On the Ontology of the Sacred (and the Profane) 9781498573689, 9781498573696, 1498573681

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On the Ontology of the Sacred (and the Profane)

On the Ontology of the Sacred (and the Profane) Raymond Aaron Younis

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2020942151 ISBN 978-1-4985-7368-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-7369-6 (Electronic)

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

To Sharon, for being there

Contents

1 On the Complex Meaning, Dimensions, and Names of the Sacred (and the Holy) 2 Theories of the Sacred: The Pragmatic Theory 3 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life 4 Religious Experience, Language, Truth, and Logic (Russell and Ayer) 5 Two Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives on the Sacred: Cottingham and Scruton 6 The Future of an Illusion? 7 The Ontological Question 8 The Path That Leads to the House of Being (Heidegger) 9 “A Sacred, Mythic Geography”: Eliade, Ontology, and the Sacred 10 Ten Reflections on the Ontology of the Sacred

89 109 133 149 177 203

Bibliography

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Index

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About the Author

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Chapter One

On the Complex Meaning, Dimensions, and Names of the Sacred (and the Holy)

What is opened up by the vast, rich, intricate, and profound question of the sacred, its meanings, various dimensions, and functions? The question itself deserves careful consideration once again. It is tempting to argue, as many indeed have, that the question concerns essentially or fundamentally the relation between the sacred and the profane (see for example, Durkheim and Eliade among many others); between the sacred and various elementary forms and phenomena of religious life and practice (Durkheim); or varieties of religious experience (James, Russell and Ayer, among many others); or that it is, fundamentally, a question of feeling, dependence, or some kind of absolute commitment (Schleiermacher and Otto, among many others); or a journey, with or without a holy or venerable destination; or in a very different key, that it is a question of delusions, psychosis or something analogous to these, or a question of deeply harbored illusions, produced by complexes and infantile attachments of one kind or another (Dawkins and Freud, among others). It is important to look closely at these and alternative concepts, accounts and explanations. Indeed, it will be argued here that these responses are in one sense or another questionable, problematic, underdetermined, or even false. But in order to see why this is so, it is important to try and capture at the outset the vast and deep complexity and multifariousness of the sacred. So, what is it that we mean by the “sacred”? It has multiple and complex meanings, functions and references, and it is important not to forget or overlook this fact. Its complexity, meanings and resonances are rich, complex and thought-provoking, to say the least, though this is not always apparent in some of the analyses and commentaries, as we shall see. “The sacred” refers 1

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to, and signifies, many things from transcendence and the human encounter with it, the emergence of hagiographies, epiphanies and hierophanies, to an experience of the holy, the reality of an extraordinary presence or the existence of a powerful and enduring object, place, sign or relation, to name but a few examples. Yet the complexity and richness of the term itself, its meaning and its referents ought not to be underestimated. It is important to take a close look at the outset, and not to lose sight of such things. A good etymological dictionary (for example, Onions, 1966) will point out to the reader that the English term dates back roughly to the Middle Ages and derives from the Latin term sacer, which means holy or sanctified or consecrated. This initial definition opens up a panoply of family terms, meanings and associations, which should not be forgotten. For example, sacrum legere, from which the word “sacrilege” is derived, refers to the taking or theft of sacred objects and things; “sacrosanct,” from the Latin sacrosanctus, means protected, for example, by a religion, or consecrated by a religious ritual, code or command; “sacristy” (from sacrista) refers to a repository where holy objects or things are stored. The relationship between “sacred” and “holy” also deserves some comment, though a more detailed study is beyond the immediate scope of this book. For example, “holy” is used in quite specific religious and mythological senses in English: in Judaism, the Holy of Holies is used to designate God’s dwelling, so to speak, in the temple, the most holy place there; in Christianity, the “Holy Ghost” is invoked, rather than a sacred spirit (which would shift the meaning quite significantly); “holy” is also used to designate a city that has a special significance in relation to religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam such as Jerusalem or Mecca. “Holy,” on this basis, does seem to have a very strong connection with monotheism (its roots stretch back before the emergence of Christianity), as many have noted, for example, in terms of identifying a divine being as supreme, pure and/or without sin or corruption: so, in the Bible, God and Christ are the “most holy” and the “holy one,” respectively, though it is important to note not just the importance of the hierarchy in this context, but also that “hierarchy” itself derives in part from the Greek word for holy, hieros. As a Greek etymological dictionary will point out (see, for example, Beekes, 2009), also, the term hierarkhia signifies a high priest’s authority or rule, not just any priest’s authority. Furthermore, the use of terms like the “Holy Synod” or “Holy Father” (used in reference to the Pope) lifts the being, head or governing body above other beings, heads or governing bodies within a given structure or institution, very much as “most holy” elevates one being above other beings, even those beings that are sacred or holy themselves. Holiness, then, as a corollary, is fully meaningful within the context of this kind of order in and through which something or someone is elevated not

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just beyond the common or the ordinary, but also above other sacred things and beings. It might also be noted here that the second part of “hierarchy” derives from arkhein, which in Greek means to rule or lead as chief, somewhat like an archon ruled or led in ancient Greece, but far greater in power and magnitude; what is instituted is not just an order, and a sense of order, but an overarching order that incorporates organization, rank, and an appropriate sense of relations and communion. However, it should also be noted that the fact that “holy” and “sacred” can be, and are, often used interchangeably, or in an interrelated way, cannot be overlooked or underestimated. But it is not just monotheism that features striking and distinctive uses of “holy.” In classical Greek, one who reveals sacred or holy objects and things, or provides instruction in sacred or holy rites or modes of worship, for example, is hierophantes (from hieros, which we have noted means “sacred” or “holy” and phainein, “to show,” to illuminate, for example, an obscure teaching or code; hieron, significantly, is used to refer to a holy structure such as a temple). The Greek hieratikos points to the relation between a priest and the sacred or holy (from the combination of hiereus, or priest, and hieros, holy, divine or sacred). By extension, the combination hagio and graphein produce hagiography, the writing of sacred or holy things, such as the life of a martyr or a saint. The Greek blasphemein, which means speaking evil or negatively of sacred objects, beings or things (blasphemos) extends the range of critical significations in relation to the sacred, its associations, reception and reactions to it; so, too, does the French dessacrer, which signifies, for example, the act of profanation or desecration, the undoing or violation of the sacred, and so on. The combination of the Latin pro- (which signifies "before") and fano, produces “profanation,” which signifies a polluting, a violation of something sacred (like a place, a marker or a structure, such as a temple, and not surprisingly, in Greek, the porch or court of a temple is hieron). The Greek use of a term like hagios links “holy” or “pure” also to mythological and religious traditions associated with polytheism (Thayer, 2011). It is important, too, to remember that the combination of the Latin sacer, and facere, which means to perform or enact, produces the English term sacrifice, with its suggestions in this context of a priestly or hieratic offering or rite, the offering of a life of a martyr or a saint, amongst many other things. It should be quite clear now that what we are dealing with even on an etymological or graphic level is not simple or straightforward. The complexity is already evident, and this is only the beginning of such an analysis. Accordingly, it is not surprising that it is possible to set out at least twelve meanings of the term, “sacred,” at the outset. First, and most obviously perhaps, given the great global influence of religions like Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, which claim, according to many available estimates, almost 65 to 75 percent of the world’s population

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of religious people (see, for example, Hackett and McClendon, 2017), the sacred is associated with sacraments: in Christianity, for example, it is associated with the Eucharist and the sacramental dimension of the Last Supper and communion; in Hinduism it is associated for example with the samskaras, the rites of passage associated with the various stages and milestones in one’s life and death. Such sacraments may be associated with consecrated elements, objects, omens, spaces and grounds, and various processes (one might think of the bread and the wine, vessels such as the pyx, prayer, penance, communion, the blessings of elders, sanctified sites, naming ceremonies, and so on), and signify the heightened meaning, value, status and importance that attaches to these things by virtue of their association with a religion, sacred figure, being or event. But it is a much broader term than this, of course. Second, it means something consecrated, something that is valued because it not only is associated with a sacred figure or being or event but is also believed to appeal to a sacred figure or being such as God. This is important: the sacred object then brings the believer or worshipper into closer contact with, or relation to, that sacred figure, being or deity. In this context, the “sacred” then means a connection that extends from the object to the divine being, for example, and then to the believer, in a way that is meaningful, consecrated or hallowed, and may be continuous and abiding. Third, the sacred signifies the setting apart of a space, for example, in order to highlight the significance and special status of something or someone, or their relation to some sacred being or figure or person, or community—for example, the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, in Judaism. This is also important: the sacred extends to space as well as time, not just to infinity and eternity, as we shall see. In this sense, it is notable that in Kerala, as the most recent example, the entrance of two young women into a Sabarimala temple has precipitated riots, injuries to hundreds of people, thousands of arrests and travel warnings to visitors from overseas! What is especially notable here is not so much the clash between ancient tradition and the modern discourse of human rights, though that is no doubt important, that is unfolding, but rather the crucial importance of space, purity, menstrual blood, proscription and taboo, in relation to the sacred. (In this particular case, the Hindu deity is Ayyapa, whose celibacy cannot be defiled or polluted in its sacred, dedicated space and enclosure within the shrine, by the presence of human beings with menstrual blood. And though the proscription, the conflict and tension are particular in this case to Kerala, it needs to be said that this kind of proscription is by no means rare in the world’s sacred traditions.) Fourth, the sacred signifies that something, or someone, is worthy of veneration, consecration, adoration or worship, perhaps by association with a deity, a revelation, a miracle, messianic status, some consecrated object,

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some divine presence or manifestation, and so on. For example, the Greeks built temples to Athena and Aphrodite, among others, to mark a sacred place for them as deities; many pilgrims still venerate, or worship at, places associated with messiahs, deities, saints and divine visitations, for example, the Al Aqsa Mosque, Capernaum Synagogue, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and important sacred sites in Jerusalem, Kerala, Osaka, Delphi, Lourdes, Fatima, and so on. Fifth, it signifies that a book or text or writing has a special value, that is, as a consecrated or hallowed object. Such an object may contain God’s, or divinely inspired, commandments, or the law (as in the Old Testament); the essential teachings that drive a religion; chronicles, chronologies and histories that are part of a sacred tradition; genealogies which are linked to some sacred or holy being; and so on. These often have a deep and extraordinary, even solemn, significance to a community and can extend to music and art (in the form, for example, of hymns and masses, as well as icons). Sixth, the term extends to certain orders, not just certain hallowed or consecrated objects, and to an appropriate but heightened value, veneration, adoration or esteem. The Sacri Ordines, for example, signifies the holy orders of the Catholic church and their functions, for example, in the work of mercy or charity, and are bound to her identity, mission and vision. Seventh, the term refers, though not as often as “holy,” to a deity or divine being who is considered to be worthy of devotion, adoration, veneration or worship (though that same being may also be considered to be “holy” in some traditions, especially monotheistic traditions), such as primordial divine beings in Greek mythology and cosmogony, for example, Zeus (chief among the gods), Hera (the wife of Zeus and worshipped as the goddess of women and the family, amongst other things), Apollo and Dionysus, among many others. Eighth and, by extension, the sacred refers to certain animals and plants that are associated with such deities, divine beings or divine acts: for example, manna falling “from heaven”; the cow, associated with Hera in Greek mythology and with the goddess Aditi, and also favored by Krishna in Hindu traditions, among others; maize and corn in pre-Columbian American religions, and in Greek mythology (Demeter); animal totems in ancient Aboriginal religions; and various plants and animals in Egyptian mythology and necrology; and so on. Ninth, the sacred was used to signify majesty, especially in the context of royalty. Importantly, majestic figures such as kings and queens were seen as sacred, because they were also believed to be descendants from, or chosen by, God. Though this kind of signification and usage is rare now, the element of majesty, which is expressed and preserved in the term “sacred,” will remain important, and in some respects, integral, in our broad understanding of the sacred as well as the holy, as we shall see.

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Tenth, the sacred signifies a protected or privileged state that ought not to be defiled, blasphemed, polluted or profaned: this does not just extend to beings, deities, objects and spaces, but also to representations, principles, commands, inherited structures, texts, names, rites, identities, orders and so on. The sacred sounds a warning, in a sense, not to intrude or encroach upon some hallowed, consecrated, protected or venerated object, subject, relation or being, and so on. Also, the sacred effects and functions as a (hyper-)temporalization in which the divine, the human and/or the holy interrelate along the axis of temporality. In one important sense, the infinite intersects with the temporal and the finite; the infinite irrupts into, or is manifest in, the fabric of finitude, which can, often, barely contain its force, presence and/or energy, but is marked thereafter irreversibly by its being, by the traces of its presence or by its irruption, inception or entry into its being’s temporality. What is the nature of this interrelation? The question can be answered in terms of theism, deism or pantheism, among others. In theistic terms, that is, where human beings relate to gods, or divine beings, who actively intervene in history and human lives and destinies, the relation between the divine and the human is manifest in various forms such as visitations, manifestations, revelations or miracles, understood, for example, as the active and extraordinary interventions or acts of a divine being in time, finitude and history. There are four dynamic and interrelated modes, at least, in operation when the phenomenon of (hyper-)temporalization unfolds in the light of, and through, the sacred: first, a time, an age, an epoch, a period of time, finitude as we know it, is elevated and enriched by the presence, manifestation or irruption of the infinite into time; second, a transformation is effected in which the nature of temporality, its structure and its meaning can be altered, shaped or directed for all time; third, a transfiguration therefore takes place, often in the sense that temporality is touched, so to speak, by the divine, the numinous, the holy or the sacred; fourth, it becomes characterized essentially by this relation, understood in its embodied or reflected light and is thereafter associated with it, through attitudes and rites, for example, of commemoration, imitation, participation, adoration, consecration, worship or veneration, and so on. There are many examples in theistic religions: for example, God’s appearance to Moses on Mount Sinai; Jesus appearing to the apostles at Emmaus; Krishna appearing to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita and so on. The interrelation can take the form of a vision, a dialogue, the transmission of a set of commands, an instruction (or guided awakening), a process of enlightenment, amongst many others. In deistic terms, the deity may be worshipped in time but does not intervene actively in time and history; in pantheistic terms, it is nature as the embodiment of the divine that is worshipped, hallowed or venerated as sacred.

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By extension, the sacred signifies and marks a (hyper-)periodization, that is, it highlights special or extraordinary periods or specific spans of time in which the holy, the divine, or the consecrated and the hallowed, is manifest, revealed, unveiled, disclosed, and then, often, remembered, replicated or imitated, acknowledged, celebrated, marked, relived (in word or deed), and so on. The infinite and the temporal intersect, and temporality is heightened, even transfigured, in the lives of communities. One might think of the special significance of Pentecost, or Lent in the life of Christians, of Passover in Judaism, Diwali in Hinduism or Ramadan in Islam. These are different (hyper-)periodizations, of course, but they each in their own way have a special or extraordinary or distinctive quality, and each marks an important passage, rite or period in the lives of believers, in which the intersection of the infinite, the divine or the sacred and the human plays an integral and crucial role, as we shall see. It is no surprise then to see again and again instances of periods, in time, which are set apart or highlighted, consecrated or hallowed in themselves and in relation to rites that take place within a particular highly charged time frame. One might also think, for example, of those initiation rites, and their highly charged significance, marking the onset of puberty in many cultures, the ceremony of a bar mitzvah at the age of thirteen, or among the Aranda of Australia, the Alkira-Kiuma ceremony in which a twelve-year-old boy is thrown into the air as part of his initiation. There are many such examples in the world’s traditions of the sacred. Finally, for now, the sacred also effects and functions as a (hyper-)spatialization. In one important sense, the eternal intersects with the spatial and the bounded; the eternal or the unbounded, in one sense, irrupts into, or penetrates, or unfolds in, the fabric of space, which can, as in the phenomenon of temporalization, or hyper-temporalization, often, barely contain its presence, its being, its energy or its power, but is marked thereafter, often, irreversibly again by its being, by the traces of its unfolding or manifestation, or by its irruption or entry into being’s spatiality. This (hyper-)spatialization, understood as the embodiment, manifestation or unfolding of the eternal in the bounded, has analogous modes to the phenomenon of (hyper-)temporalization, and also opens a path (the spatial analogy is crucial here) to the appearance or irruption or unfolding of the numinous, the sacred or the holy, and opens up, existentially, the realm of the hallowed, the consecrated, the messianic or the hierophantic, extends to, elevates, transforms and/or transfigures geography, landscapes, special sites and places (such as Uluru in Australia), cities or towns such as Rome, Mecca, or Bodhgaya, each significantly associated with sanctity, revelation and/or enlightenment (pali), just as the sacred extends to spaces, vast as well as infinitesimal, such as the created cosmos, the “heavens,” nature as a consecrated whole, on the one hand, or the omphalos (understood by the ancient Greeks as the “navel” of the world,

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so to speak, at which gods and human beings commune and interrelate), the Tree of Life, the axis mundi (understood as the center of the world which links the upper and lower regions), or a stone, a cross, a tomb, a temple, a piece of bone, a lock of hair, a thorn, and so on, on the other hand. These kinds of spatial objectifications, expressions, representations and/ or embodiments of the sacred function in a complementary sense to the (hyper-)temporalizations, in the sense that they provide physical or metaphysical or symbolic reference points, locations, sites, places and points, often with a persistent and enduring attraction, energy, force, meaning and resonance in the eyes of believers. They are often the very points and places that situate, inspire, express or energize sacred rites, events, imitations, commemorations, rites, participation, narratives, signs, gatherings, and/or various associated passages, manifestations, irruptions, hierophanies, and so on. The (hyper-)spatialization that is marked and indeed inscribed, borne, so to speak, within the word and the sign, “sacred,” is reinforced by its antonyms, synonyms and cognate forms. To “profane” something, for example, is as we have noted, a verb which functions as an antonym (that is, the opposite of making something sacred) derives from fanum, Latin for a sacred place or site—so, the Etruscans believed that the Fanum Voltumnae, a shrine dedicated to Voltumna, the chief deity in the pantheon, was a sacred sanctuary (see, for example, Conway, 1926). So, to profane something is etymologically to place it outside a temple, or shrine, or sanctuary, or more generally, outside a consecrated place, and in doing so, defile, pollute or desacralize it. It is no accident that the (hyper-)spatialization inherent in the term “sacred” functions repeatedly in this kind of way and in many religions and faith communities: a notable example in Judaism is the Sanctum Sanctorum, or qodesh ha-qadashim, once again, which signifies a place set apart (sanctum) which is sacred or holy, not any place, not any sacred place, but the most sacred place, the “holy of holies.” The importance of this (hyper-)spatialization inherent in and constitutive of the sacred, generally speaking, cannot be overestimated, and is once again borne, always, within the word and the sign. It is not at all surprising that the Oxford English Dictionary notes that sacrilege derives from sacer (Latin: “sacred”) and legĕre, that is, to gather and remove. This means that it is not temporalization alone that is crucial here; what is arguably even more crucial is the (hyper-)spatialization that is inherent or implicit: so, to commit sacrilege is not just to violate something sacred or holy, it signifies the violent or negative relocation of something from one place, where it properly belongs, a sacred or holy place, to another place which is antonymic, or other. Analogously, the consecration (rather than profanation) of something is illuminated substantially by the etymology, noted in the Oxford English Dictionary: con- sacrāre means to make something sacred (the root is sacer which translates to “sacred”); moreover it suggests setting something apart,

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as noted earlier, devoting a special office to it, such as a shrine or a temple, or a chamber even, for example, in polytheistic traditions, to give it a place among the gods (so, in Judaism, the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle is the innermost sanctuary and is believed to be the place where God is present, so to speak, and is the home of the Ark of the Covenant; in Hinduism, the god, Vishnu, is believed to be incarnated in images kept in special chambers in the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum in India). Rudolf Otto’s analysis, among others, allows one to go even further, for he attempted famously to clarify the idea of the sacred and the holy as a quite “distinctive category” and sought a “word” which would capture its distinctiveness “above and beyond the meaning of goodness” (1931, pp. 6–7; see also 1957, 1943, 1931 and 1907, among others). That word derives from the Latin numen, hence numinous. He wrote of a “definitely numinous state of mind, which is always found wherever the category is applied,” a state which is “perfectly sui generis” and quite irreducible (1931, p. 8), and therefore, he concludes that “like every absolutely primary and elementary datum,” it cannot be defined (1931, p. 8). There is one way, however, of clarifying it, according to Otto: one must be guided and led until one reaches the stage at which the sacred, or the numinous, appears in one’s consciousness and in one’s life. It can be evoked, according to Otto, or “awakened” within, even if it cannot be “strictly defined,” and he added: “as everything that comes of the spirit must be awakened” (1931, p. 8). He acknowledges his debt to Schleiermacher, whom he credits with isolating a “very important element in such an experience,” namely the feeling of dependence, though he offers a thought-provoking critique of this kind of approach (1931, p. 9). Schleiermacher’s mistake, in short, according to Otto, is to draw a distinction merely between two states of mind, “between absolute and relative dependence, and therefore a difference of degree and not of intrinsic quality. What he overlooks is that, in giving the feeling the name feeling of dependence at all, we are really employing what is no more than a very close analogy” (1931, p. 9; see also Schleiermacher 2016, 1988, 1977 and 1926, in particular; for incisive commentaries on Schleiermacher, see Van Horn 2017, Hagan 2014, Schel 2013, Dole 2010, Marina 2008 and 2005, Crouter 2005, Sherman 2005, Williams 1989, Gerrish 1984, Barth 1982, and Redeker 1973, among many others). Since the experience of the numinous or the sacred cannot be “expressed by means of anything else,” since it is primary and fundamental as a datum, and can only be defined “through itself”—though presumably not “strictly definable”—we cannot define it either strictly through analogies drawn from the natural world, or which may amount to the same thing, from qualitatively different experiences that we may have and that we may count as analogous in some sense, such as the feeling of dependence on someone greater in our

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everyday lives (1931, p. 9). But the feeling of dependence in the sphere of the numinous is not the same, and though some analogies may hold, nonetheless some important differences apply as well. Accordingly, Otto set out a second objection to the “formulation of Schleiermacher’s principle” (1931, p. 10). The “religious category,” by which he attempts to determine the “real content of the religious emotion,” is itself a “category of self-valuation, in the sense of self-depreciation” (1931, p. 10). According to Schleiermacher, the “religious emotion” is a kind of self-consciousness, that is, a feeling about the self in a state of dependence (1931, p. 10). So, Otto argues that, according to Schleiermacher, one can only arrive at the “very fact of God as the result of an inference” that leads to a cause that is beyond the self and explains the feeling of “dependence” (1931, p. 10). But Otto argues that this kind of approach is not consistent with the “psychological facts” (1931, p. 10)—that the “creature-feeling” is a “first subjective concomitant” brought about by another “feeling-element, which casts it like a shadow” and which in itself refers immediately and primarily to something which is external to the self (1931, p. 10). This is not entirely clear. If one wishes to understand the religious category well, one cannot merely infer the existence of God as the cause in order to explain a certain kind of feeling, namely, the feeling of dependence that one has. One must pay attention, according to Otto, to the psychological facts of the case: that is, what one finds, he argues, in a case of creature-feeling is a subjective concomitant (that is, a feeling which accompanies the experience of dependence) as well as an effect of another element, another feeling, which “casts it like a shadow” (1931, p. 10). But the creature-feeling itself “indubitably” refers not just to a prior, or to another, feeling, but immediately and primarily to something, an object, that exists outside of the self (1931, p. 10). So, the numinous is, he argues, felt as objective, by which he meant that it is experienced as something that lies also outside of the contents of the self and its feelings (1931, p. 10). Otto began his inquiry into the nature and the modes of the manifestation of the numinous (or the sacred) in terms of the mysterium tremendum (great or terrible mystery): he set out four elements, three of which concern tremendum and one of which concerns mysterium (1931, p. 20). In addition to dread, which is felt in the face of the numinous, he argued that there is an element of absolute overpoweringness, in the face of majesty: “the tremendum may then be rendered more adequately; tremenda majestas, or aweful majesty” (1931, p. 20). It is as if, in such moments, our “creatureconsciousness” appears to us as a “sort of shadow or subjective reflection of it”: we feel as though we are “but dust and ashes,” that is to say, fleeting and insubstantial in the presence of something majestic and awe-inspiring (1931, p. 20); or in his words, “the consciousness of the littleness of every creature in face of that which is above all creatures” (1931, p. 22) is apparent.

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The third element is a combination of tremendum and majestas (“awefulness and majesty”), namely “the urgency or energy of the numinous object” which can be perceived, for example, in wrath, which expresses the powerful even overwhelming “energy of the numen,” such as God (or an angel of God) (1931, p. 23). The truly mysterious object, or numinous being, is beyond human “apprehension and comprehension,” according to Otto, not just because our knowledge is limited, but also because we encounter something which is “inherently wholly other”—that is, which is incommensurable in “kind” and in “character” in relation to us, and which makes us “recoil in a wonder that strikes us chill and numb” (1931, p. 28). “Inherently wholly other” is a little unclear, though striking, it must be said (1931, p. 28). Many thinkers have responded to Otto’s account of the holy and the numinous (see for example, Eliade 1959, Saarbacker 2015, Klocker 2014, Turk 2013, Gooch 2012, Shah 2011, Raphael 1997 and Turner 1974, among many others). But it deserves further exploration and reflection. Otto seemed to be suggesting that the numen is in itself wholly other—that is, not human in any way—and entirely different to us; or he might have been suggesting that it has nothing in common with us. On either interpretation, though, significant problems arise. If the appearance of a messiah which is presented in some sacred texts such as those of Christianity is an example of the appearance of something numinous, then the Christ figure who is born a man cannot be wholly other or inherently other in every sense. The effect may be the same, of course—dread, awe, urgency, overpoweringness and so on—but the substance or being, ontologically speaking, of the numen does become a complex and perplexing question. If nothing human or nothing analogous to us as humans can be predicated of the numen, as one interpretation certainly implies, then the numinous experience, it would seem, precludes an interpersonal or intersubjective encounter with such messianic figures, or their divine forerunners, and yet it would be rash to remove such encounters from the ontological domain of the sacred (assuming of course, that such figures are ontologically possible or given or actual). Nonetheless, Otto argued that though “the daemonic-divine object may appear to the mind an object of horror and dread,” it is also alluring and charming, so much so that though one trembles and is “utterly cowed and cast down,” one feels drawn to it powerfully (1931, p. 31). The mystery engages one’s wonder, one’s enchantment or intoxication—this is what Otto called the “Dionysiac element in the numen” (1931, p. 31). In this context, it is not that reason or the intellect are utterly useless, but rather ideas and concepts, according to Otto, cannot exhaust the content of the numinous, especially since an experience of God’s wrath, say, contains, so to speak, important and integral non-rational elements (1931, p. 32). In his words, there is always a “something more” that exceeds the order of ideas and concepts (1931, p. 36).

