To Have Solely One Thought, But It

To Whatever Degree He May Have Desacralized The World, The Man Who Has Made His Choice In Favor Of A Profane Life Never Succeeds In Completely Doing Away With Religious Behavior.

Whether Religion Is Man-made Is A Question For Philosophers Or Theologians. But The Forms Are Man-made. They Are A Human Response To Something. As A Historian Of Religions, I Am Interested In Those Expressions.

It Is Not Without Fear And Trembling That A Historian Of Religion Approaches The Problem Of Myth. This Is Not Only Because Of That Preliminary Embarrassing Question: What Is Intended By Myth? It Is Also Because The Answers Given Depend For The Most Part On The Documents Selected.

When The Sacred Manifests Itself In Any Hierophany, There Is Not Only A Break In The Homogeneity Of Space; There Is Also A Revelation Of An Absolute Reality, Opposed To The Nonreality Of The Vast Surrounding Expanse. The Manifestation Of The Sacred Ontologically Founds The World. In The Homogenous And Infinite Expanse, In Which No Point Of Reference Is Possible And Hence No Orientation Can Be Established, The Hierophany Reveals An Absolute Fixed Point, A Center.

The Sacred Tree, The Sacred Stone Are Not Adored As Stone Or Tree; They Are Worshipped Precisely Because They Are Hierophanies, Because They Show Something That Is No Longer Stone Or Tree But Sacred, The Ganz Andere Or 'wholly Other.'