Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension: Select Essays, 1944-1968
by Joseph Campbell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph CampbellEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-05-16
ISBN: 1577312104
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: New World Library
Book Reviews of Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension: Select Essays, 1944-1968
Book Review: Many insights and many quotable sections.
Summary: 5 Stars
I found the first three essays rather challenging to read. The author draws parallels between the outpouring of the subconscious(dreams), especially in reference to the theories of Freud and Jung, and the development of myth. Those who probe the psyche can see similarities in people everywhere that go beyond culture. Like dreams, myths are "enigmatic to the uninitiated ego" and "protective of that ego".They are borne of visionaries, poets, dreamers, artists, shamans, "the tender minded" who refer to symbols but are not fixed on symbols like the "tough minded." Human beings have a gestation period in which myths are vital for passing through initiations and travails, especially for facing life and death; and in the end the goal, at least where the absolute authority of a doctrine can be eclipsed, is to be released from myth.
The last three essays are more concerned with the broad sweep of mythic themes and meanings, as in the study of comparative mythology. It helps to have read a good portion of THE MASKS OF GOD in order to get background for a better understanding. As in the first part of the book, the author still dwells on the abstract and esoteric, as in the use of Jung's differentiation between sign and symbol; but here, there is more of that broad comparison that involves the Orient and the Occident, the primitive and the modern; that gives a fascinating perspective into the basis of the major religions, that explains something of what Jung meant when he said that "religion is a defense against a religious experience."
For a very long time, humankind lived as hunters and food-gatherers, independent in the sense that each person could master all the technology known and could act as a self-sustaining unit. Only in the last ten thousand years or so, since the advance of agriculture, have humans organized into a division of labor and lifetime pursuits. This recent trend toward organization resulted in a cosmology, as seen in the hieratic (priestly) city state, built on the basis of astronomical order applied to all of creation; and this emphasis on order spread to other parts of the world and can be seen in the geometrical designs of "mandalas, icons and yantras." The ancient shamanistic practices that are individualistic no longer had a place in this world. But the cosmology of old, conceived well before anyone had seriously contended that the earth is round or that the earth revolves around the sun, has been shown by modern science to be deficient; and therefore, there has been every reason to question religions that insist upon belief in outdated conceptions. The spirit of the shaman, then, has returned - the flight of the individual as symbolized by a bird or wild gander. And, the author notes this symbol of flight is also applicable to certain ascetic traditions, especially those that have been derived from India.
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