profane

laziness

sacred

 can be transformed into the sacred. For those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality.

Lynch points out however that for Eliade, the profane can be transformed into the sacred. According to Eliade 'for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality.

is distinguished from the sacred in that profane things belongs to the ordinary, uneventful, and practical routine of everyday life while sacred things are always set apart as superior, powerful, forbidden to normal contact, and deserving of great respect.

For Durkheim the sacred and profane are separate, Pals writes that Durkheim believed '[s]acred things are always set apart as superior, powerful, forbidden to normal contact, and deserving of great respect. Profane things are the opposite... they belong to the ordinary, uneventful, and practical routine of everyday life' (99). This dichotomy is common in Western religious traditions but is less pronounced in many Native American and traditional African faiths.

is ever unable to utterly abolish the past, since it is itself a product of the past. The profane man forms himself by a series of denials and refusals, to acquire a world of his own, he has desacralized the world in which his ancestors lived... but to do so he has been obliged to adopt an earlier type of behavior, and that behavior is still emotionally present in him, in one form or another, ready to be reactualized in his deepest being.

Do what he will, he [the profane man] is an inheritor. He cannot utterly abolish his past, since he himself is a product of his past. He forms himself by a series of denials and refusals, but he continues to be haunted by the realities that he has refused and denied. To acquire a world of his own, he has desacralized the world in which his ancestors lived... but to do so he has been obliged to adopt an earlier type of behavior, and that behavior is still emotionally present in him, in one form or another, ready to be reactualized in his deepest being. Mircea Eliade

is the everyday, the ordinary and mundane. It maintains the homogeneity and hence the relativity of space.

The profane for Eliade is the everyday, the ordinary and mundane. About the profane experience, he writes, it 'maintains the homogeneity and hence the relativity of space. No true orientation is now possible, for the fixed point no longer enjoys a unique ontological status... it appears and disappears in accordance with the needs of the day (23).

is the realm of the nonsacred. That which is used or acted on in an everyday, utilitarian manner.

The realm of the nonsacred. That which is used or acted on in an everyday, utilitarian manner.

profane, n.Memes

Keep exploring profane→

profane