Cosmogony occupies a privileged position within the depth-psychology corpus, functioning not merely as mythological subject matter but as the paradigmatic model against which all acts of creation, healing, and renewal are measured. Eliade establishes the foundational claim: the cosmogonic myth is not a relic of archaic speculation but a living template perpetually reactualized in ritual, therapeutic recitation, and the symbolic re-enactment of chaos-to-cosmos passage. Where Eliade reads cosmogony as the exemplary sacred act whose repetition restores ontological integrity, von Franz reads it psychologically — as the collective projection of the unconscious psyche’s own generative dynamics, tracing the egg, germ, sacrifice, and divine dismemberment motifs across cultures as archetypal expressions of the psyche coming into form. Rank situates cosmogonic dismemberment within the mythology of sacrifice and artistic creativity. Seaford brings a structural and socio-political lens, arguing that mythical cosmogony is shaped by the social formations — monetary, political — of the cultures that produce it. Vernant traces the transition from cosmogonic myth to philosophical cosmology in early Greek thought, while Harrison and Hesiod anchor the archaic tradition. The central tension in the corpus is between cosmogony as eternally recurrent sacred paradigm and cosmogony as historically conditioned symbolic structure. Both positions share the conviction that these primordial narratives carry irreducible psychological weight.
the cosmogony serves as the paradigmatic model for every creation, for every kind of doing… cosmogonic time serves as the model for all sacred times; for if sacred time is that in which the gods manifested themselves and created
Eliade argues that the cosmogony is the supreme paradigm for all creative and sacred acts, making cosmogonic time the template for all sacred time.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
the cosmogonic myth is recited for therapeutic purposes. To be cured, the victim of an illness must be brought to a second birth, and the archetypal model of birth is the cosmogony.
Eliade demonstrates that the cosmogony functions as the archetypal model of regeneration, directly applied in healing rituals as the paradigm for all new beginnings.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
The battle between two groups of actors repeated the passage from chaos to cosmos, actualized the cosmogony. The mythical event became present once again.
Eliade shows how the Babylonian New Year ritual dramatically re-enacted the cosmogonic combat, making the original creation present and operative in historical time.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
life cannot be restored but only re-created through repetition of the cosmogony… among many primitive peoples an essential element of any cure is the recitation of the cosmogonic myth
Eliade argues that cosmic and human vitality cannot be merely repaired but must be re-created through formal recitation of the cosmogony, establishing it as the irreplaceable ritual of restoration.
, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History, 1954thesis
every new construction reproduced the creation of the world. This second type of cosmogony is much more complex… it is with such a cosmogony that the countless forms of the building sacrifice are bound up
Eliade identifies a second cosmogonic type — creation through primordial sacrifice and dismemberment — which underlies architectural and building ritual across cultures.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957thesis
I want to convey an impression of this type of cosmogony. It is a Samoan cosmogony. The God Tangaloa lived in the far spaces. He created all things. He was alone, there was no heaven, no earth.
Von Franz illustrates the chain-of-generations cosmogonic type through Samoan material, tracing how divine solitude and progressive differentiation constitute a widespread archetypal pattern.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
the germ upon which the Godhead broods is called the hiranyagharba, which is generally translated as a germ of gold, the golden germ. It is a notion which
Von Franz traces the cosmogonic egg and germ motif from the Rigveda, linking meditative brooding (tapas) to the generative potential of a primordial, undifferentiated unity.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
First there was Chaos and night and the dark abyss and the second Tartarus, but earth and air and heaven did not yet exist… night with her dark wings gave birth to a wind egg. From it sprang in the course of time the God Eros
Von Franz reads the Orphic cosmogony as another instance of the egg-and-Eros motif, linking desire and whirling motion to the first differentiation of cosmic order from primordial chaos.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
the material from which the world is created is a divine victim. Our Chinese God, P’an Ku, is also not only the artisan who created the world, but the first victim as well, and from his corpse the world is created.
Von Franz identifies the motif of the divine victim as a cross-cultural cosmogonic principle, wherein the creator’s own body constitutes the substance of the created world.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
one of the most widespread and recognized cosmogonic theories in physics was that of George Gamow… at the beginning of the whole universe there were fiery gas nebula from which everything arose. So you see, the same image is still basic
Von Franz draws a parallel between ancient fire-cosmogonies and modern physical cosmology (Gamow’s fireball theory), arguing that the archetypal image persists even in scientific hypothesis.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
Of old times the Sky and the Earth were not yet set apart the one from the other, nor were the female and male principles separated. All was a mass, formless and eggshaped, the extent whereof is not known, which held the life principle.
Von Franz presents the Japanese cosmogonic text as a further example of the primordial undifferentiated mass — egg-shaped, holding the life principle — that must separate into heaven and earth.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
the gods made the world from the dismembered body of the primitive giant Purushu: the heavens from his head, the earth from his feet, the sun from his eye, the moon from his spirit
Rank examines the Vedic cosmogony of Purusha’s dismemberment as a paradigmatic myth linking sacrificial violence to world-creation, which he connects to artistic and mythological creativity.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
The Hesiodic theogony, it is well known, was influenced (even if only indirectly) by myths known to the Babylonians, the Hurrians, the Hittites, and the Phoenicians.
