Hierophany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hierophany (from the Greek roots hieros - "sacred", "holy" -, and epiphaneia - appearance) signifies a manifestation of the Sacred. It occurs frequently in the works of the religious historian Mircea Eliade as an alternative to the more restrictive term theophany (an appearance of a god).[1] Eliade argues that religion is based on a sharp distinction between the Sacred (God, gods, mythical Ancestors, etc.) and the profane.[2] According to Eliade, for traditional man, myths describe "breakthroughs of the sacred (or the 'supernatural') into the World".[3] By manifesting itself as ideal models, the Sacred gives the world value, direction, and purpose: "The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world".[4] According to this view, all things need to imitate, or even participate in, the sacred patterns established by hierophanies in order to have true reality: to traditional man, things "acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality".[5]
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Mircea Eliade:
- Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959.
- Myth and Reality. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
- Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1958.
- Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
