Hierophany and Sport

Abstract

A deeper understanding of sport cannot remain only in rational discourse that transforms reality into quantified data but must descend into philosophical areas that also accept the multiple figurativeness of symbols. By means of not literal but metaphorical truthfulness, sport can then be examined as a potential space of hierophany, that is, the manifestation of the sacred in the sphere of the profane. The paper argues in favor of the thesis that a more precise description of hierophany can highlight the difference between the presentation and representation of the sacred. While the physical activities that were part of the religious cult of archaic societies can be considered hierophanies in the mode of presentation (making present) of the sacred, no such direct parallel can be drawn for modern sport. Sport can be seen through the lens of implicit religion as a representation (an agency), not a presentation of the sacred.

1. Introduction

Modern sport, a product of 19th century industrial civilization combining the ideals of the English gentleman with earlier cultural images of the medieval knight and the ancient Greek hero, is one of the most obvious symbols of contemporary culture. The optimism rooted in the Enlightenment vision of progress and development, combined with an evolutionist view of constant growth, is still evident in the pursuit of new records and more valuable sporting achievements. However, because it is not only a physical human activity but a phenomenon that is full of symbolic meanings, the multitude of interpretations of sport go beyond the fixed boundaries of scientific knowledge. Alongside disciplines that aim for conceptually precise and theoretically grounded uncontroversial scientific and theoretical knowledge (such as sports medicine, anthropometry, biomechanics, etc.), new modes of description are emerging that intend to contribute to a deeper understanding of sport using symbolic imagery and the terminological ambiguity of mythopoetic experience (evident in cultural anthropological analyses, some philosophical and religious ways of knowing). With reference to Aristotle’s rational virtues as defined in the Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle 1999), i.e., with an awareness of the five ways in which the soul can come to know the truth, we can thus label these opposing ways of knowing as episteme, theoretical knowledge, and nous, intuitive insight, the combination of which is evident in sophia, philosophical wisdom.

The rediscovery of this dimension of knowledge, completely rejected since the Enlightenment deification of reason, is linked to a new appreciation of figurative expression, symbolic interpretation, and mythological wisdom. Scientific trends in reasoning are likely to continue to reject symbolic ambiguity as an insufficient level of knowledge, preferring only episteme as an adequate way to know truth in the modern world. Such approaches will analyze the sphere of sport using biomechanical and natural science techniques and methods, or sociological analyses. The adequate approach in such discourses is the quantitative conversion of reality into data and their statistical calculations. However, lived human experience cannot be fully encapsulated in quantified data. In attempting to use insights from psychological discourse, we inevitably encounter deeper dimensions of the human psyche, transcending theoretical knowledge into areas reserved for nous and sophia. Hence, the symbol—especially thanks to psychoanalysis and its interest in the image (Jung 1964)—is restored as a valid tool of knowledge. For symbols reveal the deepest aspects of reality that defy other ways of knowing, since images, symbols, and myths are not creations of the psyche but a certain function that exposes “the most secret modalities of being” (Eliade 1961). All the more so must such a transcendence of discourse occur in philosophical and religionist investigations.

Understandably, one can also encounter approaches to empirical sciences that are based mainly on a phenomenological and hermeneutic epistemological background, abandoning the positivist ideals of science based on the notion of objectification of reality through quantification and thus generalizing explanation. This is evident, for example, in the renewed appreciation of rituals, myths, and art (Gadamer 1987) and hence in the increased interest in the visualized component of information. Visual methods are therefore increasingly used in social science research, such as conceptual and mental maps (Davies 2011), collage making (Butler-Kisber and Poldma 2010), and diagrammatic sketches (Barry 2017). Visual methodologies have the advantage of moving from merely reflecting on social reality to potentially transforming it (Mitchell et al. 2017). Such methodological approaches have also been used in the deeper understanding of sport (Phoenix 2010; Rich and O’Connell 2012) and related fields (Jirásek and Sochor 2023). Nevertheless, philosophical analysis and conceptual refinement seem to be the appropriate approaches for a deep understanding of the complex link between sport and religion. A hermeneutic understanding need not refer exclusively to the present but can also involve making the present and re-experiencing historical events, thereby expanding the bounded reality of life and deepening the understanding of the meaning of the phenomenon under investigation. Symbols, rituals, or beliefs include not only scientifically graspable but also unconscious processes and contents that influence interpersonal relationships and their dynamics (Bergquist 2009). Interpreting the experiential dimension of knowledge is an essential part of such a way of understanding.

