Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) 1954, by Salvador Dali
"MAN BECOMES AWARE OF THE SACRED BECAUSE IT MANIFESTS ITSELF, SHOWS ITSELF, AS SOMETHING WHOLLY DIFFERENT FROM THE PROFANE. To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term HIEROPHANY". It is a fitting term, because it does not imply anything further; it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., "that something sacred shows itself to us". It could be said that the history of religions - from the most primitive to the most highly developed - is constituted by a great number of "hierophanies", by manifestations of sacred realities. From the most elementary "hierophany" - e.g. manifestation of the sacred in some ordinary object, a stone or a tree - to the supreme "hierophany" (which, for a Christian, is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ) there is no solution of continuity. In each case we are confronted by the same mysterious act - the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural "profane" world."
- MIRCEA ELIADE, "The Sacred and the Profane : The Nature of Religion: The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture" (1961), translated from the French by William R. Trask, [first published in German as Das Heilige und das Profane (1957)]
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"From Wikipedia: The term hierophany" (from the Greek roots "hieros", meaning "sacred" or "holy," and "phainein" meaning "to reveal" or "to bring to light") signifies a manifestation of the sacred. The term appears frequently in the works of the religious historian Mircea Eliade as an alternative to the more restrictive term "theophany" (an appearance of a god). Eliade argues that religion is based on a sharp distinction between the sacred (God, gods, mythical ancestors, etc.) and the profane. According to Eliade, for traditional man, myths describe "breakthroughs of the sacred (or the 'supernatural') into the World" - that is, "hierophanies".
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Reference: http://modern-wiccan.blogspot.com
