Understanding the Sacred: Hierophanies and the Mystery of Religious Experience
The Scope of the Sacred and the Profane
One obvious observation about religious experience is the distinct way religious subjects navigate two vital areas: the ordinary world and the world apart, defined by religious life’s people, objects, and symbols.
In the ordinary world, the subject moves spontaneously.
In the second, a sense of awe prevails. This second realm of religion is often termed the sacred. This doesn’t imply a reality separate from the profane; the natural world remains the same. Instead, it points to a perceived presence.
The sacred can be compared to a distinct space, entered through a hidden door, prompting a search for something supremely present. It’s not about the endpoint of religious attitude but a different climate or atmosphere where these elements reside within religious experience.
The sacred isn’t a separate form of reality but a unique way of being for both humanity and reality as a whole, arising with the emergence of religion.
Mircea Eliade describes this shift from a neutral to a religious behavior as a cultural break, granting access to a different order of being.
This break results in the formation of the sacred as a distinct world in relation to the profane.
Example of the Ruptured Level
Consider a large walnut tree. A hungry person sees food, a logger calculates timber value, a carpenter envisions furniture, and an agricultural engineer dreams of reforestation. All operate within the profane sphere.
However, a religious person (perhaps even the hungry, the logger, the carpenter, or the engineer) might be struck by the tree’s hidden forces, its ancient presence, its resilience against the elements. They find themselves affected by these superior forces, entering a sacred context.
Characteristics of the Sacred
The sacred is original and holistic: Religious experience positions the sacred as the origin of both humanity and the profane. All that is profane is inherently sacred, capable of being invaded by transcendence, hence the holistic nature of the sacred.
The sacred is preliminary and earlier: Believers don’t see the sacred as a projection of internal subjectivity but as something encompassing both pre-subjective aspects of religious experience (psychic reactions, attitudes, institutions, people) and as something predating any specific religious denomination.
The sacred does not alter the physical entity of beings: Things and people within the realm of the sacred don’t undergo changes in their nature, properties, or appearance.
Reality Determining the Scope of the Sacred: The Mystery
Christianity identifies the mystery as”the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” Other traditions use terms like”the unspeakable” To encompass all historical religions, we’ll use”the mystery” as coined by R. Otto in his book”The Idea of the Holy”
Given its absolute superiority, directly describing the mystery is impossible; it would be uncontrollable. It can only be approached through the religious subject.
Characteristics of the Mystery
Real and unprovable: The mystery isn’t a human invention to explain the inexplicable. It exists independently and makes its presence known. This explains why attempts to express its existence often use formulas like”pure bein” or”necessary being” owing existence to nothing but itself.
However, experiencing the mystery is unprovable. Religious individuals can’t use rational evidence to demonstrate a presence imposed independently of their efforts. It is what it is: the unnamable.
Transcendent and immanent: The mystery is transcendent because our world lacks comparisons for its being and means to control its actions. Some call it”wholly other” unlike anything known or unknown.
Yet, the mystery is also immanent, present within the subjective background of humanity. Saint Augustine said,”You were more inward to me than my most inward part, and higher than my highest”
Active and involved: The mystery’s presence isn’t passive. It presents itself to religious consciousness with dynamic power, giving reason for the being and actions of all other beings. Some place this active power at the heart of the sacred.
However, this force doesn’t negate human freedom. It respects it, demanding a response and encouraging engagement to endorse the mystery’s actions in the world.
Valuable and free: The mystery is invaluable, possessing inherent worth and bestowing value on all existence. As Juan Martin Velasco said,”That which is worthy of being in itself and worthy of making all that is”
The mystery aims for the highest good but doesn’t always achieve it immediately. It operates on ultimate, not immediate, benefit. It doesn’t promise or provide easy answers or satisfy desires. It cannot be manipulated. That’s why it’s called free.
Tremendous and fascinating: The mystery is tremendous because its absolute transcendence manifests with majesty, power, and impactful action.
It’s fascinating due to its irresistible attraction: its immaculate beauty, supreme goodness, holiness, and immense value.
Personal and quiet: Depictions of the mystery often use inanimate forms or elements of creation: stars, mountains, rivers, trees, animals, etc.
This doesn’t contradict the personal nature attributed to the mystery. What matters isn’t the image but the relationship established through it. This interpersonal relationship is where the mystery makes its presence felt, acting upon the individual and their surroundings, interpreting attitudes, prompting responses, and causing choices – all hallmarks of intersubjectivity.
The mystery’s personal structure doesn’t preclude the experience of its silence. While Christianity characterizes divinity as the Word, God’s silence is also acknowledged, giving rise to various schools of thought: Deism, secularism, even atheism or the”death of God” This silence can be interpreted as absence or even death.
