The Sacred, the Occult and the Distinctiveness of Religion

Abstract

Is there a distinctively religious attitude? Durkheim suggested there was: it was that of regarding certain beliefs, persons, institutions, practices, or places as sacred. The idea of the sacred also featured prominently in the work of historians and phenomenologists of religion, where it referred to the transcendent (“other-worldly”) object of devotion. While the phenomenologists’ idea of the sacred has fallen out of favor, Durkheim’s idea is undergoing a revival, to which the present paper is a contribution. To regard something as sacred, it argues, is to see it as having a particular kind of normative significance, which arises from its connection with an “occult” or hidden realm. While phenomenologists regarded this attitude as irreducible, this assumption is unwarranted. While serving to explain human behavior, this distinctively religious attitude also requires an explanation, one that will acknowledge both its human origins and its political role.