Postmodern Man in Search of the Sacred (cultural and anthropological perspective)

The article examines the problem of disorientation of a 21st century person in the cultural space. It shows that uncertainty is a key feature of modern social reality. The author applies a cultural-anthropological approach to the study and puts forward a hypothesis about the preconditions for this phenomenon. The transformation of ideas about existential dichotomies such as "transcendentimmanent", "sacred-profane", "continuous-discrete" is one of the main reasons for today's disorientation. This, in turn, points to tectonic shifts in public and individual consciousness. The author analyses the causes and characteristics of these transformations at different historical stages (classical, modern, postmodern) and considers the "optimistic" and "pessimistic" scenarios in man's continuing search for the sacred and the transcendent. The article identifies "alternative" ways to religious practice to gain transcendental experience and a sense of the sacred that are used by the modern individual. On this basis, the author concludes that there are multiple forms of the sacred in the society of the 21st century, which on the one hand indicates a continuous process of individualisation, and on the other hand is a confirmation of the work of the self-preservation mechanism responsible for preserving the human in man.