearthed 5 the treasures of the Mesopotamia civilization. Further
excavations of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man and the civilizations of Troy, Mycenae, and Crete
produced a growing consensus on the universality of basic mythological themes. Archeological discoveries
revealed that the two Iron-Age Eastern Mediterranean traditionsGreek and Hebrewhad common elements
derived from the preceding Bronze-Age civilization of Mesopotamia but with very different approaches.

Philology

he first surprising revelation 6 in the study of written records was that Sanskrit and Latin were
remarkably alike. A comparative study of the grammatical structures of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit,
Persian, and German determined 7 that they all had a common source. Closely related but broadly
scattered tongues distributed over the majority of the civilized world were now considered 8 IndoEuropean languages. Europe was elated and the Grimm brothers 9 went to work collecting fairy tales. The
similarity of myth was revealed in languages and literary forms from Ireland to India. This discovery of
ethnic continuity united Greek Humanism with German Paganism with Indian Upanishads and Buddhist
Sutras and Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Anthropology

esearch revealed that the earliest Indo-European tribes, centered around the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, were already a mix of races. The myths thought to be an Indo-European invention were
actually derived from much earlier and more highly developed cultures of ancient Egypt, Crete, and
Mesopotamia. The divine source of the higher religions was now recognized as universal mythology not
peculiar to any single tradition but common to the religious lore of mankind. Boundaries dissolved that
had previously distinguished orthodox from gentile or high church from primitive. Once the underlying
mythology of all religions was recognized, another query presented itself. Whether such myths as virgin
birth, heros death and resurrection, creation out of nothing, etc., should be dismissed as primitive
superstition or interpreted as transcendent symbols representing values beyond rationality.

Jean Franois Champollion (1821).

Sir Austen Henry Layard (1845-1850).
6
Father Coeurdoux, a French Jesuit in India (1767).
7
Franz Bopp (1791-1867).
8
Sir William Jones (1746-1794).
9
Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859).
5

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Psychology
wareness about the unconscious had to await the 20th century for application to ethnology, initiated
specifically by Carl G. Jung. 10 Earlier psychologists 11 had prepared the way with work by
Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche as well as Goethe, Ibsen, and Wagner. Hypotheses about the
unconscious could now be applied to the fields of religion, mythology, history, folklore, literature, and the
arts. Scholars of psychology asked whether these universal myths were spontaneous products of the
psyche or inventions of particular times and persons that either appeared independently around the
world 12 or spread by migration and commerce. 13

THE SACRED WORD

he results of modern scholarship in archeology, anthropology, philology, and psychology changed

how the worlds great religions were perceived. Sacred scriptures could no longer be relied upon
for an understanding of God; rather, scriptures more truly provided an understanding of the
believers themselves.

The People of the Book (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) preserved their theology in words guarded
with religious authority as real. Greek theology was not pronounced d by priests and prophets but
described by poets and philosophers whose tales of the gods were meant to reflect beyond reality. 14 The
difference is immense.
Sacred scriptures may give an appearance of history, but they reflect myths or poetry from a vested
point of view. 15 Thus, we understand religions by demythologizing their scripture, not by accepting their
revealed truths.
For example, scholarly analysis of the Hebrew scriptures reveals five separate source materials and
points of view, ranging from the 9th century to the 4th century BCE. 16 To demythologize these interwoven
texts, scholars separate the earlier from the later sources as well as rework the earlier by the later, then
compare languages, symbols, and images with other and earlier textual material, both within and beyond
that culture. In this process of deconstructing language via culture, scholars distinguish myth from
history. 17

ORIGINS BEYOND MEMORY

ets start with creation. The world is full of creation myths and, as Joseph Campbell said, all of
them are falsefactually! In what way they are false depends on how old the myths are.

10

1. The oldest ones have the world born of a goddess on her own.
2. The next older ones have the world born of a goddess with a male consort.
3. The newer ones have the world fashioned from the body of a goddess by a male warrior.

Carl G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious. translated by Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle (New York NY: Moffatt, 1916).
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) and Jean Martin Charcot (1825-1893).
12
The theory of parallel development.
13
The theory of diffusion.
14
F.M. Cornford, Greek Religious Thought from Homer to the Age of Alexander (New York NY: Dutton, 1923).
15
William Foxwell Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (New York NY:
Doubleday, 1957).
16
Bernard W. Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966). Also, Robert H. Pfeiffer, The
Books of the Old Testament (New York NY: Harper & Row, 1965).
17
Elmer W.K. Mould, H.Neil Richardson & Robert F. Berkey, Essentials of Bible History (New York NY: Ronald Press Co., 1966).
11

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4. The newest ones have the world created by the unaided power of a male god alone.