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He noted that though Schleiermacher’s claim is perhaps true, that is, that the “numinous consciousness in general” can only occur in combination, somehow, or in relation with “rational elements,” nonetheless in its outward various forms, transcendent, eschatological, beatific and so on, though they may be “inwardly akin,” it comes as a “strange and mighty propulsion toward an ideal good” which is at home in religion only, he claims, but is inherently non-rational, though the mind finds it in moments of longing and “presentiment,” and recognizes it for “what it is behind the obscure and inadequate symbols which are its only expression” (1931, p. 36). He did not elaborate sufficiently, it must be said, on the “ideal good” here and on the ways, precisely, in which the—distinct, though related—spheres of ethics and religion intersect, nor did he return sufficiently to the question of the “wholly other” nature or being of the numen and the not-entirely-other nature of the ethical category here (“the ideal good” which brings into relation, by implication, the human being, the human intellect, for it is difficult to see how any human being can have a direct experience of the “ideal good” and the “wholly other” (1931, p. 36). It is a little unclear, and not a little polemical, to assert that the “ideal good,” which is, after all, a recognizable, if perplexing, ethical concept or category, should be “known only to religion,” as he asserts, just as it is unclear why the propulsion of the numinous should be “in its nature” fundamentally non-rational (1931, p. 36). If the concept of the “ideal good” makes any sense at all, in an ethical context (such as one finds in Plato or Socrates, for example), then it stands to reason that it is a desirable thing, or better, something to be preferred to other goods, for example, on the basis of its merits (1931, p. 36). Nonetheless, it ought to be said, such reservations and difficulties aside, that Otto’s account does highlight important dimensions of (some) numinous experiences, especially the feeling of dread, of awe, the consciousness of great energy or urgency, of great majesty and of overarching mystery—the sorts of things that the human mind, confronted with great and awe-inspiring numinous mystery, knows of, perhaps, in moments of longing and recognition for example, in and behind obscure and insufficient symbols through which it finds its expression (1931, p. 36). He argued memorably, if not always persuasively, that “above and beyond our rational being lies hidden the ultimate and highest part of our nature, which can find no satisfaction in the mere allaying of the needs of our sensuous, psychical, or intellectual impulses and cravings”—referring to what the mystic identify as the “basis or ground of the soul” (1931, p. 36). He also added in relation to the motif of fascination the following claim: the “religious feeling of longing” is not the only thing that matters in relation to the “moment of fascination” for it is “already alive and present in the moment of solemnity,” for example, in terms of the “gathered concentration and humble abasement” that are found in acts of devotion; it is then that the mind

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is lifted to thought of the holy, and “in the common worship of the congregation, where this is practiced with earnestness and deep sincerity, as, it is to be feared, is with us a thing rather desired than realized” (1931, p. 36). In such “solemn” moments, one’s “soul” attains a fullness and an inexpressible peace (1931, p. 36). He highlights the importance of the “religious feeling of longing” and argues that it is crucial in relation to fascination (1931, p. 36). It is as if longing and fascination combine within the encounter with the holy. The appropriate attitude is solemnity, which, presumably brings dignity, seriousness and even ceremony and grandeur to the moment. The mind is exalted, lifted to a higher level or status, perhaps to draw nearer to the holy and its source, which is after all, often, if not always, spatialized in relation to some higher sphere or realm, such as heaven or the empyrean, or the celestial spheres, or paradise. It is a little unclear, and a little difficult to justify, Otto’s view here, namely that the “moment of fascination” should have such overarching importance, especially in terms of its ability to “fill the soul so full and keep it so inexpressibly tranquil” (1931, p. 36). One would think that the “soul” could be “filled” and kept “inexpressibly tranquil” (1931, p. 36) by a number of things, such as divinely guided meditation or contemplation, or a revelation and promise of an extraordinary peace, not merely fascination, but perhaps he meant that fascination in this lofty key (no pun intended) has a special power or force (of attraction) that ought to be acknowledged and understood, because perhaps it highlights non-rational or arational elements (passions, enchantments, allures, enthrallments and so on)—if so, it has an important place, no doubt, in his account of the idea of the holy. The question of whether or not it ought to have the most important or the most central place in such an account will have to wait for another occasion. Otto’s account of the holy provides a good context in which to revisit some of the important differences between the holy and the sacred, or in other words, to clarify further the idea of the sacred. For example, if Otto is right and the mysterium tremendum is one of the keys to understanding the holy, it would not follow necessarily, of course, that it must be one of the keys to understanding the sacred. The latter, as we have noted at the outset, has many meanings, dimensions and functions, so something sacred such as a goddess which may generate, or be surrounded by, great mystery, would not necessarily be true of a small object, say, which is also sacred, like an amulet or a talisman, or simply, a stone; these can be treated with great reverence and they can be consecrated, whether they are mysterious or not. They can certainly be fascinating, too, and the object of adoration or worship, even when they are understood well or thoroughly. One of the critical points here is that their status is due to a very significant extent to their connection with a sacred being, for example, or a sacred source, and its power or effica-

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cy, and not always or necessarily to its connection to a mysterium tremendum. If Otto is right and tremendum in the context of the holy or numinous experience binds together three elements, namely, awfulness, overpoweringness and urgency, then it also does not follow that the sacred, or experience of the sacred, in general, necessarily binds together these three elements—or indeed, these three and only these three elements. We have seen that the sacred includes not just vast and majestic things, but also small and intimate things, or at least, intimately encountered or experienced things. These objects or elements of the sacred, for example, an encounter with a greatly impoverished or gravely ill man on the road which becomes part of sacred text or narrative, a voice that directs one gently to open a book and read (as Augustine describes his revelation beautifully in the Confessions), or a range of sacred objects in Aboriginal religions (for example, the religion of the Aranda), such as a tjurunga, a board made of wood or stone, which is associated with a divine or mythological being, a stone, a bull-roarer (which is used not only to communicate but also for music and issuing warnings), wooden objects, bark paintings, songs, and so on—these are not necessarily analogous to the kind of moment or the kind of experience that Otto describes or evokes in such memorable terms, nor do they need to be. Otto seemed to be thinking of the sacred and the holy as they extend to transcendent and omnipotent being, but the sacred extends to much else besides, as we have seen. If Otto is right and the holy is associated with great fascination which is, in turn, linked to mercy, love and grace, which attract the worshipper or believer to transcendent being, or being which is wholly other (1931, p. 36), then it also does not follow that the sacred must always be so. Indeed, there is much evidence to suggest that it is not always so, or even so in general. The wholly other is an important element in the sacred, and particularly in experiences of the sacred, to be sure, but not all experiences of the sacred are based on or are characterized by this kind of being, manifestation or representation (1931, p. 36). Many encounters and rites in the world’s sacred traditions emphasize likeness or analogy, not just the wholly other—for example, the purpose and meaning of the retouching that takes place with Wondjina paintings (paintings of ancestral beings) in Arnhem Land in Australia is not just meant to bring a group of men together, but also to bring about an increase of animals and plants. It is affinity, continuity or correspondence, not full otherness that often features in such rites and traditions; just as in many sacred traditions of the ancient Greeks, and Hindus, the deities, messengers and avatars have many human characteristics and traits, not purely transcendent ones. Zeus, for example, is unfaithful, wrathful and kills his father; Shiva is represented as a yogi or as a husband or a warrior; and so on.

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Otto makes the point that numinous experiences are critical and central to an understanding of the idea of the holy and links these experiences to certain kinds of feelings, especially feelings of dread and awe, or the “consciousness of great energy or urgency, of great majesty and of overarching mystery” (1931, p. 36). It can certainly be said that numinous experiences generate and highlight such feelings, and it can certainly be argued that the human mind can know such feelings, perhaps, “in yearning and presentiment,” particularly in relation to monotheism, or polytheism, but it does not follow that all the symbols that are associated with, or which constitute to a significant degree, the sacred, are necessarily obscure or inadequate; much depends on the things or beings that they are intended to embody, represent or depict (certain objects and symbols representing ancestral beings, for example, in ancient Aboriginal religions, need not be obscure or inadequate; indeed, they cannot be entirely obscure or inadequate if the rite is to be completed successfully— for example, by an initiate). A more detailed account of various ideas, conceptions and theories of the sacred will make such points clearer. The next chapter will focus on quite a different approach, informed by psychology and philosophical pragmatism. William James recognized to a significant degree the importance of ontology but crucially did not focus on it; he was interested in the relations between the sacred and religious belief in the context of what he called the “ontological imagination” (1917, p. 248), in key markers or characteristics of mysticism, and in the relation between mystical states and the question of truth. These, and related questions, will be analyzed and evaluated in the following chapter. Chapter 3 will focus on another scientifically informed account, namely, Durkheim’s sociologically informed account of the sacred and the profane, and their place and meaning within religious life. Durkheim’s interest in “religious thought” broadly (1964, p. 37), and the heterogeneity of the sacred and the profane, which he affirms, will be explored; his view that religious myths explain nothing (1964, p. 135), and his linking of religion in a number of respects to the category of the social, will be analyzed and evaluated. Chapter 4 will focus on the accounts Russell and Ayer give of mysticism, and religious knowledge. Russell was very interested in the relationship between mysticism and logic and sets out three key elements of religion (that is, love, worship and acquiescence), and the major characteristics of mysticism; he also reflects on the essence of religion, and particularly of mysticism, and the life of wisdom (which open up, for example, the domain of sacred being, beings, texts, objects and relations, among other things). Ayer was concerned also with mysticism but he focused on the question of its cognitive content and the question of religious knowledge. He contrasts “scientific philosophy” (1932, p. 32) with religious experience and mystical states (of insight or vision), and attempts to provide an evaluation of the latter in the light of

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verification, logical positivism and our access to a limited ontology. These positions will be analyzed and evaluated carefully. Chapter 5 examines two significant contemporary philosophical attempts to provide explanations of the sacred in relation to ethics, trust, belief and knowledge (for example, Cottingham, 2017), transcendent urges (Cottingham, 2015, p. 26), and “moments of emergency” (Scruton, 2014, p. 185), respectively. Cottingham explores the relationship between ethics and religion and argues that the encounter with the sacred should be explored in the light of our encounter with our fellow creatures (2017, p. 43)—and in those encounters, we see the truth of the divine. Scruton is interested in the relationships between covenants, sacred bonds, sacrifice, forgiveness, ritual and the “moral life” (2014, p. 182). These and related points will be explored carefully and critically. Chapter 6 focuses on a third scientific approach (understood very broadly), psychoanalysis, and in particular, psychodynamic theory: Freud’s analysis of religion in relation to the longing for the father, father fixations, neuroses, illusions and delusions. It also examines critically his affirmation of the “scientific spirit” (1961, p. 38) and his affirmation that religious claims explain nothing (which after Durkheim, continues to influence contemporary commentators such as the new atheists). Chapter 7 focuses on the ontological question, its meaning, importance and some of the complications that one finds in relation to it. Jacquette’s analysis of the question and the concept is analyzed and evaluated, along with Tillich’s distinction between ontic and ontological and his interest in the ontology of being and courage, in relation to ultimate concern (1952, p. 43). Chapter 8 analyzes and critically explores Heidegger’s momentous work on the ontological question, and fundamental ontology, on the forgetting and neglect of Being, on beings, machination, technology and the advent of nihilism, and on dwelling and poetry, and more broadly, the meaning and function of meditative thinking, in connection with Being and its unconcealment, and its reception by beings, in the world. Chapter 9 investigates critically the importance and meaning of ontology in the work of Eliade: for example, the importance of the ontological problem, the importance and vitality of ontological structures, sacred ontologies, and so on. His distinction between the sacred and the profane is analyzed and evaluated, as are the manifold connections he explores and affirms between the sacred and totemism, divine archetypes, heroes and supernatural ancestors, rituals, spaces and places, participation, imitation and the maintenance and perpetuation of the mythical and mystical elements in the life of the community and the tribes, and so on. The final chapter provides ten short reflections on the ontology of the sacred, each a response to the major accounts given in the earlier chapters, and a number of general observations that will hopefully drive further inves-

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tigations and reflection, and expand and deepen our own understanding of the sacred and the profane, now and in the future.

Chapter Two

Theories of the Sacred The Pragmatic Theory

Indeed, it is possible to set out six or seven theories of the sacred, at least, not just in terms of its derivations, history and meanings, but also its range of reference and its sphere, so to speak, of beings, objects, things, places, relations and associations; these might be called the numinous theory of the sacred (Otto), discussed above; the pragmatic theory of the sacred (James); the psychodynamic theory of the sacred (Freud); the sociological theory of the sacred (Durkheim); the philosophico-empirical theory (Russell and Ayer) and ethical theory of the sacred (Cottingham); and the hierophanic theory of the sacred (Eliade). There are others, to be sure, but it is difficult to think of others that have had a more enduring or powerful influence. William James offers another thought-provoking perspective on pragmatism, religion and the sacred (see, for example, 2010, 1990, 1988a, 1988b, 1987, 1983, 1971, 1956, 1955, 1943, 1932, 1925, 1922, 1920, 1912, 1911, 1909 and 1899). He focused on religious experience and the will to believe, and since the sphere of the sacred extends to experiences of this kind, which are linked to a sacred or holy being, or a related manifestation, by many thinkers (such as Schleiermacher, Otto and Eliade, among many others), and indeed in many religions, it deserves careful consideration. An analysis and evaluation of James’s voluminous writings and thinking on these subjects is outside the immediate scope of this study, but the following section will draw out some crucial points on his substantial work on religious experience. He cited a number of examples as parts of an ontological picture of religious experience, which he developed in Varieties of Religious Experience, in particular, and in terms of what he called the “ontological imagination”—two examples should suffice for now: 19

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I let a few other cases follow at random: “God surrounds me like the physical atmosphere. He is closer to me than my own breath. In him literally I live and move and have my being.”— “There are times when I seem to stand, in his very presence, to talk with him. Answers to prayer have come, sometimes direct and overwhelming in their revelation of his presence and powers. There are times when God seems far off, but this is always my own fault.”— “I have the sense of a presence, strong, and at the same time soothing, which hovers over me. Sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms” (1917, p. 72). Such is the human ontological imagination, and such is the convincingness of what it brings to birth. Unpicturable beings are realized, and realized with an intensity almost like that of an hallucination. They determine our vital attitude as decisively as the vital attitude of lovers is determined by the habitual sense, by which each is haunted, of the other being in the world. A lover has notoriously this sense of the continuous being of his idol, even when his attention is addressed to other matters and he no longer represents her features. He cannot forget her; she uninterruptedly affects him through and through (1917, p. 248).

It ought to be noted that many have written on James’s understanding of religious experience and indeed some of the sacred elements within that framework (see, for example, Knapp 2017, Capps 2016 and 2015, Strug 2016, Bricklin 2015, Halliwell and Rasmussen 2014, Carrette 2013, Gavin 2013, Rydenfelt and Pihlstrom 2013, Knutson 2011, Stuhr 2010, Slater 2009, Francese 2007, Bridgers 2005, Taylor 2002, Lamberth 1999, O’Connell 1997, Putnam 1997, Croce 1995, Putnam 1995, Ramsey 1993, Graham 1992, Olin 1992, Goodman 1990, Myers 1986, Scheffler 1974, Allen 1967, Moore 1961, Barton Perry 1948 and 1938 and Royce 1911, among others), but very few have focused on James’s interest in ontological questions. It is notable in the passages quoted above that James stipulates the ontological context here: he argues that the imagination brings these into being (1917, p. 248). But he does not explain why ontology only relates to the imagination here, perhaps because he is concerned with these phenomena in a psychological sense here. It is by no means certain here, and James cannot be certain here, it must be said, that these experiences of being, or beings, in one or more forms or modes, are experiences of being, or beings, that spring purely or entirely from the human imagination. The analogy he draws between the vital attitudes of lovers and those who experience such being, or beings, is instructive, since love, attraction and desire (and not, for example, fear or terror) play an integral role in the reported experience (1917, p. 248). There are mysterious things, in other words, metaphysical and not just ontological, one might say, that affect such human beings thoroughly, very much as they do when one is deeply in love

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and experiences this as deep love. Yet James focuses here on the “convincingness” of the feelings involved (1917, p. 248). He argues that they are as convincing to those who have them as any direct sensible experiences can be, and they are, as a rule, much more convincing than results “established by mere logic ever are” (1917, p. 248). If one has these experiences, strongly, then it is probable that one “cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth, as revelations of a kind of reality which no adverse argument, however unanswerable by you in words, can expel from your belief” (1917, p. 248). He understood rationalism as a position that is inconsistent with mysticism: it, he argues, “insists that all our beliefs ought ultimately to find for themselves articulate grounds” (1917, p. 248). He sets out four such grounds: first, “definitely statable abstract principles”; second, “definite facts of sensation”; third, “definite hypotheses based on such facts”; and finally, “definite inferences logically drawn” (1917, p. 248). Now, it has to be said that beliefs with “articulate grounds” are not necessarily absent from accounts of religious experience which may be considered mystical, if by “articulate grounds” he means grounds which are characterized, amongst other things, by fluency or coherence (1917, p. 248). Nor are abstract principles which can be stated in an articulate way. Nor for that matter are definite facts of sensation such as an appearance, an image or a presence that can be described accurately in some detail or “definite hypotheses” drawn from such facts of sensation (1917, p. 248). It is not beyond the (rational) bounds of possibility that one who has had a religious experience can also give, first, “articulate grounds” for their beliefs with regard to the experience they have had; an intelligible and quite definite account of abstract principles; an intelligible and definite account of the facts of sensation, which are integral parts of the experience as a whole; intelligible, and intelligent, hypotheses which they draw from such facts; and logically sound or valid inferences which are drawn from those very facts (of sensation) (1917, p. 248). Of course, notwithstanding the value of such ontological elements and indeed ontological relations (which will be addressed in more detail in the following chapter), it is important to address a number of epistemological questions about sensation, inference and facts (and there is a very large body of literature on this topic now, with relevant and important starting points in the work, especially, of the philosophical empiricists, and more recently in the works of Russell, Ayer and Wittgenstein. See, for example, Russell 1989 and 1953; Ayer 1982, 1973, 1972, 1971, 1956 and 1946; Wittgenstein 1961, 1958a and 1958b; among many others). It is important to note, for example, that facts of sensation, whatever they may be, are not necessarily facts concerning the truth of the religious experience itself; similarly, inferences drawn from the facts of sensation are not necessarily inferences about the

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truth of the content of the experience as a whole, since sensations, and facts about sensation alone, only make up a part of the whole experience, and what is true even of a part, is not necessarily true of a whole. Nonetheless James draws out some important difficulties: “vague impressions of something indefinable” do not belong in a rationalist system (1917, p. 248). If one has “intuitions,” their source according to James, is some “deeper level of your nature than the loquacious level which rationalism inhabits” (1917, p. 248). One’s whole “subconscious life” (within which James includes one’s impulses, faiths, needs, divinations, and so on) colors, in some way, the premises, “of which your consciousness now feels the weight of the result; and something in you absolutely knows that that result must be truer than any logic-chopping rationalistic talk, however clever, that may contradict it” (1917, p. 248). If one assumes, for the purposes of argument, that there is a subconscious life in us, then it would indeed be difficult to see how this kind of life would not influence or shape or color our premises (that is, the assumptions, suppositions and beliefs, and so on, that constitute those premises). However, James’s argument that the subject absolutely knows that that result is truer, which is felt by one’s consciousness, is an interesting and thought-provoking one. He seems to be suggesting that such a consciousness brings a knowledge that is truer (perhaps in the sense that what is experienced clearly and accurately is known more truly than something one has inferred through a mere, or pure, process of “logic-chopping” reason or loquacious rationalist articulation). He considered the “rationalistic level” inferior (1917, p. 248). This does not mean that James was an irrationalist, of course; what it means is that he was interested, like many philosophers before him, in the inherent limits of logic and reason. The truth, he argues, about religion, and religious experience presumably, “is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion. Then, indeed, our intuitions and our reason work together, and great world-ruling systems, like that of the Buddhist or of the Catholic philosophy, may grow up” (1917, p. 247). He notes the connection between articulate reasons, cogency and “inarticulate” feelings, and their unified force, so to speak, and influence upon our views, or between our intuitions and our reason (1917, p. 247). And he goes further along this trajectory: it is “impulsive belief” that always “sets up the original body of truth, and our articulately verbalized philosophy is but its showy translation into formulas” (1917, p. 248). This kind of belief, though “unreasoned and immediate,” nonetheless he took to be the “deep thing in us,” of which reason and argument are “a surface exhibition” (1917, p. 248). Instinct leads intelligence, he asserts, for if one feels “the presence of a living God,” no reasoned argument will change “his

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faith” (1917, p. 248). He emphasizes an important point: he does not believe that it is better that the “subconscious and non-rational should thus hold primacy in the religious realm” but rather that they do “as a matter of fact” (1917, p. 248). James then goes on to distinguish between three characteristics of “the affective experience” or better, “state of assurance rather than the faith-state” (1917, p. 248). First, and centrally important, there is affective dimension, “the loss of all the worry, the sense that all is ultimately well with one, the peace, the harmony, the willingness to be, even though the outer conditions should remain the same” (1917, p. 248). In this context, one believes in the “certainty of God's grace” and salvation, for example, and these accompany changes in the lives of beings who have such affective experiences (1917, p. 248). However, James notes that even without such beliefs, affective peace can be gained—a “passion of willingness, of acquiescence, of admiration, is the glowing center of this state of mind” (1917, p. 248). Second, there is “the sense of perceiving truths” that are new to oneself (1917, p. 248). One understands the “mysteries of life” though in terms that can remain “unutterable in words” (1917, p. 248). Third, the “assurance state” is a change at an objective level according to James, for it is accompanied by qualitatively significant and in some senses observable, transitions in one’s life, more specifically for example, a sense of a “clean and beautiful newness within and without”—he adds, “one of the commonest entries in conversion records” (1917, p. 248). He is clearly convinced of the reality of these experiential states and regarded them as paramount in terms of their function. He associated them, for example, with “mystical states of consciousness,” which he distinguished from other states of mind (1917, p. 380). He proposed four marks which justify the use of the term “mystical” and help us avoid “verbal disputation,” and the “recriminations that generally go therewith” (1917, p. 380). The first mark is ineffability, that is, that the state defies expression, and no account of the content can be sufficiently given in words (1917, p. 380). Direct experience is therefore required and, he adds, “it cannot be imparted or transferred to others” (1917, p. 380). He compares such states more to “states of feeling” rather than intellectual states, which means also that one cannot state clearly to others, such as skeptics, who have never had such “states of feeling” “in what the quality or worth of it consists” (1917, p. 380). He draws a useful analogy: one needs to have “musical ears” to understand the value of a cello concerto, for example, just as one needs to have been in love in order to understand a “lover’s state of mind”—without such things, one cannot “interpret the musician or lover justly,” and one may even consider them “weak-minded or absurd” (1917, p. 380). So, too, he argued, the

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mystic “finds that most of us accord to his experiences an equally incompetent treatment” (1917, p. 380). The second mark is noetic quality (1917, p. 381). Mystical states are not just states of feeling; they also “seem to those who experience them” to be also knowledge states in the sense that these bring insight into “depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect,” for example, sudden revelations or illuminations which are deeply significant and meaningful “all inarticulate though they remain” (1917, p. 381). Nonetheless James did not underestimate the force or “authority” which they bear “as a rule” afterwards. These two marks then, the first and the second, according to James, will “entitle any state to be called mystical,” but there are two other “qualities” that are not as “sharply marked” though common in accounts of such experiences (1917, p. 381). The third mark or “quality” is transiency, which means that these states in themselves do not last a long time except “in rare instances, half an hour, or at most an hour or two, seems to be the limit beyond which they fade into the light of common day” (1917, p. 382). They do not vanish completely: it is often possible he argues to capture or recollect their “quality” imperfectly; they can recur however, and when they do, they are recognized, and are “susceptible of continuous development in what is felt as inner richness and importance” (1917, p. 382). The fourth mark is passivity, which means that “when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set in, the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power” (1917, p. 382). In this context, such mystical states, or qualities, are related to “certain definite phenomena of secondary or alternative personality,” for example, prophecy, automatic writing, trances and so on, though they may not be recalled at all (1917, p. 382). These states are “never merely interruptive” though, as “a profound sense of their importance” and force remains—so much so, in fact, that they transform and modify “the inner life of the subject between the times of their recurrence” and “all sorts of gradations and mixtures” become possible (1917, p. 382). James regarded these four “characteristics” as sufficient; that is, they help us to “mark out” a number of states of consciousness which are sufficiently distinctive to “deserve a special name and to call for careful study,” in short, a notable “mystical group” (1917, p. 401). James notes that when “a man comes out of Samâdhi, they assure us that he remains enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed, illumined” (1917, p. 401). He takes this to be clear evidence that the effects are lasting though the experience, or state, may be transient. He finds four stages, not surprisingly, in dhyana (which he understood in terms of higher states of contemplation):

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The Buddhists use the word “samâdhi” as well as the Hindus; but “dhyâna” is their special word for higher states of contemplation. There seem to be four stages recognized in dhyâna. The first stage comes through concentration of the mind upon one point. It excludes desire, but not discernment or judgment: it is still intellectual. In the second stage the intellectual functions drop off, and the satisfied sense of unity remains. In the third stage the satisfaction departs, and indifference begins, along with memory and self-consciousness. In the fourth stage the indifference, memory, and self-consciousness are perfected. [Just what “memory” and “self-consciousness” mean in this connection is doubtful. They cannot be the faculties familiar to us in the lower life.] Higher stages still of contemplation are mentioned—a region where there exists nothing, and where the meditator says: “There exists absolutely nothing,” and stops. Then he reaches another region where he says: “There are neither ideas nor absence of ideas,” and stops again. Then another region where, “having reached the end of both idea and perception, he stops finally.” This would seem to be, not yet Nirvâna, but as close an approach to it as this life affords (1917, pp. 401–402).

So, concentration is the first stage. Here, desire is put aside, but the subject discerns and judges, so their intellect is still engaged. When the intellect is not engaged in these ways, there is a sense of unity, for example between one who contemplates and that which is contemplated. Satisfaction stems, for example, from the absence or overcoming of boundaries between the two. When satisfaction ceases, indifference sets in, though the process is not entirely clear (presumably to one who has not experienced these contemplative states). In the fourth stage, that indifference is “perfected,” that is, an understanding that there are neither things, nor ideas, nor the absence of ideas, nor perception (1917, p. 402). Though perplexing to others, and to many of us, no doubt, perplexity is not a characteristic of the state that the meditator is going through, one of the remarkable facts of the matter, and certainly not lost on James. James turns also to the question of truth concerning “mystical conditions,” for if the inspiration is erroneous, the “energy would be all the more mistaken and misbegotten” (1917, p. 415). He asks: do mystical states establish the truth of those theological affections in which the saintly life has its root? (1917, p. 415). His answer is this: in spite of “their repudiation of articulate self-description, mystical states in general assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift” (1917, p. 415). “It is possible to give the outcome of the majority of them in terms that point in definite philosophical directions. One of these directions is optimism, and the other is monism” (1917, p. 416). These states lead one from a “smallness” into a “vastness,” from “unrest” to “rest” (1917, p. 416). He saw these states as “reconciling, unifying states,” perhaps in the sense of overcoming boundaries or divisions between the person and some sacred being or presence or dimension, or the “Absolute” which, it must be said,

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remains somewhat elusive in meaning (1917, p. 416). Nonetheless, one often hears it said, and James writes about this, that one is unified with or reconciled with the “Absolute,” or with some sacred or holy being or state of being: “in Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think, and which brings it about that the mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native land. Perpetually telling of the unity of man with God, their speech antedates languages, and they do not grow old” (1917, p. 419). Now James, it must be noted, admits that these are sketches of mystical, heightened and affective states done with “extreme brevity and insufficiency” but risks offering some reflections on “the general traits of the mystic range of consciousness”: on the whole, [it is] pantheistic and optimistic, or at least the opposite of pessimistic. It is anti-naturalistic and harmonizes best with twice-bornness and so-called other-worldly states of mind (1917, p. 422). He then asks if it furnishes any warrant for the truth of the “twicebornness and supernaturality and pantheism which it favors” (1917, p. 422). His answer is in three parts: first, mystical states, when they are “well developed” are generally “absolutely authoritative over those who have them”; second, they have no authority necessarily in terms of imposing “a duty for those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically”; third, they “break down” the “authority” of “non-mystical or rationalistic consciousness, based upon the understanding and the senses alone” since they show that there are more than one or two kinds of “consciousness”—in so doing, they also “open out the possibility of other orders of truth, in which, so far as anything in us vitally responds to them, we may freely continue to have faith” (1917, pp. 422–423). First, as a “matter of psychological fact,” he argues, mystical states of “a well-pronounced and emphatic sort” are authoritative in relation to those who experience them—they know. It is useless, James argues, for a rationalist to “grumble about this” (1917, p. 424). The “mystical truth” that is experienced and felt by one is a force that they live by, and a rationalist cannot command them to live differently (1917, p. 424). Prisons and madhouses, according to James, will not change their minds about the experience they have had and the knowledge that accompanies it: in point of logic it absolutely escapes our jurisdiction (1917, p. 424). And James goes further: Our own more “rational” beliefs are based on evidence exactly similar in nature to that which mystics quote for theirs. Our senses, namely, have assured us of certain states of fact; but mystical experiences are as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us. The records show that even though the five senses be in abeyance in them, they are abso-

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lutely sensational in their epistemological quality, if I may be pardoned the barbarous expression, —that is, they are face to face presentations of what seems immediately to exist. The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left, whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed. Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and mystic state are practically convertible terms (1917, p. 424).

