ABSTRACT
The Romanian/American historian of religions Mircea Eliade wrote a significant amount on art and religion. Johan Huizinga suggested that play is primary to and necessary for the generation of culture, and Brian Boyd’s treatment of the concept indicates its importance to functions normally associated with religion. Eliade’s observation of religions led him to conclude that sacrality is a category that is apprehended by some people in some experiences while simultaneously remaining unrecognized by others in what is empirically the same experience. Eliade understood that homo religiosus, the specifically religious subject, in some way perceives the presence of the sacred in objects of devotion. His description of the sacred as the perceived source of reality, being, meaning, and truth implies the identification of the sacred as the intention of a certain type of subjective experience. Both Eastern Orthodox and Hindu traditions provide examples of empirical experience as the source of a perceived access to the sacred.
