Book Description
A noted historian of religion traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times, in terms of space, time, nature and the cosmos, and life itself. Index. Translated by Willard Trask.
Customer Reviews:
A brilliant introduction to the study of religion.......2007-09-30
I decided to read this book for a religion-course I'm taking, and I must say I'm happy I did! Mircea Eliade was a Rumanian historian of religions, philosopher and author, in addition to being a vaguely religious man himself. This book was written to serve as an introduction to the study of religion for new students and the interested layman, and it does so excellently. Eliade was interestingly enough a member of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, back home in Rumania, the organization of Corneliu Codreanu. In addition to this wonderful fact, he was also acquainted with Baron Julius Evola, so this is certainly one of "our own boys".
The book itself is, as the title implies, an attempt to show the difference between the archaic mans sacred conception of the cosmos, and the profane view of the world of today's "modern man". The first part of the book details the sacred space and the sacralisation of the world. What he means by this is the fact that so-to-speak all religions and the various races have traditions of themselves living near the centre of the world, axis mundi. This world pillar, known as Irminsûl to my own Germanic ancestors, was the place (mountain, tree, building, pillar etc.) where the world traditionally was highest and hence the underworld, the human world and the higher realm of heaven was connected the closest. The various races and peoples then thought that this was where Creation had begun, where the cosmos has flowed out from, and hence the most sacred space on Earth. Eliade then delves into some depth about this subject.
The second chapter is about holy time and myths. He shows how the archaic peoples thought of time as always recurring, going in cycles. The first break with this line of thought was with Judaism and later Christianity, who thought of history as a unique happening, centred on Christ and his coming. The archaic peoples did their rites and their religious cultism so that they could transform themselves back into the sacred eternal present time when the Gods performed the actions the myths mirror today.
The third chapter is about the holiness of nature and the comical view of ancient religion. He shows how ancient man conceived of their own role in the cosmos, and how their actions were supposed to mirror the actions of the creation of the cosmos. It's a very wide chapter that is difficult to summarize, but as everywhere else in the book he fills it up with example upon example from all over the world.
The final chapter is about the existence of humans and the holiness of life. He tells us how many traditions thought of the human body as its own cosmos. The opening at the top of the scull was the place where the soul would leap from at death, and hence some Indians have the tradition of crushing the scull of a recently deceased priest to ensure his soul's easy transcendence. He also mentions männerbunde and various initiations that served to give birth to man anew, after the initiation was complete, and the new sacred man arose. This chapter is also very wide and difficult to summarize, but the richness of the examples is splendid.
All in all, a book that is hard to characterize, but I've read it twice in two weeks now, so I guess that says it all. An excellent book that nearly is enough to make the most profane person catch a glimpse of the holy. Highly recommended!
(I read a different edition)
A compelling foundational model.......2007-07-11
Eliade's book is by nature limited to making general statements without extensive illustration and qualification. But the general statements he makes are fascinating. He makes the birth of the "world" and the birth of religion identical, since the "world" is by definition a meaningful and ordered space, and only a divine "hierophany" can establish a reference point for meaningful (& chaotic) space. Pre-religious man lives in a meaningless, homogeneous space, and therefore has no concept of the world.
This view sheds light on the association between religion and violence. The collision of two religions also represents the collision of two worlds, and the nothing is more terrifying that the destruction of the world. Of course religion is only the first source (on Eliade's account) of the "world"; today we have many non-religion sources of value from which a world-sense can emerge. Or perhaps "religion" has just taken on many new guises, even "non-religion" ones.
Eliade also discusses the recurrence of sacred time vs. the linear movement of profane time.
There are valuable reflections in the book on the hidden religiosity of modern, profane man. For all human beings without exception, meaningful existence is only possible when we respect some version of sacred space and sacred time.
Rich ideas for such a short book. Highly recommended, even if it does get a little repetitive.
