Sacred (Religion)

About the Sacred

by Luan Fauteck Makes Marks, MFA, PhD

This a chapter excerpted from my dissertation, Natures of the Sacred: On Native North American Sacred Lands and Places (2007).

About the Sacred

by Luan Fauteck Makes Marks, MFA, PhD

This a chapter excerpted from my dissertation, Natures of the Sacred: On Native North American Sacred Lands and Places (2007).

Revivalist Lamenting
 As Sacred Therapy: Contemporary Finnish Lament Training As Post-secular Healing Practice

by James Wilce

Presented at the International Conference on Religion, Healing, and Psychiatry, February 2012, Münster University

Like other European countries, contemporary Finland has witnessed an explosion of healing modalities designatable as... more Like other European countries, contemporary Finland has witnessed an explosion of healing modalities designatable as “New Age” (though not without profound controversy). My presentation focuses on Finnish courses in lament (wept song, tuneful weeping with words) that combine healing conceived along psychotherapeutic lines with lessons from the lament tradition of rural Karelia, a region some Finns regard as their cultural heartland. A primary goal of the paper is to explicate a concept of “authenticity” emerging in lament courses, in which disclosing the depths of one‘s feelings is supported not only by invoking “psy”- discourses of self-help, but also by construing the genuine emotional self-disclosure that characterizes neolamentation as a sacred activity and a vital contribution to the welfare of the Finnish people.

Inside the Sacred Machine: The Paradox of the Sacred in Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions

by Joel Harrison

This paper was accepted as my master's thesis in 2009 at the University of Northern Colorado.

Seminario Il Simbolismo: la Grammatica del Sacro.

by Pietro Piro

Seminario Prospettive Sacre d'Oriente e d'Occidente
4° Seminario
Il Simbolismo: la Grammatica del Sacro.
Palermo, 2-4 marzo 2012
Officina di Studi Medievali
via del Parlamento n.3.

The Officina di Studi Medievali (OSM) for almost thirty years has been active in Palermo (Italy), with intense... more The Officina di Studi Medievali (OSM) for almost thirty years has been active in Palermo (Italy), with intense national and international projection. Founded in 1980 by a group of researchers and lovers of medieval studies largely from the University of Palermo, OSM is a no-profit cultural association working on various lines of research in medieval studies, with a programmatic multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. It is housed in the thirteenth-century monumental complex of the San Francesco d’Assisi Basilica, in the heart of the historic area of Palermo, managed by the Province of Sicily of the Lesser Conventual Monks (OFMConv) with which, since its foundation, OSM has established intense and active collaboration. There is a precious patrimony in the Franciscan Library directed by Father Diego Ciccarelli, which possesses over 45,000 volumes, manuscripts, incunabula and numerous old books of rare merit and value, a patrimony that, though in full and mutual autonomy, is integrated with the OSM Library, with common projects for training and for diffusion of a “book culture”. OSM is run by a Ufficio di Presidenza (staff elected by the Assembly of Members): the Chairman is Alessandro Musco and the other members are Armando Bisanti, Diego Ciccarelli, Carolina Miceli and Patrizia Spallino.

It is coordinated by an Comitato scientifico, made up of: Filippo Burgarella, Antonino Buttitta, Paolo Emilio Carapezza, Federico Doglio, Fernando Domínguez Reboiras, Salvatore Fodale, Claudio Leonardi, Andrea Romano, Pasquale Smiriglia, Salvatore Tramontana, Pere Villalba Varneda, Oleg Voskoboynikov and Agostino Ziino. The Committee also draws on the consultation and collaboration of numerous Italian and overseas researchers. OSM is animated by a big group of members, as stable collaborators of the cultural, training and academic promotion activities, of the management of the Library, of the publishing initiatives, of administrative services and logistics. The research area of interest of OSM, which has always operated in close synergy with the University of Palermo and particularly with the Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, is constituted by the Middle Ages in the broadest and most inclusive sense, with projections on its roots in ancient cultures and on its legacies for modern culture. The main research areas that OSM has cultivated and progressively enriched over the years are the metaphysical tradition, the history of medieval ideas and knowledge in the plurality of their ramifications, the intersection of cultural traditions in the medieval epoch, especially in the Mediterranean area (Arab and Islamic, Jewish, Latin and Christian, Greek and Byzantine worlds, etc.), the history of Middle Latin literature, palaeographic, diplomatic and historical studies. Currently the academic work of OSM is organized through various workshops that have the purpose of coordinating, through thematic areas of homogeneous interest, members and all collaborators. The operational workshops, for which we will also indicate the coordinators, are:

