Hence, there is profane space, and there is sacred space.

Something in our world is only 'real' to the extent that it conforms to the Sacred or the patterns established by the Sacred. (Here 'the Sacred' can be God, gods, mythical ancestors, or any other beings who established the world's structure.) To traditional man, things 'acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a transcendent reality'. According to Eliade, traditional man distinguishes two levels of existence: (1) the Sacred, and (2) the profane world. This sharp distinction between the sacred and the profane is Eliade's trademark theory. This concept had already been extensively formulated by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1912, Scholars such as Jack Goody gave evidence that it may not be universal. It should be distinguished from the philosophical concept of eternal return.Īll the definitions given up till now of the religious phenomenon have one thing in common: Each has its own way of showing that the sacred and the religious life are the opposite of the profane and secular life. The ' eternal return' is an idea for interpreting religious behavior proposed by the historian Mircea Eliade it is a belief expressed through behavior (sometimes implicitly, but often explicitly) that one is able to become contemporary with or return to the ' mythical age'-the time when the events described in one's myths occurred.

Eternal return