A Magisterial Work on the Nature of the Sacred.......2007-02-12
In this book, Eliade writes first in an accesible, then in a most respectful style on religion, magic, initiation, mysticism, and the profane. From the outset, though the book's title states it concerns religion, in which the object of study begins with the Divine, and then continues on consequently to man, Eliade rather begins with man and then continues on consequently to God. Man is shown to create himself, his house, his cosmos, and his existential situation precludes the religious right up until a.d. 1950 (the date of this book's first publication). The author wisely points out profane man is a rather unique and new phenomenon in human history. Whether he is descriibing the initiation rituals of primitive societies, or the construction of a modern abode, Eliade skillfully shows like it or not, we are recreating the cosmos as the gods did before history. Without the slightest hint of a sense of humor, Eliade points out repeatedly that no matter how much modern profane man has attempted to divest Nature of the sacred, he still stubbornly, if unconsciously, sacralizes his environment. Over and over again.
This is a nice little book that provides a glimpse into what we are stubbornly trying to leave behind, to our own obvious detriment.
Very insightful look at religion and community.......2007-01-31
This book was my first foray into Eliade's work and was it ever a powerful place to start. His insights into the delineation of sacred space and what it signifies for a community - repetition of the cosmogonic acts, the establishment of what is termed the axis mundi, or world center and point of contact between the heavens and the earth (as Delphi was viewed by the ancient Greeks, or Mount Meru by the Indians, etc...) and so on - are brief yet fully packed. He covers sacred time as well, with sections that tie in with another of his excellent books, The Myth of the Eternal Return.
If you're interested in the study of world religions, I would highly recommend this book. In my opinion, Eliade is a standout in this area.
Remarkable mettle; egregious thinker!.......2007-01-09
The apparition of this book was pointed out like an important date in the history of religions. Using articulately a rich mass of documents, studying symbols, myths, magic rituals, allying the philological and archeological investigations that really supported the whole structure and working out of the mythic thinking, Eliade gets a dense and fascinating synthesis that engages not only the fervent student of the religions but besides to any cultivated man, interested in distinguish between the holy and the profane. The solar cults as well as the fecundity, the celestial symbols, the lunar mystic, the sacred stones, the renovation rituals, the sacred times and spaces, are analyzed from the double trouble that the work implies. What's the religion? What is the level it may be talked about the history of religions?. The book as his author marks, introduces the reader into the complex labyrinth of the religious facts, familiarizing us with the fundamental structures and with the diversity of the cultural circles, since which they merge they merge.
Book Description
Los Angeles Police Detective Peter Decker had grown very close to Rina's young sons, Sammy and Jake, as he had to their mother, and he looked forward to spending a day of his vacation camping with the boys. A nice reprieve from the grueling work of a homicide cop-until Sammy stumbles upon a gruesome sight...
Two human skeletons, charred beyond recognition, are identified by a forensic dentist as teenage girls--and for Decker, the father of a sixteen-year-old daughter, vacation time is over. Throwing himself professionally and emotionally into the murder case, he launches a very personal investigation: a quest that pulls him deep into the crack dens of Hollywood Boulevard and painfully close to the children of the streets and a nightmare world he must make his own.
Customer Reviews:
Well Done.......2007-07-18
This is the second book in the Decker/Lazarus series by the writer and it is a most satisfying read. The characters have depth and the story is one of the better mysteries that I have read. Rather than using the rapid and surprise twists of Coben, she relies on a well put together story to carry the day. Layer upon layer adds to the intrigue in this most satisfying story. It is a rapid read that I found to be quite satisfying and better than her more recent works. The characters and their development and believability all add to this satisfying book, which I would strongly recommend to anyone looking for a good mystery to read.
I was interested.......2007-06-12
Even without reading the first book in this series, I was able to enjoy the relationship story. I thought that the mystery was good, the detective work interesting, and the story fast paced. I enjoyed learning more about what one has to go through to become that type of Orthodox Jew.
