This essay originally appeared in ‘Religion : in the past, the present day and the future- Perspectives from the Engelsberg Seminar 2014′ published by Bokförlaget Stolpe, in collaboration with the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, 2020. In his recent book, Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars, Bruce Lincoln mentions a dispute from his college days between the historians of religion, Mircea Eliade and Jonathan Z Smith, over which came first: order, or disorder.