He points out quickly that mystics have no right to claim that others who feel differently and think otherwise should accept what they believe as a result of their “peculiar experiences” (1917, p. 424). The most they can ask of others is to accept that they “establish a presumption” (1917, p. 424). Yet he repeats, after noting some of the risks of generalizing about mysticism, that the “existence of mystical states absolutely overthrows the pretension of nonmystical states to be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe” (1917, p. 428). James believed that there cannot be a “state of facts” whose meaning cannot be expanded, “provided the mind ascend to a more enveloping point of view” (1917, p. 428). That expanded state, and the “wider world of meanings” taken seriously, might just, he argues, be an indispensable step on the way to the “final fullness of the truth” (1917, p. 428). He sums up (“in the broadest possible way”) by discussing the five characteristics of the religious life: first, he argues that the visible world is a part of a spiritual world in relation to which it gains meaning and “chief” significance; second, the harmonious relation between the two is “our true end”; third, prayer is a process in which “spiritual energy” brings about actual effects, material as well as psychological, in the natural world; fourth, it brings about a “new zest” which “adds itself like a gift to life,” and is likened to “lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism”; fifth, it brings a strong sense of safety and a “temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections” (1917, pp. 485–486). He recognized the sentiment-rich nature of such a position but grants also that we “can afford to be dryer,” without weakening the force of the position, just as he notes forcefully the prophets “of all the different religions” (1917, p. 514) and the power of their various visions, “raptures and other openings” and the ways in which these authenticate their particular faith, and as he would have it, part of the “absolutely indispensable” fabric of over-beliefs which, so long as they are themselves tolerant, should be tolerated by us (1917, p. 515). So religious experience has a positive content which he argues is literally and objectively true as far as it goes (1917, p. 515). He realizes of course that his own over-beliefs are implicated in his own hypothesis about religious experience and the “farther to limits of this extension of our personality” but asks memorably for the same indulgence which he would willingly (and one might add, generously) extend in a converse case to one of our own (1917, p. 515).

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It is in this context that he concludes further that the “pragmatic way of taking religion” is the “deeper way” for a number of reasons: first, it makes religion substantial and acknowledges as “everything real must” acknowledge, some “characteristic realm of fact as its very own,” even if all of the characteristic facts are not known; second, the over-belief on which one can venture in this direction is that they do exist, for example, in terms of the reasonable belief, which modern psychology reinforces, in his view, that “the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also,” and further, that these can “become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in”—such a position strikes him as both sane and possibly or actually true (1917, p. 519). The position that holds that “the world of sensations and of scientific laws and objects” is “all” is not convincing, according to James: “the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow ‘scientific’ bounds. Assuredly, the real world is of a different temperament—more intricately built than physical science allows. So, my objective and my subjective conscience both hold me to the overbelief which I express” (1917, p. 526). He adds that one does not necessarily have to affirm infinity or solitude. The final philosophy of religion, he argues quite persuasively, must ultimately take into consideration “the pluralistic hypothesis more seriously than it has hitherto been willing to consider it,” especially since in practical terms, the chance of salvation will be enough and since, according to James, no “fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance” (1917, p. 526). The chance can make all the difference and that difference concerns, for example, on the one hand, the “keynote” of resignation and the “keynote” of hope (1917, p. 527). He acknowledges the brevity of the argument here and allows that it might be unsatisfactory because of this but clearly finds the pragmatic note, and distinction, appealing.

Chapter Three

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Durkheim takes a very different approach to the question of the religious life, in contrasting the sacred with the profane, but a similar point applies here: just as the sacred plays an important part in religious experience and its varieties, as noted earlier, so, too, does it play an important part in the elementary forms of religious life, for example, as it is manifest in the texts that describe or evoke divine forms, visions and presences, or in the rituals that unfold around a sacred center or myth, and so on. At any rate, this is a nexus that will be explored further below. Durkheim argues that all known religious beliefs have one characteristic, that is, they “presuppose” a classification of real and ideal elements into two “classes or opposed groups,” “generally designated” as profane and sacred (profane, sacré) (1964, p. 37; see also 1975). So, the world, religiously understood, is divided into parts one of which encompasses everything that is sacred, and part of which encompasses the profane. This much is distinctive of “religious thought”; all myths, dogmas and legends in this context are, he argues, representations of the sacred, their good and their powers, or interconnections and their relationships with the profane (1964, p. 37). He did not understand sacred things merely in terms of gods or spirits, but extended the term broadly to rocks, springs, dwelling places, but also gestures, expressions, movements, principles, truths (as in the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism) and so on (“anything can be sacred”) (1964, p. 37). But how are these to be distinguished from profane things? First, sacred things are considered to have a higher value in terms of dignity and power, especially in relation to men and women (1964, p. 38). Hierarchies are not enough as entirely secular societies have these. Yet he argues that there are sacred things “of every degree”: for example, an amulet 29

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can be a sacred object but may not generate great respect, but a sacred relation is one in which dependence is mutual or reciprocal (1964, p. 38). So, a hierarchy is insufficient; however, the relation of the sacred and the profane can be characterized by their absolute heterogeneity (1964, p. 38). This means that the sacred and the profane are firstly distinguishable absolutely; second, they are not only irreversibly differentiated, but also radically opposed. This differentiation can be represented differently in turn, but he insists, the fact of the contrast is universal (1964, p. 38). He did not mean by this that a divine being, say, cannot pass from one to the other, but rather that such passages emphasize and reinforce the unavoidable duality of the two kingdoms, as he called them, and the importance of transformation (for example in ritual ceremonies) (1964, p. 39). The two kingdoms are not only different and opposed, they can be bound together in quite antagonistic relations (1964, p. 39). So, for example, one should not be surprised to find that a commitment to the sacred domain entails a total separation from the profane world in order to realize fully a religious life or, in other words, a sacred order of being (1964, p. 40). He mentions monasticism and mystic asceticism as examples of such intensified separation, even opposition (the aim in such sacred orders is, he argues, to eliminate the attachment to the profane; and somewhat contentiously, it must be said, he claims that this leads to a form of “religious suicide”—since, in his view, the profane can only be escaped fully by forsaking life itself) (1964, p. 40). He notes the strong opposition and its manifestations. The opposition, for example, is logical, that is, the two cannot be confounded or conflated; but it is also empirical, for the two cannot come into contact. Their dissociation cannot be contradicted (1964, p. 40). What is sacred cannot be touched by what is not, that is, the profane; the interdiction cannot prevent all “communication” between their disparate worlds, for then the sacred “could be good for nothing” (1964, p. 40). He adds, though, that any contact between the two alters the nature of each (1964, p. 40). At times, Durkheim suggests that there is an ontological and cosmological chasm; at times he suggests that there is a logical chasm. It is important to proceed quite carefully here, especially if the ontological question is to be opened up clearly and distinctively for us. It is important to remember that there is no necessary identity between an ontological difference and a logical difference. However, he focuses here on the logical difference. He argues that the mind will not allow contact or confusion between the sacred and the profane, because the result of such “promiscuous” contact—that is, prohibited contact, presumably—would violate the dissociation of the two ideas in our minds (1964, p. 40). The two cannot come into contact, he implies, without punishment, or violence, of some sort taking place though communication is possible between them; if they do come into contact with each other directly, the nature of each is compromised or lost.

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Whatever one thinks of such emphases, Durkheim arrives at his initial criterion of religious “beliefs”: the true feature of religious phenomena is that they are structured in terms of bipartite division and this applies to the universe also, which is divided into parts which are radically exclusive (1964, p. 40). The sacred is protected and kept separate by interdictions; the profane has these interdictions applied to it and is kept at a distance from the sacred (1964, p. 41). Rites have their place in this binary order in the sense that they represent laws of conduct which require men and women to comport themselves in certain prescribed ways in their orbit around sacred objects and things (1964, p. 41). “Religion” then is understood in this context in this way: when a certain number of sacred things sustain relations of co-ordination or subordination with each other in such a way as to form a system having a certain unity, but which is not comprised within any other system of the same sort, the totality of these beliefs and their corresponding rites constitutes a religion (1964, p. 41). Religion is, in Durkheim’s view, fundamentally always the same: each group of sacred things, or even each important sacred object, provides a center around which one finds a set of beliefs, rites or cults; every religion recognizes a multitude of sacred things, even Christianity, he adds, for example Catholicism, admits angels, saints, martyrs, relics, and so on. So, a religion is not reducible to a single cult, but rather consists of a “system” of autonomous cults (1964, p. 42). (The question why religion should be associated with such a system, fundamentally or essentially, or above all, is an important one, but Durkheim does not pause to consider it in detail here.) So, the sacred is not just opposed to the profane, it is a category which encompasses objects, groups (of objects or subjects), beliefs, rites, cults, and so on, which constitute a plurality. It is notable that Durkheim seems to associate sacred things, religions and cults here, though not a single cult. He goes on to posit a definition of religion: a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices which is closely related to sacred objects, events, beings and so on which are placed apart and forbidden though they form integral parts of the moral fabric of the community, exemplified by a church and its followers or adherents (1964, p. 47). The second element in his definition is also essential: by showing the relation between the idea of religion and the idea of the Church, it becomes clear, according to Durkheim, that religion should be comprised by a collective (1964, p. 47). Now this much is defensible: sacred things (though that remains a little vague) inhere within one coherent system, with its integral beliefs and practices, and all of these taken together comprise a religion; they are not (all?) accessible to everyone and it is not permissible for everyone to reach them (all?); and those beliefs and practices which constitute religion unite followers into a moral “community” otherwise known as a church (1964, p. 47).

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Moreover, this community constitutes a collective, unified body. Now, a number of questions ought to be asked here: first, is a religion a religion because it is relative to sacred things? Or are sacred things sacred because they are relative to a religion? The answer is not clear, but the question is a critical one. Second, does a religion have to be unified in terms of beliefs and practices, in order to be a religion? It would seem not, if one considers schisms within churches, or communities of faith, and therefore disunity in an important respect, in churches, or communities of faith, even though followers of such churches continue to practice a religion, even when the schism remains unresolved (1964, p. 47). If this is true, then sacred things can inhere in systems of beliefs and practices which are not entirely unified, or not unified at all, without losing their status and value as sacred things. The idea of a collective (1964, p. 47) is also questionable in relation to religion and sacred things: it is a little ambiguous for it could mean one group or community, or it could mean a fabric of groups or communities sometimes loosely related together. Nonetheless, if divisions or schisms within churches or communities of faith do not necessarily affect their status as parts of a religion, such as Christianity or Judaism, then it would follow that the sacred things to which the particular religion is related can also be common to churches which are in some sense divided or schismatic, or in short, not unified at the level of beliefs or practices or not entirely unified in these respects. Durkheim focuses on totemism. He points out that in Aboriginal religions the churinga, the nurtunja and the waninga cannot be handled by women or others who are not initiated. The churinga are kept in a kind of temple, in which there is no tolerance of interference from the profane world; this is the space of sacred things, which include totemic animals and plants that occupy the profane realm and are parts of everyday existence (1964, p. 133). Things are sacred in light of their correspondence to the number and significance of the interdictions which maintain their separation and isolation, which leads Durkheim to the “remarkable conclusion” that the representations of totemic beings are considered more sacred than the beings which they represent (1964, p. 133). So, in rituals involving the churinga and the nurtunja, the animal rarely appears: for example, the Arunta dance around, gather before and worship the image of their totem, not the being (1964, p. 133). He argues that the initiation is most solemn when the novice enters the protected space of the churinga, and so, he argues also that the representations of the totem are even more potent (1964, p. 133). In this context, the category of the sacred extends to the images of sacred things and even more importantly, according to Durkheim, the images come to be seen as more sacred than the things they depict or represent. Clearly, one must be careful here not to generalize too broadly, for there are sacred traditions, for example, in Islam in which images or representations are not

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regarded as such and are even forbidden (for example, images of Allah), though Durkheim’s point about the place and meaning of images in some sacred traditions remains forceful. Certainly the Arunta, as he calls them, are not the only religious group or collective to worship or venerate images of sacred beings or representations of totemic beings. Nonetheless, it must be said that that there are complications here which cannot be overlooked with respect to sacred beings, sacred things, and images and representations of these in various traditions, groups and collectives. There is a complexity here that must be borne in mind. One of the most contentious claims by Durkheim, and one which has reappeared in a number of forms in the works of the new atheists such as Dawkins and Grayling, is the claim that “the primitive” invents myths which “explain nothing” (1964, p. 135). Moreover, he contends that all (myths), with little variation, follow the same pattern: they establish genealogical relations between the group and the totem, and so come to be seen as having a common nature (1964, p. 135). He considers Australian and American myths, to be sure, but does not consider the logic of such claims, which is inductive and also quite questionable. Now, even a myth that presents a distorted or erroneous picture of the facts nonetheless explains some things: for example, what a collective or group believes. Durkheim, like the advocates of the new atheism who repeat the phrase mentioned above, is too hasty in his dismissal of such myths and their explanatory power or content. They fail to observe a distinction between explaining something and explaining something accurately or truthfully. It is beyond dispute that explanations, in principle if not in practice, can be true or false, strong or weak, or indeterminate. In this sense, a myth which is false nonetheless can conceivably explain many things (for example, about the group, its assumptions, beliefs, objects and practices); it is simply false, dismissive and a little hasty, taken literally, to claim that such myths do not explain anything (1964, p. 135). Of course, what one wants to know presumably is whether they explain things truthfully or accurately, but that is a question that has not been answered conclusively to this day, perhaps because the events, beliefs, objects, relations and practices have timelines and hyper-periodizations, which stretch temporally and globally well beyond the possible range of human experience. Durkheim then offers an extension of his definition of religion: “we” can now provide an improved condition which allows us to understand why it is so difficult to define religion in relation to mythical or sacred beings or spirits (1964, p. 200). What one finds at the foundation of religious thought is not a set of distinctive things which have a sacred character, but rather, according to him, “indefinite powers, anonymous forces,” in various societies, which sometimes are unified, and whose “impersonality” is “strictly

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comparable to that of the physical forces whose manifestations the sciences of nature study” (1964, pp. 200–201). Particular things which are sacred are individualized expressions of this “essential principle” (1964, p. 201). So, he argues that one should not be surprised that in those religions in which one finds “avowed divinities,” one finds rites “having an efficient virtue in themselves,” that is, without any supernatural intervention, since the force attaches to words or gestures which are its vehicle (1964, p. 201). In this sense, many divine personalities are impersonal in some senses, and those who represent it in various forms see it as “an abstract power” which is definable only in terms of its efficacy, or a force which is spatial and which “is contained, at least in part, in each of its effects” (1964, p. 201), such as producing light or wind or rain. As a general rule, he argues, this kind of power is not perfectly “determined” and the worshipper can only understand it vaguely (1964, p. 201). The questions raised earlier about hasty generalization and the bounds of human experience in relation to events, beings, beliefs and practices, and so on, do not slow Durkheim down, so to speak. Durkheim finds at the foundation of religious “thought”—though that origin or foundation cannot possibly be accessible to his experience or to the full range of that experience and is certainly not observable by him—indefinite powers, anonymous forces, in numerous forms in various communities which can be disunified (1964, p. 201). Particular sacred things, on this reading, are only individualized forms of this essential principle (emphasis added; 1964, p. 201). It is worth noting again the radical epistemological, and possibly ontological, reduction that is instantiated here: all “religious thought,” or “religious thought” in general, has an origin and a foundation (one, it seems), which inaccessible as it may be to our observations and our experience, even the full range of our experience, seems quite clear, so clear it would seem that it permits very broad generalizations—which cannot be justified or proven by scientific experiment or observation, it must be noted—about “religious thought” (but not necessarily, though Durkheim seems to believe otherwise, myths and religions, for these are not necessarily reducible merely to religious thinking) and “particular sacred things” which he concludes are nothing more than individualized forms of one essential principle (1964, p. 201). The fact that “particular sacred things” as well as the proposition concerning one essential principle cannot be scientifically verified, or logically demonstrated, does not seem to merit very much attention at this stage of the argument (1964, p. 201). Moreover “religious forces” have an essence, too, it seems, namely that they cannot “individualize themselves” fully (1964, p. 201). The fact that “religious forces” can be perplexing or mysterious, complex or incomprehensible (to an observer or inquirer), manifold and discontinuous, to the believ-

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ers, and that sacred things can embody these varied relations (think of complex, perplexing or profoundly differentiated manifestations of a power or force within the one religion, of a divine being, for example, in Exodus or in the Book of Job, or in radically different sacred traditions such as Taoism) deserves more attention (1964, p. 201). Likewise, the assertion that such forces are, in essence, not able to individualize themselves fully raises important questions about the samples, the sample sizes, the relations (logical as well as empirical) between totemism and religion, more broadly, as well as the place meaning and function of sacred things within totemism and the place, meaning and function of sacred things within religion, more broadly. None of these questions is addressed satisfactorily in Durkheim’s account. Durkheim turns to the question of the place of criticism in the presence of the sacred: societies, as well as individuals, consecrate things, and he adds, especially ideas (1964, p. 214). A unanimously accepted belief cannot be challenged or denied. In this sense, criticism is prohibited; it is an interdiction like the others which marks the presence of the sacred. Durkheim argues that even today, in an age of liberty and freedoms, one who denies or ridicules such beliefs would be accused of sacrilege (1964, p. 214). Now, it is no doubt true that the presence of the sacred, in some form or pattern, may prohibit or inhibit criticism, for example in a religious cult, but it is difficult to see how the point can be generalized to the presence of the sacred in general. For example, the presence of a sacred text or narrative within a complex religious tradition like Judaism, Christianity or Buddhism does not necessarily exclude the possibility if not the actuality of criticism, and as a consequence, quite radical disagreement. One need only consider the debate over the meaning of the Book of Revelation, or of the true meaning of Nirvana, or of the Second Coming, or more broadly critical dissensus on the meaning and interpretation of prophetic texts within numerous religious traditions. Certainly, it would be problematic to presuppose that what is true of a cult which revolves around the presence of something sacred is true of these diverse religious traditions which also revolve in some sense around the presence of the sacred (God, gods, messiahs, texts, prophecies, places, visions, revelations, and so on). Sacrilege may extend to include criticism, of course, and prohibitions of many kinds, but there is no necessary logical relation between sacrilege and criticism as such; the latter can take many forms and may in fact be an important part of the discourse around the sacred object, being, act, place, text or tradition. Nor would the existence of criticism indicate necessarily the phenomenon of sacrilege—much depends here on the nature, type, form and content of the criticism. The question of free examination is also an important one. It would be rash to conclude that the presence of the sacred prohibits necessarily or

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generally such forms of examination. Indeed, in some traditions, like Judaism, the free examination of claims concerning sacred places, such as the holy mountain where Moses encounters God, or the tomb of Jesus, continues. It would seem to be unabated. Much depends on what is meant here by “free” and by “examination,” of course. These terms are ambiguous. If by “free” one means unconstrained or open, then it is difficult to see how the presence of the sacred, for example, a holy mountain, or a holy resting place, imposes a prohibition on freedom of inquiry, for example, or freedom of choice on the basis of such inquiry. If “examination” means thinking for oneself about claims regarding sacred places or beings, then it is not necessarily the case that there are prohibitions that define or prove the presence of the sacred itself. The facts are not always clear in the accounts which attempt to explain such sacred places or things, in relation to Durkheim’s approach, and there is often much room to move, so to speak—the opposite of prohibition, in an important sense—in the domains of thinking, reflection, investigation, interpretation and examination. For example, within Christianity the systematic, even empirical, examination of evidence and phenomena pertaining to miracles, to sacred blood or to sacred relics is well known and documented; in Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, the extended examination of some aspects of the faith in the light of research in neuroscience is also well known and well documented. Now, Durkheim, to be fair, admits that such accounts of his are too generalized (1964, p. 214). However, over-generalization is not the only issue here; there are logical and epistemic issues surrounding the typicity of the examples or the extent to which one can make connections between what is true or representative of some traditions, communities, texts, interpretations, places, beings, acts and so on, and what is true of the presence of the sacred broadly conceived. Many have written on Durkheim’s understanding of the sacred and the profane (see, for example, Pickering and Sutcliffe 2014, Pickering 2009 and 2002, Alexander 2005, Schmaus 2004, Stedman 2001, Poggi 2000, Turner 1993, Allen, Pickering and Miller 1998, Thompson 1982, Giddens 1978, among many others) but few have focused on the ontological elements, or presuppositions, in his thought, especially in relation to inductive generalizations. Durkheim hazards many generalizations also: for example, after a detailed account of totemism, he concludes that “religious force” is “nothing other than the collective and anonymous force of the clan,” represented as a totem, and the “totemic emblem” resembles the perceivable body of “the god” (1964, p. 220). The reasoning is quite striking here: he seems to be arguing that such force expresses or manifests at a deep level the collective and anonymous force of the group, which is represented by the totem; in this way the totem

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(which is represented mentally) is analogous to the body of the god which they can behold (1964, p. 220). So, they come to understand kind or terrible acts in relation to the totem through the idea of emanations and address the totem as the first thing in the sequence of things regarded as sacred (1964, p. 220). The logic is interesting to say the least here: first, it is difficult to see how the proposition concerning religious force in general can be justified. Even if one grants that it is related to the group’s collective and anonymous force (emphasis added, 1964, p. 220), it does not follow necessarily that it is nothing other than this. Religious “force” can be understood in various ways: if it is related to a physical or objective form, or to a determinate representation of that form, as in a totem, and if trajectories of force, so to speak, emanate from it and towards it, within the collective, then it is something other than the body of the collective, which is made up of worshippers or followers (1964, p. 220). If the religious force of the object or representation operates powerfully upon the clan, and in some meaningful sense also expresses and reinforces the intrinsic force of the clan, then it is distinct, as an object, form or representation; even if it is closely related to the force of the clan, it would not follow that religious force in general and in broader contexts, and its complex forms in world religions or the world’s various sacred traditions would amount to nothing more than the collective and anonymous force of the group (1964, p. 220). Much more evidence would need to be gathered and examined—and from many more, ideally all, of the world’s sacred traditions or collectives— in order to justify such a proposition. That religious force is related to the collective force of the clan may be defensible to an extent; that it is related to the anonymous force of the clan is not so easy to defend if one broadens the context here to include heterogeneous or more complex clan systems, and systems of religious collectives, around the world. Durkheim insists in numerous sections that a believer who believes in and is dependent upon a moral power out of which they receive everything that is excellent within themselves, believes in and is dependent upon this power as a society (1964, p. 226). The believer, for example an Australian Aboriginal, is taken out of himself; they feel new life inside themselves with an intensity that is surprising—an “exaltation” that is the consequence of forces which are external to and transcend the person (1964, p. 226). The “metaphors” and “figures,” according to Durkheim, represent a concrete, vital reality: religion takes upon itself a “meaning and a reasonableness that the most intransigent rationalist cannot misunderstand” (1964, p. 226). It does not aim to provide human beings with a representation of nature; if that were its central function, Durkheim argues, we would not be able to understand how it has managed to survive, since as he sees it, it is little more than a

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combination of errors (1964, p. 226). Above all, it is a system of ideas whose primary role is to reflect to believers that society to which they belong, and the “obscure but intimate relations” which bind them to it (1964, p. 226). Though Durkheim sees that this representation is essentially metaphorical and symbolic, nonetheless he argues that it is a faithful one: it captures all that is essential in these relations, for it recognizes as eternally true the belief that there is a higher power or being which allows communion (1964, p. 226). He generalizes his view further here significantly to include “religion” in general. “Religion,” primarily, is a “system of ideas” formed and employed in order to help “individuals” represent in an intelligible way the society of which they are a part, as well as “obscure but intimate” connections which they have with society (1964, p. 226). Durkheim believed that religion helps the individual in that society grasp everything essential in terms of the relationships which “are to be explained” and constitutes “an eternal truth” in the sense of representing something that transcends us and allows us to find unity or some form of communion or collective identity (1964, p. 226). This is a striking way of understanding religion, and by implication, religious force, but a key point needs to be repeated here: it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish demonstratively how such an understanding of religion, or religious force, can be reconciled with religious traditions around the world which do sometimes, or even generally, feature in logical or empirical contexts, differences, complexities, divisions or conflicts, and heterogeneities which can be radical or even incommensurable; and worse, how “eternal truths” can be reconciled demonstratively with the existence of such differences, complexities, divisions or conflicts, and heterogeneities. Durkheim is committed to the view, especially in the context of totemism, that the sacred quality of an object is an addition not something intrinsic (1964, p. 229). The world of religious things is not one particular aspect of empirical nature; it is superimposed upon it (1964, p. 229). This proposition is thoughtprovoking to say the least: though it may be true of some clans and collectives, it is difficult to see how the claim that the sacred character of all sacred objects is always added or superimposed by some external collective or clan and that this superimposition, or addition, is always and exclusively responsible for the sacred character which is assumed by the object in question. It is difficult to see not just how one might generalize from a limited—and largely localized—sample (of totemic objects and clans or collectives) to totemic objects and more broadly, sacred objects as an ontological whole in the universal order of religious and sacred things. Durkheim also notes the metonymic nature of sacred things which lie beneath the network of many myths and rituals: “when a sacred thing is subdivided, each of its parts remains equal to the thing itself,” that is, the part

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and the whole are equal—they have the same efficacy—so, for example, a ruined relic has the same power as a relic that is intact (1964, p. 229). If, then, the sacred character of the thing derives from those sentiments which it raises in the mind and symbolizes and which have external origins, then it will carry the same value as a whole or as a part (1964, p. 229). But this is debatable as a generalized hypothesis about the sacred character of a relic, in general, for example, or a sacred object: a part of the body of Buddha or the blood of Jesus Christ (hypothetically), for example—though it is true that the part may make us think of the whole and the significance of the whole, that does not mean necessarily that that is all it does or that there is only one “active principle” in operation (1964, p. 229). Nor is it self-evident that relics or parts of sacred things evoke only identical sentiments as the whole. There is more complexity in the relationships between the part and the whole, generally, especially since sentiments, which Durkheim privileges at this point of his argument, can vary within a collective without fatally compromising the identity of that collective, or the religious force of that part of a sacred object, and since different sentiments in relation to the same part of a sacred object are not just conceivable within a collective or group but also can be quite real (1964, p. 229). He used the example of a flag: part of a flag can represent a group as effectively as the flag; so, it is similarly sacred and to the “same degree” (1964, p. 229). This may be true of course, but within the very same group or clan, the fragment may attract more complex, inconsistent or even heterogeneous sentiments about the meaning of the fragment of the “fatherland” (a symbol which forms part of a representation) and indeed about the meaning of the “fatherland” itself, without necessarily destroying the shared sense of the sacredness of that flag, taken as a sacred object as a whole. Perhaps Durkheim’s most important contribution, in relation to subsequent developments, is the distinction between the sacred and the profane: sacred beings, he insists, are separate or discontinuous, ontologically (1964, p. 300). Rites embody and reinforce this ontological state of affairs and in this sense perform an essential role: they prevent “undue mixings” and ensure that the separation is not breached (1964, p. 300). The system of these rites is called “negative cult” for the rites forbid some actions; they are subject to interdictions, or taboos (1964, p. 300). And he adds: all religions have interdictions (1964, p. 300). He preferred the term interdictions, but noted that “taboo” is “customary” (1964, p. 300). He distinguished between different types of interdictions but maintained his position on the place of interdictions in religion. Sacred beings also do not allow profane things to pollute or confuse a rite: for example, if a rite demands complete nakedness, then all customary ornaments that belong to profane being must be shed. If the rite demands decoration, then decorations will be used for the purposes of the rite and are re-

