Abstract
Each place on Earth has its own character, which affects human senses, health, and behavior. This character, genius loci or spirit of the place, is built on special features of landscape, soil, climate, vegetation, etc. There are special places in nature where man can experience transcendental states of consciousness, helped by these features.
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Notes
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Collier-Macmillan, New York, 1961, Conf. XVI—XVII.
Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, Harvill Press, London, 1960, p. 80.
Ibid., p. 86.
Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, The 3-Pound Universe, Macmillan, New York, 1986, p. 330.
Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia, Columbia University Press, New York, 1990, p. 95.
An abstract mathematical object that describes the dynamics of a complex system like the brain.
Willy Hellpach, Geopsique, Casa de Horus, Madrid, 1992.
These categories, like all classifications, are rather arbitrary, since we cannot separate the manifold incidences of a place. The old division of human physical perceptions into five senses is no longer applicable or useful. Place perception is multisensorial.
Negative ions promote alpha brain waves and increase brain wave amplitude, which translates to a higher awareness level.“ Dr. Felix Sulman, Hebrew University, Israel.
Many sacred places are sited over underground water veins, geological faults, magnetic rocks, or quartz lodes. Nowadays, we are rediscovering this hidden sense that enables us to perceive telluric anomalies, just as some animals detect subtle changes of the electrical field before an earthquake.
Biological sensitivity to small electric anomalies.
What we perceive is not the same as what our senses inform us about. Perceiving includes interpreting. E.g.: optical illusions.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1959.
Claudio Ardohain, El Caos Creador,Rev. Sin Limites N° 16 — Buenos Aires, Oct. 92.
I use this adjective instead of the most commonly used “altered,” because this term supposes a “normal” state, of which the others are deviations. I disagree with this view since we cannot really affirm that our waking state of consciousness (physiologically characterized by Beta brain waves) is the main and the best one.
Reflection and Revelation,“ in The Power of Place,an anthology by James A. Swan, Quest Books, Wheaton, 1993, pp. 29–30.
Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, Rizzoli, New York, 1980.
Eliade, The Sacred…,chap. 1.
Norberg-Schulz, op. cit., chap. 7.
Tuan, op. cit., p. 27.
Geomancies are elaborated systems of wisdom and advice related to cosmo-telluric spatiality and developed by almost all ancient cultures so as to live in harmony with their environment.
Stephan Feuchtwang, An Anthropological Analysis of Chinese Geomancy, Vithagna, Laos, 1974.
Claudio Ardohain, Las Puertas Sagradas,Rev. Sin Limites N° 19 — Buenos Aires, May 93.
Norris Brock Johnson, “Garden as Sacred Space,” in The Power of Place,p. 183.
Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings: Building Dwelling Thinking, Ed. Krell. HarperCollins Pub. 1993.
Genius Loci,chap. 2.
Eliade, Myths…,p. 81.
Rodolfo Kusch, El pensamiento indigena y popular en América, Hachette, Buenos Aires, 1977, p. 115.
Genius Loci,chap. 2.
Sulaiman Bin Ibrahim and Etienne Dinet, The Life of Mohammad, Studio Editions, London, 1992, pp. 48–49.
The Himalayas, Realm of the Sacred,“ in The Power of Place,chap. 8, pp. 114–115, 119.
Sulaiman Bin Ibrahim, op. cit., p. 52.
Heidegger, Building Dwelling Thinking.
Tuan, op. cit., p. 118.
Norberg-Schulz, Existence…,chap. 3. Norberg-Schulz defines “existential space” as the whole of relations between man and his environment.
Ibid.
Genius Loci,chap. 3.
Tuan, op. cit., p. 137.
Vincent Scully, in The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1993.
Nold Egenter, Otto Friedich Bolinow’s Anthropological Concept of Space, Hochscule der Kyünste, Berlin 1992.
Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion,Cleveland—New York, 1963, p. 269.
Tuan, op. cit., p. 140.
Transformation of consciousness identification with Buddha.
Brock Johnson, op. cit., p. 168.
The Sacred and the Profane,chap. 1.
Eliade, Myths…,p. 86.
Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci,chap. 2.
Hindu and Buddhist cosmic diagrams.
Phosphenes or entoptic forms are perceptual patterns induced into the brain’s visual center by hallucinogens, meditation, sleep deprivation, ocular pressure, even external electromagnetic fields. Anthropology has found a close correlation between these patterns and some pictographs and images of the sacred arts.
Claudio Ardohain, Preservación de los lugares sagrados,Rev. Alternativas de Vida N° 18 — DIC. 97.
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Ardohain, C. (2000). Mystical Experience and Sacred Landscape. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Poetry of Life in Literature. Analecta Husserliana, vol 69. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3431-8_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3431-8_11
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