Seaford situates the Hesiodic cosmogony within a network of Near Eastern influence, arguing that its succession narrative has both cosmogonic and political-sovereignty dimensions.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004supporting
Mythical cosmogony and mythical anthropogony are shaped by the formation of
Seaford argues that mythical cosmogony and accounts of human origins are not purely theological but are structured by the social and psychological formations — including monetary — of their historical context.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004supporting
boredom are some of the motifs which we find pretty often in creation myths. We can say that they all belong to what the alchemists call the afflictio animae, the depression and sadness which precede a creative act.
Von Franz links cosmogonic prefatory states — boredom, depression, afflictio animae — to the psychological abaissement that precedes the emergence of new psychic content, reading creation myths as maps of creative individuation.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
he, the never-aging, the always Jung, male-female, embracing the cosmos, but unembraced by it, lives with his Ennoia, a female power, within him… out of him, the Father, came the Aletheia, the truth, and Anthropos, man.
Von Franz reads the Gnostic cosmogony as a projection of psychological dynamics, with the Self-Father’s interior Ennoia catalyzing creation through an inner movement of desire and differentiation.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
the myth of world creation through the sexual act… all the creation myths which attribute the origin of the world to the sexual union of father and mother very quickly skip over the beginning and go on to the next step.
Von Franz critiques sexual cosmogonies as explanatory shortcuts that displace rather than resolve the mystery of origins, identifying them as psychologically superficial relative to more penetrating cosmogonic types.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
Zeus’s fight against Typhon for the title of king of the gods has lost its cosmogonic meaning… the account of the genesis of the world describes a natural process with no connection to ritual.
Vernant traces the de-cosmogonization of Hesiod’s theogony — the gradual separation of political sovereignty narrative from genuine cosmogonic myth — as a step toward early Greek philosophical thought.
, Myth and Thought Among the Greeks, 1983supporting
in modern dreams and fantasies as well as in schizophrenic material, the act of defecation most frequently symbolizes creation. In Symbols of Transformation Jung describes the vision of the schizophrenic patient in which God is defecating the whole world.
Von Franz connects archaic cosmogonic motifs of bodily emanation to contemporary clinical material, showing the cosmogonic imagination as alive in the modern unconscious.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
the mother of heavenly chaos, Eurynome, who appeared naked from the original no-thing. She separated the sea and sky, and performed her solitary dance upon the waves.
Hoeller presents the Pelasgian cosmogony — featuring Eurynome, Ophion, and the primordial dance — as one of the oldest creation myths and a prototype for Jung’s paired deities in the Septem Sermones.
, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, 1982supporting
the most all-powerful and eternal, and at the same time indefinite, powers are condensing, like a chemical substance which is precipitated, slowly condensing into concrete reality, becoming by this more multiple on the one hand, and more distinct
Von Franz describes the Gnostic and related cosmogonic patterns as a progressive condensation and multiplication of divine powers into material reality, a model she reads as psychologically analogous to the individuation process.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
These creation myths — I have only briefly sketched their structure — are very typical for primitive and semi-primitive civilizations which have never disintegrated… civilizations which have kept their continuity
Von Franz argues that intact cosmogonic traditions characterize cultures that have maintained continuity with their archetypal roots, whereas fragmentation of cosmogonic memory signals cultural disintegration.
, Creation Myths, 1995supporting
the erection of an altar to Agni is nothing but the reproduction on the microcosmic scale of the Creation. The water in which the clay is mixed is assimilated… to the primordial water; the clay that forms the base of the altar symbolizes the earth
Eliade demonstrates how Vedic altar-construction ritually reproduces the cosmogony in miniature, establishing microcosmic sacred space as an enactment of primordial world-creation.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957supporting
The cosmos is conceived as a living unity that is born, develops, and dies on the last day of the year, to be reborn on New Year’s Day… the cosmos is reborn each year because, at every New Year, time begins ab initio.
Eliade connects cosmogonic renewal to cyclical time, showing that the yearly death and rebirth of the cosmos recapitulates the original creation and establishes the intimate bond between cosmos and sacred time.
, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, 1957aside
Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them
Hesiod’s Theogony provides the primary textual source for Greek cosmogony within the corpus, presenting the succession of cosmic and divine generations from Chaos through the Olympian order.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700aside
the new creation is something basically, or substantially, different from the old one. The basic difference is that this new creation is identified with the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly city, which… is definitely thought of as a mandala.
Von Franz interprets the Christian eschatological new creation (Book of Revelation) as a cosmogony of transformation rather than repetition, linking it to the mandala symbol and the glorified body.
, Creation Myths, 1995aside