Das Heilige und das Profane

The Sacred and the Profane, as Mircea Eliade writes, represent two existential situations that humanity has developed throughout its history: the profane mode of existence of the modern, non-religious person and the sacred mode of the individual in archaic societies. Eliade's aim in The Sacred and the Profane is to make the essence of the sacred understandable. He demonstrates how culturally and temporally distant peoples and cultures have developed structurally identical religious symbols. The foundation and shaping of human living space, the mythical interpretation and periodization of time and history, imbue human existence with sacred significance. Elements of archaic religiosity also influence the thinking and behavior of the non-religious intellectual.