Thursday, April 12, 2012

Tiffany Noyes: Symbols


Blog from Readings:

When reading, The Sacred and the Profane: the Nature of Religion, by Mircea Eliade I remembered the many discussions we've had on symbolism. Here's a quote that stood out to me in particular:
By manifesting the sacred, any Object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone; apparently (or, more precisely, from the profane point of view), nothing distinguishes it from all other stones. But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality. In other words, for those who have a religious experience all nature is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality. The cosmos in its entirety can become a hierophany...”
So from one point of view, we can see the Eucharist, or Holy Water as mere elements, (bread, wine, water ect) but from another point of view, they are something much more. They are something divine, only disguised as things of this world in a mystical way. This was a good article to help me understand more of the Sacred and its relationship to the Profane.

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