_Sacral Revolutions_ is a unique project reflecting the contribution that Andrew Samuels has made to the general field of psychoanalysis and Jungian analysis in both clinical and academic contexts. Gottfried Heuer has brought together an international array of authors – friends and colleagues of Samuels – to honour his 60 th Birthday. As a result, the collection provides a creative and cutting-edge overview of a fragmented field. The chapters demonstrate the profound sense of social responsibility of these analysts and academics (...) whose concerns include the mysteries and hidden meanings in social and political life. This open and engaging volume includes a previously unpublished interview with C. G. Jung, adding to its usefulness as an essential companion for academics, analysts, therapists and students. (shrink)

The article characterizes the substantial level of sacralization of values in the spiritual culture of the Greater Altai. The main emphasis is placed on identifying the grounds for the sacralization of values. It is established that the world order is one of the bases of sacralization and simultaneously performs the function of consolidating cultural carriers. The key thesis of the research is the thesis that spiritual culture cannot be fully comprehended without reference to sacred values. In addition, (...) the sacralization of values is considered as a condition for ensuring spiritual security and continuity of values and norms between generations of cultural carriers. The assessment of the spiritual potential of the culture of the Greater Altai is of great importance. The main conclusions of the study are the following provisions: 1) the sacralization of key values is carried out at the essential or substantial level, while the stages of sacralization are mainly "tied" to the religious and mythological development of culture and its value-normative system; 2) sacralization encompasses those value structures that acquire importance in human existence and are a factor in the integration of cultural carriers and their generations; 3 sacralization is the process of identifying specific value-semantic structures – they are attributed symbolic meaning, and they are also correlated with certain cultural codes, signs and texts. (shrink)

This article argues that today’s search for identity, in the context of the rise of a new spirituality and the decline of authoritative memories, facilitates the forging of a new connection between soul and memory and enhances the importance of traumatic memories. Consequently, we witness the sacralization of memory which in unsettled times, when memories tend to become fixed and frozen, can undermine intergroup cooperation. The article asserts that an ethical burden, prompted by viewing memory as the surrogate of (...) the soul and the overrating of the importance of the politics of identity, can result in the displacement of public concerns with private ones. It stresses a need to rethink what kind of memory is compatible with a just, pluralist and cohesive democratic system. (shrink)

In the fragments of Damascius’ Vita Isidori one can observe a significant presence of the “marvellous.” In many cases, the marvellous seems to manifest a sacral and anagogical value in line with the philosophical and religious conceptions of late Neo-Platonism. A similar value of the marvellous can also be found in a passage of De Principiis, where Damascius hails the totally ineffable Principle as supremely marvellous, upon which he presents it as absolutely unknowable and expressible only in an aporetic way.

The discussion of cultural pluralities causes difficulties in cultural philosophy, as well as philosophical anthropology, because the ontological status of plurality eludes the explaining and understanding examination. In such case, the criticism remains comprehensible. The positive interpretation will be considered accomplished, if concentrate on the boundaries of cultural pluralities. Explication of the phenomenon of boundary in the space of cultural pluralities is associated with understanding of interrelation between the sacral and technical spaces. They are subject to examination in the post-historical (...) horizon, which change the ontological status of their boundary if compared to the classical culture. The two given by Aristotle fundamental definitions of boundary transform the connection between the technique and sacral into the hybrid unity. The scientific novelty consists in the attempt of a positive review of the cultural pluralities, formed by the intersection of sacral and technical spaces within modern culture. Such original spaces require the determination of a specific scale of their analysis. As the scale and simultaneously mechanism of the analysis, the author uses the concept of boundary. The work provides the description of a number of phenomenological signs of the boundary between the sacral and technical. (shrink)

In my writings on the history of human rights, the Axial Age, and the genesis of values, I have treated the experience of self-transcendence and the attribution of sacredness as a fundamental anthropological phenomenon. But this fundamental fact of ideal formation has a flip side: The sacralization of particular meanings is originally always also the sacralization of a collectivity. This I call the danger of self-sacralization. In this contribution I offer a brief, historically oriented sociological sketch of (...) the tensions between “religion” and “politics” in light of this assumption, discuss H. Richard Niebuhr’s relevance for this area of study, and illustrate my thesis with regard to contemporary cases where the danger of self-sacralization is particularly urgent. (shrink)

As philosophers in the continental tradition have taken an interest in the return of religion, anthropologists and sociologists have rejected the once-dominant secularization thesis. Bradley B. Onishi connects these lines of thought to reveal how philosophy's religious investigations have enabled critical reflections on the category of the secular.

