When Worlds Blur: How Primitive Cultures Experience a Fluid Cosmos

In many traditional cultures, the cosmos is not an impersonal machine but a living reality intimately connected to individuals and communities. Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger describes how spiritual forces are active participants in daily existence, shaping events and identities.

Boundaries between self and other, human and nature, sacred and profane are often porous and symbolic, creating complex relations. For example, a river may be both a physical entity and a spiritual presence. People see themselves as part of a web that includes ancestors, spirits, animals, and the land.

This fluidity means purity and pollution are not just about cleanliness but about maintaining balance and harmony among interconnected forces. The self is permeable, affected by and affecting social and natural worlds.

Such worldviews invite us to reconsider fixed boundaries and appreciate the symbolic weaving of social and cosmic order. They reveal a cosmos where meaning arises from relationships and symbols, where the personal and cosmic are inseparable.

As we move forward, we will see how these symbolic systems express social power, danger, and order through pollution beliefs.

Sources: NYU academic paper, Histanthro article, Blinkist summary 4 , 3 , 1