Margaret Atwood’s 1972 novel, Surfacing qualifies as a myth or ‘mythos’.

Analytical psychologist and writer James Hillman explains in Healing Fiction that “…a mythos …is the tale of the interaction of humans and the divine. To be in a mythos is to be inescapably linked with divine powers, and moreover, to be in mimesis with them”. For the last 40 pages of this short and powerful book, the narrator surrenders her sanity, her faculties, and her civilized persona at the urging of invisible voices. This ‘myth’ is a powerful depiction of a modern white woman entering a state in which she appears to be instructed by nature spirits. It is a portrait of a woman dipping into what some may call ‘madness’. She is aware that on an unconscious level, she iswanting this experience. She states, “I willed it, I called to them … that they should arrive is logical”(p184).

The forces that seem to be guiding her could be called daimons, and a sign of being able to hear them and follow their advice, is a sign of personal development. “Know thyself in Jung’s manner means to become familiar with, to open oneself to and listen to …daimons” (Hillman, p.55).