Mitcham, Borgmann, and others argue the character of technology is at odds with the character of Christian life. This paper challenges that claim in two moves. First, I examine ways Christian theology has been formed by Roman crucifixion, the printing press, and transoceanic navigation; Christology, biblical studies, and missiology are critically dependent upon technologies that facilitated the death of Jesus, the spread of Protestant literature, and the migration of missionaries. Second, I contend that these technologies shed light on a complicated (...) relationship between the realm of the “sacred” and technologies. Technologies can have the character of being sacred or sacramental. As sacred, technologies fall within the purview of religious devotion like relics or icons. As sacramental, they influence the field of theology, through augmentation or restriction. Thus, technologies can be compatible with Christianity and have a positive effect on religion, expanding the fields of theological reflection and religious devotion. (shrink)

In the world of globalization religious-artistic works remain a phenomenon study of which allows to observe the main tendencies of socio-cultural dynamics taking into account complicated and multi-plan contexts of its realization. Methodological peculiarities of the suggested approach base on philosophic comparative study and interdisciplinary method, which allow neutralizing negative consequences of scientist approach based on physiological–ideological projectivity. In this case correlation of sacral and aesthetic works as crossing of “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions which opens “the second derivative” of thecreative (...) process – its Stereological orientation. At the threshold of the second decade of the 21 century it is expedient to activate comparative analysis of the problem of creation through the prism of cultures of various types at the specific material. This will allow us to understand more fully opportunities of global strategy of unity of the humanity on the basis of great achievements of culture having determined its boundaries and perspectives. (shrink)

In the world of globalization religious-artistic works remain a phenomenon study of which allows to observe the main tendencies of socio-cultural dynamics taking into account complicated and multi-plan contexts of its realization. Methodological peculiarities of the suggested approach base on philosophic comparative study and interdisciplinary method, which allow neutralizing negative consequences of scientist approach based on physiological–ideological projectivity. In this case correlation of sacral and aesthetic works as crossing of “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions which opens “the second derivative” of thecreative (...) process – its Stereological orientation. At the threshold of the second decade of the 21 century it is expedient to activate comparative analysis of the problem of creation through the prism of cultures of various types at the specific material. This will allow us to understand more fully opportunities of global strategy of unity of the humanity on the basis of great achievements of culture having determined its boundaries and perspectives. (shrink)

This article examines a small subset of late antique veil imagery – depictions and descriptions of veils in motion – in visual and literary sources including churches, synagogues, and descriptions of the veil of the temple in Jerusalem. Architectural veils played a role in the demarcation of space, the creation of spectacle and sacrality, and the orchestration of social relations and hierarchies. By exploring the ways in which late ancient subjects envisioned, encountered, and “thought with” veils, we can chart the (...) ways that dynamics of covering and uncovering, sight and secrecy, and vision and touch, converged with ideas about gender, desire, and the sacred. (shrink)

Christopher Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West. Volume II. Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture, and Occulture T&T Clark, New York, 2005.

In Pagans & Christians in the City, Steven D. Smith argues that in contrast to ancient Rome, ancient Christianity, following Judaism, located the sacred outside the world, desacralizing the cosmos and everything in it—including the political order. It thereby introduced a political dualism and potentially contending allegiances. Although Smith’s argument is right so far as it goes, it underplays the role of Christianity’s immanent dimension in subverting the Roman empire and the sacral pattern of antiquity. This division of authority not (...) only undermined the Roman empire and antique sacral political order more generally—it also subverts the modern state, which, in the work of Hobbes and Rousseau, sought to remarry what Western Christianity divorced. (shrink)

Over the years, there have been increasing intersections between religious claims and nationalism and their power to frame and govern world politics. When Politics Are Sacralized interdisciplinarily and comparatively examines the fusion between religious claims and nationalism and studies its political manifestations. State and world politics, when determined or framed by nationalism fused with religious claims, can provoke protracted conflict, infuse explicit religious beliefs into politics, and legitimize violence against racialized groups. This volume investigates how, through hegemonic nationalism, states invoke (...) religious claims in domestic and international politics, sacralizing the political. Studying Israel, India, the Palestinian National Movement and Hamas, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Iran, and Northern Ireland, the thirteen chapters engage with the visibility, performativity, role, and political legitimation of religion and nationalism. The authors analyze how and why sacralization affects political behaviors apparent in national and international politics, produces state-sponsored violence, and shapes conflict. (shrink)

