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Some scholars suggested that objectification is universal because most people are unable to respond to abstract truths without a way to relate those truths to their senses. This seems to be Norbeck's view when he says,
"Many, and perhaps most, human beings respond poorly to words or ideas alone..." 9
Davies says,
"...it is as though abstract ideas need to be set within a symbol before men can be impelled to act upon them. When any attempt is made to turn symbols into bare statements of truth, this vital trigger of the emotions can easily be lost."10
Norbeck points out that ritual and the designation of sacred space enable the simple layman to "participate" in a way that is meaningful to him.11
"The remarkable thing about these observations is that some of the greatest religions began with very little objectification, but seem to have invariably developed it later."12
We wonder; if people have so much trouble relating to abstraction, why did these religious systems ever take root in the first place? Sometimes objectification has even been against the teachings of the founder of a religion, but nevertheless present in later practice. Norbeck points out that sometimes the great religions themselves have had strict rules against certain forms of objectification, "but the concrete has usually had a luxuriant growth along other avenues." For example, Muslims were not allowed to venerate pictures of Muhammad, but they quickly learned to venerate a piece of paper with his name written on it.13
Thus, even when the founder of a religious system has decreed rules to prevent common forms of objectification, worshipers have found ways around those rules.
Christianity contains examples of this as well. Christ's declaration that people should worship God "...neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem...but in Spirit and truth..." was largely ignored in favor of older ideas of "sanctuary" and "the house of God" (that is to say, sacred space).14
Wallace explains the tendency in religious man this way,
"An organism overwhelmed by information overload is incapable of discriminating response; ritual, by reducing the information content of experience below the often bewildering level of complexity and disorder with which reality confronts him, permits adaptive response."15
All these authors agree that the common man is not capable of handling pure abstraction well. Instead, they see religious man bypassing the "understanding" stage, and going directly (through vehicles of objectification) to a simpler relationship with the sacred.
Mercea Eliade has developed some very stimulating theories regarding sacred space in his book, Patterns In Comparative Religion. First, he points out that man has always set apart areas as sacred.
"The enclosure, wall, or circle of stones surrounding a sacred place- these are among the most ancient of known forms of man-made sanctuary. They existed as early as the early Indus civilization (at Mohenjo-Dara, for instance) and the Aegean civilization."16
Eliade's observes that these sacred areas relate to some heirophany. A "Heirophany" is a manifestation of, or an encounter with, the sacred. He also notes that many religious systems consider their sacred space(s) to be the center of the world. This is true for some, but relatively few sacred spaces that occurred there once.17 Commemoration of heirophanies must indeed be the basis for selecting many of the worlds sacred places.
Eliade goes beyond this however, to assert the intriguing idea that,
"The heirophany therefore does not merely sanctify a given segment of undifferentiated profane space; it goes so far as to ensure that sacredness will continue there. There, in that place, the heirophany repeats itself."18
Here we begin to sense the presence of something else. Not simply the inability of simple people to understand or hold dear abstract truths, but an attempt to stimulate an event that is not available elsewhere. In other words, the holy place is not there simply to explain (or objectify) abstract concepts, but to enable the worshiper to provoke (or invoke) a spiritual event or blessing that is not available even one foot outside of the sacred space!
This seems to square with many western religious sacred space designations. The cathedral, church, mosque, etc. is not necessarily the scene of a historical heirophany, but it is more likely to provide one now. Therefore it would be a good idea, in the minds of many, to go down to the church to pray or worship, rather than to simply do so at home. Chapels are provided at hospitals so people can pray for the sick, rather than simply praying for them in their rooms.
Thus with the notion of sacred space, we may have an attempt to regularize and perhaps to control heirophany.
Turner agrees that objectification through sacred space gives man control of sacred experience, and adds that the same is true of sacred times: "Similarly periodic rituals re-enact and so renew the actions of the gods."19
Here then, sacred time designations also serve the same function as do sacred space. This idea is supplemented, according to Eliade, by the further notion of protection from the sacred.
"(the dividing structure between sacred and profane space)...also serves the purpose of preserving profane man from the danger to which he would expose himself by entering it without due care. The sacred is always dangerous to anyone who comes into contact with it unprepared, without having gone through the "gestures of approach" that every religious act demands."20
Therefore there is both a positive and a negative element present in the practice of designating space as sacred. On the positive side, an increased likelihood of a divine response to the worshiper. On the negative side, a clear boundary between the safety of the profane, and the danger of the sacred. There is containment of the sacred here, along with limitation and control. To view it differently, sacred space not only enables us to approach the deity more easily, it also enables us to leave his presence afterward.
This could be considered a functional explanation for sacred space, as opposed to the didactic explanation favored, to some extent, by Norbeck and Davies. Here it seems that Eliade has the better (or fuller) explanation. The ideas of containment and control in turn lead to connections with other concepts often excluded from the idea of religion-namely, magic and fetishism.
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