The human spirit, using images to grasp the ultimate reality, can thus accept the contradictory ways in which it manifests itself, which cannot be expressed in unambiguous terms and concepts. Thus, any verbalization of profound symbols will always remain an incomplete expression, for the symbol communicates through pictorial imagery more than can be grasped through words. This must always be kept in mind when attempting a more precise conceptual interpretation of sporting phenomena, using religious themes and insights. The imagination of symbols is always deeper than their translation into verbal form. Thus, sport as a contemporary form of symbolic mythic drama will always be something else than what it directly points to. And this “something”, this hidden and inexpressible in words, which sport depicts in its own way, is one of the forms of actualization of those mysterious planes of existence that religious symbols have also revealed. This is why it makes sense to seek a deeper interpretation of the possible contacts between sport and religion, not just for their more superficial forms and phenomenal similarities. Sport helps people experience a different order of reality than the sensory givenness exhibited by rationality. The fact that the myth of sport can be degraded by scientific secularization into a mere profane human contest does not mean that it does not contain profound symbols found in the existential experiences of human beings.

At the same time, this does not mean that nous is open to any interpretation without a clear inclination towards truth and veracity. Nevertheless, the way of discovering meanings at the interface between sport and religion is more appropriately conceived on a similar principle to that on which cognizability is based in the creative and visual aspects of creation and education, i.e., the principle of metaphorical truthfulness. The meaningful network of modified similarities between artefacts and the reality they depict enables interpretations of metaphorical similarities. Although this involves grouping objects from originally different classes whose identical properties may not be obvious at first sight, it is possible to test their accuracy or truthfulness (Slavík et al. 2013). However, this veracity is not literal but figurative. For example, the statement “the lake is a sapphire” is untrue on a literal understanding, but figuratively it is a true metaphor (Goodman 1992). However, if we use a metaphor that goes beyond the bounds of such interpretive correctness, we get outside the field of meanings that a given symbol carries within it. For example, we cannot even metaphorically compare a lake to a tree or a ladder, for such a metaphor would be patently false.

With these rather methodological outlines in mind, we can proceed to the main topic, which is the process of hierophany in the sports environment. We will first introduce the basic concept and then the possibilities available for interpreting the notion in the sports environment.

2. Hierophany

The term sacred has been used for many decades to describe religious experiences characterized by a sufficient degree of symbolic significance (Otto 1958). The historian of religions, Rudolf Otto, focused not on religious concepts but on human experience and its irrational dimension. Feelings of amazement (mysterium tremendum) and fascination (mysterium fascinans) are related to the numinous reality of divine power, to the “ganz andere”, the absolutely other. In this conception, the sacred appears as an ontologically completely different reality, an actuality beyond the order of human nature. Nevertheless, the process of the revelation of the sacred comes into general awareness through the distinction between the realms of the sacred and the profane (Eliade 1959). Thus, the sacred (holy) is the antithesis of the profane (mundane), yet this absolute other manifests itself in specific ways of being in human life. And it is precisely for the process of the revelation of the sacred that the religionist Mircea Eliade chose the term hierophany to name the manifestation of sacred realities throughout religious history. Where Eliade differs from Otto is in the ontological ambiguity of hierophany: on the one hand, it is the manifestation of something quite different, that is, of something outside the order of our reality, but on the other hand, it appears precisely in the natural objects of the profane world.

