Om det hellige i arkaiske og i moderne samfund

Abstract

Primarily with R. Otto and M. Eliade as a starting point, man's relationship to the sacred is approached from a phenomenological way of understanding in order to give a psychological outline of this existentially important theme without reducing it to psychological categories. To demonstrate that man's relationship to the sacred cannot be reduced to historical
categories conceming stages and epochs, either, it is argued thai the sacred manifests itself in basically the same way under archaic and modem conditions of life: When the sacred appears in a life world situation which up to the present moment has been quite
ordinary, split, and transient, this is tantamount to experiencing a reality which is now wholly different and wholly genuine; furthermore this means that the life world is now imbued with meaning, worth, and intensity.
When human beings take part in activities of understanding typical of archaic culturcs (cultic and mythical understand) and of modem cultures (for example scientific and artistic understanding) the same human endeavours - with same important modifications - are traceable: To grasp and to elaborate that thc wholly different and the wholly genuine reality is there (i.e. to experience the sacred in its existential mode of appearance), and to point out and to name what the wholly otherwise and the wholly genuine is all about (i.e. to cxperience the sacred in its essential mode of appcarance).