The Importance of the experience of sacrum in the philosophy of civilization of F. Koneczny, A. Toynbee and E. Voegelin

Abstract

The experience of the sacral, broadly speaking, is virtually present in all the known civilizations. No doubt, it entails some acts of worship, less or more ritualized and recognized in an elaborated form. It occurs not only where people pray to the only Creator and the personal God, but also in the Far East civilizations such as: Taoism, Buddhism or Hinduism, which worship Buddha, Tao, or many gods or a mimicry of them, sometimes bereft of personal features.

Despite the process of secularization which has been ongoing for centuries and neo-pagan movements as well as new guises of atheism, the experience of the sacral is crucial in the major theories of civilization. That is the case with Bronislaw Malinowski, Felix Koneczny, Arnold Toynbee and Eric Voegelin. In my article, I have been trying to focus on a comparison of certain similarities and differences in how the theorists of civilization recognize the role of religion, the religion and the sacred, the life of the civilization of the ancients and modern. Relatively little, and understandably enough, has been said about the processes described as secularization, which undoubtedly deserve closer and wider attention. However, even in such a brief outline of the renewed power of the experience of the sacral facing a shift towards the idolatry (e.g. in the worship of the state, man or humanity) or a sheer replacement of religion by it, a drama of contemporary choices becomes visible. Even a sketch of the problem allows grasping the challenges of the future generations of humanity.