This brings us to a paradox that transcends rational definition. Because profane objects (tree, stone, building) do not represent the sacred in themselves. They are worshipped because they point to something beyond these objects themselves, pointing to something entirely different, the sacred, which is revealed through the things worshipped. The profound symbolism thus remains a mystery in Eliade’s approach, for the profane object does not transform itself; it remains itself (a tree, a stone, or a building), but at the same time it transforms into a sacred object for the one who perceives it as sacred. This dialectic is forever linked to hierophany; the same object does not become sacred for everyone, but only for those who are able to perceive its otherness with respect to the qualities of the sacred. A natural object becomes supernatural only for one who possesses religious experience and, therefore, faith. And this, to anticipate the coherent sequence of this paper, is the cardinal problem that emerges in the different understanding of what is newly referred to in the literature as “sporting sacred” (Ellis 2019; Ncube 2017; Rubio-Hernández 2011; Shilling and Mellor 2014).

For Eliade, however, the sacred is not something unreal and imaginary. Hierophany reveals the saturation of being, the reality par excellence. The sacred and the profane are thus two ways of being in the world. And the various profane experiences of life (work, eating, and sexuality) can take on a sacred character through a different modality of lived experience. The question of whether sport too can reveal the sacred, ontologically different (Otto 1958), is thus a question after the existential situation of the human being. If an individual or a society can experience sport as a manifestation of hierophany, it is in a different existential mode than a person who perceives exclusively profane characteristics in sport (just as he or she cannot experience the potentially sacred qualities of nutrition or sexuality). Nevertheless, Eliade refers to the specific dimensions of sacred experience directly in relation to the cultural and social conditions of the religious person. It is then quite understandable that, for example, for members of early agricultural societies, not only the land is sacred but also women, or womanhood, a manifestation of the mystery of the creation of the new. For it is the fertility and motherhood of the woman that are symbolically related to the fertility of the earth, and the creativity of fertility is manifested in the religious mystery in which the mystical belonging between humans and vegetation is experienced (Eliade 1981). It is only the discovery of agriculture that makes it possible to experience the parallels between the sacredness of the union of heaven and earth, revealed and re-enacted in the rituals of hieros gamos, that is, expressing the religious character of sexuality. The imagery of this type of sacredness remains “true” or metaphorically true, even for modern humans living in the desacralized cosmos of science and technology.

Where the great interpretive problem lies, however, is in the twofold characteristic that Eliade links to the sphere of the sacred and the profane through hierophany. It is difficult to determine whether objects belonging to the sphere of the profane really exist or not. If the sacred is a full being, an absolute reality, then the profane imitation of archetypes is rather an unreal illusion, analogous to Platonist ontology (Dadosky 2005). However, the ontological validity of the sacred is not fully determined by this dualistic articulation. On the one hand, it is human experience; on the other hand, it is the full being of the metaphysical domain. Thus, it is not entirely clear whether the sacred is merely an experiential structure of human consciousness or an absolute, transcendent reality. What is certain is that the sacred does not manifest itself; it manifests itself exclusively in profane phenomena, especially natural phenomena, and can therefore only be recognized in its action and manifestation. Hierophany is thus a type of symbol, symbolic structure, and symbolic behavior of a metaphorical type pointing to a transcendent reality (Cojanu 2016). In essence, any phenomenal entity can be seen as a manifestation of the sacred, so sport need not be free from the processes of hierophany. However, it is only through the experience and understanding of the religious person. The problem is that we can read Eliade’s texts in a twofold way, namely that the sacred actually exists as a divine reality transcending empirical reality; thus, it is not only metaphorically but ontologically full of being. This is the theological position. At the same time, however, other parts of the text reveal a different meaning, where the sacred is not ontologically real but is real according to the assumptions of the believing individual in their mind, mental world, and experience (Studstill 2000). And this is a religionist or philosophical position.

The cardinal question is thus whether hierophany represents or presents the sacred. If hierophany merely represents, that is, points to the sacred, this would have very different implications for a religious understanding of sport than if hierophany presents, makes attend, the sacred. In the former case, sport could be a mode of experience that can lead one vicariously to a transcendent reality, but in the latter, it would be a metaphysical manifestation of a supernatural reality. The argumentation guided by this differentiation leads to the thesis that for contemporary society, the first possible connection of hierophany in the setting of sport (as a potential sign of the numinous) is valid, while the second concept can be described as a manifestation of idolatry (deification of the profane), even though in traditional (archaic, pre-modern, agrarian) cultures it may have been an authentic revelation of the sacred. The following sections of the text attempt to defend this central thesis of the article.

