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학습목표: 성스러움과 성현의 개념에 대해 이해하고 성현의 상징에 대해 논의할 수 있다.
Here is a very important concept, hierophany. It's a very important concept to Eliade. Let me explain it now.
Hierophany is the manifestation of the sacred.
It means that some existence, that is different from me, is manifested.
Since it is a difficult concept, I didn't explain it in the text, but instead, I wrote it in a footnote to the main text.
Ontophany' means the manifestation of a being. 'Kratophany' is that of a being stronger than humans.
Epiphany' means manifestation of a being above or outside the human world
If gods are manifested, we can use the term theophany.
Epiphany is just a manifestation of a being above or outside the human world, but if the first character E is capitalized, it means that Jesus Christ manifested himself in the appearance of a human.
So the phrase, "the Epiphany of Jesus Christ," is often used.
All of these words express the condition that some power, being, or object, that is distinguishable from human beings is shown to human beings.
Among them, Eliade preferred hierophany. Hierophany is a more inclusive concept that refers to all the appearances of the things which are distinguishable.
Hierophany means the manifestation of the sacred. The sacred differentiated from ordinary life is revealed to or experienced by religious people.
As I told you before, hierophany does not assume that the sacred exists in reality. You must remember this.
We should focus on the fact that people believe and experience it. It doesn't matter if it really exist or not.
Hierophany leads to a break of the ontological dimension.
It makes us think that there is a being totally different from us.
It is a being different from ourselves.
"How did such an existence come to me?"
In many cultures, those who believed that they came to meet God thought that they would die.
Why?
Because they encountered something totally different from them.
We can find such things in the Bible, too.
This is what Gideon said,
"Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face-to-face," and worried about death.
The parents of Samson said the same thing, too.
There was a pretty woman named Semele in Greek mythology. She insisted that Zeus show himself to her, and when he did, she died -- because they are totally different beings.
A being that is completely distinct from ourselves.
Hierophany is the manifestation of all manners of sacred things, and this phenomenon causes a break in the ontological dimension.
We will look at a very important concept now. It is the dialectic of the sacred.
We know about Hegel's dialectic.
According to Hegel, when the Absolute Spirit develops in history, there is a thesis that gives rise to reaction.
There is something which contradicts or negates the thesis.
That is antithesis.
The tension between the two is resolved by means of a synthesis.
It is synthesized.
These are thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
This synthesis becomes a thesis again and then antithesis is made from it. A structure keep developing in this way.
If you only think of this, you might think the dialectic of the sacred is a concept of going towards something.
This is not true.
It is not correct. You can think of it like this.
It is simple.
Think of it like this.
By definition, the sacred is opposite to the profane.
By definition, it is characterized as something different from human beings in the profane.
Right?
This means the sacred and the profane are the opposite of each other. They cannot coexist.
Then how is it that people living in the profane are able to experience the sacred?
If they are totally divided and differentiated, how are they able to experience it through senses?
If I experience the sacred through my senses, it is not sacred any more.
Why?
Sacredness should be differentiated from me. It should be totally different from me.
So, the dialectic of the sacred means that opposite things are synthesized in human religious experience.
What are opposites are synthesized and shown to human beings.
This is the dialectic of hierophany.
Sometimes, we call it the dialectic of the sacred and the profane, or the dialectic of sacredness. What is opposite from each other becomes synthesized.
Understand?
The sacred is totally different from the profane.
But it can only be revealed through the commonplace.
This is hierophany.
Although the sacred and the profane are differentiated completely, human beings, in the realm of the profane, can experience the sacred only through the profane.
We experience it through the senses that belong to the ordinary world.
The process in which the things that have profane qualities becomes perceived as totally different is the process by which hierophany is experienced.
I want to again emphasize the point that anything can be experienced as sacred.
I ask questions when I give a lecture to freshmen.
When I ask who their favorite is, they name one of the members without hesitating.
When I ask if they will keep the handkerchief used by their favorite member of BTS, they say they would.
It will be kept separately.
Right?
It is differentiated.