    * Byzantina
      which deals with Byzantine Civilization in a broad sense (Filippo Burgarella, Univ. of Calabria) and the Christian East (Rosanna Gambino, Univ. of Palermo);
    * Federiciana
      (Oleg Voskoboynikov, Univ. of Moscow) engaged in studying the Mediterranean historical and cultural context that from the Norman-Swabian period goes all through the 14th century;
    * Franciscana
      (Luca Parisoli, Univ. of Calabria and Paris-Nanterre) which deals with Franciscan studies in a broad spectrum;
    * OSMIL-Itinera Lulliana
      organized by a research group on the work and thought of Raymond Lull and on the traditions of “Lullism” (Jordi Gaya Esberiich, Univ. of Palm de Majorca, Marta Romano, Univ. of Palermo);
    * OSMOR-Orientalistica
      involving the researchers of the oriental studies area (Judaism, Luciana Pepi, Univ. of Palermo; Arabic and Islamic Culture, Giuseppe Roccaro and Patrizia Spallino, Univ. of Palermo; Indology, Maria Lucilla Vassallo, Univ. of Palermo), which also runs annual courses on Arabic and Jewish language and culture, both at the basic and the superior levels;
    * Traditio
      centring on the tradition of medieval knowledge, with particular attention to the Latin area, expressed in literature, poetry, theatre, philosophy, theology, music, etc. (Armando Bisanti and Pietro Palmari, Univ. of Palermo);
    * Vivarium
      devoted to studies on Palaeography, Diploma Studies, Book Culture, Library Management, Restoration of paper and books (Carolina Miceli, Univ. of Palermo).

Each workshop promotes and uses national and international collaborations with universities, departments, associations, foundations, single scholars and researchers thanks also to formal agreements, conventions, research contracts, projects (Erasmus, Socrates), programmes of the European Union and yet others.

These workshops, though with their autonomy and sectorial specificity, are not conceived of as separate compartments, but instead as operational moments animated by a common strategy of mutual interaction and synergic research.

What causes radicalisation?

by Matthew Francis

Presentation for the Westminster Faith Debates

Arguing against usage of the concept 'radicalisation' as a simplistic conveyor-belt towards violence I put forward a... more Arguing against usage of the concept 'radicalisation' as a simplistic conveyor-belt towards violence I put forward a number of areas where factors can influence violent action. However, I stress that there is no simple causal process that can predict violence; that it is better to talk about religious violence in terms of defending sacred beliefs, in which case it is not so dissimilar to defences of the secular sacred; and that rather than turn to so-called radicalisation experts we should learn from academics from a broad variety of disciplines who all have something valuable to teach us in this area.

Return? It never left. Exploring the ‘sacred’ as a resource for bridging the gap between the religious and the secular

by Matthew Francis

Co-authored with Professor Kim Knott
Do not cite without permission of authors.

Residing in a Liminal Space: Finding a scholarly home at the Institute for Thealogy and Deasophy by Patricia ‘Iolana

by Feminism and Religion

originally published at the Feminism and Religion Project.

For years I was outside of traditional academia.  I can no longer count the times I have heard that my research... more For years I was outside of traditional academia.  I can no longer count the times I have heard that my research and my theories were highly radical and would never find a home or a place of acceptance.  Early in my career, while still in the States, a number of my colleagues tried to convince me to take a traditional theological stance, and join the world of orthodox faith tradition.  What my well-meaning colleagues never considered was that in asking me to alter my way of being, they were asking me to deny myself, my understanding of the Numinous, and negating that there were other people in the world who think and feel as I do.  I would rather cut off my nose to spite my face. Needless to say, I continued on, even though it often meant blazing my own trail off the safe and ‘beaten path.’ I trusted that I was on the right path and that the Divine would lead my way.  In other words, I had faith—loads of it, and in the end it paid off.

Nota sul sacrificio.

by marco pucciarini

The Crisis of the Symbolic Universe

by Robert Lazu

Published in "Second Spring. International Journal of Faith & Culture," Oxford, Seven, 2006. Quoted by professor Glenn Warren Olsen (University of Utah) in his book "The turn to transcendence: the role of religion in the twenty-first century," Whashington D.C., The Catholic University of America Press, 2010, p. 160.