3. Hierophany in Sport?

In the philosophy of sport, the very definition of this section of social reality focused on human physical activities is an extremely strong topic, constantly renewing discussions for a more precise verbal grasp. One possibility is to understand sport as an “institutionalized, rule-governed contest of human physical skill” (Parry 2019, p. 4). Such a delineation serves especially to acknowledge what is not sport (e.g., e-sports, chess, motorsports, or animal fighting). However, in the context of asking for sport as a setting for hierophany, our inquiry does not move beyond a natural, i.e., purely profane, activity. A somewhat different metaphor emerges when thinking about the so-called ‘tricky triad’, i.e., the possible links and contexts of the concepts of sport—game—play (Suits 1988). Indeed, adhering to these possible contexts of meaning leads us to the origins of human culture, since sport would thus have similar sources and roots as game, ritual, drama, and religion (Gadamer 1987; Huizinga 1955).

Sport is thus potentially intertwined (at least at archaic levels of culture) with religion and thus with hierophany. The religious mode of existence believes that there is a sacred, absolute reality that transcends this world, but in which it also manifests and therefore sanctifies it. For the proponent of hierophany in the setting of sport, then, sport should not only be a human physical activity, but it should be something more, namely a manifestation of the sacred, an absolutely different, ontologically different mode of being, a full reality. The problem I have with such a delineation lies in the notion of apologists that “sporting sacred” (Ncube 2017; Rubio-Hernández 2011; Shilling and Mellor 2014) is not an experience of the religious person but an “objective” fact, an ontologically religious reality. However, if we interpret the term “sporting sacred” not literally but rather as a metaphor, that is, in distinction as special or mystical (rather than explicitly holy and sacred), then the use of “potential sacred”, “quazi-religious practices”, or “something similar to worship” (Ellis 2019) can be accepted as metaphorically true. For such a difference in conceptualizing the relation of sport to the sacred, I will use the potential distinction of sport as a presentation versus a representation of the sacred. In other words, if “sporting sacred” is taken literally, it is a statement about the presentation, or making accessible, of the sacred through sport. Such a connection, however, presupposes that sport is a religious rite. When it is understood metaphorically, however, it describes a representation of the sacred, which means that sport can point to the sacred without directly entering and interfering in this realm of the “absolute other”.

“For Eliade, attitudes, beliefs, or any concrete religious phenomenon (i.e., artifacts, myths, texts, rituals) reflect a particular way or ways of relating to the sacred, and beyond that, a religious way of being in the world” (Studstill 2000, p. 180). Can sport be just such a ritual that leads to the sacred? Can sport be “a religious way of being in the world”? I will try to put forward arguments here that there is a quite fundamental difference in meaning between physical activities in traditional societies in the mode of hierophany and modern sport, where no such thing can be seen in the same sense. And therefore, the religious rites of archaic societies, which use physical activities as an authentic part of them, cannot be called sport in the full sense of the word.

3.1. Sport as a Presentation of the Sacred

The religious person of traditional societies perceived as spiritual all the manifestations of his or her life (sexuality, eating, work, and play), but modern humans have stripped all these life experiences of their spiritual significance, i.e., their truly human dimension, and converted them into mere physiological acts (Eliade 1959). Therefore, even the games, matches, and festivals in which the physical activity that we nowadays simplistically label with the modern word sport occurred were religious events, hierophanic manifestations of the sacred. Let us look at a few examples to demonstrate this thesis.

