ABSTRACT
One of the problems of depth psychology is creating a connection between cyclic time and linear time in a person’s experiences. In archaic societies, the cosmos is formed through a series of mythical events which, as it were, represent its structure. Such mythical events conform to the ‘sacred’ history as opposed to the ‘profane’ history of demythicized man. Sacred history can be repeated indefinitely. It becomes present again through the representation of myth in ritual action. Myths serve as models for ceremonies that periodically make grandiose events related to ‘the beginning of the world’ present, events that are transmitted through ritual. Ritual makes the creation present again by reactivating the energies connected to the event that ‘belongs to the gods’. Here linear historical time, which sees man as a loser in the world of vicissitudes, yields its place to cyclical time – the world of transcendence where everything that is continuously destroyed is continuously re-created in perennial change. The symbol and the archetypal image expressed through ritual allow a person to pass from linear to cyclical time. Understandably, many primitive or archaic civilizations have used ritual for healing because ritual’s regenerative power frees up energy (Eliade 1991: 63).