The Objective Mediation of the Mystery: Hierophanies
Transcendence defines the sacred, but this transcendence requires a relationship with humanity for the sacred to emerge. This relationship necessitates mediations, impossible without both the mystery’s presence and humanity’s awareness of and response to it. These mediations are called hierophanies.
Hierophanies are realities within the world of religions that make the mundane appear to belong to a different order – the mystery. They are mundane yet point to the invisible reality of the mystery.
Hierophanies are observable in all religions. Countless realities have been used to recognize the presence of ultimate reality: the sky, stars, earth, natural phenomena, historical events, even people and their works.
These hierophanies are diverse and have transformed throughout religious history. What was once profane can become sacred, and vice versa. Religious history is an ongoing process of sacralization and secularization.
Essential Features of Hierophanies
They appear as constellations or sets of interrelated realities. These constellations form three main groups characterizing major religious families: nature (sky, stars, earth, fertility), history and its events, and the human person and their actions.
They correspond closely to the cultural and social context of the people experiencing them. Diverse cultures often have unique hierophanies, often drawn from the sky or, for agrarian societies, the earth and fertility. Changing situations often lead to changes in what constitutes a hierophany.
Types of Hierophanies
Space and Sacred Places
Places where the divine is experienced are considered sacred across religions. These locations, often marked by altars and temples, become central points from which surrounding space is ordered. Examples include Jerusalem, Mecca, and Fatima.
Throughout history, numerous natural elements have served as sacred symbols:
Heaven: Represents inaccessibility, importance, and the mystery’s dynamic nature. Christianity metaphorically places God in heaven.
The stars: Especially the sun and moon, symbolize telluric forces governing the rhythms of nature, marking days, months, and years.
Water: Deified for its ambivalent nature as both life-giver (rain, rivers) and destroyer (storms, seas). This is reflected in deities associated with both aspects.
Fire: Its light, heat, destruction, and purification have led to its interpretation as a theophany, a divine gift, a symbol of divine wrath, an object of worship, or even an embodiment of demons.
The air: Its elusiveness symbolizes the transcendent, formless divine. Hurricanes manifest divine power, while breath represents the vital principle or spirit emanating from the divine.
The earth: Represents the nurturing parent, symbolizing fertility and motherhood. However, it’s also the grave, connecting it to death. This duality is reflected in the earth-mother-wife archetype.
The tree: Its height makes it a dwelling for the divine. Its form and life cycle (seed, flower, fruit) represent the cosmic connection to the sky and the cycle of life and death.
Animals: In hunter-gatherer and pastoral societies, animals hold sacred significance. Their closeness to nature, their role in human survival, and beliefs in transmigration contribute to their association with supernatural forces.
Sacred Time
Points in time marking cyclical patterns and historical progress suggest the involvement of mysterious forces, considered sacred by most religions:
– The night: With its hidden powers.
– The dawn: Symbolizing new beginnings and activity.
– Spring: Representing the renewal of nature.
Religions often have holidays marking dates when the divine is believed to be particularly active or when a significant event is commemorated.
Humans and Their Activities
Love: Its emotional intensity, ranging from ecstasy to selflessness and selfishness, makes it a powerful force associated with the divine. This ambivalence explains its varied interpretations in different religions. All aspects of love – gender, motherhood, marriage, family – can become hierophanies, as seen in beliefs about fertility, sterility, and impotence.
The family: Provides the first experience of relationships. The mother-child bond connects us to life’s unknown sources, while the father represents authority and order. Sibling relationships embody community and loyalty. The recurrence of God as Father and Mother throughout history demonstrates their suitability as hierophanies, pointing to the ultimate relationship with the divine.
Beyond the family, we have society – ethnic, cultural, religious, political – where individuals are integrated by necessity or choice. Society mediates religious experience in several ways:
– By sacralizing its origins, often attributing its founding to a divine decision.
– By promising a utopian future through divine intervention.
– By claiming a monopoly on encountering the transcendent, disqualifying other groups.
– By transmitting sacred traditions from elders and ancestors.
– By reinforcing the inviolability of social institutions and values, creating binding behavioral patterns.
Human Activity in its Broadest Sense
Knowledge, artistic creation, craftsmanship – all have inspired religious awe. Achievements are often attributed to superhuman powers or divine inspiration. Intellectual understanding, for example, might be seen as the result of a divine Logos.
Moral conduct: Holiness and wickedness are seen as manifestations of divine powers. Heroic virtue is attributed to supernatural forces, leading to the veneration of saints and their relics. Guilt, on the other hand, suggests the transgression of a taboo or a broken relationship with the divine, requiring rituals and pleas for forgiveness.
Death: Along with related experiences like pain, illness, and sleep, represents a transition to the unknown, highlighting the importance of the afterlife and the deceased. This places the dead within the divine sphere, justifying their veneration in some religions.