Nowhere can the elements of the symbolic universe (or Cosmos) be better perceived than in liturgy – that is to say, in... more Nowhere can the elements of the symbolic universe (or Cosmos) be better perceived than in liturgy – that is to say, in the context of formal worship, played out between the two terms of the cosmological equation, God and Man. But here a crucial question arises: what is it that links these two points together, incommensurable as they are, separated by the infinite distance which separates the Creator from the created? The key concept that may provide the answer might seem trifling, since it is so commonly employed in the theological and liturgical vocabulary of the Church. It is what in the English language is called “glory” (from the Latin gloria).

Sexualité et sacré dans l'oeuvre de Xavier Orville

by Nathalie Schon

De par le caractère intangible et absolu des valeurs qu’il
véhicule, le sacré renvoie aux domaines essentiels... more De par le caractère intangible et absolu des valeurs qu’il
véhicule, le sacré renvoie aux domaines essentiels dans
lesquels l’esprit comme l’action des hommes se manifestent.
Outre la sphère du religieux qui lui est, en quelque sorte,
naturellement liée, ce champ du sacré s’applique également aux
autres aspects fondamentaux de la vie sociale. Parmi ceux-ci, la sexualité et les formes dans lesquelles elle sera autorisée à
évoluer trouvent dans le rapport au sacré (donc aussi au
profane) un lien incontournable.
Le sacré, la sexualité et les rites qui s’y rattachent se
retrouvent dans l’œuvre de Xavier Orville, décédé en 2001,
et qui, dans son roman Cœur à vie (1993), dénonce le
délitement ravageur de la société martiniquaise et le naufrage
de toute dignité individuelle ou collective.

“Quand c’est le Seigneur qui nous bâtit une maison: À propos de l’exode et du retour du sacré,” [‘If the Lord builds us a House…’: Concerning the exodus and revival of the Sacred]

by Philippe Gagnon

Prêtre et Pasteur. Revue des agents de pastorale, vol. 109, No. 6 (June 2006): pp. 337-343.

Review: Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel

by Ryan Byrne

BASOR 342 (2006)

from dissonance to revelation...

by Alan MacKenzie

SUBTITLE:  Understanding the paradox of our blessed and broken natures

This reflective essay explores each of the four major signs of my
own exile: aloneness, hostility, distraction... more This reflective essay explores each of the four major signs of my
own exile: aloneness, hostility, distraction and my addictions, and how I am currently moving towards solitude, hospitality,
attentiveness and prayer respectively.  Paraphrasing parts
of the story of the prodigal son, I have eluded to how I’ve grown in
my capacity to empathically listen to stories of others while “walking a mile in their sandals.”

Il Santuario del "Cappiddazzu", Mozia

by Federica Spagnoli

L. Nigro, F. Spagnoli, in L. Nigro - G. Rossoni (a cura di), "La Sapienza" a Mozia. Quarant'anni anni di ricerca archeologica, 1964-2004. Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Museo dell’Arte Classica, 27 febbraio - 5 maggio 2004, Roma 2004,  56-61

"Introduction", dans "Lieux sacrés et espace ecclésial", Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 46, 2011, p. 7-11

by Julien Théry

Brève présentation du 46e tome des "Cahiers de Fanjeaux", qui édite les actes du colloque "Lieux sacrés... more Brève présentation du 46e tome des "Cahiers de Fanjeaux", qui édite les actes du colloque "Lieux sacrés et espace ecclésial" (juillet 2010) présidé par Michel Lauwers. Pour l'organisation de l'espace comme sur tous les autres plans, l'Église a joué un rôle de premier plan dans la société médiévale. Elle s'est progressivement ancrée dans des lieux hautement valorisés - des lieux consacrés -, autour desquels se sont disposés non seulement les établissements religieux, mais aussi les communautés d'habitants, villes ou villages. Le processus de " spatialisation du sacré " et les formes de " territorialisation " (c'est-à-dire de constitution d'espaces socialement cohérents) suscitées par l'Église retiennent particulièrement l'attention des archéologues et des historiens depuis quelques années. Le 46e colloque de Fanjeaux, dont le présent volume publie les actes, fait le point sur ces questions pour le Languedoc et la Provence. Les études architecturales et l'iconographie tiennent une ici part importante. Abondamment illustrées, les contributions abordent entre autres l'histoire des bourgs monastiques languedociens, la genèse des paroisses dans le Massif central, l'organisation diocèsaine du Midi, l'espace liturgique dans les églises romanes de Catalogne, l'archéologie du cimetière Saint-Seurin de Bordeaux, l'espace sacré et seigneurial de l'abbaye de Saint-Gilles du Gard, les aires de prédication et de quête des ordres mendiants, notamment à Rodez et en Comtat Venaissin, ou encore la représentation des 13 églises fondées par saint Martial dans une fresque du palais des papes d'Avignon.

