In his introduction, Dr. Henderson explained that while creation myths ostensibly tell the story of the creation of the world and human life, they are, to a great extent, metaphors of the creation of consciousness. He began his presentation with a discussion of his personal relation to the topic.

"When I was young, in late childhood and early teens, I had an occasional attack of fear. I was afraid of infinity. Space for me was linear. It extended out in all directions from where I was and I tried to accept that it had no end. This was frightening. Surely there must be an end to it, I thought,  some stone wall or mountain perhaps. But then the awful thought would haunt me that there was still space on the other side of this barrier extending off into infinity. So, my existential nightmare seemed to have no end any more than infinity has an end. Like many other young people, I managed to forget or at least repress my fear. But it laid there as an unanswered question, a mystery, for many years to come. Some time in my 20s I learned that modern physics and astronomy had some new ideas about the nature of space. From Arthur Stanley Eddington I learned that astronomical space was perhaps not linear but circular. This meant that if one had a strong enough telescope pointing into the sky one might see the back of one's own head. This was immensely consoling and relieved my fear of linear infinity. I realized then, that I had been a victim of Euclidean geometry and could now be free to explore the wonders of modern science." (JLH)

Read On Creation Myths in its entirety here.