Mobile People, Mobile God: Mobile Societies, Monotheism, and the Effects of Ecological Landscapes on the Development of Ancient Religions

Hierophanies

 “Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane. To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, because it does not imply anything further; it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us...the manifestation of...a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our 'profane' world.”1

 

1 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask, [1st American edition]., Harvest Book ; HB 144 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), 11.

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