Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A physical manifestation of the holy or sacred, serving as a spiritual eidolon for emulation or worship.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἱερος (hieros), “sacred, holy sign” + φαίνω (phainô), “show, appear”.

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Examples

  • For today I think Eliade's focus on what he called hierophany, the eruption of the divine into the mundane is the most important thing.

    UUpdates - All updates 2009

  • Grannie is the religious hierophany ala Eliade of theological prophecy in the movie.

    Is Religion in Science Fiction Something New? Hardly! James F. McGrath 2009

  • Many people live their whole lives without any access to the soul, so that to come into contact with it, in therapy or otherwise, can be experienced as an hierophany, which may involve fear and rejection.

    Hibernation Time? William Harryman 2007

  • Eliade even had a word for the experience I had that day: hierophany.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Adam Frank 2012

  • For all its usefulness in developing technology, science is elementally a path to hierophany.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Adam Frank 2012

  • As the great Romanian historian Mircea Eliade wrote, "Except in the modern world, sexuality has everywhere and always been a hierophany a manifestation of the sacred, and . . . also a means of knowledge."

    Thestar.com - Home Page Brent Ledger 2011

  • For all its usefulness in developing technology, science is elementally a path to hierophany.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Adam Frank 2012

  • Just as an epiphany can relate to ideas, a hierophany relates to experience -- the experience of the sacred.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Adam Frank 2012

  • Eliade even had a word for the experience I had that day: hierophany.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Adam Frank 2012

  • Just as an epiphany can relate to ideas, a hierophany relates to experience -- the experience of the sacred.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Adam Frank 2012

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