Early Sumerian Creation Myths

he Sumerian goddess Nammu pf 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, 18 whose name is written with the
pictograph for primeval sea, was the mother by herself of both Heaven and Earth, which were
pictured in the singular form of a cosmic mountain. Yet, significantly, this primordial form had a dual
nature: the base, which was female, was Earth; the summit, which was male, was Heaven. Then, Heaven
begot the Air, which separated Heaven and Earth, tearing them apart. We see this splitting of One-intoTwo in many mythic variations.
In Sumeria, Nammu and her pantheon of gods lived in their heaven, tilling their crops of grain. Much
later when the crops failed, Nammu asked one of her sons to help the other gods.
My son! Arise from thy couch and bring to pass some great work of wisdom.
Fashion servants for the gods who will assume their tasks.
At his mothers bidding, he reached for a handful of clay from the bottom of the earth and, with the
help of the earth-mother and several goddesses, shaped it as a newborn in the image of the gods and
called it man. The other gods gave praise for this wonderful invention of a race of humans that would
serve the gods by tending their fields of grain.
Several Sumerian seals of the 2nd millennium BCE depict a sanctuary with all the familiar symbols of
the Garden of Eden: the tree, the fruitful bounty, the serpent, one figure with fruit in hand extended
toward another, the eternal sun, and the living waters. In this early Sumerian representation, however,
both figures are female.

Babylonian Creation Myths

he Babylonian primordial, world-creating sacrificial figure of 4,000 to 3,000 years ago 19 was a
monstrous female, goddess of the world abyss, Tiamat. 20 From the library of the ancient Assyrian
king, Ashurbanipal, we see the splitting myth of One-into-Two in the only extant Babylonian document.
The young and newly risen sun-god Marduk uses the body of his great great great grandmother Tiamat:
Marduk split the body of Tiamat like a shellfish into two halves and set one as a
heavenly roof...and assigned guards to watch that her waters above not escape.
Compare this with Genesis 1:7,
And so it was, God made the vault and it divided the waters above the vault from
the waters under the vault.
In each of these creation myths, we see the splitting of the One-into-Two. The Babylonian myth
appropriates the earlier Sumerian myth in which the god Marduk has taken over the role and function of
the goddess Nammu. As we shall see, the Hebrew myth changed what was appropriated even more.

18

3,300 to 2,000 BCE.

1,700 to 700 BCE.
20
Stephen Herbert Langdon, Semitic Mythology: The Mythology of All Races (Boston MA: Marshall Jones Company, 1931).
19

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Greek Creation Myths

efore the familiar Greek gods came into being 3,000 to 2,000 years ago, 21 Chaos reigned and her
child was Night and another child was Erebus, the unfathomable depth where death dwells. Love
was born from darkness and death. Love then created Light and its companion, Day. The Greek poet
Hesiod gave us the creation of Earth:
Earth, the beautiful, rose up broad-bosomed, she that is the steadfast base of all
things. And fair Earth first bore the starry Heaven, equal to herself...
This early Greek creation myth is older, since Gaia, the goddess Earth, brings forth Heaven, Uranus,
by herselfthat is, without a consort. In the Greek myth by Hesiod where Gaia and Uranus are separated
by their son Kronos, 22 we see again the splitting myth of One-into-Two. Then, conceiving through her son
Uranus, Gaia produced the race of Titans and conceived a second race of monsters through her other son,
Pontus. The Greeks retained a kind of honest promiscuity that contrasts with the unexplained Hebrew
mystery of Cain and Abels progeny.
The Greeks have more than one account of how mankind was created. 23 One version was a task
delegated by the gods to the wise Prometheus, whose name means forethought, and to his brother,
Epimetheus, whose name means afterthought and who was not so wise. Before making men,
Epimetheus gave all the best qualities to the animalsstrength, swiftness, courage, cunninguntil
nothing good was left for man. So Epimetheus asked his brother for help. Prometheus took over the task
of creation, thinking out a way to make mankind superior to the animals. He went to the sun, where he lit
a torch, and brought down fire to protect and assist mankind.
The second Greek version of creation came in stages of the races of man: the golden, the silver, the
brass, a race of heroes, and an iron race. Although these two creation stories are strikingly different, each
had one thing in common: there were no women. Woman was created later by Zeus in revenge on
Prometheus. Zeus created a great evil to give Prometheus but shaped it in the likeness of a shy maiden,
sweet and lovely to behold. All the gods gave her gifts and so called her Pandora. From her came the race
of women, who were an evil to men.

