Mythic time, as the scholar of religions, George W. Williams, notes, is time that is divinely set and under divine control. In that, it is not subject to the natural laws of physics. This register of time, therefore, can be best understood by contrasting it to 'existential time', which is "the time of ordinary human experience", where events and processes are entirely governed by inviolable natural laws. For example, except in our imagination, we cannot go forwards and backwards in time and create parallel realities as empowered characters in mythologies are so easily able to do.

That said, in actual mythologies, as Williams points out, mythic time and existential time "interpenetrate each other"; the world of gods and other cosmic beings who are 'beyond' the laws of gravity, identity, aging, etc., and the world of humans, who are, obviously, subject to all of those, often come together. The supernatural and the natural occupy the same time-frame. This is best evidenced in religious rituals and festivals. The myths behind these important events in the annual calendar, regardless of which calendar one uses, set our ordinary human worlds in direct conversation with the extraordinary worlds of the cosmic and the divine.

In all mythological systems, there is one class of myths that are held in special regard and which we are especially interested in for our purposes this week. These are creation myths, which narrate the story of how the universe, the world, and the very first humans and animals were created by some supreme, divine power that we usually call 'god'. As another scholar of religions, Mircea Eliade, points out, explanations of the origins and existence of all other things and beings, within a given mythological system, presuppose the first creations that make everything else possible. Hence, the importance of creation myths.

Before moving on, we need to be clear why we are addressing mythic time under deep time, which a scientific concept and as such belongs in an absolutely different form of knowledge and methods of knowing. Well, the reason why we are doing so is because questions about the origins of the earth, its visible geography, and life on it, are not new. They are as old as human civilization itself and have been around way before science as a way of knowing the world and explaining phenomena even appeared on the purview of human imagination. Myths within different religious systems provided answers these fundamental questions and probed depths of time that pushed at the limits of human cognition, just like the modern scientific concept of deep time. These myths either come with their own scale for measuring massive units of time over which events happened, or use a range of metaphors and similes to suggest the time.

Regardless, what looking a myths and mythic time alongside the scientific concept of deep time does is that it shows how, over the last two hundred and fifty years or so, our responses to age old questions of origin and evolution, have dramatically changed from mythic to scientific. This apart, looking at creation myths also gives a window into how variegated cultures across the world have differently or similarly answered these questions, answers that have shaped their worldviews and played an important role in their cultural and artistic  practices. In this context, do you think myths and mythic time have any place in the modern world, which is supposed be grounded in 'scientific temper' ? Think about it; we will take it up for discussion in class.