"On earth, as it is in heaven": that is the theme. Man is returned to the innocence of the sun and stars, and of the animal world, which is rooted in nature, by an equation of himself with the sun, the great lion of the heavens, and of his victims with the herds of the night sky. And by concentrating on these, he is able to erase from consciousness the actual threat of the night of annihilation. The reality of nature and himself as nature has been countered by a myth of personal immortality."

Joseph Campbell, 1959 Eranos Lecture "Renewal Myths and Rites of the Primitive Hunters and Planters" p.17