Alchemy posed as a sacred science, whereas chemistry came into its own when substances had shed their sacred attributes. - Mircea Eliade

[...] or, aici stă toată mizeria și toată fascinația dragostei, în descompunerea aceasta lentă a două ființe strânse împreună...

E ciudat cât de incapabil sunt să prevăd evenimente esențiale, să ghicesc oamenii care schimbă mai târziu firul vieții mele

The perspective changes completely when the sense of the religiousness of the Cosmos becomes lost. This is what occurs when, in certain more highly evolved societies, the intellectual élites progressively detach themselves from the patterns of the traditional religion. Periodical sanctification of cosmic time then proves useless and without meaning. The gods are no longer accessible through the cosmic rhythms. The religious meaning of the repetition of paradigmatic gestures is forgotten. But repetition emptied of its religious content necessarily leads to a pessimistic vision of existence. When it is no longer a vehicle for reintegrating a primordial situation, and hence for recovering the mysterious presence of the gods, that is, when it is desacralized, cyclic time becomes terrifying; it is seen as a circle forever turning on itself, repeating itself to infinity.