ABOUT SACRED, PROFANE AND CIVILIZATION

Mar. 20th, 25 - Mircea Eliade, historian of religions, told :
– "The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world. In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation can be established, the hierophany (=absolute reality) reveals an absolute fixed point, a center."
– "For profane experience, on the contrary, space is homogeneous and neutral; no break qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass. Geometrical space can be cut and delimited in any direction." (The Sacred and the Profane - 1957)

Since the dawn of time, the sacred has been anchored in temples, regardless of religion. The temple is the petrified reconstitution of the Cosmos and, beyond that, the catharsis of the sacred on Earth. This cosmic conception of the temple is often realized by an astronomical link between a place of worship and certain celestial arrangements. The almost imperative orientation of mosques and churches towards Mecca or Jerusalem continues to provide us with a wealth of illustrations.

Like temples, religious and political representatives associated are the fixed points of peoples, nations and civilizations : they are the axis mundi. The transfiguration of souls through the sacred is at the origin of great civilizations.

But should the axis mundi be broken, then comes the unique, logical, and seductive thought that wants to explain everything. Hypocritical or false thinking sets in. And peoples have no other choice than to worship false idols that always turn out to be bitter disappointments. In this way the Roman Empire fell, and so have all civilizations come to an end. And nowadays, globalization, venerated by the Profane, has become the ruin of good people and the prosperity of an elite caste.

To think great things, one must be sincere with oneself and believe in the hidden power of sacred things.

It is thus that in his quest for the original principle (the apeiron), Pythagoras, a man of science but above all an universal man, linked the theory of numbers and the power of the soul to an organized structure of the world.

And also, in the Picatrix (Book I), it is told :"In man resides the power of God and the science of justice to govern cities."
Those who forget it hasten to their doom.