Better than the first book........2006-10-27
LAPD Detective Sergeant Peter Decker first met Rina Lazarus in The Ritual Bath when he was working a rape case at the Yeshiva - a sort of Jewish campus community where Rina has been teaching elementary school. They fell in love, but she is an Orthodox Jew and he is a Gentile, so it can't work, right? Well, they are trying to make it work in this second book of the series and I especially like the conflict between them. I mean, for a guy raised in a relatively loose society to just up and step into the strict regimen of Orthodox Judaism and have everything move smoothly would have been a cop-out of major proportions so I was glad to see the reality of the situation instead.
The book starts on Christmas Eve and Decker is out camping with Rina's two sons, Sam and Jake, when poor Sam finds the charred remains of two skeletal bodies, thus ending their holiday. To add insult to injury, the Foothills Division is short on Homicide detectives at the moment and Decker is given the case. Usually working Juvie and Sex Crimes, he hates Homicide. And this case is gruesome and particularly troublesome for Decker. The bodies have to be identified with dental records and one of them turns out to be a missing teenage girl - the same age as his own daughter, Cindy, as it turns out. The investigation leads Decker deep into the cesspool of perversion, kiddy porn and murder which begins to taint his personal life and increases the tension between himself and Rina.
I was somewhat surprised to see Decker as such a ruthless SOB. He roughs up suspects, harasses wealthy citizens behind his Captain's back, even slaps around a young prostitute. He also gets blind drunk and passes out on Rina's floor. (Kind of amusing, in a sad way). One thing I was curious about - I'd never heard the expression "ripped off" used as a euphemism for killed before. In my world, ripped off means robbed or cheated. Now, whacked is a word I know, but I thought only goombahs used it. (Ha ha) I had to laugh out loud when someone pulled a gun on Decker. The detective slammed the guy against a wall and said something like, "I can't believe you just tried to whack a police officer!"
Anyway, this book is well paced. Whenever I thought, hey, I'll finish this chapter and then go to bed, something too intriguing cropped up and I had to keep reading. The ending is a little sad, but not hopeless. I'll have to keep reading the series to find out what happens next with Decker and Rina and if you get started with these characters, you'll probably have to keep reading too.
An Excellent Suspense Thriller & An Extraordinary Character Study!.......2005-09-03
"Sacred and Profane," the second Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus novel, proves to be even a better read than "The Ritual Bath," Faye Kellerman's first book in this outstanding mystery/sleuth series. This is a stand-alone novel, and one can easily get to know the cast of characters and their history without having read prior books. Ms. Kellerman provides a terrific change of pace from my usual fiction fare. Although these mysteries have their share of violence, gruesomeness and unsavory individuals, the ethnic/cultural aspect of the stories and the sheer humanity of the characters are refreshing.
LAPD Detective Sergeant Peter Decker met Rina Lazarus, a young and very beautiful widow, while investigating a rape at a yeshiva in Deep Canyon, CA, where she lives and works. Rina is an Orthodox Jewess and the mother of two small sons, Samuel and Jacob. Attracted to each other from their first meeting, Rina and Peter, feel their relationship is "bashert," meant to be or predestined. Raised a Baptist, Peter is studying with Rabbi Aaron Schulman to become an observant Jew, both for his own spiritual needs and in order to marry Rina. At times, however, he has doubts about the course he has chosen, although he never doubts his feelings for Rina. The couple are very much in love. Besides her beauty, outside and in, Decker is drawn to her total lack of guile.
