Key Writings on the Sacred
The list is chronological. If you can suggest any additions, please let me know.

William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
James, William (1842-1910)
A starting point for discussion of personal experience of the sacred.

Emile Durkheim: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life aka The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
Durkheim, Emile (1858-1917)
This book may well have introduced serious consideration of the sacred - profane distinction into the comparative study of religions. If you know better, please let me know.

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy (1917)
Otto, Rudolf (1869-1937)
Frequently referred to, but probably very rarely read. Presents Lutheran Christianity as the culmination of all religious history. See the menu, left.

Mircea Eliade: The Sacred & the Profane (1957)
Eliade, Mircea (1907-1986)
Eliade is the only currently influential writer on the sacred. On this site I shall be subjecting The Sacred & the Profane to a critical scrutiny that is long overdue.

Mary Douglas: Purity and Danger (1966)
Douglas, Mary (1921-)
35 years on, I still regard this book as the most important I have read: on account of the perspectives it opened up and in spite of all its shortcomings. Let's call it rich but undisciplined.