Hebrew Creation Myths

ike the Greeks, the Hebrews also had two versions of creation 3,000 to 2,000 years ago 24 Genesis
Chapter 1 and Genesis Chapter 2. Both of theseplus the creation epic of the Babyloniansderive
from a general fund of Sumerian/Semitic myth. The Biblical versions are a later stage of the patriarchal
takeover in which the female principle, represented in both the Greek and the earlier Babylonian version
as a great mother goddess, has in the Hebrew version been reduced to its elemental state, abstracted as
the deep. Linguists have remarked that the name of the Babylonian mother goddess Tiamat is related
etymologically to the Hebrew term tehom, which appears in Genesis 1:2 as the deep.
Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and Gods
spirit hovered over the water.

Genesis 1 is attributed to priestly editors late in the 4th century BCE and contains the famous seven
days of creation. The animals are created on the fifth day. On the sixth day, God created man and woman
together as Genesis 26-27 reads:

21

800 to 100 BCE.

Hesiod, Theogonia, 750 BCE.
23
Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (New York NY: New American Library, 1942).
24
900 to 400 BCE.
22

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And God said, Let us make man in our own image So God created man in his own
imagemale and female he created them.
Genesis 2, from 9th century BCE, is the older or earlier of the two creation myths. It differs in every
detail and sequence from the other account. As Genesis 2:7 reads:
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life.
Thats a variation on the Sumerian myth where Nammus son molded man from clay. Then, in Genesis
2:8, God plants a garden. We can recognize the old Sumerian garden, but Eden has two trees instead of one
tree with two fruits. Man is also created as a servant of God to tend the garden as in both the Sumerian and
the Babylonian myth. In Genesis 2:18-19, God creates the beasts of the field and fowl of the air as it is
not good for man to be alone. Adam naming the animals reminds us of Epimetheus giving qualities to the
animals. Not until Genesis 2:22 does God take a rib from Adam and create woman. Thats a variation on
the Babylonian Marduk forming man from bones and blood.
How Chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis have been accepted for centuries as a tale of sequence despite so
many contradictory elements can only be explained by faith being as blind as love. The Catholic
Jerusalem Bible at least labels Genesis 2 as a second account of creation.
When the first five books of Hebrew scripture were believed to be rendered directly from God to
Moses, the truth was understood as paradoxical. We know today that much of this material was set down
by a priest-poet in the century of Aristotle and that other material was borrowed and adapted from the
Babylonian myths of Marduk, 1500 years before, which itself borrowed from the earlier Sumerian myths.

Oriental Creation Myths

he creation myths of the Orient diverge from those of the Occident specifically in their opposite
versions of the mythic first being. The Oriental pantheistic view of creation has god as co-extensive
with the universe; the Occidental view recognizes a creator distinct from his creation. The Sumerian,
Babylonian, Greek, and Hebrew split the One-into-Two. In contrast, the Indian Upanishads has god
become the creation, so everything is still Onea manifestation of Brahma.

THE RIVALRY OF GODS

ne mythic element found in creation myths is a pantheon of ruling gods who enjoy a period of
unchallenged dominion followed with an overthrow of an older generation by a younger one or of
an earlier matriarchal culture overthrown by a later patriarchal one. In either case, the intention of
the new cosmic genealogy is to refute the claims of the earlier theology in favor of the new gods and a new
moral order. We see the victory of the Babylonian Marduk over Tiamat and the Greek Titans over their
parents. The motive of such mythic revolutions is deeper than rivalry between genders or generations. Its
a dialectic of competing truths. In the Hebrew myths, this rivalry is best perceived among between sons.

Sons

he rivalry of sons is another familiar mythic theme in the dialectic of competing truths. The original
source of the Genesis story 25 is an old planting mythology borrowed from the Canaanites. In the
Hebrew retelling, the myth exalts the Hebrews over the previous peoples of the land, who were farmers,
25

Genesis 4:1-24.