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garded as sacred which means that they cannot be appropriated for profane states or ceremonies. So, for example, they are destroyed at the end of the rite in many religious groups (1964, p. 300). Generally speaking, Durkheim argues that all acts which belong to ordinary life are not permitted while religious acts are occurring (1964, p. 306). Even everyday, and in that sense, profane, acts of eating may be prohibited by sacred rites. The whole system of interdictions then rests on an idea, an understanding of, sacredness. But there are two “fundamental interdictions” which are dominant: first, the religious life and the profane life are spatially exclusive, for the space of one cannot be the space of the other; the former requires a unique space which excludes the latter (1964, p. 306). So, we find temples and sanctuaries—spaces devoted to, and which house, sacred beings and things, and ensure arrangements which are essential to “all religious life” (1964, p. 306), and which cannot be entered by the uninitiated: indeed, he notes that it is forbidden to practice anything profane there (1964, p. 306). So, too, the religious life and the profane life cannot occupy the same temporal units: for example, certain periods, or days, are set aside which exclude profane things (for example, feast days). Temporality is divided into two exclusive parts, which alternate in accordance with a law which can vary along with civilizations (1964, p. 306), a necessary pattern which, he believes, prompts men to introduce “into the continuity and homogeneity of duration, certain distinctions and differentiations” which are alien to it (1964, p. 306). He also notes that there is a possibility, even an inevitability, that some “filters out,” since one finds some sacred objects “outside the sanctuaries” and certain rites can be practiced on days dedicated to work, and so on— however, he regards these, notably, as having a lower status and value (1964, p. 306). Generally, the contrast between these two is at its most intense in “the inferior societies,” with their rudimentary cults (1964, p. 306). So, there is a discontinuity not just in terms of rite and practice, but also ontologically in terms of space and time. They cannot occupy the same place; the sacred demands a special place, one which is not accessible to the profane, as we have noted. So, temples, sanctuaries and sacred structures of various kinds include certain members of the group and exclude others, such as the uninitiated. Even “inferior religions” and the sites they construct in the name of the sacred manifest such divisions, distinctions and interdictions (1964, p. 306). So, too, ontologically in relation to time as well. The unit of time that belongs to the sacred, such as a feast day, cannot and must not also include profane elements or “occupations” and this is true, Durkheim asserts, of every religion, and therefore of every society which observes the sacred as a religious, existential and ontological mode of being (1964, p. 318). It is not that the sacred and the profane are only distinct; they are separated by an abyss (1964, p. 318). The “particular” reason for this “exceptional” state of

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exclusion is that the sacred repels but also tends to penetrate it when it approaches, and this is the reason why the two must be kept apart (1964, p. 318). There is a sort of contagion then, and religious forces are represented as things which seem to be “ready to escape” from their places and to “enter everything passing within their range” (1964, p. 318). For example, in consecration rites, action “is felt at a distance” and can extend widely, even to animals and plants in the vicinity which will then not be harmed, or will enjoy a protected status (1964, p. 318). A body of water nearby must not be touched; some members of the group do not go near it. In this context, Durkheim explains the rigorous interdictions that hold apart the sacred and the profane (1964, p. 318). It becomes necessary to take careful precautions, since even though they are opposed, their identities can become confused (1964, p. 318). The “contagiousness of sacredness” raises important questions in Durkheim’s view in relation to the “logical life” since its effect in one sense is to combine and confuse “beings” notwithstanding their “natural differences” (1964, p. 325). These confusions and “participation” though, have a logical role in terms of utility for they serve to bring together things which sensation separates, and therefore this contagion cannot be characterized by irrationality, but also opens a path for scientific investigations and explanations (1964, p. 325). Further, the “image” of the sacred things retains sufficient power, enough to counteract causes which work to diminish its influence: men come to believe that gods are immortal, because they “feel them” alive within themselves (1964, p. 346); they feel more confident because they become stronger and they do become stronger because forces which had been languishing in their consciousness are reawakened (1964, p. 346). There is a powerful dialectic between powers which seek to weaken the “image of sacred things” and gods represented in that image, which live, so to speak, in the hearts of its members—and so these members grow in confidence, and faith, because powerful forces which sustain and strengthen this image also sustain and strengthen forces which are dormant within their own consciousness of themselves, of the group, their identity and their shared faith and commitments (1964, p. 346). Notwithstanding such dialectical processes, Durkheim does recognize ambiguity in the idea of sacredness (1964, p. 409). He argues that “religious forces” are not of one type alone: some are beneficent and protect the natural and ethical order and give life, health and other things which are valued and loved (1964, p. 409). Whether or not they are understood ontologically as “distinct personalities” or as “diffused energies,” nonetheless they serve the same function and influence the consciousness of the members of the group, for they participate “in the same sentiments and the same character: these are

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holy things and persons” (1964, p. 409) . Consecrated objects in cults serve this function also. But there are also evil forces which generate disorders, death and disease; they are generators of sacrilege (1964, p. 409). These powers arouse fear and horror. Sorcerers act in the light of these powers, which derive, for example, from corpses or menstrual blood, those who are liberated by the profanation of the sacred (1964, p. 409). These profane powers are personified in the spirits of the deceased and malign spirits; between the two “categories of forces and beings” one finds powerful conflict—any contact between them is considered the worst of profanations (1964, p. 409). He notes that menstruating women are regarded as impure and so are set apart, and men avoid them (1964, p. 409). Bullroarers and churinga are kept away from the deceased; one who is sacrilegious is cast out and is given no access to the cult. In these kinds of ways, the whole life of the group circles around two opposite poles between which one finds other oppositions such as the pure and the impure, the sanctified and the sacrilegious, the divine and the demonic (1964, p. 410). Nonetheless, there is a kinship, for both relate to the profane in similar ways: there can be no contact with impure or profane things and there can be no contact with the most sacred things (1964, p. 410). Both are forbidden. And though respect and disgust are two quite distinct things the sentiments are similar in a sense, that is, disgust or horror have a religious aspect, or a “certain reverential character,” and it is not easy to determine just what the adherent’s state of mind actually is (1964, p. 410). However, it is often the case that an impure power becomes a sacred thing, without altering its nature, through changes in external situations (1964, p. 410). For example, the soul of someone who is deceased, which is initially a source of fear or dread, becomes a protector and a genius, once the process of mourning is over (1964, p. 410). Similarly, the body of the deceased which initially caused fear and aversion, comes to be seen as an object of veneration as a relic: “funeral anthropophagy,” regularly practiced in Australian religions, according to Durkheim, offers proof of this “transformation.” The sacrilegious person is one who is profane, and is “infected with a benevolent religious force” which transforms their nature, though it has a defiling effect (1964, p. 410). So, menstrual blood, though impure, may be used to treat illness; or a victim who is sacrificed is impure, for they “have concentrated upon it the sins which were to be expiated,” and yet, after its death parts of the body are put to holy uses—though the communion is generally a religious act which consecrates, it nonetheless at times produces sacrilegious effects (1964, p. 410). Durkheim notes a number of examples of this kind of communion in Australia: for example, among the Narrinyeri and their neighbors, the umbilical cord of a newborn infant is preserved because they believe that it conceals a part of the soul; two people who participate in the exchange can then

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communicate with each other for it seems that they are exchanging souls, even though they are not permitted to come into contact with one another, for, in a sense, they have become reciprocal objects of horror (1964, p. 411). Accordingly, the pure and the impure are not two discontinuous classes in this context, but rather, types that belong to the same class, in which one finds all sacred things (1964, p. 411). Between the two types of sacredness, then, the “propitious” and the “unpropitious,” there is no discontinuity though the forms are opposites, and an object can pass “from the one to the other” without having its nature altered or transformed. In this way, the pure can come out of the impure, and the impure can come out of the pure, in a dialectic of reciprocal transmutation in which, according to Durkheim, the sacred maintains its ambiguity (1964, p. 411). So, the religious life has two poles which correspond to two opposite states, through which social life “passes”: the “propitiously” sacred and the “unpropitiously” sacred mirror the contrast between various states of collective well-being and its contrary, both of which are bound by the mythological structures which represent them in close kinship (1964, p. 414). One finds common sentiments also from extreme sorrow to joy, from suffering to ecstasy, but there is a union of minds and a shared comfort which is brought about by this relation (1964, p. 414). Fundamentally, there is no variation in the process—in this way, the variety and unity of social life creates the “simultaneous” variety and unity of the sacred, ontologically speaking (1964, p. 414). The beliefs and the practices are not classified into two “separate classes,” for Durkheim believed that no matter how complex the external manifestations of “the religious life” are, fundamentally it remains one, for it responds in all places to the same need and is, in all places, derived from a single and homogeneous mental state (1964, p. 414). In every form, its aim is to raise the person and lead them to pursue a superior life: beliefs give rise to representations of this life and rites organize and regulate it (1964, p. 414). On the question of inductive generalizations in science, he argues that an idea of sacredness is true in certain groups—when explained in sociological terms, one should presume in scientific terms that, in principle, the “same explanation is valid for all the peoples among whom these same ideas are found with the same essential characteristics” (1964, p. 416). This much is defensible certainly. He also argues that such inductions based on a “clearly defined” experiment, are “less adventurous” than many inductive generalizations which seek the very essence of religion, without relying on the rigorous analysis of “any religion in particular” (1964, p. 416). It is true that such an experiment can act as a good guide, but it is important to note the limitations of the experiment and of the guidance it provides. It is questionable for example, even on the basis of a “clearly defined” experiment, in relation to totemism among some religious groups in parts of Australia, to generalize

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broadly about “religious force,” or “sacredness” or “religious life” (1964, p. 416). Part of the problem here resides in the fact that he believed that the whole study relies on the postulate that the believers’ “unanimous” sentiment cannot be “purely illusory” (1964, p. 418). But what exactly is a “unanimous sentiment”? What is the sentiment? Why should one presuppose the existence of such a thing? And it does need to be presupposed; it is doubtful that any experiment will demonstrate the existence, ontologically, of such a sentiment among these believers across the ages (1964, p. 418). This does not mean that no such thing exists, of course; what it means is that the inductive generalizations on such a vast and complex scale are hazardous to say the least. The point he makes about sentiment which is widespread being significant is important, and his refusal to dismiss it, or his willingness to look at it seriously, is laudable. However, it is difficult to see how it can be demonstrated or proven in empirical terms, or in terms of observation. His (repeated) claim is no less questionable, namely that this reality, represented in mythologies in many ways, and the “universal and eternal objective cause of these sensations sui generis out of which religious experience is made, is society” (1964, p. 418). He seemed to believe that he had demonstrated just which “moral forces” it generates and how it brings about the sentiment of a sanctuary, a shield and a reinforcement which binds the cult and the adherent (1964, p. 418). However, it is difficult to see how any experiment or experimental procedure can demonstrate or prove the existence of this kind of causality (both universal and objective, he asserts), not just because eternal things are presumably beyond the limits of human observation, and carry us into the domain of the metaphysical, but also because religious experience is a highly ambiguous or complex term that refers to heterogeneous elements and phenomena (1964, p. 418). He also argued that all “great social institutions” are born in religion (1964, p. 418). In other words, important aspects of the collective life commence because they are diverse parts of the religious life (1964, p. 419); it is clear to Durkheim that the religious life is the preeminent form and, as he calls it, the focused expression of the collective; it thus generates everything that is essential in that collective and their social inter-relations (1964, p. 419). In his memorable words, the very idea of society is “the soul of religion” and religious powers are inevitably, then, according to this reasoning, human and moral powers (1964, p. 419). Much depends, of course, on what one means by all “that is essential in society,” and indeed what one means by “society” (1964, p. 419). It is conceivable at least to think of societies in which things are regarded as essential, for example, some particular freedoms, which are not necessarily, or not evidently, born in religion. “Born” is ambiguous here, to make matters worse: it could mean a kind of womb out of which all notable social institu-

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tions come at once; or it could mean a crucible, or some such thing, out of which they emerge; and so on (1964, p. 419). In any case, it would be necessary here to set out in detail the nature of the relation between religion as a source, or basis, and secular foundations and institutions as emergent phenomena, without oversimplifying the nature of the causation—that immense task, however, is beyond the scope of this work. The conclusion Durkheim draws concerning religious forces and human forces is not demonstrated convincingly in his work, it must be said—and perhaps cannot be demonstrated convincingly by the kind of investigation that he undertook—precisely because religious forces, whatever that term may signify in the broadest and fullest sense, is a category that carries us beyond the domain of the observable and therefore beyond the range of Durkheim’s limited studies, into a vaster domain which brings into view physical and metaphysical things, observable and non-observable phenomena, complex and indeterminate existents, and perplexing questions, states of mind and states of affairs (1964, p. 419). It also does not follow that religious forces, in general, are “moral forces,” in general, of course; it is conceivable, at least in a logical sense, that some religious forces are not “moral forces” at all, or not predominantly, at any rate (they may even be amoral forces, for example); as a corollary, the distinction between religion and ethics, religious phenomena and moral phenomena (itself the subject of much important research) cannot be collapsed quite so readily (1964, p. 419). So, the sacred is added to and stands above what is considered as real, and the ideal “answers to this same definition”—one cannot explain one “without explaining the other” (1964, p. 422). According to Durkheim, collective life awakens religious thought and causes a kind of effervescence which alters the conditions of psychic life (1964, p. 422). Passions, energies, sensations are heightened; one does not recognize oneself, but feels transformed and can transform their environment. The believer receives quite specific impressions, and heightened powers and virtues which are not normally found in their everyday world (1964, p. 422). They raise above the everyday world of their experience and profane existence another, which exists only in thought, but which they grant a higher and greater dignity. In that sense, an ideal world comes into being (1964, p. 422). “Added to” is a little unclear: if it is “added to” the “real,” then the “real” lacks it in some prior form; or the sacred is received into the real; or the real perhaps is incomplete without the sacred (1964, p. 422). The sacred then is an addition, or a transposition, that is, from above (1964, p. 422). It is not clear that the sacred always or generally is “added to” but also above the real; much depends on what constitutes the real, which can be meaningfully and rationally conceived of in ontological, existential, metaphysical or mythological form (among others) (1964, p. 422).

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In this context, Durkheim’s silence at this stage concerning ontology does not help matters very much at all. If sacred beings exist, then they are part of the fabric of the real, ontologically speaking; if sacred objects or places exist, then they are internal elements of the real, so long as it is understood as the totality, put crudely, of all things that actually exist, at the very least. The term “real” is not always helpful in contexts such as these, it must be said, for the order of reality conceivably and reasonably includes ontological entities, phenomena and objects, concepts, states and relations, among other things (1964, p. 422). All of this includes, as a corollary, concepts of the sacred, sacred states, and sacred relations (for example, between a city and its inhabitants, or between a people and their God). So, it follows that the sacred is not exclusively or generally added to the real from above; it could conceivably be part of the ontological order of things that constitutes the world, or more broadly, reality as a whole (1964, p. 422). And so, the real world, if it is constituted ontologically, or even mythologically, does not necessarily sit, so to speak, below the other world, the world of the sacred, which sits, as it were, above the world of the profane life of the believers. The relation between the two seems to be much more dynamic and complex. One need only consider, for example, the nature of many sacred relics or objects: these are drawn from the world of the real, in nature. They are not transpositions necessarily, but intrapositions, one might say, for they are made of the same stuff as is found in the profane world, for example, men and women, wood, flesh, blood, teeth, bones, other creatures and their parts, and so on, and often they are transformed immanently. Of course, not all sacred relics and objects are like this, but many are, and many are found within the order of the real, not necessarily added to that order. Sacred ideas are found within the order of the real, quite readily, in the sense that one does not have to look for too long to find them and form important integral elements in the order of the real as a whole, with all of its internal elements, phenomena, relations and energy. In the sense that the realm of the sacred is internally positioned or manifest and understood as such then, it cannot readily or unproblematically be assimilated into the order of the ideal or of some ideal world. There is an ideal dimension in two senses, at least: it is ideal in the sense that it is thought and understood, it belongs to the order of ideas; and it is ideal in the sense that it is sometimes regarded as a transposition or as a transposed addition. But it is not ideal in the sense that it is embedded meaningfully in the order of the natural world which constitutes an order of the real, for example in an ontological sense, for a community or group of believers. It is not as if that community or group, in the presence, so to speak, of the sacred, necessarily constitutes a community or group of idealists in that sense; that simply does not follow. Nor does it follow that the ideal world, where the sacred is situated so to speak, and which includes a world of beings, phenomena and

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objects, some of them, at least, real in the sense of being in the world, exists only in thought. It is perhaps true that the ideal world could exist in thought, but then one would have to explain clearly and coherently how the ideal world relates to and penetrates the real world at many, and conceivably innumerable, points. One would also have to explain in the same terms how the ideal world and the real world become one, for example one order of reality which situates the sacred immanently. For example, in Shugendo, a Japanese religion, one becomes a living Buddha by walking on a mountain for a thousand days, in accordance with teachings transmitted across many centuries; yet acharyas can legitimately find their own way, their own path around the mountain. In this way, crucially, the sacred journey does not become sacred by virtue of some act of transposition, which provides the addition of an ideal world onto a real world, but by the immanent actualization of the journey on a mountain. The mountain is not sacred because an ideal is added to the reality of its (nonsacred or profane) existence only, but rather because the mountain and the idea are inseparable and immanently interwoven in the eyes of the acharya or the wanderer seeking enlightenment, and in the context of the tradition, in whose light the mountain has precisely that status through the ages. Another example: in early Christianity, the apostle, or the evangelist, goes on a sacred journey for example, to disseminate the gospel, but whilst bound to a teacher or to a tradition, nonetheless also makes his own path through the surrounding regions. This twofold character of the sacred journey, social and communitarian in a vital sense, but intensely personal, and urgent, in an existential sense, even driven, constitutes a kind of deep complementarity in which an immanent (de-)ontological structure is bound to a teleological horizon, or end. So, the sacred character of the journey cannot, in general, exist in thought or in ideas alone; it is an immanent and integral aspect of the journey, its purpose and its end, and it defines that journey for adherents of that faith in an objectively real community. It is not a mere subjective imposition; it is manifest in subsequent objectively real forms, acts, discourse and modes which have ontological priority within the framework of that paradigm of faith: actual teachings, texts, histories, narratives, physical records, signs, remnants, tracks and relics of that journey, and so on. In any case, Durkheim argues that the ideal world does not escape the sciences, so to speak; it rests on conditions which are observable to an extent, and it is a natural product of social relations (1964, p. 422). New psychical— Durkheim uses this term repeatedly and in an exclusive sense on numerous occasions—energies are added to the ones we already have in order to attend to the daily tasks of our lives (1964, p. 422). A society needs such ideals in order to create and recreate itself. The ideal society is part of the real society, not something external: one does not find

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two mutually exclusive poles; we cannot, he insists, hold onto one without the other (1964, p. 423). Certainly, a society can be pulled in different directions. However, the conflict is not between the real and the ideal, but between dissimilar ideals, that of the past and the present, that which bears the authority of tradition as well as a future hope (1964, p. 423). The ideal is a collective one which is expressed in religion: it is not due to some “vague innate power of the individual” but to a form of collective life that he or she has been taught to idealize; he or she has assimilated these ideals to such a degree that they become able to conceive it and live in its light. It is society, he argues, that leads one in terms of action and allows one to acquire the power to raise themselves above the realm of experience (1964, p. 423). Society constructs a new world even as it constructs itself, since society, according to this reasoning, is just what is expressed (1964, p. 423). This idealization is not mysterious, according to Durkheim; it is a condition of being, of their whole existence as a social being (1964, p. 423). It is true, he believes, that in “incarnating themselves in individuals, collective ideals tend to individualize themselves,” for each is marked with a particular stamp, that is, some elements are excluded and others are included, but this “aptitude” is related to the social conditions at its foundation (1964, p. 423). This “faculty of idealizing” (1964, p. 423), its nature and role, needs further critical attention. Three observations should suffice here, as a starting point: it is true that it constructs a “new world,” for example, in thought, in particular in a social context; it is true that in constructing itself, a society comes to a kind of self-understanding at an ideational level; and it is true, perhaps, that the faculty of idealizing expresses not a society, necessarily, but a certain representation or understanding of it (1964, p. 423). But this cannot be the whole story, or the most important part of the story, of the relationship between the ideal, the sacred and religion. Three reasons should suffice: though Durkheim acknowledges the role and importance of “the individual personality,” the “faculty of idealizing” remains, according to Durkheim, a condition of a social being’s being (1964, p. 423). Yet it is not self-evident that this relation is the only one or the most important one in terms of the sacred or religion, in general. It is entirely possible that that “faculty of idealizing” represents an aptitude of living within reality, or within an order of real things, which are independent logically or empirically from the social conditions upon which a society depends. It is not entirely true to argue that “in incarnating themselves in individuals, collective ideals tend to individualize themselves,” for collective ideals are not the only fundamental ideals to be found in societies, and individual ideals, or personal ideals, the existence of which Durkheim acknowledges, do not necessarily “connect” with social “conditions” in any self-evident way, as a matter of general principle (1964, p. 423).

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Indeed, in the broad and complex domains of the sacred and of religion, the role of individual or personal ideals needs further and deeper investigation (1964, p. 423). There is no shortage of evidence in the domains of the sacred, and of religion, of highly personal or individualized ideation, testimony, experience, and so on, which do not necessarily gain their significance or deeper meaning from social conditions alone, or for that matter, from membership of a particular society alone. This much is clear from the radical disagreements and divisions which can arise within competing or divergent ideations of the sacred, and from the very possibility of such things in the order of sacred encounters, testimony or experience, and so on, especially at the intersections, both internal and otherwise, of the sacred and the profane, and more broadly, of the sacred and the natural as an integral part of the real (1964, p. 423). There is no necessary conflict between science and religion, according to Durkheim. Science does not deny religion (and by extension the sacred) in principle because religion is real (it exists), and so, if this is true (though he did not say this), it forms part of the ontological order of things, broadly conceived; there are given facts, he argues, parts of its being (1964, p. 430). Science cannot deny its reality in that sense (1964, p. 430), any more than science can deny ontology. Moreover, since religion is linked to action, since it is a means by which “men live,” it cannot be replaced by science; and even if science attempts to explain it, it does so by presupposing religion (1964, p. 430). He believed that religion is a subject that belongs to science, though: “there is no proper subject for religious speculation outside that reality to which scientific reflection is applied” (1964, p. 430). Such broad generalizations are thought-provoking but quite problematic. If, for example, it is the speculative function of religion which is objectionable in the light of science, then the speculative function of science, and its manifest content, also needs to be scrutinized carefully, for it most certainly has such a function, evident, for example, in Durkheim’s sweeping generalizations about religion, the sacred and social conditions (1964, p. 430). These generalizations do go well beyond the evidence he produces in the book (and elsewhere: for more on this point and related points, see Pickering and Sutcliffe 2014, Smith and Alexander 2005, Schmaus 2004, Pickering 2002, Jones 2001, Poggi 2000, Allen, Pickering and Miller 1998, Turner 1993, Thompson 1992, Giddens 1978, among many others). It is not clear also which aspects of religion count as speculative and which do not, in Durkheim’s analysis (1964, p. 430). If the measure is “dogmatizing” in relation to the nature of things and the “special competence” which it asserts in terms of understanding man and the objective world, then it is certainly not evident that all religious content functions in this way, nor is it evident that most sacred beings, objects, places or phenomena, and so on, serve this function predominantly or at all (1964, p. 430). It is certainly

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not clear that, in fact, religion “does not know itself,” for Durkheim does not explain, at a preliminary level, why that which is to be understood can be readily assimilated into such a sweeping and generalized, and worse, monolithic conception of religion, and one which, it must be said, is not demonstrated in the book (1964, p. 430). He did tend in this respect to presuppose the very things concerning religion, or the sacred as a whole, that need to be proven scientifically, or demonstrated. Religion, and the sacred, can, of course, be a fit topic for scientific investigation to some extent, but the limits of such modes of investigation and of empirical inquiry, more broadly, must be set out clearly and acknowledged without obfuscation (and there is a sufficiently vast, and clear, body of literature which has appeared especially since the work of Kant and Hume, and early philosophies of science, which can help us here: see, for example, de Nicola 2017, Hammersley 2016, Jones 2016, Barrow 1998, Casti and Karlqvist 1996, Dick 1996, Horgan 1996, Mattick Jr. 1996, Wallerstein 1991, Medawar 1996, Rescher 1984, Munevar 1981, Caldin 1949 and Chwistek 1948, among many others). His assertion, that there is “no proper subject for religious speculation outside that reality to which scientific reflection is applied” is not only problematic in the light of the limited evidence he provides, but also in the light of any sufficient account of scientific “reflection,” its nature, meaning, modes and limits (1964, p. 430). Unfortunately, and ironically, such unsubstantiated assertions sound very much like that rash form of dogmatizing “upon the nature of things” and the “special competence which it claims for itself” that he attacks in his own analysis of “religion” (1964, p. 430). There can be no doubt, it must be said, that Durkheim understood some of the limits of scientific reflection, and more importantly, scientific method (1964, p. 430). For example, he argued that faith is above all an impetus to action, whereas science keeps itself at a distance—though he also argued that science remains incomplete, as it progresses carefully and slowly, and indeed, he suggested that its work will never be finished (1964, p. 431). He acknowledged practical demands and crucial necessities felt by us without “distinctly conceiving them push thought in advance, beyond that which science permits us to affirm” (1964, p. 431). But he did not go far enough, it must be said. There are particular forms of speculation which are questionable, certainly, but they are not peculiar to religion (whatever that might mean). Certainly, there are cases where “obscure intuitions of sensation and sentiment” displace logic and reason, but, to be fair, and more fully rigorous, it needs to be shown clearly, coherently and demonstrably that these are absent from the history of scientific reflection, not just present, so to speak, in religious thought (1964, p. 430). Durkheim’s affirmations concerning science and “scientific” reflection do seem to belong to an ideal world, ironically, and they do seem to belong,

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ironically again, to a faculty of idealization which seems to be added on to the real in a somewhat unreflective or uncritical way: for example, he asserts that one “can affirm nothing that it denies, deny nothing that it affirms, and establish nothing that is not directly or indirectly” based on principles which derive from it (1964, p. 431). Now, some of this may be true, but it is very difficult to see, for example, outside of the domain of hyperbole, how nothing that it affirms can be denied, especially when one considers the many changes in theories and the many errors that have been made in the domain of scientific reflection and, in particular, theorization and explanation in the history of science! (To be fair, we have a vaster view now of this history especially in the wake of revolutionary developments in mathematics, modern biology, physics and neuroscience, to name but a few examples.) It is difficult to see how many of his grand affirmations—for example, that society has a “creative power” which cannot be equaled by any observable being (1964, p. 445)—can be justified by a sufficient body of evidence, a sufficient number of observations, or a true deductive mode of argument. It is difficult to see how his grand assertion that in fact [emphasis added], the whole order of creation, if “not a mystical operation which escapes science and knowledge,” is produced by synthesis can be demonstrated in the context of scientific method or process of observation (1964, p. 445). So, too, with his somewhat unclear affirmation of the “vast syntheses of complete consciousnesses” which “make society,” or his sweeping claim regarding society: “Nowhere else is an equal richness of different materials, carried to such a degree of concentration, to be found” (1964, p. 447). It does need to be said that this type of discourse does not seem to be entirely alien to that dogmatizing about the nature of things, which Durkheim notes in relation to religious thought. He asserts that we must submit our hypotheses as methodically as we can to the “control” of facts (1964, p. 447). By extension, these, and all analogous claims, then, must be submitted in just such a way. This task remains—perhaps not surprisingly—incomplete; perhaps it is a task that cannot possibly be completed, an interminable task.