Valentino Nizzo, "Antropologia e Archeologia a confronto: Rappresentazioni e pratiche del Sacro"

by Valentino Nizzo

published in Forma Urbis, XVI, 3, 2011, pp. 44-48

for more informations about the congress and the call for posters see our site more for more informations about the congress and the call for posters see our site http://www.ediarche.it/2011/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=115&lang=it

‘‘Idea hamsters’’ on the ‘‘bleeding edge’’: profane metaphors in high technology jargon

by Gabe Ignatow

published in Poetics in 2003

Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of technological... more Neo-Durkheimian studies of the culture of high technology have looked for,and found, evidence of technological products being portrayed as sacred,as pure and elevated above mundane human concerns. This tradition of cultural analysis of technology has followed Durkheim’s lead (Durkheim,Emile 1965 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press,New York) in emphasizing the sacred while eliding its opposite,the profane. In this paper I contend that symbols of the profane continue to be powerful cultural elements that animate and order modern discourses and moral worlds,and that scholarly understanding of the culture of high technology can be enriched through analysis of profane symbols. I demonstrate this through metaphoric content analysis of the jargon of American high technology industry from the 1960s through the late 1990s,and show that (1) profane metaphors are widespread in high technology jargon as compared to the jargons of other occupations; (2) profane metaphors in high tech jargon have increased over the last three decades with the growth of high tech industry; and (3) these profane metaphors are thematically ordered,such that they tend to signify threats to technological progress,while technology itself is signified through morally benign metaphors. I argue that these metaphors have proliferated in high technology industry,and much less so in other occupations,because they buttress a moral worldview that makes technological innovations meaningful to their creators. For cultural analysis,these findings point to the value of examining metaphors sociologically, and of examining the social use of profane symbols in modern discourses in which the experience of the sacred is ambiguous or individualized.

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred: Diasporic Territorialization and Charismatic Power in a Transnational Congolese Prophetic Church

by David GARBIN

published in

Hüwelmeier, G. & Krause, K. 2010 (eds): Traveling spirits: migrants, markets and mobilities. London: Routledge.

Happy to send the full version on request

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred
Diasporic... more Happy to send the full version on request

Symbolic Geographies of the Sacred
Diasporic Territorialization and Charismatic Power in a Transnational Congolese Prophetic Church
David GARBIN


This chapter examines the relationship between migration, transnational religion, and the territorialization/reterritorialization of diasporic identities, taking as a case study the Kimbanguist Church, one of the largest “African-initiated” Christian churches. Initially a prophetic renewal movement led by Simon Kimbangu among the Bakongo people of the then Belgian Congo, Kimbanguism now has a strong presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo-Brazzaville and Angola (Mokoko Gampiot 2004; Mélice 2006; Sarró, Blanes, and Viegas 2008). As a result of the development of a Congolese diaspora in Europe and North America, Kimbanguism has progressively acquired a transnational dimension. It is against this backdrop of transnationalization that I wish to examine a set of issues related to the socio-spatial experience of the sacred among Kimbanguists in diaspora. How are religious identities and power dynamics produced or reproduced in new diasporic set- tings? What is the role of transnational ties in generating a sense of religious diasporic belonging? How is space sacralized in diaspora? Another dimension that I wish to explore with reference to the Kimbanguist church relates to the “schismatic universe” of internal tensions and ecclesiastical conflicts. How are these tensions and conflicts negotiated across different diasporic scales?