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like Cain who tended the fields; the Hebrews were shepherds, like Abel who tended the flocks. When
Cain and Abel brought their offering to Yahweh (Cain, the fruit of the field; Abel, the first of his flock),
the Hebrew deity prefers Abel, the shepherd, and Cain slays Abel out of jealousy.
An older Sumerian cuneiform text of 2050 BCE also tells the tale of an argument between a farmer
and a shepherd for the favor of a goddess; she chooses the farmer. Yahwehs preference for the shepherd
goes against tradition, because Cain is the elder son. So the story is evidence of a conceptual overthrow.
Another reversed element is that the murder of Abel by Cain does not render fecundity to the soil, such as
other agricultural mythic murders do. The Hebrew mythology of the desert turns the story on its head, i.e.,
agriculture is made to suffer. The Fall motif of sin and punishment for Adam and Eve is also repeated, as
Yahweh said to Cain:
Now be accursed and driven from the ground that has opened its mouth to receive your
brothers blood at your hands. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield you
any of its produce.

Virgins

ods always seem to be born of virgins. 26 Such parentage differentiates them from mere mortals, such
as the classical Greek myth of the death and birth of Dionysus. Demeter, the goddess of agriculture,
hid her daughter Persephone who was conceived by Zeus. In disguise as a serpent, Zeus approached his
daughter while she sat weaving and she conceived a son, Dionysusthe ever-dying, ever-living god of
bread and winewho was born in a cave, killed as a babe, then resurrected by his father Zeus.
Comparably, in the Christian myth derived from the same archaic source, Mary is conceived of the Holy
Spirit and bears a son, who was born in a manger, killed, then resurrected by his father in heaven, and
sacramentalized through bread and wine.
In the Greco-Roman myths, the victory of the patriarchal deities over the earlier matriarchal ones was
not as decisive as in the myths of Hebrew scripture. These early pre-Homeric goddesses survived in
popular Greek temple rites and womens cults. In the not-so-matriarchal post-Homeric Greece, goddesses
survived because the patriarchal gods at least married the goddesses of the land, who then succeeded in
regaining influence. The later warrior gods, Zeus and Apollo, reduced the power of the goddesses; but in
Hebrew mythology, the goddesses were exterminated altogetheralong with the benign character of the
serpent.

Serpents

hroughout the cultures of the world, myth uses the serpent to represent rebirth, because of the
serpents wonderful ability to slough its skin. In the earlier Sumerian myth, the serpent was a consort
to the earth mother goddess. In Greek myth, many maidens were given to or saved by serpents, such as
Ovids account of Andromeda. In the Hebrew myth, the signs of the old earth mother and her spouse, the
serpent, remain but the relationship changed as well as the character of these symbols. The serpent
became a tempter whom Yahweh cursed:
I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her
offspring. 27

26

Gautama Buddha was born of the virgin Maya in India 600 BCE; Horus was born of the virgin Isis in Egypt 1550 BCE; Attis was
born of the virgin Nama in Phrygia 200 BCE; Adonis was born of the virgin Ishtar in Babylon 2300 BCE; Krishna was born of
the virgin Devaki in India 1200 BCE; and Mithra, and Indra, and Zoroaster. John Shelby Spong, Born of a Woman: A Born of A
Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus (New York NY: Harper Collins, 1992), pg 56.
27
Genesis 3:15. All biblical quotations from The Jerusalem Bible (New York NY: Doubleday, 1970).

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Because the woman was beguiled by the serpent, Yahweh punished humanity with all the woes of pain
and death, echoes of the evil things that resulted from the Greek myth of Pandora.
In the earlier Sumerian myth, one tree bears two fruits: the fruit of enlightenment, and the fruit of
immortality. In a Sumerian seal, a serpent is behind a female figure who sits on the opposite side of a tree
from another female. Two fruits hang, one on each side of the tree to which they each reach. There is no
sign of divine wrath or danger in the garden. Fruit is eaten without guilt or consequence. In the Hebrew
myth, two trees exist; the woman gives the fruit of one tree to the man, which exiles them from the
Garden.
These Iron-Age Hebrews of the 1st millennium BCE adopted mythic symbols from the neolithic
Bronze-Age Sumerians of the 2nd millennium BCE, but the Hebrews inverted the mythic symbols to render
an argument the opposite of its origin. These are conceptual conquests.