Decker has become very close to Rina's sons and takes them on a camping trip where one of the boys discovers the charred remains of two corpses. Peter, who works in juvenile crime, is temporarily assigned to homicide to investigate this case. The skeletons, two women in their teens or early twenties, are identified through complex dental work and their murders are found to be connected to a grisly pornography ring which deals in "snuff" films." The case forces Decker to deal with the dregs of humanity, and although he is a hardened combat vet who served in Vietnam, and for years with the police, he becomes increasingly agitated and depressed. The fact that he is the father of a teen-age daughter, from a prior marriage, only increases his despair and anger. Seriously questioning the existence of God and the purpose of religion in his life, he becomes ambivalent about continuing his religious studies and practices. As he delves more deeply into the complex, macabre case, Peter becomes more and more isolated from Rina. And Rina, who in no way wants to pressure him, needs to find out how committed her finance is to their relationship and to becoming an observant religious man.
The author deftly handles the workings of the intense personal relationships between Peter, Rina and their children plus crime solving with apparent ease. As with the other Kellerman books I have read, her characters are her strength. They are truly three-dimensional and their dialogue is extremely realistic. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery, the humanity of the characters, and details of the Orthodox Jewish customs and lifestyle.
I plan to read more of this excellent author's work and highly recommend it to others.
JANA
Truly a Mixture of Sacred and Profane.......2004-06-12
Much grittier than the first novel in the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, this novel addresses personal depravity and personal spirituality, both of which actively concern the murders at the center of the novel, and the relationship between Decker and Lazarus. Taking place months after the events in `The Ritual Bath', the opening of the novel finds Decker camping with Lazarus' two boys, one of whom stumbles upon two dead bodies. Reluctantly, Decker takes on the case, and what follows is depressing for him and for the reader: teenage prostitution, snuff films, and pyromania, just to name some of the elements. These subjects take a toll on Decker, and threaten both his relationship with Lazarus and his embrace of Judaism. As in the first novel, the characters are well-drawn and realistic; you feel for Decker and Lazarus, especially when Decker becomes self-destructive, hurting everyone around him. The multi-layered plot is much more complex and satisfying than `The Ritual Bath', although the ending will not please romance fans. You'll be left wanting more...which is presumably where the next book will take you.
Book Description
Sacred and Profane: Voice and Vision in Southern Self-Taught Art presents historical and cultural analyses of southern self-taught art that focus on the cultural contexts of the art's creation, as well as on the lives and works of representative artists, while also addressing their reception by the mainstream art world.
Reflecting the South's complex cultural, religious, racial, and political admixture, the artists draw from, and frequently combine, diverse visual sources and creative traditions. Sacred and Profane focuses, in particular, on southern artists' efforts to find personally fulfilling forms of aesthetic expression that give vision and voice to the simultaneous demands of the sacred and the profane dimensions of existence.
Because in the South religion is woven through the very fabric of society, interlacing social beliefs, customs, practices, and behaviors, vernacular artists often testify to intensely held religious beliefs through their art. Essays by Charles Reagan Wilson and Frédéric Allemel discuss the range of religious artistic creations, while studies of Howard Finster, Myrtice West, Anderson Johnson, and Eddie Martin (St. EOM) illuminate the intensely personal religious experience of particular artists. The works of some artists, such as Nellie Mae Rowe and Clementine Hunter, address both the sacred and the profane dimensions of their lives, while the art of Bill Traylor, George Andrews, and Thornton Dial focus more on the individual artist's social observations and personal responses to their times and the history of the South.
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Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet: The Sacred and the Profane in Thirteenth-Century Polyphony (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)
Sylvia Huot
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
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ASIN: 0804727171 |
Book Description
The motet began as a form of sacred vocal music in several parts; a cantus firmus or tenor, drawn from sacred Latin chant, served as a foundation for one or more upper voices. The French motet was a well-established form by the middle of the thirteenth century, as were bilingual motets that combined at least one French and one Latin text among the upper voices.
Though some attention is paid to melodic structure and the relationship between text and music, this book focuses on the literary artistry of the texts of French and bilingual motets, notably the special feature of motets that distinguished them from other medieval lyric forms: the phenomenon of polytextuality. The author analyzes both the interaction of the texts within a motet (when there is more than one texted voice) and the relationship between the texted voice(s) and the tenor.
