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Eliade Notes

Art History (University of California Los Angeles)

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1/20/18

Eliade Notes

Intro and Chapter 1

 Homogeneity of Space and Hierophany

o For religious
 Space is not homogeneous
 There is a fixed point
 Gives orientation to life
o For profane
 Space is homogeneous; natural
 No fixed point
 No orientation
 “no longer any world, only fragments of a shattered universe” (P 24).
 Still places of quality – holy spaces
 Theophanies and Signs
o “The threshold, the door [of the church] show the solution of continuity in space
immediately and concretely; hence their great religious importance, for they are
symbols and at the same time vehicles of passage from the one space to the other” (P
25).
o “Every sacred space implies a hierophany . . .” (P26)
o “The symbolism implicit in the expression ‘gate of heaven’ is rich and complex; the
theophany that occurs in a place consecrates it by the very fact that it makes it open
above – that is, in communication with heaven, the paradoxical point of passage from
one mode of being to another” (P26)
 Churches act as doors, allowing communication with god
o Signs of theophanies end relativity and confusion
 Founding of El-Hamel by stick growing buds (P 27)
 Sometimes provoked
 Animal signs
 Reveal fixed points
o Balance between living in sacred and living in objective reality
 Chaos and Cosmos
o That which is within one’s inhabited territory is cosmos, that which is outside is chaos
o Civilizations make their space sacred
 Vedic ritual (P30)
 Fire altar makes ownership of area legally valid
 Altar to Agni symbolizes creation
o Building equivalent to cosmogony
 Scandinavian takes possession of Iceland, changing chaos into cosmos through
divine act of creation
 Tilling the dirt – organizing chaos

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o “For in the view of archaic societies everything that is not ‘our world’ is not yet a world”
(P32).
 Consecration of a Place = Repetition of the Cosmogony
o “. . . [T]he cosmicization of unknown territories is always a consecration; to organize a
space is to repeat the paradigmatic work of the gods” (P32).
o Achilpa
 Numbakula, an ancestor, climbed sacred pole from gum tree and disappeared
into sky
 Take pole with them on wanderings
 If pole broken, the people lay and wait to die
o Cosmic pillars that support heaven (34)
 Celts and Germans before Christianity
 Romans, ancient Indians
 Kwakiutl believe pole passes through underworld, earth, and sky
 Pillar is “door to the world above” (P35)
 Axis mundi (universal pillar connecting 3 worlds) seen in sky in form of
Milky Way
 The Center of the World
o System of the world
 (a) a sacred place constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space; (b) this break
is symbolized by an opening by which passage from one cosmic region to
another is made possible (from heaven to earth and vice versa; from earth to
the underworld); (c) communication with heaven is expressed by one or another
of certain images, all of which refer to the axis mundi: pillar (cf. the universalis
columna), ladder (cf. Jacob's ladder), mountain, tree, vine, etc.; (d) around this
cosmic axis lies the world ( = our world), hence the axis is located "in the
middle,'' at the "navel of the earth"; it is the Center of the World. (P37)
o “. . . ‘our world’ is holy ground because it is the place nearest to heaven, because from
here, from our abode, it is possible to reach heaven; hence our world is a high place”
(P39).
 Nearest to axis mundi cosmic mountain
 “Temples are replicas of the cosmic mountain and hence constitute the pre-
eminent ‘link’ between earth and heaven” (P39)
o Each society thinks its civilization is at center of world
 Summer solstice makes these cities cast no shadow
 Capital of perfect Chinese sovereign, and Jerusalem
 “Our World” is Always Situated at the Center
o Palestine, Jerusalem, and the Temple severally and concurrently represent the image of
the universe and the Center of the World (P43)
o To us, it seems an inescapable conclusion that the religious man sought to live as near as
possible to the Center of the World.
 But he also wanted his own house to be at the Center and to be an imago mundi
o Religious man feels the need always to exist in a total and organized world, in a cosmos
o Every human establishment repeats the creation of the world from a central point (P45)

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 Just as the universe unfolds from a center and stretches out toward the four
cardinal points, the village comes into existence around an intersection
o From a center, four horizons are projected in the four cardinal directions
 Found in ancient Italy, Germans, Algonquins, and Sioux
 City-Cosmos
o Metaphor for outside people as darkness, death, chaos, and dragon
 Evil
o “Similarly the victory of the gods over the forces of darkness, death and chaos is
repeated with every victory of the city over its invaders” (P 49).
o Fortifications are magical defenses
 Undertaking the Creation of the World
o Desacralization of home and cosmos by the creation of the modern world
o Since the gods had to slay and dismember a marine monster or a primordial being in
order to create the world from it, man in his turn must imitate them when he builds his
own world, his city or his house. (P 51)
 What is important for our investigation is the fact that, in all traditional cultures,
the habitation possesses a sacred aspect by the simple fact that it reflects the
world.
o In other words, cosmic symbolism is found in the very structure of the habitation. The
house is au imago mundi. The sky is conceived as a vast tent supported by a central
pillar; the tent pole or the central post of the house is assimilated to the Pillars of the
World and is so named. This central pole or post has an important ritual role; the
sacrifices in honor of the celestial Supreme Being are performed at the foot of it. (P 53)
 Cosmogony and Building Sacrifice
o Types of Cosmogony
 Fixing snake that supports the world’s head and foundation is built upon the
stake
 Snake symbolizes chaos, beheading is action of creation
 Stake set at exact center of the world
 Blood sacrifice to give house soul
o Thus religious architecture simply took over and developed the cosmological symbolism
already present in the structure of primitive habitations (P 58).
 Temple, Basilica, Cathedral
o It is not only an imago mundi; it is also interpreted as the earthly reproduction of a
transcendent model. (P 58)
o In the last analysis, it is by virtue of the temple that the world is resanctified in every
part. However impure it may have become, the world is continually purified by the
sanctity of sanctuaries. (59)
o The Christian basilica and, later, the cathedral take over and continue all these
symbolisms. On the one hand, the church is conceived as imitating the Heavenly
Jerusalem, even from patristic times; on the other, it also reproduces Paradise or the
celestial world. But the cosmological structure of the sacred edifice still persists in the
thought of Christendom; for example, it is obvious in the Byzantine church. "The four
parts of the interior of the church symbolize the four cardinal directions. The interior of

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the church is the universe. The altar is paradise, which lay in the East. The imperial door
to the altar was also called the Door of Paradise. P 61
 Some Conclusions
o If we should attempt to summarize the result of the descriptions that have been
presented in this chapter, we could say that 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. 63
o Religious man can live only in sacred world, relies on it, and only in this place does he
have real existence
o Religious man places himself at center of the world by symbolism through country, city,
temple, and palace 65
o In short, this religious nostalgia expresses the desire to live in a pure and holy cosmos, as
it was in the beginning, when it came fresh from the Creator's hands. 65

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Chapter 4 Human Existence and Sanctified Life

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