 The "wild gander" of the title is a reference to the Hindu concept of the paramahamsa, a great spiritual teacher of exalted illumination, able to transcend the mundane, just as the "hamsa" is able to fly above the sky-scraping Himalayas.Published originally in 1969 by Viking Press, the book was rereleased by Harper and Row in 1990.The third edition was published by New World Library in 2002, making "The Flight of the Wild Gander" the third title in the Joseph Campbell Foundation's Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series.