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Structureless, Life-Threatening Space 1. In all societies explicitly rooted in tradition, a division of reality into a habitual, familiar component and an unaccustomed, strange, threatening one—or the contrariety of cosmos and chaos—has doubtless provided the most elementary orientation. Beyond the familiar, reliable world begins the wilderness—another world, of ghosts, demons, the spirits of the dead, and all manner of unknown, ominous beings. The concept of chaos (Gk., ‘precipice,’ ‘abyss,’ ‘chasm’), then, has possessed telling elements of religious meaning…

The Question of Origins in Myth and Philosophy 1. A concern with the origins of the human being and the world—a concern with anthropogony and → cosmogony—is characteristic of all societies rooted in tradition. As early as the Indian Upanishads, the question is posed as to the origin of all—the ultimate, total ground, from which the multiplicity of phenomena has emerged. Interpretations of the origin of the world are found in the cosmogonic myths of all of the peoples of the earth. Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh epic can be cited as myths of origin from the Mesopotamian culture. In…