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THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SACRED BY MIRCEA ELIADE AS AN ONTOLOGICAL DISCOURSE AND AS A MODEL OF REPRESENTATIVENESS OF THE STRUCTURES OF RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS

Abstract
The purpose of this article is a theoretical analysis and explication of paradigmatic versions of the Western phenomenology of religion of the 20th century. Mircea Eliade’s phenomenology of the sacred as an onto-phenomenological discourse and as a model of congruence of structures of religious consciousness is represented. Eliade’s approach creates a theoretical basis for elaborating a methodology of religious consciousness. One of the objectives of this study is to show that in the phenomenology of religion by Eliade there is a convergence of ontological and phenomenological perspectives in understanding the mytho-religious reality, which expands the conceptual and problematic field of the classical phenomenology of religion. This is one of the possible methodologies for studying religious (and mythological) reality, which can be designated as a substantialist methodology. It is revealed that an appeal to the essence, and not to forms, to substantialism, and not to accidentality is a characteristic feature of the phenomenology of religion by Eliade. A holistic, integrated picture is created through insight into the essence of religion (phenomenological intentionality) as well as analytical investigation. Eliade’s phenomenology of the sacred is considered as a quest for universal structures of religious consciousness. It is argued that the clarification of the ways of constituting the ontology of religious reality is one of the tasks of both Eliade studies and modern religious studies in general. In Eliade’s theoretical model religious ontology is equivalent to the ontology of the sacred. These are two coherent ontologies. The phenomenological approach of M. Eliade allows producing new strategies for the explication and interpretation of reality as such and its religious dimension. The modern philosophy and phenomenology of religion are faced with the need to develop an integrated conceptual model of religious studies. In this regard, the explication of the essential and conceptual nature of the category “sacred” is significant, which is concept-formative in various versions of the phenomenology of religion.

Keywords
phenomenology of religion, ontological discourse, M. Eliade, sacred, religious experience, intentionality, neophenomenology, religious subject.

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