I don’t have a religion – I have a mythology.

Indeed, I have a top ten of them. As much as I enjoy mythology, not all mythologies are equal. Arguably not even the same mythology, as like the proverbial river of Heraclitus, you cannot step into the same mythology twice, as it is constantly evolving, with many variants, often inconsistent with each other. Some mythologies just resonate better with me than others.

Hence this is my top ten ranking of mythology – or perhaps top ten mythologies? Mythos – or mythoi? My myths and sacred mysteries? Whatever. They are not ranked by the extent to which they still form part of an active religion, their duration or number of adherents, or by their cultural impact or influence, but by my personal interest in them – although this tends to overlap with one or more of the previous criteria, particularly my top two entries, which are the standouts both to me and for Western culture in general.

Just some further notes – I have some ratings within each entry:

 

SACRED SPACES & CHTHONIC BLUES

Rating mythologies by their mythic worlds within and beyond our own, particularly that most common chthonic denominator – their underworlds.

 

APOCALYPSE HOW

Rating mythologies by their apocalypses – that is, their eschatology to use the technical term, or their apocalyptic myths of “the end of the present age, human history, or the world itself”. No prizes for guessing the mythology in the top apocalyptic spot – that provides its own title of apocalypse to this rating.

 

EQUAL RITES

Rating mythologies by their goddesses – or more precisely the importance or significance of goddesses or female figures as compared to those of gods or male figures within their pantheon.

 

DIVINE COMEDY

Rating mythologies by how much they lend themselves to divine comedy or comic figures.

 

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

No, not a repetition of rating mythologies by their apocalypses but more metaphorically in terms of their decline or persistence as actual or active religious belief, in duration or number of adherents, or in their cultural impact or influence.

 

So that said, these are my Top 10 Mythologies. You know the rules – this is one of my deep dive top tens, counting down from tenth to first place and looking at individual entries in some depth or detail of themselves.

But wait – there’s more! The subject is prolific enough for my usual twenty special mentions per top ten and for honorable mentions beyond that.

Finally, note on the visual images used in this top ten. Given the copyright in visual images, I use visual images of one of the three following types to avoid infringing copyright – images from the public domain or free images, images licensed for use with attribution, and images as fair use for the purposes of comment, criticism, reaction or review.