The Sacred views of space, time and nature

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Research Started By Sebastian Peschiera

To deepen the study of re-enchantment and apply that knowledge to imersive,emergent, responsive environments it is crucial to study the views of space, time, nature and existence of the sacred vs the more common contemporary views of the profane. Mircea Eliade would benefits us in his historical studies of the sacred.

A key argument to keep in mind is that to a certain extent the sacred is present unconsciously in the nonreligious man, for example the sacred space and time of a first love, of a birthplace, moments that take part in a private universe. Mircea Eliade in his book the Sacred and Profane – The Nature of Religion shows supporting evidence of how the views of the sacred manifest themselves in very similar fashion through history and more importantly mythology. It is of importance that the following conclusions are not only manifested in certain tribes or cultures but in most if not all the them; so these is an uncovering of the general perspectives of the sacred.

I advise the interested or skeptical reader to read Mircea Eliade to find the defending evidence(which I am not posting here) of his concepts and points ; it might be sufficient to know that Mircea is a recognized scholar and was the Chairman of the Department of History of Religions at the University of Chicago

So here are some of his findings

[[- The sacred space -]] 

    a) Sacred place constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space (marking of a specific point ,  cosmic creation)
    b) This space is symbolized by an opening by which passage from one cosmic region to the other is made possible
    c) Comunication with the heaven or other world is expressed by one or another of certain images which are the axis mundi :the pillar, the ladder, mountain, vines etc
    d)  Around the cosmic axis lies the world, the cosmic axis is the center of the world.

“The house is not an object a machine to live in , it s the universe that man constructs for himself by imitating the pragmatic creation of the gods, the cosmogony. Every construction and every inaguration of a new dwelling are in some measure equivalent to a new beginning, a new life. And every beginning repeats the primordial beginning when the universe first saw the light of day” (57)

“where the sacred manifest itself in space, the real unveils itself, the world comes into existance… Religious mans profound nostalgia is to inhabit a “divine world”(59)

[[- The sacred time-]] 

    a) Time is not homegenous or continuous, by means of rites religious man can pass without danger from ordinary temporal duration to sacred time( a primordial mythical time made present)
    b) The nonreligious man also lives in a heterogeneous time ,there is the monotonous time of work , the time of the spectacle or celebration; when he is in love, listens to music he likes,  
          there are different intensities of time or different temporal rhythm,
    c) The religious man  lives in two kinds of time normal time and the most important sacred time which appears in a circular manner ,reversable and recovable,  an eternal mythical present 
         that is periodically reintegrated by  means of rites.The sacred time has no part in the temporal duration that precedds or follows it
    d)  Besides christianity which  historices Christ. For pre-Christianic religions the mythical time is the primordial time not to be found in the past, an original time that comes into existance
          all at once. It was not precedded by another time because nothing can exist beside the apperance of reality narrated in the myth.
    e) There is an anual repetition of creation, in New Years the world is created a new, its a way to get rid of old time and being born again. Every creation every exitance for the religious man 
         takes place in time, in the beginning of times. Simbolically man was present with his cosmogony, he was present at the creation of the world.
    f)   Cosmogenic time serves as a model for all sacred times. The cosmogeny is always in re-actualization as religious man makes his house , city , crops , and for healing.
    g)  Almost all rituals invoke the begining. The periodic reactualization of the created acts performed by the divine throughout the calendar  usually calls for festivities.  A passing from the 
         profane to the sacred time .
    h)  The festivities are usually  always invokes a sacred event that took place ab origine and its ritual made present.
    i)  For the religious man  myth is  the sacred history that he must not forget because by reactualizing the myth he approaches his gods and to participate in being.
    j)  The notions of circular time are relevant to the religious man, the myth of the eternal return is an almost universal  motiff( Greeks, Mayas ,India) except for Judaeo- Christian ideology 
        where the universal spirit manifest itself in historical events .

[[- The sacredness of nature -]] 


     a)  For religious man nature or the world is impregnated with sacredness, the supernatural is indissolubly connected with the natural. 
     b)   The world exists it is there it has a structure it is not a chaos but a cosmos. In the world the religious man discovers the many modalities of the sacred and of being
     c)  The cosmos as a whole is an organism, at once real, living and sacred, Ontopjamu amd hierophany meet.
     d)  The sky for example its own mode of being reveals transcendence , force, eternity, It exists absolutely because it is  high, infinite, eternal, powerful
     e)   The great mother-goddesses and the strong gods or the spirits of fertility  are marked more accessible to men than is the Creator God. But in supreme
           distress, men have turn to the supreme being to entreat him.
     f)   We see the mother godesses symbology across religions  usually symbolizing nature. The brest of the mother as the depths of the earth etc.
     g)   In many languages man is called the earthborn. It is believed that children come from the depth of the world, from caverns. The dead burried in the soil.
     h)   All the religions experiences associated with fecundity and  birth  have a cosmic structure.
      i)    Ritual orgies for the benefit of crops likewise have the divine model – the hierogamy of the Fecundation God
      j)  Symbolism of the cosmic tree and of  vegetation cults]] ==


“Nature still exhibits a charm, a mystery, a majesty in which it is possible to decipher traces of ancient religious values. No modern man, however irreligious, is entirely insesible to the charms of nature. We refer not only to the esthetic recreational, or higenic values attributed to nature, but also of a confused and almost indefinable feeling, in which , however, it is possible to recognize the memory of a debases religious experience”(P157)

Bibliography

Mircea Eliade, The Sacred And The Profane: The Nature of Religion, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; First Edition edition (October 23, 1987)

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