Part of Cretan religion in the Minoan period included ritual ceremonies that included taurokathapsia, i.e., jumping over a galloping bull. The acrobat (boy or girl) would grab the bull by its horns; the bull would throw the acrobat into the air with a violent jerk; the acrobat would perform a somersault over the bull’s back and land on his/her hands or feet on the back of the running bull; and then jump to the ground behind the bull (Olivová 1979; Shapland 2013). Dangerous feats not infrequently ended tragically; these were true death somersaults. Perhaps surprisingly, in the bronze sculptures depicting this event, the human figure, although performing an amazing feat from our perspective, is abnormally diminished, while the sacred animal is proportionally much larger. The recording of such circus performances means one thing: it is a religious activity in honor of the great Minoan Goddess (Evans 1921). Indeed, Neolithic culture in Crete was distinctly feminine in terms of religious experience, as evidenced by the primacy of the Goddess or “Mistress of the Animals” and her depiction in female statues with bell-shaped skirts and bare breasts, as well as the association with the cult of fertility and death (Eliade 1981). The initiation test of leaping over a bull cannot therefore be seen in isolation as a sporting feat, but exclusively in the religious context of Minoan culture. Thus, in the extraordinary human performance and animal power, one could perceive the presence of the sacred in the dimension of a religious event, specifically in the manifestation of the modification of the mother goddess.

Another type of religious ceremony using activities now called sports were ball games in the Central American region. The rubber ballgame is one of the most fundamental features of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture and was particularly important to the two most famous Mesoamerican civilizations, the Mayan and Aztec. Players from the two teams could not touch the rubber ball with their hands but hit it with their hips and knees. The player who could shoot the ball through the hole in the circle immediately won the game. Rich visual, iconographic, sculptural, and architectural data highlight the ritual and political focus of the ball game, with symbolism that included the regeneration of life and the maintenance of cosmic order in the form of rivalries between heroic mortals and otherworldly deities involved in the creation of the universe (Blomster and Salazar Chávez 2020). Ball fields evoke competition, creation, cyclical time, corn, and the underworld (Pugh 2022). The playground represents the underworld, and the ball game is a symbolic reconstruction of the struggle of day and night, or the struggle of light and darkness, that causes the sun to descend into and emerge from the underworld. Furthermore, the game is related to the moon god and to agricultural fertility, including decapitation ceremonies as a sacrifice of the moon to allow the sun to ascend from the underworld. (Cohodas 1975). The ball game within Mesoamerican religion thus combines the symbolism of time and space with ritual activity and mythology. These games were not just a fun pastime but a way to sublimate social tensions through sacrifice, since the rules required playing this “game” to the limits of human existence, namely killing the opponent. The ball game symbolized the duality and struggle of opposites, of nature, and of the cosmic order. The sacred meaning of the game was emphasized by psychotropic plants, which transformed ordinary states of consciousness into hallucinogenic states. The play’s connection can also be seen in the cosmic cycles, fertility rituals, and metaphors of life and death, especially the connection of the play to the planet Venus or the deity Xolotl represented by it. The sacred sense of the game was thus given directly by the presentation of the sacred: “the gods become human and play; there is the sense of a game made sacred, or a divinity that plays as humans do” (Uriarte 2002, p. 44).

Also, the ancient Olympic Games were a form of religious experience for the ancient Greeks (Mikalson 2005). In the sacred precinct in the northwestern Peloponnese, many deities were worshipped, including the heroes Pelops, Kronos, Gaia, Heracles, and later, especially the Olympic ruler Zeus. The Greeks discovered the religious meaning of the joy of life, the value of the beauty of the human body, and the collectively organized merriment of games, dances, and races. The anthropomorphism of the Greek gods was intertwined with a religious sense of the perfection of the human body, physical beauty, and harmonious balance of movements that permeated the artistic canon (Eliade 1981). Initially, ceremonies and games in Olympia were celebrated in honor of the goddess Hera with a race of girls in running (Pausanias 2006), which became a celebration of the god Zeus in the classical period. Although physical movement activities initially played a marginal role in the cult, it was Olympia that gradually became synonymous with athletic competition (Sinn 2000), which has retained this significance in collective human memory to the present day. Religion disappeared; the games remained.

