Sacred contagion is the belief that spiritual properties within an object, place, or person may be passed to another object, place, or person, usually by direct contact or physical proximity. While the concept of sacred contagion has existed in numerous cultures since before recorded history, the term "sacred contagion" originated with French sociologist

Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...

, who introduced it in his book, ''The Elementary Forms of Religious Life''. For example, the

Book of Leviticus The book of Leviticus (, from grc, Λευιτικόν, ; he, וַיִּקְרָא, , "And He called") is the third book of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and of the Old Testament, also known as the Third Book of Moses. Scholars generally agree ...

, in Chapters 11 through 15, specifies which animals are considered spiritually clean and unclean, and defines women during

menstruation Menstruation (also known as a period, among other colloquial terms) is the regular discharge of blood and mucosal tissue from the inner lining of the uterus through the vagina. The menstrual cycle is characterized by the rise and fall of ...

and men after a

nocturnal emission A nocturnal emission, informally known as a wet dream, sex dream, nightfall or sleep orgasm, is a spontaneous orgasm during sleep that includes ejaculation for a male, or vaginal wetness or an orgasm (or both) for a female. Nocturnal emissions ...

as unclean. The text also gives many examples of sacred contagion brought about by contact with these spiritually unclean people and things. For example, chapter 15 states that spiritual uncleanliness exists not only in the menstruating woman but also the bed she sleeps in, as well as any object placed upon that bed, and any person who touches an object placed upon that bed. We see not only the passing of uncleanliness through spiritual contagion, but also that the uncleanliness may be further passed, from person to object and back to person indefinitely. Anthropologist

Mary Douglas Dame Mary Douglas, (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkheim ...

, whose work is heavily influenced by Durkheim, wrote an extensive modern work on the topic of sacred contagion entitled '' Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo''. She states that, "We cannot understand sacred contagion unless we distinguish a class of cultures in which pollution ideas flourish from another class of cultures, including our own, in which they do not." Douglas and Durkheim both rejected the idea that concepts of purity and impurity, such as those found in Leviticus, were an attempt to use religion to explain hygiene, an otherwise impossible task in the scientific terms of the time, several millennium before the concept of germs. Instead, according to Douglas and Durkheim, spiritual cleanliness and physical cleanliness are wholly separate and must be considered on their own terms.

References

*Douglas, Mary - ''Leviticus as Literature'' (Oxford, 2001, ) *Douglas, Mary - ''Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo'' (Routledge, 2002, 0415289955) *Douglas, Mary - ''Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas'' (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996 ) *Pickering, W. S. F. - ''Emile Durkheim III: Critical Assessments of Leading Sociologists series'' (Routledge, 2000, {{ISBN, 0-415-20560-3) Religious practices

See also

References