MOTIVE BEHIND THE MYTHS

he archeological discoveries in Ninevah and Babylon radically changed scholars understanding about
Hebrew scriptures, specifically the five Books of Moses. 28 The earlier historical and mythological
material that had been attributed to Moses during the years wandering in the desert were actually
brought from Babylon to Jerusalem much later. They were already law books of a thoroughly orthodox
priestly tradition, which were ceremoniously established as binding for all Hebrews by the Persian emperor
Artaxerxes.
No knowledge of the Books of Moses was recorded before 621 BCE, which is 600 years after Moses
died if he ever lived. Joseph Campbell explains that the legend of Mosesat least his birthis
modeled on the earlier birth story of the Assyrian Sargon of Agade in 2350 BCE, who was also found in
the bulrushes as an infant. The Hebrew adaptation was composed in the 8th century BCE and follows the
general mythic formula for the birth of the hero. 29 That is, a noble or divine birth, then the infant is
endangered or exiled, then found and adopted by a lowly family, and ultimately returned to his true estate
with those responsible being laid low. Such legends held great appeal for biographers of kings and
prophets. As with most mythic adaptations, some elements are reversed to make a point. Here, the
Hebrew Moses is born lowly and adopted nobly.
Despite drawing on the same mythic fund, all religions have a distinct theology that unifies the myths
recorded in their sacred scriptures. The narrative of theology from Hebrew scriptures was twelve tribes
descended from Abraham and given a divine covenant to be realized in their common history. We know
this narrative is not history but served a mythic function because the inconsistencies are easily detected
against historical and archeological records.
1. The Hebrew conquest of Canaan had commenced long before the earliest plausible
date for the Exodus from Egypt.
2. The cities of Pithom and Raamses, which the enslaved Jews supposedly built, were
not constructed until one century later in the period of Ramses II.
3. The Bedouin tribes of Hebrews invading Canaan were not of one family but of many
and entered Canaan in stages and from various directions.

28
29

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Otto Rank, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero: A Psychological Interpretation of Mythology (New York NY: The Journal of
Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company, 1914).

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Viewed as an origin mythinstead of as historythe narrative reveals both the form and function of
the religions message: a great cycle of descent into the underworld and a triumphal return, i.e., the
ancient patriarchs entered Egypt and the Chosen Hebrews emerged.
In contrast to other such myths, the Hebrew myth is very different in one degree. The hero is not an
individualnot even Mosesinstead, it is the Hebrew people. The festival of the Passover
commemorates the exodus of the people. This feast occurs on the same date as the annual sacrifice and
resurrection of the Greek god Adonis, who was the consort as well as the son by virgin birth of the mother
goddess Demeter. Christianity appropriated this feast date for Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of
Jesus who was the son by virgin birth of the religions only remnant of the primordial mother goddess,
Mary. In both the Greek pagan cult and the Christian theistic cult, the resurrection is of a god; whereas in
the Hebrew cult, the redemption is of a people.
The Hebrew peoples mythic history serves a function that in other cults belongs to an incarnate god.
This fundamental difference throughout history has remained one of Judaisms distinctions among
religions of the world. Thus lies the power of myth.

\\\

Copyright, Sheila Harty, 2011

Sheila Harty is a published and award-winning writer with a BA and MA in Theology. Her major was in Catholicism, her minor in
Islam, and her thesis in scriptural Judaism. Harty employed her theology degrees in the political arena as applied ethics, working
for 20 years in Washington DC as a public interest policy advocate, including ten years with Ralph Nader. On sabbatical from Nader,
she taught Business Ethics at University College Cork, Ireland. In DC, she also worked for U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark,
former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, the World Bank, the United Nations University, the Congressional Budget Office, and
the American Assn for the Advancement of Science. She was a consultant with the Centre for Applied Studies in International
Negotiations in Geneva, the National Adult Education Assn in Dublin, and the International Organization of Consumers Unions in
The Hague. Her first book, Hucksters in the Classroom, won the 1980 George Orwell Award for Honesty & Clarity in Public
Language. She moved to St. Augustine, Florida, in 1996 to care for her aging parents, where she also works as a freelance writer
and editor. She can be reached by e-mail at s h e i l a h a r t y @ c o m c a s t . n e t . Her website is h t t p : w w w . s h e i l a - t - h a r t y . c o m