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About Us

About Us

About Us

HIEROSPHÁNEIA

Purist version of the term “hierophany” (from the Greek hieros (ἱερός) = sacred and pháneia (φαίνειν) = to reveal, to bring to light); is the act of manifestation of the sacred, also known among Hindus and Buddhists with the word of the Sanskrit darśana, and, in the most concrete form of the manifestation of a god, deity or numen, is called theophany.

A hierophany is a manifestation of sacred forces in which what is shown is not God in a personal sense, but rather the sacred sense of the Cosmos, the profound value of the spirit of divinity that fills everything.

The term was coined by Mircea Eliade, in his work “Treatise on the History of Religions”, to refer to an awareness of the existence of the sacred, when it manifests itself through the objects of our usual Cosmos as something completely opposed to the unholy world. In order to translate the act of manifestation of the sacred, Eliade proposes the term “hierophany”, which is very concrete, since it refers only to that which corresponds to the sacred that is shown to us.

Hierophanies can be simple or complex. Simple ones are when manifested through objects, such as a stone, ring, sword, or river. Complex ones occur when they manifest themselves through a complex and long process, for example, the emergence of a religion. For Mircea Eliade every hierophany, from the simplest, it’s a paradox because when this manifestation happens through a sacred object it does not lose its unholy nature. Hierophanies are experiences of people full of faith, accompanied by admiration, stupor, or terror that borders on the ineffable.

Hierospháneia are Xavier de Palau and Rafael Balaguer, who have been collaborating on several multidisciplinary projects since 2011.

Xavier de Palau

Xavier de Palau

COMPOSER / MUSICIAN / SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
XAVIER DE PALAU
Composer / Musician / Software developer

With a classical and scientific musical training, Xavier de Palau (Girona, 1962) is a transversal artist.

A restless-minded musician and composer, a constant innovator, he is always open to the search for new creative horizons. He uses science and new technologies as tools that allow him to open different experimental fields in electronic music and algorithmic composition or sonification. Passionate about interdisciplinary knowledge, he has worked on his music within different fields such as astronomy, cryptography and numerology, poetry, image and photography, history, biology, or gastronomy.

about us Rafael

Rafael Balaguer

ASTRONOMER / PREHISTORIAN / SCIENTIFIC DISSEMINATOR
RAFAEL BALAGUER
Astronomer / Prehistorian / Scientific disseminator

Rafael Balaguer Rosa (Barcelona, 1971) is a prehistorian and astronomer. Especially interested in and committed to scientific dissemination, he focuses on the task of communicating astronomy and paleoanthropology, giving courses and conferences, in which audiovisual supports stand out, as well as conducting public astronomical observations, especially with Astrogirona, Astronomical Association of Girona, where he has been linked to its management since its origins in 1999 and of which he is president, and where he conducts studies on meteorology, solar activity, spectroscopy, and exoplanets. In this sense, he has promoted the construction and directs the two observatories that the Girona Astronomical Association put into service in 2011 in Llagostera (Girona).

His vitality and great interest in all aspects related to astronomy and paleoanthropology have led him to travel around the world bringing a transversal vision to astronomical discipline, combining it with anthropology and archaeology. He is currently conducting an international scope research, totally pioneering in the field of archaeoastronomy, which studies the relationship between the location and orientation of megalithic monuments with the geomagnetic field of the Earth.

Behind the synths and telescopes

about us Jessica

Jessica Lleonart

GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGNER / SOCIAL MEDIA
JESSICA LLEONART
Graphic & web designer / Social media

Born near Barcelona in 1986, Jessica Lleonart studied Advertising and Public Relations, and Social Education.

She has always been interested and passionate about all kinds of different fields such as music, illustration, science and culture. She has always felt an artistic feeling inside and Hierospháneia has been the perfect catalyst to mix it all.

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