The Great Cosmic Illusion Is A Hierophany....

When The Sacred Manifests Itself In Any Hierophany, There Is Not Only A Break In The Homogeneity Of Space; There Is Also A Revelation Of An Absolute Reality, Opposed To The Nonreality Of The Vast Surrounding Expanse. The Manifestation Of The Sacred Ontologically Founds The World. In The Homogenous And Infinite Expanse, In Which No Point Of Reference Is Possible And Hence No Orientation Can Be Established, The Hierophany Reveals An Absolute Fixed Point, A Center.

Do What He Will, He [the Profane Man] Is An Inheritor. He Cannot Utterly Abolish His Past, Since He Himself Is A Product Of His Past. He Forms Himself By A Series Of Denials And Refusals, But He Continues To Be Haunted By The Realities That He Has Refused And Denied. To Acquire A World Of His Own, He Has Desacralized The World In Which His Ancestors Lived; But To Do So He Has Been Obliged To Adopt An Earlier Type Of Behavior, And That Behavior Is Still Emotionally Present In Him, In One Form Or Another, Ready To Be Reactualized In His Deepest Being.

The Experience Of Sacred Space Makes Possible The Founding Of The World: Where The Sacred Manifests Itself In Space, The Real Unveils Itself, The World Comes Into Existence.

The History Of Religions Reaches Down And Makes Contact With That Which Is Essentially Human: The Relation Of Man To The Sacred. The History Of Religions Can Play An Extremely Important Role In The Crisis We Are Living Through. The Crises Of Modern Man Are To A Large Extent Religious Ones, Insofar As They Are An Awakening Of His Awareness To An Absence Of Meaning.

It Is Not Without Fear And Trembling That A Historian Of Religion Approaches The Problem Of Myth. This Is Not Only Because Of That Preliminary Embarrassing Question: What Is Intended By Myth? It Is Also Because The Answers Given Depend For The Most Part On The Documents Selected.