Forty days and forty nights in the wilderness: Comprehending myth in today's world

The postmodern world in which we live presents us with a different paradigm from the modern worldview of just fifty years ago. Thus, in order to comprehend and interpret myth today requires a more expansive approach inclusive of many different viewpoints or perspectives involving varied fields of inquiry combined with our personal and individual mythic experience. The new hermeneutics of myth entertains certain aspects of perception and approach as a basis and preparation for encountering myth---the eleven indicators of mythic context. These indicators help to clarify mythic intent and aid in the approach and encountering of the myth itself.; The myth of forty days and forty nights in the wilderness is the subject of this technique of mythic comprehension and interpretation. This mythic case study examines the myth in terms of its primary archetypal elements---aloneness, wilderness, place, and time---theoretically through the lenses of depth psychological, philosophical, hermeneutic, mythological, religious, scientific, and indigenous perspectives, and experientially through ritual practice. Once these mythic archetypal components are explored and understood within and as themselves, they create an essential and foundational basis upon which to present the myth as a whole.; The myth of the wilderness vigil is revealed in its organic wholeness. Within this context, the transformational process is followed through its various stages from psychological, alchemical, and dialectic perspectives, as well as from ritual experience. Myth is recognized as theoretical and ritual as practical. In conclusion, a synthesis of modern and postmodern thought and practice is arrived at through a more complete understanding of myth. The viewpoint of synthesis, transcendent and immanent in nature, points in new mythic directions, allowing us to be a living part of a world of change and transition as well as permanence. This new hermeneutic of myth is a clear expression of Jung's transcendent function. The paradigm of today's world is more fully recognized and experienced as both archetypally universal and multifaceted, differentiated archetypal expression working together within a wholeness paradoxically held together by its inherent tension of difference.