We are delighted to be able to bring you a new, digital edition of The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension, one of Joseph Campbell’s most eclectic, thought-provoking books.

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There are lots of ways to teach a subject. Campbell’s mind tended toward the expansive; he is best known for books and lectures that opened the reader or listener’s mind outward, making connections between seemingly disparate subjects and disciplines and drawing them together to lay out a map of what he liked to call “the one true story” of humankind. Samuel Coleridge famously refered to William Shakespeare as “myriad-minded”; the term could just as easily be applied to Joseph Campbell.In the six essays that Campbell pulled together for this collection in 1969 (the year after he completed his magnum opus of comparative mythology, The Masks of God), he seems to go in the opposite direction. Each essay is a focussed dive deep into a particular question. “The Fairy Tale,” written as a foreword for a collection of the Grimms’ folk stories, looks at what distinguishes folklore from mythology. “Bios and Mythos” explores the biological origins of myth. “Primitive Man as Metaphyisician” details how even the least “civilized” cultures produce mythologies of extraordinary symbolic and metaphysical sophistication. “Mythogenisis” tracks the historical development a particular Sioux legend. “The Symbol without Meaning” looks at the development — from pre-history to its twentieth-century perversion — of one of humanity’s most ancient, widespread symbols, the swastika. And “The Secularization of the Sacred” explores our current challenge, living in a culture awash in myths, but with none that speak to us as a living mythology is meant to.Yet each of these deep dives finds universal gold at the bottom, like the princess’s ball at the bottom of the well in “The Frog Prince.”Campbell intended that his writing spark thought and discussion. To comment or discuss this book locally, we encourage you to find one of our local Mythological RoundTable® groups, meeting regularly in small towns and big cities around the globe. To discuss mythology, psychology, religion, art, and just about everything else under the sun (or over it) with readers from around the world, visit our Facebook page.

The Flight of the Wild Gander marks the first title we’re releasing as part of a special arrangment with Amazon; for the first year, this ebook will be available solely on JCF.org and on your local Amazon site as part of the KindleUnlimited® program. However, the paperback and audiobook editions will be available wherever you prefer!