"The Basic Ideas of Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane"
Joseph F Kelly, Ph.D., ed. by Sheila E. McGinn, Ph.D.
John Carroll University
A modern classic in the study of religion is The Sacred and the Profane
by the late Mircea Eliade. Unfortunately it is not a book which many students
find readable or completely comprehensible. Since Eliade's concepts are important
for the interpretation of religious life, we have prepared this brief summary
of the book. It involves two main concepts, "Sacred Space" and "Sacred
Time," so the summary is divided into two parts. NB: In this summary, "traditional
society" refers to people who live in harmony with the natural world and
in a basically non-technological culture.