Profanum

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Profanum is the Latin word for "profane". Central to the social reality of religion is the distinction made by Emile Durkheim between the sacred and the profane.(Durkheim, 1976, p. 37)

The profane world consists of all that we can know through our senses. It is the natural world of everyday life that we experience as either comprehensible or at least ultimately knowable.

In contrast, the sacred, or sacrum in Latin, encompasses all that exists beyond the everyday, natural world that we experience with our senses. As such, the sacred inspires feelings of awe because it is regarded as ultimately unknowable and beyond limited human abilities to perceive and comprehend. Religion is organised primarily around the sacred elements of human life and provides a collective attempt to bridge the gap between the sacred and the profane.

[edit] References

Durkheim, Emile (1976) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin (originally published 1915, English translation 1915).