This volume revisits the concepts of enchantment and sacralization in light of perspectives which challenge the modern notion that man (alone) is the measure of all things. As Bruno Latour has argued, the battle against superstition entailed shifting power away from God/the gods to humans, thereby disqualifying the agency of all the other objects in the world. Might enchantment and sacralization be understood in other ways than through this battle between almighty gods and almighty humans? Might enchantment be (...) understood to involve processes where power and control are not distributed so clearly and definitely?Like social constructionists, Latour emphasizes that things are constructed; yet, like many other new materialists, such as Jane Bennett, Manuel De Landa and Karen Barad, he emphasizes that this construction is not the result of projecting meaning onto a passive and meaningless world, but a matter of compositional achievements, whereby assemblages of actants co-compose each other and frame, enable and delimit one another's agency. This move recognizes the active and entangled participation of players beyond the humans versus God(s) framework that informed the modernist project. Understanding enchantment and sacralisation as compositionally and relationally constructed does not mean the same as understanding them as constructed by humans alone. What it means is one of the main questions posed in this book. In other words, if enchantment and sacralization are not understood (solely) in terms of projecting anthropocentric meaning onto mute objects, what are some promising alternative approaches - old and new - and what are their implications for how we understand modernity and for method and theory in the study of religion? (shrink)

The paper appeals to Rene Girard for help in specifying what might be meant by four categories suggested by Bernard Lonergan: (1) a sacralization to be dropped and (2) a sacralization to be fostered; (3) a secularization to be welcomed and (4) a secularization to be resisted. The key text that is analyzed with Girard's help is Lonergan's paper "Sacralization and Secularization," where these cateories are introduced. Key to the discrimination of the sacred is the Law of (...) the Cross, which is here amplified by Guard's analysis of the single victim mechanism and its reversal, as these are definitively revealed in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But key to the discrimination of the secular are Lonergan's transcendental precepts, which are a specification of nature as a genuine category, one that would enhance Girard's mimetic theory. Lonergan and Girard are judged to be complementary and mutually supportive. /// O presente artigo busca auxílio na obra de René Girard em ordem a especificar o possível significado de quatro categorias sugeridas por Bernard Lonergan: (1) uma sacralização a ser rejeitada e (2) uma sacralização a ser promovida; (3) uma secularização a ser acolhida e (4) uma secularização que deve ser resistida. O textochave a ser analisado com a ajuda de Girard é o artigo de Lonergan "Sacralização e Secularização", no qual estas quatro categorias são introduzidas. A chave para o discernimento do Sagrado é a Lei da Cruz, a qual neste artigo é amplificada mediante a análise girardiana do mecanismo victimário e da sua superação, tal como eles são definitivamente revelados na paixão, morte e ressurreição de Jesus. Mas a chave para o discernimento do secular encontra-se nos preceitos transcendentais de Lonergan, os quais são uma especificação da natureza como categoria genuína, uma que é capaz de aprofundar a teoria mimética girardiana. Em suma, o artigo mostra de que modo Lonergan e Girard devem ser considerados complementares e suportadores um do outro. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the work of Paolo Prodi (1932–2016), which is characterised by a constant reflection on secularisation. As a democratic Catholic, he explored the relationship between the Roman Church and the modern world starting from the Council of Trent and from the dual figure of the pope as a temporal ruler and spiritual guide. His original contribution concerned the conflict between law and conscience: a problem that led him to design a triptych of books on the foundations of the (...) western world. He was influenced not only by Verfassungsgeschichte (German constitutional history), but also by Harold Berman. If for Weber the modern world was born from the Reformation, for Berman it was the ‘Gregorian revolution’ that changed the fate of Latin Europe. For Prodi, too, the medieval conflict between canon and civil law introduced a peculiar structure in Europe that would last until the triumph of the nation states and the so-called ‘political religions’. In his three books (the first dedicated to the oath, the second to justice, the last to economics), Prodi placed at the centre of his analysis the notion of forum; the history of moral theology and casuistry and the relationship between penitence and justice. (shrink)