It is not a just any handkerchief soaked with sweat.
It becomes a meaningful handkerchief to the person.
You experience something like this.
You came here to listen to the lecture of Professor Yoo Yohan.
Although I'm just a professor right now, there might be some religion worshipping me some time later on.
Let's just imagine it.
If the time comes, if the religion worshipping me is created, this saliva-covered mic can be something sacred as well.
Maybe they will make a shrine for this mic and worship it.
In North Korea, such things are happening.
If Kim Il Sung came and sat on a rock, the rock is distinguished from others.
Common people cannot sit on it.
Right?
People want to mark the place saying it was used by God.
In Genesis, Jacob stacked stones on the place he met God in his dream.
This place is differentiated from others.
It is not a simple stone.
It is not just a mic.
It is not a simple handkerchief.
They become a completely different handkerchief, mic and stone.
In fact, people live a life experiencing a lot of these processes to give meaning to something.
It is especially true when it becomes a sacred being accepted by a specific religious community. I said this before, right?
When the man confesses that Shiva turned into the stone to protect him, this stone becomes the thing that Shiva is manifested into.
Understand?
It is not a simple stone.
It becomes a completely different stone.
At first, he picked it up to use as a pot stand. But it became an object of worship. We paint it, worship it and offer sacrifices to it.
It becomes something completely different.
Shiva came to me through the stone.
The stone is recognized as the sacred itself.
In this process, there is a symbol.
Today, we study hierophany, and from the next class, we will study the theories of symbolism.
In the regular classes, we study various symbols, the difference between symbols and metaphors and many difficult concepts, somewhat boring. But in this class, we will study things briefly, mentioning only the core topics.
The core of symbolism theory, symbolism theory of Eliade. We will study such things. You will be able to know how the normal stone becomes a stone which indicates something different.
It is a symbol.
This is not a simple pointer but a pointer marked with the fingerprints of Professor Yoo Yohan. And then it is not a simple pointer any more.
It becomes something different.
It is not a simple mic.
It is worshipped as something other than a mic.
It is recognized as something different.
And now for the mechanism of symbolism.
According to Paul Ricoeur, a symbol has a double intentionality, which means it has another meaning besides the primary, literal signification.
A symbol is something that has a different meaning. It is not a simple stone but a stone with a different meaning. Then, it becomes a sacred symbol and we experience it as a hierophany.
I will explain these further with the following slides.
A stone or a tree, they are not worshipped as they are.
They are worshipped because they became beings that show something different, something sacred, holy and completely different.
Commonly, rocks are worshipped as a hierophany of sacred beings. Here, I'm showing you Gatbawi Buddha Statue on Mt. Palgong in Daegu.
There is a gat (traditional hat mainly used a middle class man) on the head of Buddha.
The gat was usually worn by educated and learned men.
For this reason, many mothers of students come here to pray, especially when university entrance exams are coming up.
They come here to pray, offer Buddhist worship, and put money in the box before the Buddhist altar.
As people believe that this shape of gat is related with the symbols of knowledge, they think it is effective to pray here regarding schools and exams.
This rock is not a simple rock, right?
It is a Buddhist statue wearing gat, which symbolizes knowledge. It becomes an object that is useful for wishes, especially wisdom, knowledge-related wishes.
They do not bow to the rock itself.
They bow to it because they perceive it not as a rock, but as a different being.
Let's look at some cases that are regarded as hierophany. There are many things that show the sacred.
I have talked about things several times.
Anything can be hierophany.
Stones, rocks.
Stories can also be regarded as hierophany. If you would refuse to acknowledge certain stories in a culture, you can get in trouble for it.
For example, if you do not accept some stories from the Bible, you are not a Christian.
Right?
If you change or deny stories about Kim Il-Sung or Kim Jong-Il in North Korea, you may be shot dead.
In this case, stories themselves are sacred.
Some activities are recognized as sacred.
We will talk about this many times when we study rituals.
Any event can be a differentiated event and any special time can be a sacred time.
We can meet gods only when we go into a time separated from the flow of ordinary time.
Some spaces are protected.