Chapter Four

Religious Experience, Language, Truth, and Logic (Russell and Ayer)

A number of modern philosophers have made notable contributions to the vast and rapidly expanding body of thought about the sacred, either directly or indirectly. Three key figures of twentieth-century analytical philosophy, at least, certainly belong in this bracket, namely, Bertrand Russell, Sir A.J. Ayer and Ludwig Wittgenstein. They are not the only ones, of course, that could be included in this bracket, but their work arguably deserves more attention, in particular Russell and Ayer, because much of the literature on their work tends to exclude detailed studies of their interest in, and thoughts on, the sacred, and because the analytical tradition, one might say, at risk of overgeneralization, tends to focus on areas of inquiry which are not metaphysical, or for that matter, not religious or transcendent. The following chapters will examine some of the key works in this respect; they will then turn to some notable contributions by two contemporary philosophers whose work has not been studied much, perhaps because it is so recent, but which is nonetheless rich and thought-provoking, Richard Cottingham and Roger Scruton. Russell reflected on religion, and the sacred within it, and on science and religion, throughout his life, more or less, and certainly from a very early stage (see, for example, 2004, 2008, 2016, 1999, 1989, 1979, 1976, 1969, 1961, 1959a, 1959b, 1957, 1955, 1954, 1953, 1949, 1948, 1947, 1931, 1924, 1923, 1914a and 1914b). Yet his extensive reflections on religion, science and the sacred have not attracted nearly as much attention as his works on logic, epistemology and philosophy of mathematics and science, perhaps understandably. But in an important early but somewhat neglected essay which he published in The Hibbert Journal in October 1912, his interest in religion and the sacred becomes quite clear. For example, he distinguished 53

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between two kinds of love, and discusses three key elements of religion: “love of God” and “love of man” in which divine worship is replaced by devotion to ideal good. The worship of the good makes us aware of “what human life might be” and therefore, according to Russell, gives rise to “infinite compassion” (2009, p. 553). Acquiescence promotes the second kind of love for without it, anger and conflict make “union” (which, Russell argues, is at the origin of the second kind of love) impossible. The three elements, that is, worship, acquiescence, and love, are closely interrelated and can be unified; all can be found in a form which can strongly influence a life and offer “infinity to action and thought and feeling”—life “in the infinite,” according to Russell, combines all of them (2009, p. 553). So, love is linked to worship, especially in religions which value the sacred such as Christianity (the example he uses). Love is the first key element. Worship is the second, and it is no surprise that it brings the sacred into view: sacred beings, sacred tradition, sacred places, sacred texts and so forth. And worship is related not just to deep respect or adoration, but also to knowledge and feeling: it leads us, according to Russell, to know certain things, for example, that love of a being can be “good,” and that knowledge in turn can help us to feel the love of that being. The second key element, acquiescence, promotes and increases love, and worship; without it, divisive things like anger or rage, indignation and conflict prevent the “union in which love of man has its birth” (2009, p. 553). These three elements are closely interrelated in the sense that each leads to the other: for example, love leads to worship; worship leads to acquiescence, and conceivably greater or deeper love; and so on. Love is not the first element, for acquiescence may lead one to it; and acquiescence is not the last, since deeper worship, or love, may follow. All three are vitally important for they give “infinity to action and thought and feeling,” perhaps by opening up sacred spaces and possibilities, and they give life “in the infinite, which is the combination of the three,” perhaps by opening up the possibility of beings and states that are not finite or bounded (2009, p. 553). But his understanding of religion, and the sacred within it, also extends to an account of uncommon unity and power: religion “derives its power from the sense of union with the universe which it is able to give” (2009, p. 553), unlike forms of union which are achieved by an assimilation of the cosmos with a conception of it which we ourselves have. Union with God on the other hand, is regarded by Russell as “easy” because God is “love” (2009, p. 553): in the modern era, though, which has witnessed a decline in religious faith, according to Russell, “we must find a mode of union which asks nothing of the world and depends only upon ourselves” which is possible through “impartial worship” and “universal love,” which are accessible to all of us (2009, p. 553).

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Our aim should be to free religion from its dependence on dogma, according to Russell, and to do this, he argues, we shall have to “abstain from any demand that the world shall conform to our standards” (2009, p. 553). Once religion is freed in this way it can survive dissolution, and in being freed, it can develop in an unhampered way. It can seek “union with the universe by subordination of the demands of self” (2009, p. 553): he reiterates an important and insistent point, namely, that it is crucial for religion to discover a kind of sacred connection, “a form of union with the universe which is independent of all beliefs as to the nature of the universe” (2009, pp. 553–554). This sacred connection is made possible moreover by extending life “in the infinite,” and once achieved, offers “nearly all, and in some ways more than all, that has been given by the religions of the past” (2009, p. 554). The three elements combine to bring a sense of unity with the universe in relation to the believer, a unity that transcends the unity achieved for example by assimilating the world with our own conception of the good. The religious kind of unity is easier because it is unity with a being who is love, according to Russell. The breakdown of traditional religious belief, however, has made this kind of union questionable; more questionable, according to Russell, than that union which depends on ourselves. But religion must discover a kind of union with the world which is liberated from all beliefs concerning the nature of that world, which characterizes, on Russell’s view, “life in the infinite,” a form of life which grants much that past religions have granted, and in some respects, even more (2009, p. 554). So, the “essence” of religion lies in something sacred; it entails the subordination of “the finite part of our life to the infinite part” (2009, p. 554). We have two natures, according to Russell: the particular or “animal being” which “lives in instinct,” and pursues the “welfare of the body,” and the “universal or divine being seeks union with the universe, and desires freedom from all that impedes its seeking” (2009, p554). The “soul” discovers freedom when it is in union with the world, and that sacred union is of three kinds: “union in thought,” “union in feeling” and “union in will” (2009, p. 554). The first kind of union is knowledge, the second kind is love and the third kind is service. Also, Russell finds three kinds of disunion, namely, “error, hatred and strife” (2009, p. 554). He contrasts the “life of instinct” and the “life of wisdom”: disunion is promoted by “insistent instinct,” that is, the “animal part” of human being, and “union” is promoted by the combination of knowledge, love, and consequent service (which Russell understands as wisdom and regards as our “supreme good”) (2009, p. 555). The “life of instinct” leads us to see the world as a means which serves the aims of instinct, and so makes “the world of less account than self” (2009, p. 555): knowledge is bound only to “what is useful,” love is bound to “allies in conflict of rival instincts,” and service is bound “to those with whom there is some instinctive tie” (2009, p. 555). The

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world becomes a narrow place encompassed by alien powers; it is imprisoned in a fortress that is constantly attacked though “ultimate surrender” is unavoidable (2009, p. 555). The life of wisdom seeks other ends, with no enmity or hostility. This union which it desires is without boundaries: “it wishes to know all, to love all, and to serve all” (2009, p. 555). It is then able to discover its home everywhere, and its progress is unimpeded. Its knowledge does not divide what is useful and what is useless; “in love” it does not divide friend and enemy; “in service” it does not divide the deserving and the undeserving (2009, p. 555). Knowledge, love and service promote union, because the union of the three is wisdom, in Russell’s view, and wisdom is our “supreme good” (2009, p. 555). Instinct, on the other hand, when insistent, promotes disunion, imprisoned in “a beleaguered fortress” facing the inevitability of an “ultimate surrender” (2009, p. 555). By contrast, the life of wisdom seeks ends which bear no enmity or rivalry, or disunion: it wishes to know, love and serve, and in that sense harmonizes with religion to a very significant degree. It is therefore able to be at home everywhere, for in and through knowledge it rejects the divisiveness of “useful” and “useless” (which the life of instinct valorizes), in and through love it does not insist on a division “of friend and foe” (which the life of instinct promotes) and in and through service, it recognizes no division “of deserving and undeserving” (2009, p. 555). The “animal part of man” is preoccupied with its own desires and cannot contemplate “a blank indifference to its hopes and fears,” and so dismisses that, whereas the “divine part of man” rejects the demand that the universe must conform to a pattern—it “accepts the world,” and in wisdom embraces a union which “demands nothing of the world” (2009, p. 555): we must, Russell argues, affirm our ideals and overcome the indifference that is around us; wisdom, as he understood it, is capable of seeking and finding union even with those things that seem to be strange and disparate (2009, p. 555). Russell’s considerable but relatively neglected interest in mysticism, religion and science (and by implication, sacred experience, narratives and arguments), is manifest especially in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1926; 1932). Quite characteristically, he opens the argument with a critical account of metaphysics, which furnishes, for him, a philosophical context for mystical experience and phenomena. He characterizes metaphysics in quite an interesting way: the attempt to understand the world in its entirety through thinking and its origins lie in the union and strife of two different impulses, one of which drives us towards mysticism, one of which drives us towards science (1932, p. 2). It is possible to achieve greatness by pursuing either of these impulses, according to Russell (for example, he names Blake and his pursuit of mystic insight as an example of the former, and Hume as an

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example of the latter), but argues that the greatest philosophers are attracted to both and try to harmonize them (1932, p. 2). He understands metaphysics as an intellectual or rational attempt to understand the world “as a whole by means of thought” (alone; that is without scientific-theoretical observation and experimentation) (1932, p. 2). He thinks that it has been developed, from its inception, by “the union and conflict” of those two distinct, sometimes opposed but always human “impulses,” namely, an impulse within us that draws us to mysticism, and another impulse that draws us to science (1932, p. 2). It is notable, and significant, that the two objects of these two impulses are understood as different certainly but also, it is suggested, as opposites, but the representation will be accepted for now, for the purposes of argument. The nature of the representation, and this way of understanding the relation, is reinforced in Russell’s belief that some have “achieved greatness” through one or the other impulse, but not through both impulses in their lives and/or thought (1932, p. 2). Hume, whose influence on Russell’s thought is very considerable, is understood in this context as a thinker in whom the “scientific impulse reigns quite unchecked”; in William Blake, the visionary English poet and thinker, Russell finds a “strong hostility to science” co-existing with deep mystical insight (1932, p. 2). By “scientific impulse,” Russell seems to mean an attraction to empirical or epistemic dimensions of inquiry, with their integral privileging, pursuit and promotion of questions of objective knowledge, truth, observation and justification, and so on (1932, p. 2). Of course, these two impulses and their articulated relation in Russell’s work are not the only two options, though Russell’s argument does build on the basis of this kind of logic of difference, even opposition. One might think, for example, of a philosopher and scientist like Pascal whose scientific impulses coexisted with “profound mystic insight,” or Newton, a scientist and a natural philosopher, in whom both impulses also coexisted, arguably, but that is a question that Russell does not overlook (1932, p. 2). What is important here is Russell’s attempt to articulate an argument about mysticism which situates it at another remove, even an extreme other pole, so to speak, from the scientific “impulse” (1932, p. 2). He does grant, sensibly, that the “greatest” philosophers have felt the importance of both impulses and, indeed, the necessity of both (thinking, perhaps, of natural philosophers like Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, or a thinker like Wittgenstein); they attempt to “harmonise the two” and this means that they, notwithstanding what Russell calls (unsurprisingly, from within a predominantly epistemological, rather than metaphysical, framework) “its arduous uncertainty,” hold philosophy to be, at least at some times, a “greater thing than either science or religion”—especially if and when the scientific impulse and

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the mystical impulse are believed to have their homes, so to speak, in two disparate disciplines, namely, science and religion (1932, p. 2). Mysticism essentially, according to Russell, is not much more than a “certain intensity and depth of feeling” concerning beliefs about the cosmos (1932, p. 3). Russell’s interest in, and perhaps attraction to, such feeling is evident in his work, it has to be said—for example, he writes of Heraclitus, the ancient metaphysical thinker and perhaps, mystic, in this way: “this kind of feeling” prompts Heraclitus to utter unusual and poignant things about existence and the cosmos (1932, p. 3). Heraclitus is presumably another example of a thinker in whom the two impulses coexist, and he was a natural philosopher, an early scientist and a mystic (the question of the accuracy of this way of understanding Heraclitus is outside the scope of this study; very little is actually known about him and much of his work, it would seem, has been lost). The question of what mysticism is essentially, if anything, is a crucial one (1932, p. 3). The “little more” is a little unclear, it must be said; certainly, it would be surprising to conceive of mysticism in the absence of “a certain intensity” and “depth of feeling” in relation to beliefs concerning the cosmos (1932, p. 3). One would expect some feeling, as well as an intensity and a depth of feeling, in a human being who has a mystical experience, for example, a direct revelation of God’s being or divine forgiveness, and so on. But if such experience is possible, and Russell believed that it is, an account of the elements would have to go well beyond feeling, intensity and depth; it would be possible, for example, also to speak of beings, time, space, experience and reception, not just at an affective level, or not predominantly at an affective level, for example, but also on the level of being, sensibility, relations in space and time, consciousness or awareness, perception, processing, thinking, language perhaps, and understanding, amongst many other things. These would all be conceivable and perhaps even integral elements in mysticism, though much would depend on the particular situation and context. Nonetheless, it would be difficult to make sense of mysticism without many of these elements and relations; the same applies to the question of the very possibility of mystical experience. The question of what mysticism is, or is essentially, then, is quite a complex question that cannot be sufficiently explained or understood, fundamentally, in affective terms, or in terms of feelings predominantly, especially because it is important at a preliminary stage of any inquiry into the nature of mysticism to give a sufficient and necessary account of the conditions that make meaningful or profound affectivity, or intense and deep feeling, possible (1932, p. 3). The question of the nature of the relationship between feeling, intensity and depth, on the one hand, and the formation of beliefs about the universe is a second question that cannot be overlooked or ignored.

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Russell addresses the question of the place and relevance of mysticism and “ethical considerations” in order to address the view that mysticism essentially is predominantly ethically charged (1932, p. 7). Such considerations, he argues, can only appear when the truth is known: “they can and should appear as determining our feeling towards the truth,” and our way of life in relation to the truth, but not “as themselves dictating what the truth is to be” (1932, p. 7). It is difficult to deny that “ethical considerations” which are based on falsehoods should be rejected; similarly, “ethical considerations” are given greater legitimacy when they are related to the truth which has been ascertained (1932, p. 7). This is not entirely clear, it must be said, and Russell moves through the argument quickly, at this stage, but he seems to be arguing that our “ethical considerations” in order to be legitimate, should, at the very least, be guided by the truth—they should track the truth, one might say—where it is available or where it can be ascertained (1932, p. 7). Such an approach to ethics entails a concern for the truth, especially truth which can be ascertained, and has important implications in terms of how we order our existence (that is, in persistent “view of the truth” where it is available or where it can be ascertained), without these “ethical considerations” in themselves dictating the truth to us (1932, p. 7). He turns his attention to “mystical philosophy” which, he argues, is always characterized by beliefs such as the belief in “insight” rather than “discursive analytic knowledge”: wisdom is “sudden, penetrating, coercive, not the meticulous and fallible investigation into appearances” by science which relies completely on sense perception (1932, p. 8). He is clearly interested in the nature and role of this “insight,” which may be sudden, for example, or direct, or immediate, unlike the kind of knowledge mentioned above; it may be “penetrating” and obtrusive, or coercive, not propositional, or a rationally constructed dialogue, a meticulously developed syllogism or dialectical form featuring proposition and counter proposition, and so on. He argues quite expansively that there is a negative aspect to the mystic’s way, for example, doubt about everyday knowledge, and many mystics do not surmount this for it is understood as a way to a richer world. The “mystic insight” originates in a sense that mystery is unfolding—a secret wisdom becomes certain and definite beliefs are adopted as a consequence of reflection on “inarticulate” experience which is produced by this insight (1932, p. 8). Such passages in Russell’s writings are rich and thought-provoking. He includes all who are capable of feeling an “inward passion” and of being capable of “absorption” in it (1932, p. 8). He argues that they may experience a feeling both deep and unfamiliar which for example, leads to “loss of contact” with everyday things, even to a significant degree, with the solid quality of the external world, so that their consciousness, their “soul,” he calls it, not insignificantly, in a state of complete loneliness, generates, from

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its depths, a phenomenon that resembles a “mad dance” of “fantastic phantoms” which had appeared, prior to the experience, to be “independently real,” objectively alive (1932, p. 8). This kind of mystic experience is a negative one in that sense: it involves loneliness, perhaps isolation; it is unfamiliar or strange, and it disconnects the subject for a time from the quotidian world in which it lives, breathes and moves, normally. In this condition, doubt arises in relation to “common knowledge” and in its wake, the mystic is prepared to receive something like a transcendent wisdom (though the nature of that wisdom remains unclear to the external observer or commentator) (1932, p. 8). Many who are familiar with experiences of this kind, according to Russell, do not surpass it (1932, p. 8). The mystic however grasps it as a “gateway” to a richer and higher world. They have a sense of a mystery being revealed, and a wisdom not revealed to all bringing suddenly a realization, knowledge and certainty so strong that it carries the mystic to a stage that is beyond doubt (1932, p. 8). This sense of “certainty and revelation” precedes any “definite belief” which is what the mystic is granted as a consequence of reflection on “inarticulate” experience which is integral to the experience and reception of insight (1932, p. 9). Russell notes that it is often the case that beliefs which might not be connected at all to this “moment” of insight are afterwards drawn to its “nucleus” (1932, p. 9). The biological metaphor is noteworthy, however Russell is really thinking about the power, it seems, of such moments to reveal, or unveil, connections and relations between beliefs and phenomena which had not previously appeared to the subject, or which had not previously appeared clearly to the subject. In this way, their convictions expand also, with their insight and the web, so to speak, of their beliefs, to include, in many such cases, other kinds of convictions, as part of their realization of a state of “subjective certainty,” as a result of the experience of revelation, that is, their state of being certain inwardly of the insight revealed and the adjustment of their beliefs as a whole to incorporate the content that is revealed to them (1932, p. 9). There are nonessential things that may be put aside, but it is important, according to Russell, to focus on the beliefs which are common to mystics, for this will reveal to us what mysticism is in essence (1932, p. 9). Russell calls such moments illuminating, which produce belief in the possibility of knowing which might be termed revelation, in contrast to perception, reason, and analysis, which are “blind guides,” leading only to illusions (1932, p. 9). These moments might produce, for example, a concept of a surpassing Reality which lies behind the fabric of appearance and is completely different to it (1932, p. 9)—deeper insight or understanding, or an expanded knowledge of a metaphysical, or religious, or spiritual (this is perhaps why Russell stipulates that the soul plays an important role in the experience) kind. The mystic, regardless of their location or temporal state,

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tends to regard this “Reality,” according to Russell, with a sense of admiration that often amounts to adoration or worship (1932, p. 9). This is the first characteristic of mysticism, according to Russell. And it is notable and significant that Russell reserves some of his most elevated and beautiful prose for this argument: it brings, he argues, a deep realization of glory, and of glory in things, that is opened up to the receptive mind, or soul, and is felt to be “thinly veiled by the shows of sense” (1932, p. 10). Poets, lovers and artists search for that glory and the “haunting beauty that they pursue is the faint reflection of its sun” (1932, p. 10). But the mystic exists in the radiance of the vision and grasps what others “dimly seek,” with a surpassing knowledge (1932, p. 10). The second characteristic of mysticism, according to Russell, is the belief, particular to it, in unity, or an impulse towards oneness, rather than multiplicity, and its rejection of opposition or separation or disunity anywhere: he notes that Heraclitus had claimed that good and evil are “one” (1932, p. 10); he finds the same impulse (in search of unity) in Parmenides’s assertion that reality is “one” and “indivisible” and in Plato’s idea of the primary nature of the “Good” (1932, p. 10). This is an important point about mysticism, across many barriers and divides. Heraclitus affirmed the unity represented and actualized by the logos, and it is no surprise that later faiths which feature sacred teachings and doctrines developed in part out of a knowledge of ancient Greek cosmology, such as early Christianity, take up and incorporate albeit in a significantly different form, the idea of unity, for example, the doctrine of the three in one. This is not to say of course that Christianity is mysticism; just that Christian mystics, if Russell is correct about mysticism, affirm a sense of unity or oneness, like the mystics in early Greek natural philosophy and metaphysics. Parmenides’s affirmation of oneness belongs to the same family of beliefs, so to speak, for the idea of indivisibility will become an important feature of many faiths which include mystical traditions and narratives. Plato, though he was no Parmenidean, did not just affirm the “primacy” of the Good as a form; he also affirmed the form of all forms, and in this way it is possible to supplement Russell’s argument in the sense that all three ancient thinkers, affirmed unity or oneness rather than division or disunity, as a fundamental principle, and as an object of insight into the true nature of the world (1932, p. 10). The third characteristic relates to the intersection, always implicit in Russell’s argument above, between metaphysics and mysticism—denying the reality of Time, which is the product of the rejection of division and leads to the view that if all things are one, the distinction of past and future becomes insubstantial (1932, p. 10). He argues that Parmenides held this doctrine and finds it also in Spinoza and Hegel. He then considers the final doctrine within mysticism which is the belief that evil is nothing more than appearance, an

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illusion generated by the conflicts and oppositions of the intellect in its analytic modes (1932, p. 10). Mysticism does not assert for example that cruelty, and such things, are good; it denies their reality—they are things that we are to be freed from by some vision (1932, p. 11). He adds: sometimes (in Hegel and Spinoza, for example) good as well as evil are seen as “illusory,” though one finds also the belief that Reality taken as a whole, is good (1932, p. 11). Mysticism, however, is characterized by Russell by an attitude which is brought about directly by the very nature of mystical experience, which produces a “sense of unity” and a related feeling of unbounded peace (1932, p. 11). He surmises that such feelings may produce an entire body of related beliefs which constitute mystical doctrine though he acknowledges the difficulties posed by the question and grants that universal, or widespread, agreement is unlikely (1932, p. 11). The mystic’s denial, often encountered, according to Russell, of time’s reality is noteworthy, as it flows from the denial of disunity (1932, p. 11). If the mystic is correct and reality is one, or all things are one in and through the logos (as Heraclitus would have it), it would be an illusion to hold that the past and the future are distinct and separate. Certainly, Parmenides argued as much as Russell notes, among others. Russell also considers an important doctrine of mysticism, namely the belief that evil is no more than an appearance, and therefore not a reality but rather an illusion which is generated by the (false) sense of the fundamental disunity of the world, its conflicts and oppositions, produced by the dominance of the “analytic intellect” (over, for example, the revealed insight, or immediate apprehension, that is the mystic’s own) (1932, p. 10). Mysticism entails a denial, according to Russell, that things like cruelty are good, but insists on their illusoriness since they belong to the illusory or deceptive world of phantoms, which the mystic is freed from by the insight that is part of the content of the revelation or vision (1932, p. 10). At any rate, what characterizes mysticism, in its ethical dimensions, is just the lack of indignation, its joyful acceptance of unity, or oneness, and its rejection of the truth of the opposition between the good and the bad (1932, p. 10). Mysticism, argues Russell, is also an “attitude” which is directly produced by the mystical experience and involves a deep sense of tranquility (1932, p. 11). He suspects that this feeling plays a key role in the emergence of the body of related beliefs which constitute mystic “doctrine,” though he notes with characteristic honesty, that this is not a straightforward or simple matter to resolve, and also one that will generate debate and considerable disagreement (1932, p. 11). So, having outlined three characteristics of mysticism, he poses four significant questions in relation to the truth or otherwise of mysticism: first, he asks if there two ways of knowing, rather than one, which one might identify

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as reason and intuition and if one is preferable; he asks whether plurality and division are just illusions; whether or not time is real or unreal; and “what kind of reality” attaches to good and evil (1932, p. 11). He argues that though mysticism is wrong on each of these questions, there is nonetheless some wisdom that one can find in its way of feeling which cannot be found in any other way (1932, p. 12). So, mysticism is praiseworthy when it is understood as an attitude towards human existence, and not as some creed concerning nature (1932, p. 12). The emotion which influences and informs thought and feeling in general, inspires all that is best in us (1932, p. 12). Science’s exploration of truth, which Russell characterizes as patient and cautious, seems like the opposite of the sudden certainty of mystics, but can be nourished by the spirit of reverence which animates and sustains mysticism (1932, p. 12). Although Russell has serious reservations, it is true, about completely developed mysticism, he nonetheless believed that, in more restrained forms, that is, in forms which do not put it at odds with the scientific impulse, and with the broader investigation of truth and knowledge, there remains some wisdom to be gleaned from it (1932, p. 12). It is notable that he does claim here that it is a mystical way of knowing, even though it entails certainty, two things that he allows for, implicitly or explicitly, in previous passages. This mystic’s way of feeling brings some wisdom, according to Russell, which it seems, cannot be gained in any other way (1932, p. 12). In this sense, if true, mysticism in general is commended by Russell as a meaningful and significant attitude towards life, rather than as a “creed” about nature (1932, p. 12). As a “metaphysical creed” which entails truths about the world, Russell finds it unconvincing, since he argues that the creed is a questionable outcome of the feeling, even if the emotion influences and shapes thoughts and feelings, and inspires great things (1932, p. 12). Even though the mystic’s certainty is a little too sudden or immediate for Russell, and even though it is, he argues, inconsistent with the caution, patience, and methodical and rational investigation of truth in and through the scientific method, nonetheless science may be “nourished” by the mystic’s reverence, since deep respect and receptiveness, presumably, are not peculiar to mysticism alone (1932, p. 12). He notes with characteristic honesty again that he knows “nothing” about the reality of the world which is grasped by the mystic, with its spiritual or metaphysical beliefs and commitments (1932, p. 17). And because his own epistemic position is not strong in this regard, he neither has a desire to deny it, nor even to assert that revealed insights are not insights of any kind at all (1932, p. 17). This kind of intellectual honesty is admirable and memorable in Russell; it is a pity that all empirically minded thinkers do not follow him on this question.

