The cosmogonic image occupies a position of singular density within the depth-psychology corpus, operating simultaneously as mythological datum, psychological symbol, and ontological argument. Von Franz treats it most systematically, tracing the image across Vedic, Orphic, Gnostic, and alchemical sources to demonstrate that creation myths are not naïve cosmologies but projections of the psyche’s own originary dynamics — the individuation process in reverse, as she puts it. Eliade approaches the cosmogonic image from the phenomenology of religion, insisting that its ritual recitation is not mere commemoration but genuine reactualization: the combat of Marduk and Tiamat, the Fijian ‘creation of the world,’ the Polynesian cosmogonic recitation each re-enact the passage from chaos to cosmos and thereby regenerate both community and patient. Campbell absorbs both registers, situating the Cosmogonic Cycle as the structural frame of the hero’s journey and identifying the cosmogonic image with the plenum of silence that surrounds all mythic figuration. Jung himself engages the image obliquely but decisively: the cosmogonic Logos of Gnostic quaternities, the cosmogonic significance of consciousness as his ‘new myth,’ and the alchemical process as reversed creation all presuppose that the archetype of origin is a living psychic reality, not a cultural artifact. The central tension is whether the cosmogonic image is a projection of unconscious process onto the heavens or whether it carries an irreducible ontological claim about the self-disclosure of reality.
This ritual recitation reactualized the combat between Marduk and the marine monster Tiamat, a combat that took place aborigine and put an end to chaos by the final victory of the god.
Eliade argues that the cosmogonic image is not merely commemorated but genuinely reactualized in ritual, making the mythic event of world-creation present once again.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
The theme is the cosmogonic significance of consciousness. This is the basis for Jung’s new myth.
Edinger identifies the cosmogonic significance of human consciousness — the idea that awareness participates in creation itself — as the central axis of Jung’s new psychological mythology.
, The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis
The paramount time of origins is the time of the cosmogony, the instant that saw the appearance of the most immense of realities, the world.
Eliade establishes the cosmogonic moment as the paradigmatic model for all sacred time, creative action, and healing ritual across cultures.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
In a way, the alchemical process (in projection) and the individuation process as Jung understands it, are both reversed creations and contain all the symbolism of the creation myths in this reversed order.
Von Franz argues that individuation recapitulates cosmogonic imagery in reverse, structurally mirroring the sequence of creation myths within the psyche’s developmental symbolism.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
In connection with brooding, tapas, which means to give warmth by a meditative concentration of thought, the picture of the egg or germ comes up as the object upon which one is brooding.
Von Franz traces the cosmogonic egg-image across Vedic, Orphic, and Egyptian sources, linking the divine brooding on a primordial germ to meditative and generative psychic processes.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
Among many primitive peoples an essential element of any cure is the recitation of the cosmogonic myth… it is through the actualization of the cosmic Creation, exemplary model of all life, that it is hoped to restore the physical health and spiritual integrity of the patient.
Eliade demonstrates that the cosmogonic image functions therapeutically: its ritual recitation is understood to regenerate the patient by re-grounding them in the originary act of creation.
, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954thesis
First there was Chaos and night and the dark abyss… night with her dark wings gave birth to a wind egg. From it sprang in the course of time the God Eros, the one who arouses desire and who has golden wings on his back.
Von Franz traces the Orphic cosmogonic image of the wind-egg from which Eros emerges, linking primordial desire to the originary creative impulse.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
The text defines the above-mentioned quaternio… as the cosmogonic Logos (John 1: 1ff.), and the ‘life that was in him’ (John 1: 4) as a ‘generation of perfect men.’
Jung identifies the Gnostic quaternio — hermaphrodite, Jordan, Geryon — with the cosmogonic Logos, linking archetypal structure to the Gnostic account of originary creative word.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951thesis
Man only repeats the act of the Creation; his religious calendar commemorates, in the space of a year, all the cosmogonic phases which took place ab origine.
Eliade argues that ritual calendars are structured homologies of the cosmogonic sequence, projecting humanity into contemporaneity with the original creation.
, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954supporting
The same image is still basic in a hypothesis of one of the most widely recognized cosmogonic theories… the fiery gas nebula is not the only one.
Von Franz demonstrates that modern cosmological hypotheses (Gamow’s fiery nebula) recapitulate archaic cosmogonic images, suggesting the image’s persistence as a psychic constant rather than merely cultural inheritance.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
PART II THE COSMOGONIC CYCLE… It is not difficult for the modern intellectual to concede that the symbolism of mythology has a psychological significance.
Campbell frames the ‘Cosmogonic Cycle’ as the structural ground of mythology, explicitly linking psychological depth-reading to the mytho-cosmological pattern of emanation and return.
, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015supporting
Each stage of the cosmogonic process is associated with a cosmological configuration… Since the alchemical process re-enacts the cosmogonic stages in reverse, at each stage the corresponding cosmological configuration is discarded.
Kohn shows that Daoist alchemy encodes the cosmogonic image as a reversible process: the alchemist moves backward through cosmogonic stages toward primordial oneness.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000supporting
In the Orphic theogony, Aither and Chaos are born from Chronos. Chronos makes an egg in Aither. The egg splits into two, and Phanes, the first of the Gods, appears.
The Red Book annotation situates Phanes — Jung’s ‘newly appearing God’ — within the Orphic cosmogonic sequence, anchoring personal visionary experience in cosmogonic imagery.
, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009supporting
Beginning with a certain stage of culture, the cosmogonic myth explains the Creation through the slaying of a giant; his organs give birth to the various cosmic regions.
Eliade identifies the sacrificial cosmogonic image — creation from a dismembered body — as the archetypal paradigm behind building sacrifice and ritual immolation across cultures.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957supporting
In the forms of Mother and Mighty Goddess a cosmogonic principle of veiling, projecting, and revealing power is manifested.
Campbell and Long identify the Great Goddess as the bearer of a cosmogonic principle — Maya as creative veiling and revelation — linking feminine archetype to originary generative power.
, The Power of Myth, 1988supporting
In the forms of Mother and Mighty Goddess a cosmogonic principle of veiling, projecting, and revealing power is manifested.
Noel’s anthology reiterates the association of the cosmogonic principle with the Goddess-as-Maya, emphasizing the creative-concealing function of the feminine cosmogonic image.
, Paths to the Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell and the Study of Religion, 1990supporting
He is a kind of divine artisan who shaped the mountain and chiseled out the sky… One Deus faber of Egyptian cosmogony is the God Ptah of Memphis. He was supposed to have created the whole world, and even the other Gods, on his potter’s wheel.
Von Franz examines the Deus faber cosmogonic image — god as craftsman-creator — in Egyptian traditions, connecting it to the psyche’s own shaping of inner reality.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
Logos, 148, 187f, 201, 252 animus and, 14, 16, 21 cosmogonic, 211 Gnostic, 202
The Aion index registers ‘cosmogonic Logos’ as a discrete conceptual node, confirming its technical status within Jung’s Gnostic-alchemical symbolism.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951aside
In the end all life, human and animal, and all the vegetable seeds, will be forced to seek shelter in the Ganges, in miserable caves, and in the sea. The descending series will terminate… when the tempest and desolation will have reached the point of the unendurable.
Campbell’s account of the Jain cosmic cycle illustrates how cosmogonic imagery frames temporal dissolution and re-creation as a recurring mythological structure.
, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015aside