ABSTRACT
It is only with difficulty that mythological thought manages to dis tinguish itself from the emotional, affective, and sensory dimensions, thus permitting varied ‘participations’ (in the sense used by Levy-Bruhl) and acting as the driving force behind many aspects of magical and ritual practices. It is not possible, however, to reduce every aspect of mytho logical thought to its inability to distinguish between humans and nature or to its failure to draw the dividing line between logic and emotion and
between the abstract and the concrete. All these characteristics require not only syncretic conceptual ability but the capacity to move beyond syncretism. For example, myths about culture heroes often fail to distin guish between nature and culture: culture heroes procure cultural goods such as tools and define social and ritual rules but also obtain natural objects such as fire, the sun, and useful herbs and other plants. Yet these myths contain the first glimmerings by which these elements are distin guished: the differentiation of culture heroes from demiurges, the theme of the origins of culture, and so on.