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He maintains in light of his belief in the power and efficacy, without forgetting the limits, of “the scientific attitude” that the existence of insight which remains untested cannot be a sufficient guarantee of the truth of that insight, even if “much of the most important truth is first suggested by its means” (1932, p. 17). He notes the opposition “between instinct and reason” and the various champions of the latter (reason) in the eighteenth century, and of the former (instinct) in the nineteenth century (Rousseau and the Romantics), especially by those who saw in science a threat to the beliefs which they linked to a general spiritual attitude to life (1932, p. 17). He notes also that his advocacy of “scientific restraint and balance” in contrast to the “self-assertion” of a bold dependence on intuition, that “largeness of contemplation,” that detached disinterestedness, and that “freedom from practical preoccupations” which have been produced by all great religions, is nonetheless not opposed to the spirit which generates those things, but rather the product of that spirit in the domain of thought (1932, p. 18). The conclusions drawn in light of this kind of view of science may oppose the stated beliefs of mystics but essentially, they are consistent with the spirit that moves and inspires those beliefs (1932, p. 18). This is a characteristic point of emphasis in Russell’s work. He objects to the logic employed to defend mysticism, broadly speaking, to be sure, since logic and intuition are not always harmonious, of course, and since the appeal to revelation, and “subjective certainty,” which is swift, intensely personal and/or sudden, can cause difficulties in terms of logical analysis, and attract “technical criticisms” (1932, p. 19). He then attempts to analyze the mental state which gives rise to “mystical logic,” namely belief in a reality which is dissimilar to that which is grasped by the senses and which arises quite irresistibly in particular moods (which Russell argues are at the foundation of most forms of mysticism and also metaphysics) (1932, p. 19). Logic is then neither needed nor employed, according to Russell, since mystics appeal to the directness of their insight— though he notes also that such mysticism is not common in the Western world (1932, p. 19). The mystic will accept, under these conditions, the ground that is suggested and if paradoxes arise, then they are part of the goal of feeling in accord with their insight (1932, p. 20). He hazards a broad generalization: most mystics are less concerned with understanding and explaining the world of science and our everyday existence, and more concerned with affirming its unreality in the context of a transcendent and supersensible reality (1932, p. 20). It is belief in the existence of a distinct or different reality (from the reality that appears to our senses) caused in some sense by the “irresistible force in certain moods,” that he questions, since these moods are at the foundation, he argues, of most forms of mysticism and metaphysics (1932, p. 20). It is not clear at this point why he thinks moods, and only these, are at

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the foundation of both, since metaphysics and mysticism can be very different in their content, methods, concerns, trajectories and ends (for example, metaphysics can be seen quite legitimately as a rational branch of philosophy, not a mystical branch). Nevertheless, Russell argues that though such a mood is powerful, the “need of logic is not felt” (1932, p. 20). Now, it would be rash to argue that such a need is not felt, or not felt at all, in metaphysics, for this runs the risk of committing the fallacy of hasty generalization. As a corollary, though Russell seems to see analogies between mysticism and metaphysics, he does not make the analogies convincing here. So, he argues that the more committed mystics do not use logic, but appeal to the immediacy of the received insight—this is what he calls “fully developed mysticism” (1932, p. 20). But why such forms of mysticism should not be subject to metaphysical reflection, complication, questioning, debate or critique remains unclear. Questioning, critical and rational reflection, debate or critique are hardly foreign elements in philosophical metaphysics. He associates mysticism, it is true, with an “intensity of emotional conviction,” and when this intensity subsides, he argues, one who had tended to follow the path of reasoning will seek foundations in logic which are consistent with those beliefs which one now embraces as a consequence of that “emotional conviction” (1932, p. 20). It is not that logic is not pursued by mystics and some metaphysicians. Rather, Russell believes that they generally take for granted the insights produced by emotion which exercises a hold on the mystic, so to speak, and any logical doctrines that they hold are taken (for example, by followers) to be quite independent of the vision or illumination which had given rise to them (1932, p. 24). If logic reasserts itself, as an impulse, perhaps, when the mystic mood is weaker, there remains a persistent desire to keep the “vanishing insight,” or at least to show its status as insight—in this context, what seems to contradict it is then regarded as insubstantial or illusory (1932, p. 24). Russell finds in this kind of dialectic a logic that is not dispassionate or “candid” but inspired by a particular hatred of the “daily world to which it is to be applied” (1932, p. 24). According to Russell, then, mystics and some metaphysicians usually take for granted the mystic’s insight and the emotion that produces it. Their “logical doctrines,” if any, are taken by their followers to be independent of the immediate revelation which generated them (1932, p. 24). But these foundations cannot be effaced or obscured. So, Russell notes the “complacency” which leads philosophers to accept such inconsistencies in the doctrines and tensions between these doctrines and those scientific facts which “seem best established” and are, epistemically, most defensible (1932, p. 24). The mystic mood while dominant, and which extends to metaphysics, according to Russell, actually obscures and denies the impulse to follow logic, and when this mood weakens, the impulse to follow logic emerges again but this time with no desire to banish the

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“vanishing insight,” or with a desire to demonstrate its status as insight (though just how it does this is not clarified by Russell). The mystic’s way, on Russell’s view, of reading nature with the firm conviction that it is illusory is not likely to produce a good understanding, or by extension, a good explanation, of it (1932, p. 24). He expands his reflections to include the task of philosophy: if the task of philosophy is to find the truth, then philosophers must develop the “disinterested intellectual curiosity” which belongs to the scientist (1932, p. 25). He grants that there are limits but believes that one cannot say how much these limits may be “enlarged” as science marches forward (1932, p. 25). What is evident to Russell is that propositions about the future, though subject to limits, belong nonetheless to science and are to be determined by scientific methods (1932, p. 25). Philosophy needs to have its own sphere of investigation, of course, and it needs to aim at results which cannot be proven or disproven by the sciences (1932, p. 25), he argues (but, significantly, does not note that metaphysics may have a significant place within that sphere). He associates mysticism with the general belief in the illusory nature of evil and often, with the belief that Reality is “good” (1932, p. 26). He finds both beliefs in the work of Heraclitus (in sayings like these: “good and ill are one”; “to God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right” [1932, p. 25]). He generalizes to argue that mystics often hold that perfection attaches to Reality, whereas goodness is relative to human beings and vanishes in an “impartial survey” (1932, pp. 26–27). He argues that the distinction is vital if we are to understand mysticism’s ethical “outlook” on the world, and elaborates: some of these distinctions are needed if we are to understand the ethical content of mysticism, for there is a lower order of good and evil, in which the world of appearance is divided into discordant parts, and there is a higher, “mystical kind of good,” which is an integral part of what is real and is not negated by any “correlative” form of evil (1932, p. 27). He grants that it is not easy to provide a good logical explanation of this view since good and evil are subjective, in the sense that the good is “merely” that “towards which we have one kind of feeling,” and evil is “merely that towards which we have another kind of feeling” (1932, p. 27)—though that account of good and evil does seem quite vague, Russell proceeds with the broad argument. He adds that, as active agents, we do make choices and choose one over the other, and thus make use of important distinctions, but argues that these distinctions belong to those things which mysticism sees as parts of the illusory world, because of their connection with time (1932, p. 27). This “ethical outlook” is evidently hierarchical (1932, p. 27). It is logically problematic to explain such an outlook in the absence of the recognition of the subjective nature of good and evil, Russell argues, but in the sphere of action,

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as he notes, we do need to distinguish between good and evil (1932, p. 27). But such distinctions, according to Russell, are regarded by mysticism as part of the illusory world, because they are in essence concerned with time, which is itself fleeting and must be surmounted (1932, p. 27). He grants however the possibility of being impartial in relation to lives of contemplation, and therefore the possibility of surmounting such forms of “ethical dualism” in the sphere of action: if we remain “merely” impartial, we may be content to say that both the good and the evil of action are illusions. So, Russell argues, the dual attitude and the “apparent vacillation” of the mystic are explained as well as justified (1932, p. 27). Yet he finds in mysticism things of the greatest importance, such as the possibility of “universal love and joy,” and sees these as supremely important in relation to our conduct and happiness, but also in relation to the value of “the mystic emotion” (quite apart from creeds which may arise from it) (1932, p. 28). He notes that it is necessary to understand precisely what is revealed by this emotion, for example, the possibility of a happier life, though it may not reveal anything necessarily about the nature of the cosmos (1932, p. 28). So, he argues that good and evil are mere “reflections” in relation to emotions and not parts of the substantial world of nature, and that “an impartial contemplation” which is liberated from a pre-occupation with the self will avoid judgments about good or bad, and can be readily combined with a feeling of universal love which inspires mystics to assert the goodness of the whole world (1932, p. 28). “Universal love and joy in all that exists” strike Russell as supremely important in three senses at least: they influence how we live, they have an impact on our happiness, and they give great value to “the mystic emotion,” a somewhat problematic concept, it has to be said, because of its monolithic nature, but it is one which Russell employs consistently (1932, p. 28). This emotion is crucial because it has significant revelatory power: it reveals various possibilities which otherwise might be unthought, overlooked or ignored. It tells us much about ourselves, but it does not tell us much about non-human existents; it does not tell us what the universe is. The understanding of good and evil, and the higher good, reflects our emotions, he argues, somewhat unclearly, perhaps in the sense that what we feel in some way determines or shapes what we understand or take things to be (1932, p. 28). Our emotions and this kind of view of our understanding suggest then a certain preoccupation with the self (and its affective modes and responses to the world). It is not surprising then that Russell affirms an “impartial contemplation” in order to seek the truth of things as they are outside of the sphere, so to speak, of our own emotions—a kind of contemplation, and reflection, which is not slave to the narrow world of the “Self” and the dependent, and limited, range of its moral judgments, though he notes significantly, that it is not

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difficult at all to combine it with that “feeling” of universal love which allows mystics to affirm the good which characterizes the world as a whole (1932, p. 28). Russell does not focus here on the nature of the combination, which is a little puzzling, though it might be argued with good reason that the contemplation and the feeling can be combined readily in at least two ways: first, one can contemplate impartially the existence of such feelings and in a sense make them a significant object of reflection and indeed, investigation; second, one can contemplate the world impartially and find in it some suggestion, or intimation, of the feeling of universal love, without necessarily drawing the same conclusion that the mystic draws. Russell broadens the reflection to include the question of the nature of philosophy and a somewhat ambitious idea of religion. He finds in religion an element of submission, and an awareness of the limits of our powers, as human beings, and which he contrasts in a thought-provoking way with the modern world’s rapid material “successes” and its “insolent” assertion of unbounded possibilities of progress (1932, p. 30). That submission which he finds in religion (and in the sacred) is essentially similar in spirit to that which science proclaims (though he does not clarify the point here, sufficiently, he does link “ethical neutrality” gained by its “victories” with a kind of submission). He argues that the good we should recall is that which lies within our own power to realize, and that we should work against those things which can harm the “inward good” (which is in our power), and against those things which can negate our respect for fact which makes up what is important in humility and what is productive in the scientific “temper” (1932, p. 31). It is not that Russell makes a false claim when he asserts that religion generates through action, submission; what is significant here is that he does not mention any of the other things that it “inculcates” and there are indeed, many, for example, awe and a sense of mystery, which are by no means, as he himself realized, negative or deleterious (1932, p. 30). There is a real risk here of overemphasizing one element at the expense of many, or one at the expense of others which are not necessarily less important or striking in light of detached contemplation (1932, p. 31). If submission which is inculcated in action amounts to an awareness of human limits, as he thought, then it serves an important, even vital, philosophical function and purpose; if the spirit of the submission which religion inculcates in acts is in essence the same as that which science proclaims, then it is to be welcomed, presumably (1932, p. 31). But the meaning, place and nature of submission need to be investigated much more carefully. It is by no means clear, for example, or evident, that the same spirit that animates religion in this context also animates the sciences; nor is it clear or evident that the nature of their “victories” are out-

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comes of that kind of submission (1932, p. 31). It is important to consider submission in at least three important senses: as a compelled surrender, for example, and as a voluntary act, chosen out of love, for example, or devotion; and as a willed, even unquestioning, acceptance of some creed or system of beliefs, which may have a rational basis. These caveats notwithstanding, however, Russell’s insistence on the good which we wish to remember, the common good, one might say, as something which we have it in our power to fashion, is affirmative and empowering: one might think of the pursuit of a good like universal peace, which he loved, and for good reasons, or the fashioning of a system of universal human rights (1932, p. 31). Such human goods can be created he thought, reasonably, in human lives and in our attitudes to nature (1932, p. 31). The mystic’s insistence “on belief in an external realization of the good” on the other hand, he believed, is a form of “self-assertion”; it cannot ground the desired external good, which is a slightly ambiguous claim, for to secure such goods might mean to give them a strong epistemic or empirical foundation, or it might mean, fully realize or actualize such goods (and so on), but the fundamental point is important: a failure to secure that good which is desired, can seriously harm the good which is in us, and which we seek (1932, p. 31). Of course, the two kinds of goods need not be contradictory or exclusive necessarily, but what Russell is at pains to argue is that our attitude to, respect for, and love of facts, and by implication, knowledge in a sense, constitute to a very significant degree—it is possible to argue that Russell pushes this point a little further, and perhaps a little too far—what is important in humility and what is productive in the scientific “temper” (1932, p. 31). He is right: we cannot completely transcend our nature, if “only the interest that determines the direction of our attention, must remain in all our thought” (1932, p. 32). It is difficult to see, at least in a purely naturalistic scheme of thought and action, how we might wholly transcend such things. But he argues, with a memorable flourish, and in a somewhat rhetorical vein, that scientific philosophy is closer to objectivity than other human pursuits and brings the “closest constant” and the closest relation with the external world that we can realize (1932, p. 32). “Scientific philosophy,” in a nascent form now, unlike the “primitive mind,” constitutes a higher kind of thought and, like every other quest for self-transcendence, carries great rewards in terms of better scope and breadth of understanding (1932, p. 32). He argues that Evolutionism, though it appeals to facts, nonetheless is not a genuinely scientific philosophy which will be characterized by humility, a more piecemeal and arduous approach which is better able to embrace the world without the “tyrannous imposition” of our limited and fleeting demands (1932, p. 32).

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The complex question concerning scientific objectivity requires careful re-consideration and re-conceptualization, especially in the wake of quantum puzzles and enigmas concerning observers, uncertainty relations and entanglement and participation in experimental situations and environments. Nonetheless, it is by no means demonstrated here by Russell that that objectivity, conceived of in a naïve or undeveloped way, even, offers, therefore, the closest constant and the most intimate relation that we can have with the external world (1932, p. 32; emphasis added). The somewhat binary way of characterizing the “primitive mind” is crude and, significantly, there is no justification provided for it here or its range of reference; it functions largely as a presupposition and is a questionable one at best (1932, p. 32). As a consequence, it is doubtful, at best, that a genuinely scientific philosophy, whatever that might mean, will in fact be more rigorous, humble, less systematic, “offering less glitter of outward mirage to fatter fallacious hopes, but more indifferent to fate,” and more able to embrace the world without the “tyrannous imposition” of finite, human demands (1932, p. 32; emphasis added). The question of just how any scientific philosophy will be liberated, in some deep and abiding sense, from the “tyrannous imposition” of things like limited human demands, is very much a question that remains to be answered convincingly (1932, p. 32). Ayer takes a far more uncompromising view of mysticism and, in particular, religious experience and knowledge (see 1990a, 1990b, 1982, 1972, 1971, 1968, 1963, 1956, among others). In his early work, Language Truth and Logic, he focuses on the question of religious knowledge (for example, that “knowledge” that Russell explores in relation to mysticism): This mention of God brings us to the question of the possibility of religious knowledge. . . . It is now generally admitted, at any rate by philosophers, that the existence of a being having the attributes which define the god of any nonanimistic religion cannot be demonstratively proved. To see that this is so, we have only to ask ourselves what are the premises from which the existence of such a god could be deduced. If the conclusion that a god exists is to be demonstratively certain, then these premises must be certain; for, as the conclusion of a deductive argument is already contained in the premises, any uncertainty there may be about the truth of the premises is necessarily shared by it. But we know that no empirical proposition can ever be anything more than probable (1946, p. 35).

So, he makes an important initial point about the possibility of religious knowledge and the view, which he takes to be common in philosophy, that the existence of a transcendent God cannot be demonstratively proved. The reason he gives is that the existence of such a being cannot be deduced from premises which are certain. He then clarifies: we know that empirical propositions are probable, not certain. This is a striking argument, to be sure, but it

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is not conclusive. Its context and range lie in deductive reasoning. But it is difficult to find a mystic, for example, who claims to have “religious knowledge,” that is, they claim to know God’s will, or command, or of revelation of some sort, or of an encounter with a sacred being, and so on and so forth, on the basis of deductive reasoning (1946, p. 35). It is difficult also to find such a person who claims that their conclusions, for example, that they are recipients of revelation, are all drawn from premises that are certain, or from such premises and nothing else. These are important issues—contextual, phenomenological, ontological, metaphysical, experiential, reflective and so on—that are not given detailed and nuanced consideration in the text. There is another question also that needs to be raised: the putative context here concerns empirical propositions, not propositions of all kinds. It is neither self-evident nor demonstratively proved that all possible and actual propositions are empirical propositions, nor is it selfevident or demonstratively proved that all meaningful and significant propositions are empirical propositions alone. Ayer goes on to emphasize the point about proof, in relation not just to empirical propositions and deductive reasoning, but also to verification: he argues that there is no way of proving that the existence of God is even probable; if it were probable, then the proposition concerning his existence would be an “empirical hypothesis,” which means that we could deduce from it, “certain experiential propositions which were not deducible from those other hypotheses alone” (1946, p. 35). We cannot do this, he argues. One might argue that “God” is a metaphysical term, but Ayer counters by arguing that that means it is not probable that such a being exists since the claim “God exists” is a metaphysical one and metaphysical claims cannot be true or false; no sentence, Ayer argues, which “purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god” has any literal significance (1946, p. 35). His extended argument concerns a sacred being, not surprisingly, namely the God of Christianity: he argues that there is and can be “no way” of proving its existence, or of proving that such a being is “even probable” (1946, p. 35). And he notes, after Hume, that the existence of regularity in nature does not offer sufficient evidence to demonstratively prove the existence of such a being. Several questions arise here: the connection between empirical hypotheses and religious claims (such as “God exists”) remains unclear. First, an empirical hypothesis presumably concerns empirical things: matter, particles, molecules, elements, compounds, behavior, and so on and so forth. But it is not clear, and it is certainly not established by Ayer, that all ontological or cosmological entities or existents are subject to the range and reference of empirical hypotheses and their formations. Nor is it clear or self-evident or established here that all ontological or cosmological entities or existents are

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to be understood within, and only within, the sphere of empirical investigation. Much is presupposed about empirical hypothesizing and empirical propositions, but not demonstrated. It is notable that there is little here on the limits of such hypothetical methods and propositional logic. Part of the difficulty here lies in the problems one encounters from a theoretical standpoint that is external to the context, the experiential framework, one might say, which produces the sorts of claims that a mystic might make about God or revelation or some sacred being or event, in trying to establish just what “God exists” might signify (to the mystic) and just what sort of claim that is, propositional or otherwise. Ayer believes that if the sentence “God exists” entails little or no more than the claim that “certain types of phenomena occur in certain sequences,” then asserting that God exists is equivalent to asserting regularity in nature exists (1946, p. 35). He adds rightly that no “religious man” would say that that is all there is to the sentence, “God exists” (1946, p. 35). “He” would say that he means a transcendent being whose being might be evident in “certain empirical manifestations” like revelation in nature, but “could not be defined in terms of those manifestations” alone (1946, p. 35). But, Ayer adds, the religious person would be using the term “God” in a metaphysical sense, which means for Ayer, remembering his empirical commitments to knowledge, and truth claims in general, that the term, and such terms in general, suggest that it cannot “be even probable that a god exists” (1946, p. 35). The broader theoretical presupposition here, which should not go unnoticed, is that metaphysical utterances such as these cannot be either true or false. By extension, there can be no sentence “which purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god” that also possesses “any literal significance” (1946, p. 35). There is much to unpack, clarify and question here. For example, there is not, and arguably cannot be, a demonstrative proof of the belief that all metaphysical claims or utterances are neither true nor false; nor is there a demonstrative proof that all such claims or utterances (for example, claims about time or space, or freedom, beauty or love, and so on) possess no literal significance. A mischievous commentator—and there have been a few—might object that since Ayer’s position concerning empiricism, verification and all possible and actual, literally meaningful and truthful claims, is not itself verifiable empirically, and if the test of meaning and truth is empirical verification, then his position also does not possess truth or literal meaningfulness! He does attempt to clarify his position in contrast to atheism and agnosticism. He notes the importance of not conflating this view of religious assertions with atheism or agnosticism: the latter is characterized by the belief that the existence of God is a possibility, but that there are no good grounds to accept or reject such a belief; the former is characterized by the belief that it

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is probable that God does not exist (1946, p. 114). The view of the logical positivist is somewhat distinct, and in Ayer’s view, incompatible with both: “all utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical” (1946, p. 114). If the positivist belief is true, and assertions about such sacred or holy beings are nonsensical, then the claim of the atheist that God does not exist is also nonsensical, since a “significant proposition” is one that can be contradicted significantly (1946, p. 114). Similarly, though the agnostic believes that one cannot claim truly that God does or does not exist, nonetheless they do not reject the question of whether there is a transcendent God exists as a genuine question: they do not deny that “there is a transcendent god” and “there is no transcendent god” “express propositions one of which is actually true and the other false” (1946, p. 114). They argue that we cannot say which proposition is true, and therefore we should not affirm either as true. But the logical positivist, like Ayer, argues that the sentences themselves in fact do not express any propositions, which if true, would mean that the agnostic’s claims are also rejected (1946, p. 114). The agnostic, then, accepts that the sentences “There is a transcendent god” and “There is no transcendent god” do express propositions, and therefore, one is true, and one is false. They believe that we do not have a way (for example, through the hypothetical method) of determining which is which and so we should not commit ourselves to the truth of one or the other. The atheist holds that no God exists or that it is “at least probable that no god exists” (1946, p. 114). Ayer’s (positivist) view is that all such utterances about the nature of such sacred beings are literally nonsensical in the sense of not being literally meaningful and are therefore not compatible with the views of the atheists and agnostics. For if Ayer is correct, and the assertion “there is a god” is “nonsensical” (literally), then the atheist's claim that “there is no god” is just as nonsensical (literally), since, according to Ayer, only significant propositions (that is literally meaningful, verifiable propositions) can be “significantly contradicted,” and therefore, be regarded as true or false (1946, p. 114). He then addresses the belief, which does form an important element in many forms of mysticism, and sacred experience, if not all, in an after-life: it is not uncommon, he argues, to find such beliefs in God in close relation to beliefs in a sacred state such as an after-life. But, in its usual or common form, for example in theistic religions, the content of such beliefs cannot constitute a “genuine hypothesis” (1946, p. 114). The claims that we do not perish, or that death is nothing more than a “state of prolonged insensibility,” do express significant propositions, though the evidence, according to Ayer, falsifies these claims (1946, p. 114). The claim that “there is something imperceptible inside a man,” such as a soul which survives the death of the body is, according to Ayer, a metaphysical claim which has “no more factual content than the assertion that there is a transcendent god” (1946, p. 115).

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It is notable and not insignificant that, once again, Ayer approaches the religious question, or the question of an experience of the sacred, through the language, and conceptual substructures, of empirical science. So, the content of the belief in the possibility or actuality of the afterlife includes an ongoing existence, in some form or sense, after death. It might entail the belief that one never dies, or that being does not end; or it might entail the belief that death is a transient state, an interruption, so to speak, in the endless chain of being. To argue that such beliefs are not hypotheses misses the mark. The mystic who holds these beliefs does not hold them, generally speaking, because they are hypotheses, or because they are the outcomes of thinking in hypothetical terms. They hold this belief perhaps because revelation or insight or their experiences have led them to it. Ayer’s appeal to “all the available evidence” is puzzling and unconvincing: where is all the evidence that goes to “show that it is false”? (1946, p. 115) He certainly does not produce it. He is correct about this, though: the mystic’s beliefs are metaphysical beliefs and he has already argued, rightly or wrongly, that such beliefs cannot be proven true or false. The claim about “factual content” is questionable also: he has not shown that “factual content” is only found in such contexts; he has not shown also that metaphysical utterances and beliefs are entirely devoid of “factual content” (emphasis added; 1946, p. 115). So, he concludes that since such utterances, and the beliefs that drive them, for example, in the case of the theist, or theistic mystic, are not “genuine propositions,” they cannot figure in a “logical relation to the propositions of science” (1946, p. 118). If there is conflict between religion and science, according to Ayer, it is because science removes a motive which turns humans towards religion, since an ultimate “source of religious feeling” is found in our inability to shape our own destiny—Ayer argues that science removes the feeling of awe which religious people feel in relation to another world, by prompting them to believe that they are able to understand and even predict the course of nature, and in a sense even exercise some control over it (1946, p. 118). He wishes to establish the claim that “there cannot be any transcendent truths of religion” since those “truths” are not literally significant (1946, p. 118). The claim that these utterances “cannot stand in any logical relation to the propositions of science” (1946, p. 118) is not so much questionable as potentially wayward or irrelevant, in a very important contextual sense. The mystic and theist who receives a revelation, and say, for the purposes of argument, grasps its message clearly, does not present, generally, propositions about the content which are intended to stand in some logical relation to the “propositions of science” (1946, p. 118). It is conceivable and understandable, if the revelation is authentic and if their understanding is accurate, that they will not be concerned at all about the “propositions of science,” for

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example the “proposition” that there are laws of nature which cannot be violated (1946, p. 118). But this is an objection, to be fair, that Ayer considers carefully in his later work on the subject. Of course, there is also a major question to be asked here about the supposed “propositions of science” (that is, being literally true), especially given the amount of hypothetical and theoretical content in the sciences that has changed significantly since the time of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Heisenberg, among many others (1946, p. 118). This is not to say that there are no such propositions, of course, just that some or many may be subject to ongoing revision—a view that Russell, among many others, defended vigorously. Although Ayer may wish to establish the proposition that “there cannot be any transcendent truths of religion,” he does not propose a hypothetical method that could demonstratively prove, or verify, the proposition; worse, he does not show how it would be even possible, within the framework of hypotheses, theories and verification, to complete such a task (1946, p. 118). Russell made some acute and perceptive comments on Ayer’s Language Truth and Logic in an early review, and quite a few of his criticisms of Ayer’s position on metaphysics, claims concerning God, mysticism, religious knowledge or religious experience, on the one hand, and meaning and verification, on the other hand, deserve to be recalled. On Ayer’s critique of metaphysics (which includes, of course, metaphysical elements of the sacred), Russell is uncompromising: The condemnation of “metaphysics” leads to some very sweeping conclusions. For example, the proposition “God exists” is condemned as meaningless; from this follows not only a rejection of theism, but also of atheism, which maintains the equally meaningless proposition “God does not exist,” and of agnosticism, which asserts “whether God exists is doubtful.” This view is maintained on the double ground that there can be no empirical evidence either for or against the theistic hypothesis, and that the hypothesis is neither logically necessary nor logically impossible. Traditional theology has, of course, denied this: the argument from design gives empirical reasons for the orthodox view, and the ontological argument maintains that “God exists” is an analytic proposition, the denial of which is self-contradictory. But the rigorous methods of modem logic have made both these views somewhat difficult to maintain. Mr. Ayer is thus led to a view which is opposed equally to the assertions of the orthodox and to the doubts or denials of the skeptics (1936, p. 541).

He is correct about “sweeping conclusions,” since the target of Ayer’s critique is metaphysics as a whole and its domain of utterances and claims (1936, p. 541). Russell’s focus on propositions concerning God’s existence is acute: from a rejection of such propositions, a rejection of theism, atheism and agnosticism follows (if such propositions about God are “condemned as

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meaningless”) (1936, p. 541). But it also entails logically a rejection of the sacred, inasmuch as it relies, to the significant degree that it does, on propositions about God’s existence, or more generally, about sacred and divine beings like God. Russell notes that Ayer’s critique rests on two grounds: first, no empirical evidence “either for or against the theistic hypothesis” can be found, or is to be found; second, the “hypothesis” is not “logically necessary nor logically impossible” (1936, p. 541). But Russell is correct on this point: if one removes the language concerning propositions, and claims, about God’s existence from the domain of hypotheses, and looks, for example, towards other traditions like theology (or one might add, metaphysics), one certainly finds empirical claims, empirical “reasons,” and a range of ontological claims and arguments, which provide some logical foundations for such propositions (1936, p. 541). Russell notes with good reason that modern logic raises significant questions about both of Ayer’s positions, since there is evidence (good or bad) in some traditions outside logical positivism (Ayer’s position), and there are some important logical objections, and questions, to be raised about Ayer’s “hypothesis” (1936, p. 541). So, Russell continues: The orthodox and the unorthodox alike will feel a certain reluctance to accept the view that the words “God exists” are a mere meaningless noise, like “Abracadabra.” Whatever may be the logical definition of deity, the word “God” is one which arouses certain emotions, and the question in people's minds is whether there is an object to which these emotions are appropriate. This question is not disposed of by Mr. Ayer’s arguments (1936, p. 541).

