This work, in 6 volumes, is a compendium of traditional cosmologies worldwide. The material includes the global mythology of creation and destruction, but also comprises information drawn from other areas of traditional knowledge, ritual, iconography, shamanism, costume, and dance. Relying on original sources, universal points of agreement are identified, often on counter-intuitive ideas. These suggest a single template, a blueprint for a universal mythology of origins. In volume 1, the cosmos is seen to develop from an original state of chaos, via the transitory stage of a fundamental enclosing particle, into a Ôsheet systemÕ of sky, atmosphere, earth and underworld, joined by the cosmic axis.