The Sacred and the Profane: Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards based on Mircea Eliade's introduction to The Sacred and the Profane.

Rudolf Otto

A theologian and historian of religions who published Das Heilige in 1917 and analyzed the irrational modalities of religious experience.

Das Heilige

A 1917 work by Rudolf Otto that analyzes the specific characteristics and irrational aspects of religious experience.

Mysterium tremendum

The awe-inspiring mystery and feeling of terror before the sacred.

Majestas

The aspect of the sacred that emanates an overwhelming superiority of power.

Mysterium fascinans

The fascinating mystery of the sacred in which perfect fullness of being flowers.

Numinous

A term derived from the Latin numen (god), used by Rudolf Otto to characterize experiences induced by the revelation of divine power.

Ganz andere

A German phrase meaning 'wholly other,' describing the sacred as something basically and totally different from anything human or cosmic.

Hierophany

A term proposed by Mircea Eliade to designate the act of manifestation of the sacred.

Homo religiosus

The man of traditional or archaic societies who tends to live as much as possible in the sacred or in close proximity to consecrated objects.

Desacralization

A recent historical process pervading the experience of nonreligious modern man, resulting in a profane cosmos.

Sacred and Profane

Two opposing modes of being in the world and existential situations assumed by man in the course of history.