He is correct on this point also: there is no compelling reason to accept Ayer’s dismissal of the claim, “God exists,” as “mere meaningless noise,” and Ayer does not give one (1936, p. 541). The word “God” is meaningful in many, if not all, religious traditions, and traditions of the sacred, and as Russell notes cleverly, it is also meaningful in non-religious traditions, which may be metaphysical, broadly speaking, or atheistic or agnostic, and so on. It has certain meanings, in each of these traditions, and also like many meaningful words, “arouses certain emotions,” so the (metaphysical or ontological) question of whether an object exists in relation to which “these emotions are appropriate” remains an important and meaningful question also (1936, p. 541). Ayer’s arguments do not refute such claims conclusively. There is a good reason why they do not, and propositional logic makes this clear: propositions concerning matters of fact, in the context of “this philosophy,” are not totally certain, even when “they come as near as is linguistically possible to the mere assertion of a present sensible occurrence” (1936, p. 541). “Experiential propositions” come closest, and others can be

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verified or established as probable if they have consequences which are “experiential propositions” (1936, p. 541). Russell notes that Ayer claims we can “have faith in our procedure” for as long as it does what it is supposed to do, which is to allow us to make predictions about the future and our experience, but Russell also notes, incisively, that there is a problem here, for we cannot know if the procedure will enable us to make such predictions until it has made those predictions successfully; and if we are to know this in advance about such procedures in general, we will require a principle of induction in the “sense in which, according to the author, no such principle can be known to be true” (1936, p. 542). He notes that Ayer believes that it is “rational” for us to be guided by our past experience, “even though it may mislead us as to the future” (1936, p. 542). Propositions concerning “matters of fact,” are not fully certain, even when they are related very closely to a claim about a “sensible occurrence” now (1936, p. 541). There are “experiential propositions,” and there are others which are “verified” (or established as probable), by generating consequences which can be in the form of “experiential propositions” (1936, p. 541). It will not do to dismiss, as Russell notes, induction as a “fictitious problem on the ground that it cannot be solved,” for Ayer uses induction to attack metaphysics as a whole as well as claims, as a whole, concerning God’s existence which are made by theists, atheists and agnostics, among others (1936, p. 541). Ayer insists that he is (and by inductive means, “we” are) “entitled to have faith in our procedure just so long as it achieves what it is supposed to achieve,” that is, allow us to make predictions about the future and our experience (1936, p. 541). But as Russell points out, incisively, we cannot know (one might add, with certainty) what the relation between the present and the future will be; we “never know” if the chosen procedure will actually predict successfully a range of future experiences unless we have actually observed it doing so accurately, or have some experience, in Ayer’s terms, of it having done so, accurately (1936, p. 542). Russell is right to insist that in the framework of logic, and in the domain of our experience and observations, we cannot know this, for sure, “in advance,” or if we are to know this, for sure, we will require a principle of induction “in the sense in which, according to the author, no such principle can be known to be true” (1936, p. 542). So, Ayer’s critique cannot be convincing or conclusive, and more broadly, cannot be known to be true. There are therefore problems with the reasoning and with the hypothetical approach of Ayer’s, which cannot be ignored or overlooked, according to Russell. Russell argues that there are problems which Ayer is insufficiently aware of such as the question of the evidence for “the existence of persons and things other than ourselves” (1946, p. 542). Ayer believes that it does not

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follow from the existence of one’s private experiences “that no one ever has good reason to believe that another man’s experiences are qualitatively the same as his own” (1946, p. 542)—that we “define the qualitative identity and difference of two people’s sense-experiences in terms of the similarity and dissimilarity of their reactions to empirical tests” (1946, p. 542). Yet Russell notes that when we believe we are observing someone else’s reactions, we may only really be observing our own; and we can define other persons by stipulating a number of our own experiences, but this is not what we mean when we affirm the existence of other persons—yet it is, “however, all that Mr. Ayer’s principles permit” (1936, p. 542). Russell finds another problem also in logical positivism which Ayer affirms. The problem highlights the relationship between a “sensible occurrence” and an “experiential proposition” which, it seems, records an observation (which may be actual or possible) (1936, p. 543). Russell argues that Ayer refuses to analyze and clarify the problem of meaning, and so it is hard to see clearly how he can actually know this to be true, that is, that a sequence of words actually records an observation (1936, p. 543). Russell asks: does Ayer know anything other than the sequence or form of the words? If he does not, how does he then know that the “words describe the occurrence” (1936, p. 543)? And if he does, what sort of non-verbal knowledge does he have? Russell goes further: when an empirical proposition is verified in some way, for example by an actual occurrence, how are the two related, and how is the relation known or knowable? Through the pursuits of such questions, Russell emphasizes that it becomes clear that logical positivism though it may be effective in getting rid of a “mass of ancient nonsense,” it nonetheless has not resolved a number of significant issues (1936, p. 543). He notes that even a “casual” reading of Ayer could produce the impression that philosophy is at an end, and that there are no problems left to be solved, just as he notes that a philosopher ought to be comforted by the thought that this is “perhaps not the case” (1936, p. 543). So, say we have a “sensible occurrence” and an “experiential proposition,” which, according to Ayer, records an observation (which is actual or possible). If the theory of meaning is extended beyond that of Ayer’s, and is still denied by him, it is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp how Ayer can have verifiable knowledge of the claim that words record an observation, and not something else. The question of whether Ayer then can “know anything about the occurrence” other than the proposition that expresses it is an important one (1936, p. 543). If he does not, how then, in Russell’s memorable words, “does he know that the words describe the occurrence” (emphasis added), and not something else? (1936, p. 543). Worse, one might add, how then, “does he know that the words describe the occurrence,” accurately, and

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not something else? (1936, p. 543). It is not surprising that Ayer did not fully answer such objections. In his later work, just before his death, it must be said, Ayer took a slightly more circumspect, a slightly more expansive, approach. He turned his attention once again to “religious hypotheses” and the evaluation of mystical experiences (1990b, p. 4). He argues that the mystic has a unique faculty which allows them to grasp what it is that they talk about, somewhat inadequately, for example, that “everything is one” (1990b, p. 4) (it is not coincidental, perhaps, that Ayer echoes Russell here): he asks, what kind of possible experience would authorize one to draw a distinction between appearances, on the one hand, and a very different reality? One might say “mystic experience,” that is, the mystic has a distinctive faculty which allows them to grasp what it is that he explains to us, albeit in insufficient ways, for example, by claiming that reality is essentially spiritual, or that time and space are illusory, and so on (1990b, p. 5). But, according to Ayer, the key question is not whether mystical experiences are valuable, for many say they are, but rather whether they produce knowledge, and if they do, what can be established on that basis. If what they claim does not make literal sense or is clearly false, then they must be ruled out—there is then a strong case, according to Ayer, for ruling out the claim that they are cognitive (1990b, p. 5). One might claim that the information they produce cannot be communicated clearly to others who cannot receive it, but Ayer does not find this compelling: the argument must end, since there are no intelligible propositions being put forward and, therefore, he concludes, there is “nothing to discuss” (1990b, p. 5). The question concerning the sufficiency of experience, and the requisite epistemic or logical authorization, is an important one in relation to the supposed distinction between appearances “as a whole” and a “quite different reality” (1990b, p. 5). The appeal to mystical experience is, of course, one answer. The mystic has, perhaps, a special faculty which allows them to experience the things that they report, and Ayer adds, somewhat problematically (since he is in no evidently authoritative position to make such a general claim) “no doubt inadequately” (1990b, p. 5). The mystic makes truth claims about the spiritual nature of reality; the unreality of time and space; all things being one; and so on. Ayer is quite right to ask what we are to make of such claims (1990b, p. 5). It does need to be said that not all mystics make these claims, of course, and mysticism in general cannot be reduced to the making of just these claims, as Ayer realizes, but this point aside, Ayer clarifies the problem: the question is not one about the value of mystical experiences since many think they are worth having (1990b, p. 5). The key question is whether they bring knowledge (1990b, p. 5). If they try to establish things which do not make sense, then by positivism’s criterion of meaning, they are false. But it is

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questionable to say the least, that all, or most, claims made by mystics either do not make sense or are literally false. It is very difficult to see how anyone could make that claim demonstratively or verifiably. One might argue that the information which the mystic’s claims yield is not communicable to people who cannot receive it, and Ayer clearly belongs to that group, but his response is an important one: it must bring argument to an end (1990b, p. 5). True, but it does not follow from his point that there can be absolutely no intelligible propositions in front of us, for claims that stem from the mystic’s experience are not necessarily, selfevidently or semantically unintelligible (1990b, p. 5). To his credit, and with characteristic honesty, Ayer foresees quite clearly some of the objections to his own argument: he notes the story by H. G. Wells, “The Country of the Blind,” in which a man finds himself in an isolated village in which all the villagers are blind and also unaware of the possibility of seeing. The visitor expects to rule them but finds that they treat him like a fool because he does not share their sensitivity in terms of their hearing and sense of touch (1990b, p. 5). He attempts to persuade them that he can see, and they cannot, but they do not believe him, so Ayer asks: perhaps the mystic, in relation to us, is like that visitor to that village? (1990b, p. 5). The analogy is useful, to a degree: it captures the challenge of communicating something to others who do not share the same perceptual access to the same conditions of possibility of experience in the world. But the mystic is not in the same position as the man who can see among people who cannot. The mystic stands in a relation where the experience, if it is authentic, is possible for all his fellows. This is not true of the man in the village: it is not possible for the others to see what the man sees. Nor are the mystic’s fellows completely blind necessarily to the things that he has seen or claims to have seen. But Ayer notes another failure in the analogy: the claims of the visitor could to a degree be tested by the villagers, for example, he could be asked to describe the locations, shapes and sizes of things which lie at a distance and the villagers could touch and see if he is telling them the truth (1990b, p. 5). He cannot explain what colors are like, but with some help, he might be able to instruct them (1990b, p. 5). The claims of the man who can see can be tested to a degree, in the way that Ayer sets out (1990b, p. 5). However, none of these tests establishes for them that the experience he reports is veridical, if they rely only on these (limited) tests. He may not be at all interested in devising such tests, if he is surrounded by skeptics, or by inquirers who demand that criteria be applied which are themselves questionable, limited or worse, problematic (1990b, p. 5). It is fair and reasonable to argue, as Ayer does, that it is not clear to him what would need to occur for the claims of the mystic to become testable, but then it is difficult to see how the content of a personal experience which may

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be authentic, and which may be understood accurately, can be subjected to some kind of (general) testing (1990b, p. 5). There is an important distinction to be made, on the one hand, between things which are real and observable, or perceptible, and can be subjected to general tests, and things which are real but are not generally observable or testable, such as the future, time (in the cosmos as a whole), or love, and so on. Ayer is correct though on this point: it is not an appropriate demand to put to the mystic if his claim is not that he has higher knowledge of the world, but rather some kind of vision of a higher reality (1990b, p. 5). Perhaps. Ayer argues that the man who sees accesses another world which he cannot describe to the blind (1990b, p. 6); he might report only that it exists to others who disbelieve him or claim that he is speaking nonsense. But as Ayer notes, significantly, they would be mistaken: he grants that the premise of the argument is acceptable—for example, he thinks it is conceivable that human sight should function in a way that puts all visible things outside of our range, or that these things have the properties that ghosts might have, or that they resemble after-images (1990b, p. 6). We can imagine human beings occupying a largely tactual world that we cannot see when awake, and a world which we can see in our dreams, and if these were all coherent, our understanding of reality would certainly be challenged. But as he argues, we have no need of such “fantasies” for the very same results are achievable by believing that we encounter creatures which are not like us by drawing upon an “extra sense” (1990b, p. 6). That sense brings things into view which are systematic, and coherent, but we cannot correlate them with things that we are able to perceive. So, Ayer asks: if we must believe that such creatures really do have such experiences, are there good reasons to question that they were cognitive? (1990b, p. 6). It is indeed conceivable, at least, that our sight could make it impossible for us to see all things that are visible, or to see them clearly; or that such objects have properties like ghosts; and so on (1990b, p. 6). But as Ayer notes, there is no need for such fancies or fantasies. We can suppose instead that there are beings, among us, who differ significantly, for example, in terms of having an extra sense (which would, of course, need careful consideration, investigation and clarification). This general position is not an unreasonable one, as Ayer now realizes. If we can reasonably believe that these beings really did have such experiences, perhaps we should not doubt that they may in fact be genuinely cognitive experiences (1990b, p. 6). But much depends, as Ayer notes, on just how these experiences are described, for example, as subjective states or as experiences of objects which cannot normally be perceived but are nonetheless in space and time. We might, he grants, permit the claim that they are cognitive experiences (1990b, p. 6). He notes an analogy with records of apparitions found in the Annals of the Society for Psychical Research, and notes, also, that in many

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cases, there is little or no doubt concerning the occurrence of these experiences. But he argues that they would generally be regarded as hallucinations, in part because that hypothesis best suits our general picture of things, and in part because the appearances are not reported to be repeated and observable or perceivable (1990b, p. 7). If the evidence suggested that they were repeated and detectable in more or less the same places by the people who have special access to them, we might actually be more willing to accept their reality (1990b, p. 7). It does not follow that we could not be told anything significant about them, of course, once the criterion of the meaning of propositions is extended to include those things which cannot be observed or verified, or which are unobservable (like time in the universe as a whole) (1990b, p. 6). We could make inquiries into the question of whether they are understood as subjective, or as uncovering what we consider to be unknown “properties of objects which we were otherwise able to identify”; we could inquire into the question of whether they involve experiences of spatio-temporal objects which are not otherwise perceivable, and so we might even permit that they constitute cognitive experiences (1990b, p. 6). It is problematic to suggest a necessary or sufficient connection, as Ayer seems to do, between seeing apparitions and having hallucinations, because such a hypothesis fits most closely with the general picture of the world that we have, or because the apparitions are not reported as being perceivable regularly, even to persons who claim to have the ability to perceive them (1990b, p. 7). It is not possible to verify this connection, from the available observations and evidence. The criterion that Ayer favors is a questionable one: he argues that there needs to be evidence that these appearances or manifestations are “constantly detectable at roughly the same places” by persons who have special powers, so that we might reasonably accept their reality (1990b, p. 7). But he does not appear to understand either the nature of these appearances or the claims that are made about them. In principle, it is clear that one, and only one, actual appearance or manifestation is enough to establish the reality of their occurrence. There are many things that we see once, and once only, or that we can see once only, but that is not a conclusive empirical basis, necessarily, for a dismissal of their reality. Indeed, by Ayer’s criterion we would have to dismiss many phenomena which are seen by some but not all, or by one and not others, which do not recur in constant and detectable ways in more or less the same places—they may be quite real, conceivably. This point is strengthened further when one considers something that Ayer does not consider at this stage of the argument: that our general picture of the world which he believes we ought to appeal to authoritatively and decisively in this context, is, even at the best of

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times, subject to debate, controversy, even radical disagreement, and revision (as Russell, among many others, argues convincingly [1990b, p. 7]). So, the fact that one observer, or others, do not see the appearance, or fail to see it, constantly and detectably in more or less the same places, is no evidence necessarily for the non-existence of it, or for its unreality; it may be that the spatial location is not important, or that the recurrence is not necessary (for example, because the recipient is not an idiot), and so on—all of this stands to reason, if one grants the possibility that there are appearances, or apparitions, and if one grants the possibility that some of these may be real. Ayer then identifies the central issue: whether one has in fact underestimated the diversity of things that can be found in the universe. If one had an extra sense or some unique power of seeing, one could in fact see objects that do exist, or their characteristics, which would be otherwise elusive. But he argues that it would not follow that our previous notions of the world “had been anything worse than incomplete” (1990b, p. 7). It would not follow that we were wrong in identifying reality with those things which we had observed, or even that those things are less real than the objects or phenomena that we are now being asked to include. Ayer thinks it obvious that propositions concerning the spiritual nature of reality, the illusory nature of time and space, and so on, cannot be established by our experience (1990b, p. 7). In order to satisfy that kind of test, we would need nothing less than a sufficient criterion of reality; we would need also to demonstrate by argument that objects or things which are generally regarded as real fail to satisfy the criterion (1990b, p. 7). It is clear to Ayer that the key issue is the question of whether we have significantly underestimated or underdetermined the variety of things that can be found in the universe. In other words, the key question concerns the sufficiency of our assumed, or presupposed, ontology. If we had some extraordinary sense or some unique power of vision, say, we might have a fuller ontology, a richer or more detailed view of the things, their properties, their relations, in the world (1990b, p. 7). Ayer grants this much though he does believe that it would not follow that prior conceptions of the world would be anything other than incomplete. But he is clearly mistaken on this matter: for example, if we could somehow observe clearly and accurately particles and waves, and the dynamic relationship between them in all of its complexity, and if this situation yielded very different knowledge of those things (as it might conceivably do in the future, to some extent, of course), it would not be surprising if we came to the conclusion that our previous descriptions of particles and waves in the world were not only incomplete, but erroneous and misguided. It would then follow, quite conceivably, that we had in fact been mistaken in attributing certain properties to them, or to their relations, or, more broadly,

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in terms of the theories that had guided us in our inquiries into their nature, relations, properties and behavior, and so on. It must be said though that it is clear, to his credit—and this was a characteristic of his thought especially in his last works—that he has taken the responses of critics into consideration. He grants that one may object and argue that it is not fair to evaluate religious hypotheses in scientific terms (1990b, p. 220). The reason we might have for adopting a scientific picture of the universe is that it explains the primary facts of observation in a convincing manner. Yet he grants that we ought to allow for other conceivable ways of accounting for the facts. So rather than trying to give a religious “flavor” to a system of science, perhaps, he asks, we ought to consider such things as hypotheses concerning the existence of sacred beings as the foundation of an alternative system which does apply “directly” to the “primary facts” (1990b, p. 220). One sees a less extreme reading here of the scientific picture of the world: he does take the question of the fairness of his earlier criticisms on board; he explains that the reason for accepting this picture, above all others, is that it gives an account which is not literally true, necessarily, but which is found to be satisfactory (suggesting that others may not) (1990b, p. 220). He allows that other ways of explaining these facts may be possible. He does not find the alternatives convincing, it has to be said, but then this is hardly surprising in the case of someone who wishes to insist, against most if not all available contexts, that what the mystic is reporting is a hypothesis, and nothing else; the risk here, as suggested earlier, is not so much that the task of investigation will be complex and perhaps impossible, but that a fundamental misunderstanding will occur about the nature of the utterances, the nature of their content, their true meaning and the correct interpretation of their representation. Ayer grants that one might arrive at “physical objects as abstractions out of percepts,” and that when we develop such a physical system, we may be able to include physical things which we cannot observe (1990b, p. 221), so long as they figure in theories which do feature explanatory content. What is interesting here, and telling, is the mention of physical “entities,” and, one might add, only these kinds of entities. He was thinking of Berkeley’s critique of Locke’s account of the causal account of perception (1990b, p. 221), but it remains unclear why only these kinds of entities should be relevant, since the scientific picture, and the causal theory of perception, certainly allow for other kinds of entities, in ontological or purely hypothetical or theoretical contexts. He grants that it is a mistake to see percepts, even in cases of mysticism, as entirely private things, and argues that there is no reason to believe that they must be caused by something spiritual (1990b, p. 221). Now a mystic’s percepts may not establish scientifically that the cause is spiritual, that much

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is defensible, especially given the contexts, the particular situations, the consciousness of the subject and its states on internal receptiveness, interpretation and representation, and so on and so forth, but that does not mean, necessarily, that those percepts are false or illusory. Ayer argues carefully here; he grants, sensibly, that the question of causation may be a complex one, as indeed it is. Nevertheless, he argues also that it is important to be clear about the nature of the causation, and the nature of those ideas which one wishes to attribute to God (1990b, p. 221). So, if a mystic claims that God caused the revelation, Ayer would want to know, for example, if God maintains things in being through tactual sensations of all of them at the same time (1990b, p. 221). Or, if God has visual ideas, from what perspective does God obtain them? (1990b, p. 221). These are difficult questions, to be sure, but the difficulties posed do not mean necessarily that they are not worth exploring and pursuing or that they are meaningless. Ayer believes that the best course would probably lie in understanding God as a being who thinks in an ongoing way of perceptible objects as things that have certain properties and are related in certain ways, and so on. This kind of theory, he argues, if we grant its intelligibility, nonetheless cannot be directly tested, for one cannot design an experiment which would allow us to choose between it and a positivist or materialistic theory. We would accept it only if it produces a satisfactory arrangement of the facts (1990b, p. 221). But he argues that it seems that it does not do so and does not produce a hypothesis that can be tested, or observations that would allow us to confirm or refute it (1990b, p. 222). Note however that the best course which he outlines is somewhat vague. It raises even more questions: what sorts of properties, and in what sorts of relations? What sorts of sensations—and why sensations? Of course, the mystic’s experience of revelation may include relations and sensations, conceivably, but much else besides this. Ayer grants that though such a theory may be intelligible, it cannot be directly tested, that is, within an experimental, positivist framework. Nonetheless, and this is not insignificant, Ayer asks if it may produce a satisfactory arrangement of those facts derived from experience (1990b, p. 221); once again, however, the diverse contexts and their complexities must be borne in mind—it would not be uncommon, for example, to find a mystic’s revelation being used for entirely different purposes or in order to produce arrangements of a different kind. An experience may of course produce a “fruitful” arrangement of the facts of the mystic’s or the theist’s view, regardless of what happens in relation to the satisfactory arrangement of those facts derived from our experience (1990b, p. 221). The reason that the theory regarding, for example, mysticism, God, revelation, causation and percepts, does not yield such an arrangement of the facts, in a strictly scientific sense, is that it does not actually constitute a hypothesis; nor does it belong necessarily, in any way, within the context of

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hypothetical and theoretical experimentation and investigation. If it is a genuine revelation, that brings, for example, sudden insight, or wisdom, as Russell argued, if it is a genuine and singular experience of the sacred, then it cannot be replicated and observed (under controlled conditions); if it cannot be replicated and observed in this way, then it cannot be made subject to the demands of hypothetico-theoretical experimentation and investigation, especially within the parameters of logical positivism. Ayer’s emphasis on hypothetical modes and means is consistent, but he develops further a more expansive argument in this late work. He insists that it should be science’s role to arrange phenomena which support our conception of the things of the world (1990b, p. 222). It is the material world, to be sure, that science helps us to understand profoundly. But we have other conceptions, too, not just a conception of the material world; we also have different, and in the light of quantum theory, equally defensible, conceptions of aspects of the material world, particularly at the subatomic level. Ayer does not deny this. But he does not believe that our lives are entirely dependent on senseperception or associated reasoning, since there are moral sentiments also, and he grants that some people have religious experiences, too (1990b, p. 222). Indeed. This much seems defensible and valid. He grants that there are some who claim that they have attained a direct awareness of a sacred being—and to explain this range of facts one may find it necessary to adopt a hypothesis of a religious kind (1990b, p. 222). He reminds us that there are philosophical objections to arguments from religious experience, which he himself had explored, among many others, especially the problem of determining if and in what manner such an experience is cognitive (1990b, p. 222). He concludes, interestingly, and not insignificantly at this stage, that he would not wish to argue that it is “impossible for it to be so”—for if experiences such as these were widespread, and if those who had these experiences concurred in terms of the accounts they provide, Ayer sees no conclusive reason why they should not be regarded as having genuine objects (1990b, p. 222). If one can conceive of mental states which do not attach to a body in the usual way then, he argues, that object could be represented as a person. Allowing this much, he argues, would mean that we are taking a more liberal view in ontological terms, that is, of the objects that are found in the world. He argues that such experiences would not necessarily show, of course, that there are things outside the world, in some sense, or that the world was created by God, for such propositions would need to be established “independently” and it is hard to see how this could be done or achieved (1990b, p. 223). It is true that if experiences of this kind were found in many places, and if those who had had these experiences gave very similar accounts of them, then there would be no compelling reason not to credit them with an object.

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He argues that we should still be able to give an account of such experiences in terms of the physiological and psychological states of people who go through them, without necessarily attributing to them an object, but this would be an unreasonable course of action if the criteria of objectivity accepted by us are considerably satisfied (1990b, p. 223). But there are complications here, too: it is crucial to set out clearly and demonstratively, in Ayer’s own terms, just what the relation is between experiences, their objects, their representation, and persons, especially in terms of their physiological and psychological states, as a preliminary task (1990b, p. 223). Accepted standards of objectivity are not necessarily true criteria of objectivity; this much needs to be resolved at the outset (1990b, p. 222). Nonetheless, Ayer concludes that the reply to the claim that to have a kind of experience is to become aware of a divine being, is that at best that experience, or its object, if it can be thought to have one, is “endowed with a numinous quality” (1990b, pp. 222–223), a quality, not surprisingly, that many thinkers attribute to the sacred, and to the experience of the sacred.

Chapter Five

Two Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives on the Sacred Cottingham and Scruton

One of the most notable though somewhat underrated contributors to recent philosophical reflection on the sacred in the twenty-first century is John Cottingham. He has written about the sacred over a sustained period and his arguments deserve careful attention (see, for example, 2017, 2015, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2005, 2003, 1998, and Athanassoulis and Vice, 2008). He argues that the “ethical” is the “authentic core of traditional theism” (2017, p. 42). That is, presumably, that categories, concepts, ideas and arguments derived from ethics, as an authentic philosophical discipline, and ethical systems such as natural law, form part of the “authentic core” of religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If this is correct, it raises an important question: whether we really need to add the religious flesh on top of the ethical kernel? Some might argue that “the ethical” ought to “stand alone,” apart from the “religious flesh.” Some might propose an interpretation of the “proclamation of Jesus to love one’s neighbor as oneself in strictly human terms (2017, p. 42). They might ask: “What, if anything, makes it a more convincing interpretation to add the language of theism to this—to speak of the proclamation, as being himself the ‘icon of the invisible God’, as Paul puts it” (Colossians 1.15) (2017, p. 42)? Cottingham’s answer is that “the ethical demand” is no mere “rational moral injunction” (2017, p. 42). Jesus’s “central affirmation” that “self-giving love, despite all that the world can show, is the key to meaning and fulfilment in our lives, and that in the demand for us to strive to imitate 89

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Christ in this respect, we glimpse a reality that gives us grace to transcend ourselves—to become what we are not yet, but which at the deepest level we somehow grasp as our true goal and destiny” (2017, p. 43). In this context, he draws on what he calls Roger Scruton’s “brilliant project of seeking to recover the sacred dimension in our world” (2017, p. 43). However, if Scruton’s project is to be “properly articulated in terms of religious tradition that . . . is the lifeblood of our Western culture,” then something else is needed, namely the “uncompromising Christian corollary”: the “primary locus of our understanding of the sacred” cannot be Wordsworth’s “spots of time” or Wagner’s “fallings away,” though Cottingham recognizes their importance as “intimations of the sacred,” but rather the “encounter with our fellow creature in need, in whose ravaged face we are commanded to see the true face of the divine” (2017, p. 43). Now, this kind of analysis raises a number of significant questions in relation to the sacred. First, even if one grants that the “ethical” is important, even integral, in the understanding of the sacred in relation to the teachings and work of Jesus, it is doubtful that this importance could be amplified and elevated to a degree which privileges it above, or divorces or distances it from, the historical, ontological and existential dimensions of Jesus’s life, being and the parousia. It is difficult to see how “the ethical,” which is secondary, at best, in the overall order of things—Jesus’s being is presupposed ontologically by the very existence of his teachings, in so far as they are his teachings, with their putatively ethical core, which we will grant for the purposes of argument here—can be the sole “authentic core” of “traditional theism,” for the latter manifests consistently a range of ontological commitments, including a commitment not just to values, ideas, reason and arguments in an ethical sense, but to being, and beings (2017, p. 43). The ethical content does not arise from a vacuum; in an important sense, to deny the existence of the being is to deny also, or at least to cast doubt upon, the existence of the ethical teachings attributed to that being. There is a sort of contagion here produced by skepticism that spreads from the existential and ontological domains to the ethical domain and further, flows through the range of ontological and religious commitments in Christianity which constitute part of the ground that makes an “ethical” core possible, and its full meaning and significance possible. Second, it is difficult to see how “the ethical” can “stand alone,” apart from the “religious flesh” (2017, p. 43). Much depends on one’s understanding of the origin, nature and meaning of this ethical core. If it is the product of “religious flesh” and mind, then it cannot be torn apart, severed, so to speak, or abstracted without some violence being done to its origin, context, the conditions of its emergence and its full and true interpretation, meaningfulness, significance and force (2017, p. 43).