Although some French motets employ vernacular refrains as tenors, the vast majority use Latin tenors, thus maintaining an explicit tie to the liturgical origins of the genre. This presence of sacred and profane elements within a single motet presents an interpretive dilemma that the author suggests can be resolved through an allegorical or parodic reading; indeed, she argues that the tension between allegory and parody is an essential feature of the French motet.
The book examines the creative juxtaposition of sacred tenors and vernacular lyric motifs, and the resulting interplay of allegorical and parodic meanings, focusing in particular on the female persona as object of desire and as desiring subject, and on the motives of the separation and reunion of lovers. The author's analysis also discusses the links between the French motet and the secular lyric, the allegorization of love poetry in sermons and mystical texts, sacred parody, and the playful use of liturgical and biblical citations in erotic poetry.
Book Description
Sacred and profane love are related opposites; the one enjoyed renders the other necessary, so that the ever-unsatisfied heart swings constantly to and fro.
Customer Reviews:
Ruthless, perhaps evil, this is a pornography of the soul.......2002-06-15
No sex, no violence, but pornography in the highest artistic sense: it is about the irredeemable. The worthless, the evil, the basest and most foul, while simulteneously exalting the pure aspects of love, even as it denigrates them.
If you can keep yourself from shuddering while Pinn speaks to Monty in his bedroom, then you need serious mental attention.
An excellent novel.......1999-08-08
Iris Murdoch's books aren't for everyone: they are for sensitive, intellectual, and introspective readers. I read this one a few months ago, and was very impressed with the quality of the writing, the complexity of the characters' personalities, and the pervasive exploration of their different viewpoints and feelings as the story unfolds. Not only is this book intelligent and insightful, it is also entertaining, and never slow-going. My only criticism concerns the two somewhat "fabulous" accidents which take place near the end. An excellent novel nevertheless.
Murdoch on love and betrayal.......1999-03-12
The Sacred and Profane Love Machine describes the spectacular unravelling of two families at the hands of Blaise Gavender. The first family is his own "legitimate" one, comprising his wife Harriet and son David. The other is his lover Emily and their son Luca. A weary and cynical novelist,the newly widowed Montague Small, is the unwilling observer and intermediary of this melange. We see a recurring exploration of the meaning of love when the faults of the lovers suddenly become overwhelming and the only options are forgiveness or alienation.As in her other books, Murdoch's characters are complex, their motivations tangled by alternating emotional currents of elation, despair, and futility.
Book Description
This edition of renowned philosopher Frithjof Schuon's writings on the subject of art, selected and edited by his wife Catherine Schuon, contains over 270 photographs-200 color and 70 black and white. He then deals with the spiritual significance of the artistic productions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Far-Eastern world, while also covering the subjects of beauty and the sense of the sacred, the crafts, poetry, music, and dance, and dress and ambience.
Customer Reviews:
A blending of religious images and words from around the world.......2007-06-09
Catherine Schuon edits FRITHJOF SCHUON: ART FROM THE SACRED TO THE PROFANE EAST AND WEST, a blending of religious images and words from around the world which comes from a teacher with forty years teaching art and architecture. Nearly three hundred color and black and white illustrations are designed to pair with the text, providing both written and visual illumination and accompanying discussions of art's connection to sacred worlds.
Book Description
These three superb novellas by the internationally celebrated Chaim Grade reaffirm his reputation as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Yiddish writers of our time. Combining the richness of character and the moral concern that have consistently marked Grade's work, these stories offer a luminous picture of Jewish life in Lithuania between the two world wars, with its everyday problems and its spiritual yearnings.
Book Description
Gerardus van der Leeuw was one of the first to attempt a rapprochement between theology and the arts, and his influence continues to be felt in what is now a burgeoning field. Sacred and Profane is the fullest expression of his pursuit of a theological aesthetics, surveying religion's
relationship to all the arts -- dance, drama, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music. This edition makes this seminal work, first published in Dutch in 1932, newly available. A new foreword by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona analyzes the continuing relevance of van der Leeuw's thought.
