If We Pay No Attention

In Imitating The Exemplary Acts Of A God Or Of A Mythic Hero, Or Simply By Recounting Their Adventures, The Man Of An Archaic Society Detaches Himself From Profane Time And Magically Re-enters The Great Time, The Sacred Time.

The Sacred Tree, The Sacred Stone Are Not Adored As Stone Or Tree; They Are Worshipped Precisely Because They Are Hierophanies, Because They Show Something That Is No Longer Stone Or Tree But Sacred, The Ganz Andere Or 'wholly Other.'

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.

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 Would Be Frightening To Think That In All The Cosmos, Which Is So Harmonious, So Complete And Equal To Itself, That Only Human Life Is Happening Randomly, That Only One's Destiny Lacks Meaning.