# The Sacred and the Profane  ## Metadata - Author: [[Mircea Eliade and Willard R. Trask]] - Full Title: The Sacred and the Profane - Category: #books ## Highlights - life cannot be repaired, it can only be recreated through symbolic repetition of the cosmogony, for, as we have said, the cosmogony is the paradigmatic model for all creation. (Page 82) - Now, it seems obvious that, if religious man feels the need of indefinitely reproducing the same paradigmatic acts and gestures, this is because he desires and attempts to live close to his gods. (Page 91) - Hence the nostalgia for origins is equivalent to a religious nostalgia. (Page 92) - From the point of view of profane existence, man feels no responsibility except to himself and to society. For him, the universe does not properly constitute a cosmos --that is, a living and articulated unity; it is simply the sum of the material reserves and physical energies of the planet, and the great concern of modern man is to avoid stupidly exhausting the economic resources of the globe. But, existentially, the primitive always puts himself in a cosmic context. His personal experience lacks neither genuineness nor depth; but the fact that it is expressed in a language unfamiliar to us makes it appear spurious or infantile to modern eyes. (Page 93) - One becomes truly a man only by conforming to the teaching of the myths, that is, by imitating the gods. (Page 100) - This first murder basically changed the mode of being of human life. The immolation of the divine being inaugurated not only the need to eat but also the doom of death and, in consequence, sexuality, the only way to ensure the continuity of life. (Page 101) - Note: Sexuality is a natural consequence of the introduction of death into the human world. Death means life discontinues, and sexuality is the means by which life could continue. Sexuality sustains life the way the fruit of the tree of life used to, but not for the life of one man, but man as a whole. - In short, through the reactualization of his myths, religious man attempts to approach the gods and to participate in being; the imitation of paradigmatic divine models expresses at once his desire for sanctity and his ontological nostalgia (Page 106) - for him it is by virtue of this eternal return to the sources of the sacred and the real that human existence appears to be saved from nothingness and death. (Page 107) - Note: Eternal return as being saved from death. This idea is echoed in the Chinese New Year myth. - repetition emptied of its religious content necessarily leads to a pessimistic vision of existence. (Page 107) - Note: This is exactly what profane, secular existence entails - it could even be said that the aquatic symbol awaited the fulfillment of its deepest meaning through the new values contributed by Christianity. (Page 137)