If we label these types of religious events, games, and festivals as sports, we flatten their meaning and purpose, as we miss their fundamental, namely religious, meaning and purpose. Certainly, such events were undoubtedly institutionalized, they were governed by specific rules, and they involved human physical skills, so they certainly fulfilled the conditions of the definition of sport (Parry 2019). However, they were something more: they were unquestionable hierophany; they presented the sacred, the absolutely other in the world of traditional cultures, which religious people quite naturally perceived. But there is a cardinal point that escapes superficial comparison: all these games and sports activities were always and unreservedly realized within a particular religious and mythical system. Cretan bull-jumping was firmly tied to the cult of fertility and the great goddess; the ball games of Mesoamerica represented the struggle of opposites and the deity Xolotl; the Olympic Games were realized to glorify the god Zeus; and other pan-Hellenic games worshipped Apollo and Poseidon. All these examples, as well as many others, including wrestling, running, and dancing (Jirásek 2018b), were thus a direct presentation of hierophany, making the sacred present in a profane world defined by the distinct meanings of a particular cultural and civilizational circle. In other words, religious festivals, which included activities that in modern times we call sports, allowed for the realization of hierophany. Through these games, one’s attitude towards the sacred is revealed since the modalities of the sacred thus revealed were directly related to the experience and attitude of a particular religious person in a community of fellow believers.

I suppose examples from history may be consensually acceptable. However, sports in modern times can be viewed differently. And since I do not believe that today’s sport possesses the same religious significance as the historical cases cited, I will summarize possible criticisms of my opponents’ views in three arguments that I will attempt to refute:

(a)

Sport creates a new kind of religion that would not otherwise have arisen; a specific example is the description of a new one, Aquatic Nature Religion, arising from surfing (Taylor 2007). I have absolutely no doubt about the depth of spiritual experience that surfing brings (see also point c). No doubt they are meaningful, but I would be shy to label them as purely religious. Not only because such a potential religion lacks its creedal and institutional component, but rather because of the characteristics of the nature-related experiences themselves, which are not out of line with other New Age spiritual currents but which (unlike, e.g., shamanism with its coherent cosmology) can hardly be perceived as religion sensu stricto. These are undoubtedly spiritual but not religious experiences;

(b)

Sport is a medium in which existing religions can be developed and cultivated; examples include CrossFit (Musselman 2019) or skateboarding (O’Connor 2018). Of course, Christianity can be strengthened through physical activities, and various parallels can be perceived, as here between military preparation and evangelical expectation or between emotional engagement and the veneration of places. However, in such cases, we may see more of a resemblance to muscular Christianity (Alter 2004; Mazurkiewicz 2018; Watson et al. 2005). That is, sport as an instrument for living Christian values. The religion and therefore the context opening the space of the sacred through hierophany here is Christianity, not sport;

(c)

Sport is characterized by experiences that can be described as religious; such experiences can be escape (Segrave 2000) or ecstasy, joy, and sorrow (Bain-Selbo 2008). Undoubtedly, such experiences are intense, powerful, ecstatic, and possibly mythic. But are they evidence of hierophany? I do not think so: an experience that “looks religious” or “is similar” is not religious; an experience that “can function religiously” or be “explained religiously” is not religious. A number of other names are used for such extraordinary experiences, such as peak (Maslow 1962; Ravizza 1977), flow (Csikszentmihalyi 1975; Privette 1983), or a number of other names that we can collectively call transformative (Jirásek 2020). This does not mean, however, that these spiritual experiences are certainly and unquestionably religious.

I suggest that similar experiences can be seen as representations of hierophany rather than direct presentations of the sacred in the setting of sports.

3.2. Sport as a Representation of the Sacred

Sport perceived through religious experience may point to something other than sport itself, but it does not seem to signify the sacred per se. Sport would have to be perceived by a particular person as a form of worship, as pointing to something quite different, ontologically transcending the natural world. In view of the understanding of hierophany recapitulated above as the appearance of the sacred in the profane world, it is fundamentally important that the sacredness of a phenomenon (in our case, sport) appear as sacred only to the one who perceives it as such. Sport is not and cannot be sacred for everyone, but only for those who are able to perceive this religious otherness. It can only be sacred for a person with religious experience. Therefore, hierophany cannot be sacred per se for anyone. Unlike the festivals of archaic societies, whose participants accepted a religious worldview as an essential part of their way of being, the lives of contemporary humans are significantly desacralized.

