ABSTRACT
The bicameral world was populated by deities who in many ways were like us—they ate, slept, fought, procreated, and experienced powerful emotions of anger, happiness, and jealousy. Though the gods were superhuman, they were in and of this world in a very immediate sense. Yahweh, for example, walked and talked with people and would throw tantrums if displeased. However, the powers of the gods were limited and they did not partake of an ultimate reality that was beyond the known world. For example, in the language of Avestan, supernatural entities known as daevas (the demon-like “beings of shining light”) and amesha spenta (“bounteous immortals”) were not spiritually transcendent but rather immanent forces. In Sanskrit, the same beings were called devas and amrita. These beings, like the Greek gods of the classical period, had no power over the cosmos and were not transcendent in an absolute sense. In other words, they were not outside or beyond perceivable reality. They were mere expressions of the living, active, and natural or cosmopolitical world.
