Attribution and OER Revision Statement
“World Mythology: Myth, Metaphor, and Mystery” by Andrew Gurevich is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Cover Image: “Cuneiform tablet: administrative account with entries concerning malt and barley groats (ca. 3100–2900 B.C.)” by Sumerian, The Met Museum is licensed under CC BY 4.0
This text hopefully provides a resonate and dynamic approach to teaching mythology because it emphasizes the importance of mystery, awe, humility, and generative co-creation in the study of the world’s wisdom traditions. We are, as Carl Sagan once said, the Cosmos getting to know itself. So this means, as the wisdom traditions have always taught, that each of us is a unique manifestation of the whole. That the virtues of diversity, equity, and inclusion that are finally becoming more mainstream in social and academic settings are woven into the symbolic tapestries and mythological narratives of our ancestors. The universe is a complex, animated, integrated and manifesting mystery. And we are, indeed, a reflection of all of it. The exterior world reflects what the interior landscapes also reveal during deep states of transformative mediation and ritual practice: the ultimate reality is ultimately a Mystery. For all we have learned, we have yet to scratch the surface of the infinite ocean of our collective being. So we need each other. We are each other. And the fluidity and permeability of essence we find within the mythic traditions honors the uniqueness of every being, of every tradition, every identity, while simultaneously exposing a common core of essential unity that reminds us of our ultimate home in each other.
This book seeks to honor the spirit of these traditions by presenting the material in ways that preserve and highlight the universal qualities of respectful cultural inquiry, deep engagement, transformative learning, and student empowerment.
(Unless otherwise linked and noted, all versions of the myths in this text are from the Internet Sacred Text Archive or are in the public domain. Some historical and cultural information ha been adapted from the now out of print “World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths And Epics” by Donna Rosenberg McGraw Hill. 1999. )