Van der Leeuw's impassioned and brilliant investigation of the relationship between the holy and the beautiful is founded upon the conviction that for too long the religious have failed to seriously contemplate the beautiful, associating it as they do with the kingdom of sensuality and impermanence.
Similarly it has been alien to literati and aesthetes to reflect upon the holy, for they choose to consider this physical world to be permanent, and therefore to be glorified through beauty alone. In truth, as van der Leeuw undertakes to show in Sacred and Profane Beauty, the holy has never been
absent from the arts, and the arts have never been unresponsive to the holy. Whether one considers the Homeric epics, the dancing Sivas and Vedic poems, the sacred wall paintings of ancient Egypt, the primitive mask, or the range of sacred arts developed out of Latin and Byzantine Christianity,
primordial creation in the arts was always directed toward the symbolization and interpretation of the holy. The fact that in our day this original connection is obscured and the artistic impulse is more generally regarded as wholly individualistic and autonomous does not contradict van der Leeuw's
thesis; indeed, the breakdown of the unity of the holy and the arts is central to his thesis.
Van der Leeuw was the rare thinker who combined profundity of insight, grace of style, and a willingness to take daring intellectual chances. In Sacred and Profane, he describes each of the arts in its original unity with the religious and then analyzes its historical disjunction and alienation.
After a penetrating investigation of the structural elements within the arts which illumines a crucial dimension of the religious experience, van der Leeuw points toward the reemergence of an appropriate theological aesthetics on which a reunification of the arts could be founded.
Book Description
From the revelations of classical statuary pulled from the Roman soil as the popes began rebuilding the city in the fifteenth century, to the myth of serenity that Venice constructed to conceal its physical and political fragility, to bloody yet cultured Florence under the Medici, Ingrid Rowland traces the worldly, unworldly, and otherworldly strivings of artists, writers, popes, and politicians during that great "outburst of mental energy" we know as the Renaissance.
Here are Botticelli, whose illustrations for the Divine Comedy reveal him to be one of Dante's most careful readers; the multifaceted genius of Leonardo; the astonishing mastery of Titian and the erratic brilliance of artists like Correggio, Caravaggio, and Artemisia Gentileschi; the enigmatic erotic novel Hypnerotomachia Poliphili; the Western fascination with the mysteries of Egypt; and the glittering spiritual ferment of late Byzantium, which as it collapsed passed on so many ideas to Renaissance Italy.
But beyond its artistic accomplishments, Rowland writes, "Renaissance life at its most distinctive was the intangible, unworldly life of the mind." In her pages astronomers and astrologists, poets and philosophers, pornographers and prostitutes jostle for attention with painters and sculptors. Among them the inquisitive Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher stands out as a polymath who ranged over nearly every field of knowledge. Even though his commingling of scientific observation and hermetic symbolism is now obsolete, he remains for Rowland "a builder of connections who insisted on seeing harmony in the midst of disorder"—and thus one of the most exemplary Renaissance figures of all.
Books:
- The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse: Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Regaining Control of Your Life
- The Simplest Path to Personal and Planetary Awakening, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND: 10 Keys for Unlocking Your Personal Potential, Achieving Spiritual Awakening, ... of Humanity's Ultimate Cosmic Destiny
- The Stone Monkey (A Lincoln Rhyme Novel)
- The Story of Little Black Sambo
- The Story Teller (Arapaho Indian Mysteries)
- The Terror That Comes in the Night (Publications of the American Folklore Society New Series)
- The Tortilla Curtain
- The Wine of Angels (A Merrily Watkins Mystery)
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Books Index
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The Idea of the Holy
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Patterns in Comparative Religion
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (Oxford World's Classics)
The Future of an Illusion
