When the directions said the reading was ’skimmable’, I was quite excited, and knew this was going to be an easy read. Well, much to my dismay, I open the link and it is 104 pages long!!! So, skimming the reading, I hope I got all the main points, but if not, please forgive me, as that seemed a little long.
This reading was definitely different from the other Eliade work. This seems to focus more on the physical hierophanies of the profane world, rather than the overall connectedness of all that is sacred. I definitely preferred this work over his “Myth and the Eternal Return”. His generalization here did not hurt him as much as the other one, and he could do it without offending me, which was a big step for him. The things he brought up, like how the sacred and profane are tied together in the real world, made perfect sense. He tries to do that in his other book, but his generalizations just defeat his point. Everything cannot be boiled down into a basic model in which everything can fit. It just does not work like that. However, this writing covers it quite eloquently, but on a different topic. He covers more of the sacred and profane, hence the title of the book, and the other more of the history of the past and how it is reflected in myth and the eternal return, hence the other book’s title. Overall, this one was a better read, and would suggest it over “myths” any time.
