Cosmology, within the depth-psychology corpus, functions as far more than an astronomical or physical category: it is the imaginative framework through which a culture orients itself to the totality of being, and its study reveals the mythological substrate beneath every ostensibly scientific account of the universe. Campbell insists that mythology’s second essential service is cosmological — representing the natural world as epiphany — thereby establishing cosmology as a function of symbol-making rather than mere fact-finding. Moore extends this by arguing that even modern science provides a ‘mythology in a true sense,’ a cosmology necessary for existential orientation. Seaford traces cosmological thought to its pre-Socratic origins, showing how early Greek philosophical cosmology was entangled with money, mystical sects, and political structures rather than disinterested inquiry. Easwaran brings Vedantic cosmology into dialogue with contemporary physics, finding the Big Bang and steady-state theories absorbed without remainder into the Gita’s cyclical vision. McGilchrist engages cosmological fine-tuning arguments with rigorous philosophical attention, pressing toward questions of teleology and consciousness. Dennett’s work on archetypal astrology invokes ‘archetypal cosmology’ as a multidisciplinary field linking Jungian depth psychology to planetary symbolism. Von Franz bridges Aztec, Chinese, and Einsteinian cosmologies through the lens of synchronicity and number. The central tension throughout is between cosmology as myth — lived, participatory, soul-orienting — and cosmology as scientific system, with depth-psychological authors consistently arguing that the two are not opposed.
mythology often presents a cosmology, a description of how the world came to be and how it is governed… even modern science, for all its factual validity, also gives us a cosmology, a mythology in a true sense of the word.
Moore argues that cosmology is an indispensable mythological function — a necessary imaginative orientation to existence — shared equally by ancient myth and modern science.
, Care of the Soul Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition: A Guide, 1992thesis
the second service, then, is cosmological: of representing the universe and whole spectacle of nature, both as known to the mind and as beheld by the eye, as an epiphany
Campbell identifies cosmology as mythology’s second essential function — transforming the perceived universe into a manifestation of transcendent mystery.
, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, 1986thesis
two major theories of cosmology are accommodated in the Gita. One of these is called the evolutionary or ‘Big Bang’ theory; the other is the steady-state theory. Supposedly they represent opposite camps, but in the light of the Gita they become different aspects of one and the same truth.
Easwaran demonstrates how Vedantic cosmology encompasses and reconciles the apparently opposed modern cosmological theories, subordinating both to a higher participatory knowing.
, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis
Archetypal cosmology is the ‘multidisciplinary subject drawing on scholarship from many areas such as astrology, depth psychology, history, philosophy, cosmology, religious studies, cultural studies, the arts, and the new sciences’
Dennett defines archetypal cosmology as a synthesizing discipline linking Jungian depth psychology with astrological and philosophical inquiry into the structure of the cosmos.
, Individuation in Addiction Recovery: An Archetypal Astrological Perspective, 2025thesis
Parmenides surely had this kind of cosmological view in mind, but by himself taking it to a logical extreme comes to a conclusion that is in fact opposed both to this earlier cosmology and to the views of people in general.
Seaford traces how Parmenides’ radical metaphysics emerged as a logical refutation of earlier monist cosmology, situating early philosophical cosmology within a contested intellectual inheritance.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004thesis
free constitutional debate, what Lloyd calls radical political revisability, may conceivably have been rel… may even have been positively inimical to the genesis of philosophical cosmology.
Seaford challenges the standard account by suggesting that open democratic debate may have hindered rather than fostered the emergence of early Greek philosophical cosmology.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004supporting
impersonal all-powerful substance, on its first appearance in history, has entered into his cosmic preconceptions, encouraging belief in impersonal deity… money may enter into the unconscious process of cosmic projection
Seaford argues that money functioned as an unconscious projection structuring early Greek cosmological thought, enabling the concept of impersonal, universal substance.
, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, 2004supporting
The oft-cited claim that cosmological data have verified the central predictions of inflationary theory is misleading, at best… inflation goes on eternally, producing infinitely many outcomes, so the theory makes no firm observational predictions
McGilchrist cites Steinhardt’s critique of inflationary cosmology to question whether contemporary cosmological theory meets the standards of genuine scientific explanation.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
The oft-cited claim that cosmological data have verified the central predictions of inflationary theory is misleading, at best… inflation goes on eternally, producing infinitely many outcomes, so the theory makes no firm observational predictions
McGilchrist (duplicate edition) marshals the same argument against inflationary cosmology’s empirical claims, reinforcing the epistemological critique.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
to get to a universe at all, the ratio (known as N) of the gravitational force to the electrical force would have to be almost exactly 1: 1036, otherwise nothing could exist… a probability this tiny is not something we can let go unexplained.
McGilchrist deploys cosmological fine-tuning data to argue that the universe’s existence demands rational explanation beyond mere chance, pressing toward teleological or theological conclusions.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting
Cosmology, 6, 45 (footnote), 52, 62, 185. See also Heavens; Hell; Purgatory; ‘Three Towns’; Underworld; Universe; Waters, terrestrial; World, axis of; Worlds, three
Zimmer’s index situates Indian cosmology at the intersection of heavens, hells, cosmic waters, and the world axis, treating it as an architectonic symbol system within Hindu mythology.
, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, 1946supporting
This insight of Einstein’s appears to be a return, on a higher level and with mathematical precision, to the age-old primitive intuition whereby, for instance, the Aztec god Omoteotl, with the four Tetzcatlipocas in the four corners of space, created space and time simultaneously.
Von Franz reads Einsteinian space-time cosmology as a mathematically precise recapitulation of archaic mythological intuitions about the co-creation of space and time.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting
in cosmology, 529; in Han cosmology, 54, 70
Kohn’s handbook locates demonic figures within Daoist cosmological systems, indicating that cosmology in this tradition is a structured moral and spiritual mapping of cosmic forces.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000supporting
an old lady approach William James after a lecture on cosmology and put forward her view that the world rests on the back of a turtle.
McGilchrist invokes the classic anecdote about naive cosmological regress to illustrate the philosophical problem of infinite grounding in accounts of the universe.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside
outer space is within us inasmuch as the laws of space are within us; outer and inner space are the same… the earth, as we now know, is a production of space.
Campbell gestures toward a cosmology of interiority, equating the laws of outer space with the inner structure of psyche and grounding human consciousness in cosmic genesis.
, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, 1986aside