My analysis will draw on data collected during fieldwork in London among the Kimbanguist community, mainly composed of Congolese migrants, and during field visits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2007 and 2008. My overall focus in this chapter will be on the construction of what I shall call “symbolic geographies of the sacred” among diasporic Kim-banguists. These symbolic geographies of the sacred relate to the ways in which worshippers and religious experts/leaders define, produce, or imagine translocal fields of religious presence, flows, and mobility. While the pro cesses of physical or symbolic place-making and territorialization are integral to the constitution of these geographies, I wish to consider how a “diasporic sense of place” challenges fixed notions of territory and territorial identity. Indeed as Brenner (1999) argued this notion of territory often conveys ideas of timelessness, boundedness or “State-centrism”. Tarrius (2000, 2002) has provided a useful alternative analytical framework for the study of territori-alization through an exploration of transmediterranean diasporic networks. He shows how territories crystallize a creative tension between local spaces and global processes, between rootedness and mobility, between the realms of materiality (urban spaces or trade networks for example) and symbolic systems of meaning (such as diasporic consciousness or collective memory). According to this perspective, mobility and circulation shape deterritorialized spaces, and localities are reinterpreted by transmigrants as hybrid “homes” through both transnational networks and global “imagined communities”.
In addition to the multi-layered and “glocal” dimension of territorialized processes, the second important element to consider in the making and remaking of these geographies is the role played by the sacred. While this realm of the sacred is essential to the production of a Kimbanguist identity, especially in the diasporic context, it is also closely associated with power dynamics. Debates around the legitimacy of certain spiritual manifesta- tions and politico-charismatic authority are bound up with tensions over a sacred Kimbanguist body/space matrix. For many Kimbanguists, this body/ space matrix relates to an ideal organization of the church and a particular prophetic embodiment and territorialization. Thus, integral to this is the charismatic authority of the spiritual leader (chef spirituel) who embod- ies the Molimo Mosanto (Holy Spirit) and who has the power to regulate the use of spiritual gifts. While the centralized structure of the church, inspired by the missionary model, eroded from the mid-70s, partly due to the emergence of prayer circles and retreats (beko) as Mélice (2001) pointed out, the “centering” of Nkamba, the Holy City of Kimbanguism, remains an essential component of the contemporary Kimbanguist ethos (Eade and Garbin 2007). Nkamba, the main place of pilgrimage for Kimbanguists, is where Simon Kimbangu was born and where the current spiritual leader of the church resides. There is a sacralization of Nkamba associated with this presence of the spiritual leader of the church, one of the grandchildren of Simon Kimbangu, but the symbolic and spiritual power of the Holy City (Mbenza Velela) is also deeply rooted in a temporal and spatial Bibli- cal dimension, the “New Jerusalem”. As we shall see, this dimension has acquired a specific meaning in the post-colonial context, with the emer- gence of both a Pan-African vision and a particular collective memory.

The maintenance of a prophetic model, mainly through a ritualistic con-tinuity between the center and the (sometimes emerging) peripheries, is a key issue shaping contemporary symbolic geographies of Kimbanguism. However, tensions and conflicts over charismatic authority, ecclesiastic legitimacy and the sacred Kimbanguist body/space matrix have also played a role in the (re)configuration of these geographies.

Snakes, Sacrifice and Sacrality in South Asian Religion

by Gabriel H. Jones

published in the 'Ottawa Journal of Religion', fall 2010.

Rituals devoted to the propitiation and supplication of the sarpa, as the common snake is called in Sanskrit, as well... more Rituals devoted to the propitiation and supplication of the sarpa, as the common snake is called in Sanskrit, as well as the snake’s supernatural counterpart the Naga, have been in evidence on the Indian sub-continent for more than two millennia . It has been suggested that snake veneration, within the vast corpus of fertility and ancestor cult practices which permeated the South Asian pre-historic devotional landscape , are the ritual seeds from which medieval iconography and devotional practice evolved . The snake figures prominently in the art and narrative of contemporary Saivism, Vaisnavism, Jainism and Buddhism , in addition to the many popular devotional practices of rural village and nomadic peoples throughout India. In part to lingering colonial sentiment dogging the subject of popular religious practice, too often dismissed as primitive , superstitious , peasant or folk practices, serious academic examination of the impact of snake veneration on the religious landscape of India has been limited.
Building on Robert Redfield’s notion that one can construct a valid characterization of pre- or proto-historic peoples through the combined efforts of archaeology and ethnography , and Clifford Geertz’s call for “thick description ” in the interpretation of culture, this paper looks to “thicken” the phenomena of snake sacrifice as a lived practice within distinct cultural theatres, integrated within textual and material referents of sacrifice to, and of, the snake.