Modern sport, although we may perceive some external signs of analogy, is not a religious rite. The modern Olympic Games do not bring athletes together to worship a particular deity; it is not a religious ceremony, although the founder Pierre de Coubertin sought to do so with his notion of religio athletae and was willing to assert quite seriously that “the fundamental characteristic of ancient Olympism, and of modern Olympism as well, is that it is a religion” (Coubertin 2000, p. 580). If this was undoubtedly the case with the ancient Olympic Games, it is a mere sentimental comparison with the modern Games.

If it were true that the Olympic environment is a “sacred place”, a “shrine”, the Olympic committee a “priesthood”, and the oath a “rite of purification”, or whatever other epithets appear, all athletes participating in the games would have to worship the same god in whose honor the games were held. And it would be the hierophany of sacredness presented by this god or goddess that would take place through the sporting event. But this is not the case: a Christian athlete believes something different than a Muslim athlete, a Jewish athlete, etc. A stadium is neither a temple, nor a mosque, nor a synagogue. And each athlete thus maintains his or her own religiosity, manifested, for example, by praying before and after the sporting event (Czech and Bullet 2007; Price 2009), even though asking for divine help may also appear as a potential request for an advantage coming from outside the sporting environment and thus an unethical act (Kreider 2003). Abundant documentation has also been gathered on religious practices and techniques in sport originating from non-Christian religions (Park 2000; Thompson and Andersen 2012; Zerguini et al. 2012) and superstitious rituals (Bleak and Frederick 1998; Dömötör et al. 2016). The theological position assumes that the experience of the sacred is evidence of the reality of the sacred itself. However, modern sport does not have the interconnectedness to become the hierophany of a particular modality of the sacred (as Zeus was to the Olympics or Xolotl was to the ball games). Yahweh, Christ, and Allah do not reveal themselves through modern sport to all athletes and spectators, and sporting activity is not a religious activity for them. Otherwise, they would not pray before a game (within their particular religious system), but would experience the game as a way of praying or having other contact with absolute reality. This does not mean that a religious person cannot perceive sport as part of his or her religious life and, for example, use physical activity as a means of Christian mission or pastoral care (Jirásek 2018a). A religious person can experience sport in a religious way, but athletes claiming different religions will experience the same match and dedicate it to the sacredness of their religion. Which is different from seeing sport as a religion per se.

Sport is not a religious system; it is part of the profane world. There is no real “the religion of energy”, or “the religion of the muscles” and athletes are not “a sort of priest” (Coubertin 2000; Müller 2000). If we take such a celebratory statement seriously to describe the Olympic Games, “then we get the impression that Ludwig Feuerbach was the ghostwriter and that Karl Marx wrote the script. This modern Olympic religion is actually a wishful thought, a dream factory, an opiate of the people. It is a dangerous glorification of sports and a divinization of the games, both of which take away their humanity”. (Moltmann 1981, p. 85). Sport is an expression of humanistic, not religious, ideas, because religion without the sacred is a symptom of a false and unrealistic divinization of humanism.

Understanding what is and is not religious determines what can and cannot be understood as the possibility of religious experience. Any phenomenal entity can be perceived as a manifestation of the sacred because it is a mode of experience in the structure of human consciousness; thus, certain experiences perceived as sacred can only be perceived as such by a properly prepared individual (Rennie 2008). Such a religionist or philosophical position seems defensible for the perception of “sporting sacred”. The problem, however, is if the position is perceived theologically, i.e., that the sacred manifested through the sporting event is the real sacred, i.e., that sport is a presentation of the sacred, the absolute reality. This statement does not mean, however, that the sporting event cannot become a representation of hierophany, that is, a reference or pointer to the manifestation of the sacred in the profane. Sport can become a representation but not a presentation of the sacred. It can indicate the sacred indirectly, but not make it present. The rich symbolism may refer to the deeper dimensions of human physical competition and the courage to venture to the limits of human strength. However, if we label sport as religion sensu stricto, it is either idolatry (Jirásek 2022) or the realm of metaphorical presentation of quasi-religious phenomena. If the fundamental determination of hierophany is that the sacred appears in the profane, which remains the same but becomes something else, then in Christianity, for example, it is the direct experience of holy sacraments, which are ordinary things like bread, wine, water, and words but become the vehicle of holiness (Dahl 2010). It is certain that sport cannot be compared at all to the type of hierophany that is evident through the sacraments.