I mentioned this in the first class when I talked about the sacred.
Sodo in ancient Korea was a sacred place from which careless intrusions were prohibited.
A space where we cannot approach freely.
When it is recognized as a differentiated space, we cannot act in ways in which we can in a normal space.
When it is recognized as a differentiated space, we cannot act in ways in which we can in a normal space.
All these objects that manifest the sacred can be called hierophany. Some students may think that hierophany is a process that this sacredness comes to them.
Does it include the process of it?
It is probably more precise if we think hierophany as the object revealing the sacredness rather than the process of revelation.
You have seen this guy many times before, right?
I will quote him a lot throughout the semester.
He is Alain de Botton.
I would like to recommend for you to read his book, The Art of Travel.
Please read it.
It is a very humorous and interesting book explaining about human beings and various cultures. But there is something more. How should I say this?
He had very biting remarks and orovoked with his points.
In this book, he shows that modern people perceive certain beings that transcend themselves through the vast nature, the sacred, if we use the terminology that we have used in this class.
Alain de Botton is an atheist.
He believes that God does not exist.
But he said that he experienced something sacred a few times.
I will tell you more about it when we study "sacred space" later on. In The Architecture of Happiness, he said the following.
Although he is a Jewish atheist, he experienced a feeling that was completely different from what he felt before when he entered the chapel to avoid a heavy rainfall.
He sometimes experienced similar feelings when he faced something enormous in nature.
He went to Mt. Sinai in Israel, and he says he experienced something sacred there.
He felt as if the God exists there
He expressed like this.
"Landscape suggests power."
What kind of power?
It is said, “A landscape could arouse the sublime only when it suggested power, power greater than that of humans and threatening to them.”
Though the concept of sublime can be perceived as very complicated and diverse, it may be the feeling that human beings experience when they meet something larger than themselves.
It can cause the sublime.
It was not Alain de Botton who first said this.
Kant said it.
Alain de Botton is within this tradition.
Although Kant was the first to articulate this, we can experience by ourselves, too.
Alain de Botton added, "Because what is mightier than man has traditionally been called God, it does not seem unusual to start thinking of a deity in the Sinai."
This is a person who has experienced the sacred.
Even though we do not necessarily believe in God, we might experience the sublime. In the face of the vast nature that causes awe and reverence, we might feel it is so great and we are nothing compared with it. Experiencing these feelings or thinking of God in the Sinai is
an experience that anybody can have in some way if he is a human being. This is what Alain de Botton points out.
I have explained what the dialectic of hierophany is.
Let me summarize.
The sacred and the profane are different in quality.
You understand the lecture up until now, right?
But human beings living in the profane world can experience the sacred only thorough the profane; the sacred is manifested in the profane world.
And any natural thing can be experienced as something different than itself paradoxically.
A stone can be experienced as Shiva, not as a simple stone.
In other words, the sacred and the profane are separated but all objects in the profane can be the sacred.
This is the dialectic of hierophany. And it's the basic structure that appears throughout the variations.
Understand?
According to Eliade, it's essentially the basic structure of human religious experience.
곽영어에 개재하는 "종교상징의 이해" 과정은
서울대학교 Seoul National University의 콘텐츠입니다.
인문학, 종교학 관련학과를 생각하고 있는 학생들에게 추천하는 강의입니다.
본 강좌는 학습자들이 종교 및 상징의 개념과 속성 등 이론적인 내용과 세계 여러 문화들의 다양한 종교 상징의 사례들을 공부함으로써 인류가 사유하고 행동하는 방식에 대한 폭넓고 깊이 있는 이해를 추구하도록 하는 것을 주된 목적으로 합니다.
본 강좌를 통해 학습자들이 종교를 바라보는 객관적인 태도 및 종교 상징의 형태와 표상 방식을 해석할 수 있는 능력을 키우고 나아가 고전 신화로부터 현대의 영화에 이르는 다양한 문화 양식에 담겨있는 상징적 의미를 파악할 수 있는 통찰력을 배양할 수 있을 것으로 기대합니다.