What can in no way be denied is that for many athletes and spectators, sport plays a role that was previously reserved for religion. Sport can become a substitute for religion, not a manifestation or an essential part of it. Or it can be instrumentally used for religious purposes, as sport can become a means of pastoring and promoting religion (Fernández and Cachán-Cruz 2014), with sport chaplaincy focusing on the potential connection between the two (Davis and Serventi 2017; Kenney 2016; Roe and Parker 2016), and the theoretical dimension being elaborated by the theology of sport (Ellis 2014; Harvey 2012; Hoven et al. 2022; Shafer 2015).

It is clear that there are many similarities but also differences between sport and religion (Cipriani 2012). Attempts to conceptually grasp the connection between sport and transcendent experiences, which, however, cannot be included in the realm of the direct presentation of the sacred, can be perceived through the phenomenon of spirituality. Spirituality is a constitutive feature of the human way of being and thus belongs to every individual, regardless of their religious beliefs. Thus, sport and its deeper values can develop spiritual literacy and enhance the spiritual health of the athlete (Jirásek 2015). Another way to grasp the dialectical paradox of sport and hierophany is to use the term implicit religion. The term is used to refer to the question of whether the profane life directly contains religious attributes, regardless of the religious beliefs of a particular individual (Bailey 2001, 2007, 2010). According to this delimitation, it is possible to perceive a potential connection between the sacred and the profane since it is not about oposity but about complementarity, about a secular search for meaning. Implicit religion is the position of the middle element, referred to as secular, which belongs in its neutrality to both the religious and the atheist individual. It seems that the consideration of sport as an implicit religion (Collins 2014; Grimshaw 2000; Jirásek 2022) may be helpful in thinking more deeply about delineating the role of sport in the profane and sacred spheres.

4. Conclusions

In conclusion, let me reiterate a paradox that is linked to the appearance of hierophany, i.e., the manifestation of the sacred in the profane (Eliade 1959), in relation to sport: profane sporting activity does not represent the sacred in itself. It can, however, be seen as pointing to something beyond sport itself—to the transcendent that reveals itself through sport. This is probably something that both religious and non-religious people can agree on. The difference between these two existential modes, however, is that the direct presentation of the sacred in sport, i.e., the understanding of sport as a religious rite, can only be perceived by a religious individual (the theological position). Sport becomes supernatural only for one who possesses a religious experience, a faith. However, even a person who does not perceive sport as a sacred event can still perceive it as a representation of the sacred (a philosophical and religionist position). Such existential experience, however, is not carried by faith but rather by symbolic metaphoricity—the knowledge that sport may point to a horizon beyond the empirical reality of sporting struggles but does not thereby become sacred.

Sport can become a symbol and myth for modern people, in which the ancient motifs of heroic struggles and initiation trials come to life. Sport is undoubtedly experienced at the level of transcendence and reveals the unconscious contents of the collective psyche. It allows us to step out of the actual world into another cosmos, namely the mythological, symbolic, and imaginative. Sport may fulfill the role of religion for some, but this does not mean that it is a religion or a direct presentation of the sacred in the profane world.

It is possible that for some readers, the proposed differentiation may not be very relevant. What is essential are the experiences through which sport helps to find the deeper connections between one’s own life and one’s position in the world. However, if we do not want to resign ourselves to the original meaning of the Latin saying “bene docet qui bene distinguit” (“one who teaches well is one who distinguishes well”), we cannot avoid deeper reflection on the more subtle philosophical distinctions between concepts even today. I would be very happy if the preceding arguments were sufficiently compelling to avoid seeing sport, which is one of the most important expressions of contemporary culture, as a religion and as a process of hierophany presenting the sacred. I am sure that even the role of sport in being labeled as a deeply spiritual activity, with the designation of implicit religion, is a sufficiently valuable way of appreciating it.