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Third, it is doubtful that a “central affirmation,” and little or nothing more, can provide “the key to meaning and fulfilment in our lives” (2017, p. 43). The question of “meaning and fulfilment in our lives” is a highly complex question (2017, p. 43). “Self-giving love” may be part of the answer, of course, but much depends on what sort of love that is (2017, p. 43). The phrase is ambiguous: is it self-giving in a purely voluntary sense or in some other sense? Is it love in an agapeic sense, in a philial sense, or in some other sense, or some combination of these? To whom is it given? Who is to receive it? And how? Are affirmations sufficient? (Once again, it is important to remember the range of ontological, existential and religious commitments that bind being, beings, “the ethical,” the existential and the salvific together here: so, another question arises, namely, “self-giving love” in relation to which ontological commitments?) (2017, p. 43). Cottingham also argues that theistic belief does turn to a significant degree on ethical concepts like “trust.” It is worthwhile to look briefly at this argument. He argues that the starry heavens above were for Immanuel Kant a principal source of what he called “awe” (Achtung). A sense of wonder at the grandeur of the universe, the splendour and vastness of the night sky, is something that figures in many ancient religious writings, of which perhaps the best known is the psalm Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei, ‘The heavens declare the glory of the Lord’. Some atheists have protested sharply at the theist trying to appropriate wonder and awe as part of the religious outlook, but it turns out, as we found in the case of humility and of hope, that it is not particularly easy to construct purely secular analogues of these reactive attitudes. Of course, it would be foolish to deny that committed atheists can enjoy a rich and complex aesthetic appreciation of the natural world; one does not need to check someone's religious allegiance, or lack of it, to decide whether they can be having a powerful experience when they look at the sunset over the ocean and say “Wow!” But awe implies something rather more than this (2006, p. 412).

Scruton argues that awe is linked to humility, in the context of the vastness of the cosmos and our sense of our own relatively “tiny” presence (2006, p. 412). But it is not analogous to fear; it suggests a sense of the grandeur and splendor of the cosmos and of life; a perception of cosmic glory which goes beyond merely aesthetic categories and responses. That is, religious awe, or awe felt in the presence of the sacred, or in the experience of the sacred, for example, takes us beyond a sense of mere beauty or splendor, into the realm that is ontological, metaphysical, ethical and spiritual, of “complete submission of the whole mind” to something that transcends our relative smallness, our imperfections—something which awakens in us both humility and joy, and whose “glory” we both fear and admire, even adore, and which we see as “fearfully and wholly good” (2006, p. 414).

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The language here is loaded to be sure, elevated and sweeping. Yet it is defensible to some extent in relation to the sacred. One need only think of the writings of the mystics in various theistic traditions, for example, and the ways in which their experiences, testimony and recollections attest to a power and a majesty that is transcendent and overwhelming and which carries them beyond fear, beauty and/or splendor to a level of submission, humility, joy and/or love. It is doubtful, of course, that this kind of extraordinary transformation can be attributed to sacred experiences in general, or to sacred journeys and encounters in general, but it is difficult to deny its place as a significant part of the picture of the sacred, and of the human response to the manifestation, the unfolding or the tremendous range of expressions of the sacred through the ages. Cottingham also asks an important question about the epistemic bases of such things: “what kind of epistemic warrant, then is left for the theist?” (2006, p. 418) He answers that “intimations of the divine presence” might be available, not universally, or in the detached context of dispassionate scientific scrutiny, but only to those in an appropriate state of trust and receptivity (2006, p. 419). He notes that it is important to remember that there are “many truths, quite outside the context of religion, which are subject to such accessibility conditions” such as truths concerning “the trustworthiness and loving responsiveness of a spouse or partner” which cannot be “disclosed” or “accessed” from “a position of cold skeptical assessment” but which require a “process of trust and commitment” (2006, p. 419). If he is correct, and there is good reason to suppose that he is in this context, a common objection, namely that “theistic praxis [that] presupposes belief in God turns out to be radically misleading,” can be overcome (2006, p. 419). He adds: It invites us to suppose that preparedness to assent to a metaphysical proposition about the existence of this divine supernatural entity is a prerequisite for embarking on the path of spiritual praxis. Yet it may turn out instead that intimations of the divine are available only to those who are prepared and trained, through such praxis, to approach God in humility and awe, to risk the vulnerability of trust and hope where there is no ‘external’ epistemic warrant or prior demonstrative certification, to express that thankfulness and praise for the gift of life which would be out of place were there no one and nothing to thank, to live one’s life in the faith that such thankfulness does find a response, and is returned in joy and blessing. Only then may it be possible to glimpse those fleeting intimations of the divine, which must otherwise remain hidden. And even should they appear, there will be good reason to expect that, for most people, they will never have the character of irresistible certitude; for just as a loving parent will forebear to occupy all the space of a young child’s helpless dependence and devotion, so that infinitely greater being, whom “no man could see and live” could not in love overwhelm his creatures but must

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remain glimpsed “darkly” or “mysteriously,” “as through a mirror” (2006, p. 419).

Certainly, there is evidence that things like preparedness and training matter in relation to encounters with, or experiences of, the sacred in many traditions (mountain traversing in Shugendo, mindfulness in Zen Buddhism, monastic traditions in Christianity and so on), trust and hope, as well as thankfulness and joy. The intimations of the divine, however, do not, of course, have to be fleeting, as many sacred traditions attest; they can be pursued and attained over a sustained period of time, and even over a lifetime (one need only consider traditions which highlight the attainment of the status, and the being of a “living Buddha,” a divine prophet or a sacred messiah, in this kind of context). Of course, it is also not necessarily the case, as Cottingham recognizes, that the “greater being” must “remain glimpsed ‘darkly’ or ‘mysteriously’, ‘as through a mirror’” (2006, p. 419). Cottingham is right to argue that “warranted assent to a metaphysical truth about the divine existence thus cannot be a precondition for theistic hermeneusis and praxis” (2006, p. 420), since to extend his analogy further, faith, trust, hope and love can be entirely meaningful and honest between lesser beings in the absence of “irresistible certitude,” or in an environment of incertitude (2006, p. 420). He reminds us that some things which are ontologically real can bring us to the very “edge of human comprehensibility, like the immense mountain which, as Descartes put it, we can never mentally grasp, or put our arms around, though we may still somehow reach out and touch it” (2006, p. 420). The “theist’s position,” then, is “less like that of one who has items of doxastic baggage carefully secured and stowed prior to the voyage, than of one who embarks on a journey of hope” (2006, p. 420). This voyage presupposes that such good things exist, and these raise the question of how we are to “embark” (2006, p. 420). He responds: “Solvitur ambulando: as children do,” that is, learn how to walk by actually taking the steps, not by looking for “irresistible certitudes” (2006, p. 420). It ought to be noted that children do not always learn how to walk in a state of complete or encompassing incertitude, of course. But we “grow in knowledge and love of God by trusting God” (2006, p. 420). Certainly, there is a case to be made for the connection between trust, belief and some knowledge or understanding, though Cottingham does not make it here, and it will have to wait for another occasion to be made more fully. Nonetheless, this is what theism is, in a crucial sense, as far as Cottingham is concerned: “for there is no other way” (2006, p. 420). He invokes Pascal here: “the costs of the voyage are not so formidable that we risk great loss in embarking” (2006, p. 420).

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There is an element of truth in Pascal’s assertion, of course, though it must be said that a voyage that is undertaken purely because of a consideration of the costs, of losses and gains, is hardly going to help us explain the full power, force and attraction of the sacred in many, if not all, of the world’s religious and other traditions. The claim that there is no other way, also needs careful justification for it cannot be deduced from Cottingham’s argument, or for that matter, from Pascal’s. In another recent work, Cottingham reflects on “transcendent urges” which cannot be dismissed “as idle curiosity, or as pointless aberrations, like the urge to scratch an itch” (2015, p. 27). These “urges” have, according to Cottingham, “always been considered to be signs of what is noblest in humanity, the unconquerable sprit that the ancient Greeks lauded in Prometheus, who aspired to reach the domain of the Gods”; they, as “impulses,” reveal our “true humanity” and highlight the fact that such things are “not merely concerned with intellectual inquiry” (2015, p. 27). This is a fair point: an initiate circumambulating a sacred mountain, a sacred journey to a distant and challenging place, a lifetime’s meditation on the meaning of a sutra, or the Torah or some revelatory text, of course, do not necessarily amount to, or even point to, a merely intellectual inquiry or even to such an inquiry at all. Urges, impulses and other such phenomena are no doubt important, and a number of the word’s sacred traditions will reveal this claim to be true. It is doubtful that they can constitute a sufficient foundation for an explanation of the sacred, but it is difficult to dismiss them, certainly, from a full picture of what constitutes the sacred in experience. Cottingham recognizes the ethical dimension again, characteristically: this reaching forward is related to deep emotions and imaginations, moral longing, self-improvement, a deeper consciousness of love and compassion, and also the active longing for beauty and the beautiful that resonate within us and “give expressions to our longings,” for example, to attain a kind of self-actualization that carries us beyond our finitude and our fallible natures towards some value and meaning that transcends mere materiality, mere biological and cultural preferences, and represents a richer, more awe-inspiring existence (2015, p. 27). It is a matter of honesty and integrity, according to Cottingham, that we acknowledge such things and incorporate them into our overall picture of the universe (2015, p. 27). The image is a thought-provoking one: religious believers reach out, so to speak; they do not merely receive urges, impulses, and so on, which drive them forward, in the presence, in a sense, of the sacred (2015, p. 27). The yearning is moral, and ethical, not just religious or mystical or loving, in the sense that it conceivably leads to some kind of self-improvement, or selffulfillment, for example. And he insists that there is an aesthetic dimension that reminds us of the place and meaning of beauty and the sublime, for example. So urges, impulses, and so on, are signs of the believer’s determi-

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nation to pass through and over things like weakness and finitude towards desired possibilities or towards a greater value and meaning that are not reducible to the world of material or physical things alone, and cannot be derived exclusively from biological and cultural orientations, and towards being which is more attuned to the sublime. An honest and more complete account of the sacred demands an acknowledgment of this much, according to Cottingham, and an inclusion of such recognition not just in our representations of the world, and beings, but in a more complete account of the place and meaning of the sacred and the holy in relation to human beings, a vast and complex but, in many respects, intelligible and explicable ontological and existential domain. Cottingham goes further: notwithstanding “imperfections” and “all the future questions they raise, the traditional frameworks of the great theistic religions” generally speaking, “strive to find room for the transcendent,” that always present dimension of our lives that fills us with wonder and yearning, and which “we cannot deny while remaining true to our nature” (2015, p. 28). We cannot “close the windows” he argues (2015, p. 28), or blind ourselves to the view, so to speak. Indeed, one might argue that these windows have been open for so long and in so many traditions of the sacred and the holy, and the vistas have inspired such devotion, love, longing, awe and wonder, and been accorded such rank, value and meaningfulness, in so many places and at so many times, that it would be impossible, not just epistemically objectionable, to try and close them in any account of the sacred or the holy that claims to be honest, fair, deliberative, unprejudiced, rigorous, and/ or indeed, authentic. If one links the “spiritual dimension of experience” to the “dimension of the ‘sacred’” as Cottingham wishes to do, one does not need religious belief, just a kind of “special sensitivity to the purely natural world we live in” (2015, p. 31), that is, presumably, understood in the broadest ontological, physical and metaphysical sense. Cottingham argues that one cannot deny that numinous experiences, for example, “experiences of awe and wonder at the beauty of nature and great art, can come to everyone”—things that are our “birthright,” and though these are not frequent or common, remain universal, in the sense that they are “available in principle to everyone” (2015, p. 32). The interesting thing for Cottingham, though, is not whether or not one is a religious believer, since such experiences have been attested to by those who are not, but rather whether these kinds of experiences can be “properly accommodated,” or meaningful, in the framework of a “purely secular worldview” (2015, p. 32). He notes that the argument that such experiences are “transcendent,” “numinous” or “sacred” “will be simply a facon de parler” in the eyes of uncompromising materialists and atheists, lacking “any ontological basis, or, in other words, which does not point to any ultimate objective reality” (2015,

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p. 32). They will insist, he argues, that the natural world which is open to scientific investigation is, in ontological terms, “all that there really is; though there may be heightened or altered states of consciousness . . . understood as purely subjective states of various brain changes, arising as byproducts of evolved psychological processes originally generated by the needs of survival in the ordinary natural world” (2015, p. 32). They will regard the notion of anything more in ontological terms, that may surmount the material world as an illusion or delusion, a way of imposing one’s subjectivity onto the natural world, or as Hume argued, a symptom of the mind’s “great propensity to spread itself on external objects” (Cottingham quotes Hume’s Treatise, Bk II, Pt iii, section xiv; 2015, p. 32). Of course, things are not so straightforward. In the first place, it is important to recall that “transcendent” experience and “sacred” experience do not always amount to the same thing. The immanence of some sacred experiences, and the experience of some sacred phenomena, need to be recalled, for example, in relation to non-theistic faiths, or types of nature worship (such as one finds in Shogendo or animism, among others) also. Of course, not all experiences of the sacred are numinous experiences either; they can conceivably at least be heightened experiences in the presence of extraordinary or rich and inspiring phenomena—this point becomes particularly important and meaningful when non-theistic (and in that sense, non-transcendent realms, being, beings, objects, spaces and places of experience, revelation, awareness and consciousness) contexts are attended to, and examined, carefully. Moreover, the uncompromising materialist-atheist can hardly appeal with “irresistible certitude” to an objectively given reality in the natural world with a demonstrative or empirically justifiable basis and status, especially given the controversies that one finds over the standard model in modern physics and given the nature and limits of induction and its widespread use in the modern sciences (2015, p. 32). There is hardly sufficient scope in an account based exclusively on physicalist or materialist hypothetical or theoretical entities, to justify a dismissal of accounts or ontologies which include entities and things that are not explicable, or not entirely explicable, in physicalist or materialist terms alone. Crucially then, the proposition, supposedly empirical in nature, that the world of nature which is open to scientific investigation and explanation is, in ontological terms, “all that there really is” does not just seem rash, incomplete and worse, unjustifiable, as it stands, it is not proven or verified by any branch of modern theoretical or empirical science (2015, p. 32). The point can be pushed further: it is doubtful, it has to be said, that such a proposition concerning the totality, or completeness, of the scientific picture, so to speak, with its physicalist and/or materialist presuppositions,

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structure and content, will ever have the status of sufficient and justified, or verified, truth, in the light of modern theoretical or empirical science. Cottingham is correct to note that the “underlying worldview” in this respect has exercised a tight grip over many philosophers over the last three hundred years, or so (2015, p. 32). According to this picture, the “real world ‘out there’” is the one that is accessible to natural science: the world of energy and mass, particles and relations, atoms and molecules, in short, everything that can be represented in mathematical or physical terms, or is comprised of parts which can be represented in that way (2015, p. 33). He does not note, and this is unfortunate, the debates and controversies which continue to divide the reception of such pictures of things, for example, in relation to the correct understanding of quantum theory, and events, or the nature of dark energy or the very possibility of a grand unifying theory. In other words, he does not note the complexities in the debate, which, whatever one thinks of them, have important implications in terms of the incompleteness of the physicalist-materialist account or picture of things. He notes, with some justification, that our understanding of value and meaning in relation to this physicalist picture has an “altogether more shadowy and more secondary kind of existence: it is a kind of temporary effluent or by-product of our human brains” (2015, p. 33). Of course, values and meaning are not, generally, physical or material things (to think otherwise is to commit a category mistake: they can be given to physical or material things, they can be found in such things, but they are not generally, or they are not ontologically identical to physical or material things.) If they exist then, or better, if they are real, in the sense that they can be truly experienced, or felt, or conceptualized, or lived through as phenomena, and as parts of authentic human being, and so on, then a full ontological picture cannot dismiss or exclude them and still be considered complete or exhaustive, sufficient or demonstrative. In this sense, Cottingham’s analysis, notwithstanding its limitations, is to be applauded; it can certainly be reinforced and strengthened in its broad aims, arguments, questions, reflections and trajectories. Scruton’s interest in the sacred and modern thought and culture is striking to say the least (see 2016a and 2016b, 2014, 2013, 2004, 2002, 1994, 1998, 1974, for example); his analysis of the sacred turns on the concept of selfconscious agents and their surroundings (2014, p. 175), or in other words, intentional, self-conscious human beings and their experience of the sacred. He tries to show that the “overreaching intentionality of interpersonal responses presents us with meanings” which surpass the realm of natural science and writes of the order of the covenant which flows from the natural order as the “movement of tones” emerges from a sequence of musical sounds (2014, p. 175).

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This point is well made: this intentionality in the domain of personal and interpersonal responses which are remarkably and even deeply human, can serve to highlight meanings (and meaningfulness) which do seem to transcend the domains of the natural sciences, in the sense of bringing into view things like consciousness, self-consciousness, freedom of the will, intentionality, interpersonal relations and modes of understanding, insight and reflection, and so on and so forth (2014, p. 175). The order of nature is an integral part of the ontology of the modern sciences, of course, and is presupposed by the pursuit of hypothetical research, theoretical explanation, intelligibility and knowledge (2014, p. 175). Self-conscious subjects can grasp the order of the covenant, perhaps, as Scruton suggests, but if he is correct, then the ontology is more expansive and grand (though it must be said that it is doubtful that perceivability will furnish a sufficient foundation for truth claims about its existence or about its ontological nature and status) (2014, p. 175). His intention is to raise two fundamental ideas: that the “I-You intentionality” is projected beyond the boundary of nature, and that it thereby reveals a religious need (2014, p. 175) (and therefore, also uncovers the need for the sacred). The first thought, he argues, is confirmed in music, since musical culture allows and requires us to respond to a kind of subjectivity that transcends objects, in a “space of its own” (2014, p. 175). We are addressed by music as we are addressed by others, he argues (2014, pp. 175–176). Music in this sense can do so in a way that highlights things that are metaphysical, for example, and so, outside the boundaries of nature, things such as timeless love and transcendent concerns (especially in the music of Wagner which Scruton admires) such as piety, faith, expiation and redemption (2014, p. 175). His association of piety with the sacred is thoughtprovoking, for it opens up the question of obligations, duties and ideals which pious subjects make voluntarily, deliberatively and self-consciously, and bind them to, and at the same time speak of, a timeless and transcendent order (2014, p. 176). The question of whether or not such relations and encounters with the sacred are veridical is considered carefully by Scruton, as is the question of whether or not the sacred “comes to us” from God (2014, p. 176). His answer is that art, understood broadly, and our recorded history show religious need, and a search for the being who “might answer it” (2014, p. 176). This is an interesting and significant answer. Art, at its best, answers a need within us, which perhaps explains in part its persistence, enduring value and meaning. It is debatable that art in general, and literature in general, tell the “story” of a “religious need” on our part as human beings and selfconscious subjects, but it can hardly be doubted that much art and literature do express a religious need and related concerns (such as faith, love, hope, forgiveness and redemption) and do clearly articulate the sense of a profound

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quest for an expanded ontology in which the answer to this need might be found (2014, p. 176). There is certainly evidence, quite a lot of it physical, material or perceivable, to support that kind of understanding of art. But there is also the question of the origin of that kind of need, as Scruton recognizes. The existence of neighbors, and love, love between neighbors and relations which express obligations, choices, commitments, and deals— the fabric of covenants—are important and integral parts of this ontological and metaphysical order (2014, p. 176). The “threads” are secure and the whole provides, quite conceivably, sufficient comfort (2014, p. 176). Now, he argues that the atheist could concede that we can understand it as an adaptation that prompts us to seek out a helper, even when there are no such beings around. Nonetheless, we are given to acts of self-sacrifice, which are themselves not productive since “the reward is recruited by our genes” (2014, p. 176). But the question of what can and cannot be recruited in that way, especially in relation to desires, love, sacrifice and self-sacrifice, and rewards of various kinds—significantly all parts, conceivably, of a broad picture of the sacred—is an inescapable and by no means, either a clear or a straightforward one. Scruton argues that the human condition is a vital consideration for whatever language we use in order to grasp this elusive aspect of our lives; we need to accept the fact that our existence brings before us the idea of annihilation, and of the precariousness of attachments (2014, p. 177). He means by this claim presumably that human life raises, again and again, if not always, the thought that we might perish (though annihilation does seem a little stronger, it must be said); that our attachments are not just vulnerable, they are absolutely fragile. The claim does seem overstated, and somewhat rhetorical, it must be said: if human life constantly puts before us the idea of annihilation, as he asserts, then the reality does not necessarily have to correspond with the idea, for the order of thought and the order of reality do not always overlap, of course. Human life may present the thought that our attachments are absolutely fragile, but other conceptions of human life are possible and other thoughts concerning our attachments, especially those that are expressed as Scruton noted earlier, in art and literature, are entirely conceivable (2014, p. 177). Scruton seems to be thinking of extreme situations where we come faceto-face with a different order, for example, where being and nothingness, birth and death struggle always and without a “fixed result” (2014, p. 178). But such a scenario requires an ontology and a range of commitments, a range of metaphysical causes, events and orders that are by no means selfevident, or even fully intelligible, let alone justifiable. It may be that in such situations we can grasp behind the order of the covenant things that do not belong within it: “sheer cliffs, ‘no-man-fathomed’” over which we may fall someday (2014, p. 178). But it may be otherwise also: we may see even in

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those situations things that have a meaningful place in the order of things, for example, courage, perseverance and a helping hand (2014, p. 178). Those “cliffs” can be creations of thought, of course, and such creations may be overcome—a thought and a possibility that should not be forgotten (2014, p. 178). Yet Scruton, thinking of the soldier who sacrifices his life, the lovers in Chikamatsu’s puppet play who jump off a cliff (“Love Suicides at Sonezaki”), Cordelia in King Lear and Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Ring, and many other aesthetic treasures, argues that acts that make us feel wonder and admiration, tragic gestures that we find in works of art, remind us that there are other domains of being behind our daily interactions—a domain of absolutes, in which creation and destruction reign over consensus, duty and law (2014, p. 178). He argues though that some experiences push this domain through the appearance of compromise and make it known to us (2014, p. 178). So, the force of tragedy not, as Aristotle would have it, in generating and purifying us of pity and terror, but in showing us that we can face destruction and remain dignified, free and self-conscious—or in other words, that death and destruction can be elevated above the natural order and remade in terms of an aspect of the Lebenswelt which we can endure (2014, p. 178). Perhaps tragedy brings before us another world, an imaginary one of absolutes, generally. These absolutes present birth and death, creation and destruction, as ruling principles (2014, p. 178). Though not all tragedies are exactly like this, of course, nonetheless Scruton can argue that among the most powerful, for example, Shakespearean tragedy, Euripidean tragedy and Wagnerian tragedy—these ruling principles reign. Perhaps the force of tragedy can cause transformations such as these. But the power of tragedy lies also in its ability, if one may hazard such a broad generalization, to point, as it does in Hamlet, or in Faust, or in Lord of the Rings, to a surpassing order, a higher realization of our collective being and an order which carries us beyond those “sheer cliffs” mentioned earlier (2014, p. 178). Scruton notes incisively that, in these terms, between the two ruling principles of creation and destruction, the sacred becomes a “pure abstraction,” an “unmediated experience” of awe before the prospect of nothingness (2014, p. 180). It needs to be surpassed or transcended. So, he offers a “myth of origins,” in which he outlines two further stages, from sacrifice to transcendence, that is, the time of the gift and of forgiveness: the former is exemplified by the story of Abraham and Isaac (2014, p. 180). Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son, that is surrender someone that he loves, and surrender his own happiness, for a holy being who, he believes, is justified. So, in his willingness to treat his son as a gift, he comes to see that his son is God’s gift to him.

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Scruton argues that Abraham had arrived at a threshold, put his love and desires to one side, and was prepared to surrender someone he loved dearly, his son, because it was God’s command. It does not follow from all of this, of course, that the father’s failure to consult with Isaac suggests an obsession with God which is close to being “pathological,” contrary to Scruton’s interpretation (2014, p. 181). But Scruton argues that Abraham and God had traversed the boundary of the covenant that had come into being between them, Abraham in obeying and God in commanding him, and the seemingly imminent sacrifice of the son (2014, p. 181), for Genesis, as Scruton notes, tells us that “nothing like this was agreed” (Genesis 17; 2014, p. 181). However, Abraham continues from the order of the covenant to an ethically problematic order in which rules and agreements are cast aside (2014, p. 181). He thus finds a basic religious truth that links the gift with being. This realization provides new insight into the “unfolding” of the sacred, and rites, sanctuaries and liturgies, as we see them now, are ways of dramatizing this temporality and revealing the truth, that is, according to Scruton, of the things given, and which are to be given, to us (2014, p. 181). The first moment, which appears in a sacred book, and marks the advent of a sacred event, highlights a divine gift, a command, competing obligations, a trial, a willingness to surrender, a sacrifice, deep love, a risk, the possibility of deep suffering and remorse, obedience, grace and forgiveness and imminent death, amongst other things. In his preparation for the sacrifice of his son, Abraham comes to stand at a threshold and prepares himself to give and offer up what he loves most dearly. His reasons are not fully revealed to us in the narrative, it must be said, but it is plausible to suggest that he, as Scruton’s interpretation stipulates, was doing this perhaps purely because God had willed it. In this respect, the story and the sacred encounter and event at its heart, emphasize not just different registers and orders of love, of commands, of authority, of duties, of sacrifice, but also the overarching ontological and existential fabric of obedience and fidelity, through which salvific and redemptive being, and transcendence, unfold in time, encounter, language, dialogue and narrative. The life of Isaac, like the life of Abraham, and everything they have, are a gift, revealed in and through a command, the law, love, obedience, forgiveness, grace and love. Scruton highlights the act of forgiveness which foregrounds another “religious truth,” that is, that sacrifice promotes reconciliation (2014, p. 181). This truth, according to Scruton, is realized in the crucifixion of Jesus and found in all of Christianity’s sacred rituals (2014, p. 181). Scruton agrees that the Cross, in this context, marks a change to a different ontological and existential order, in which victims no longer play a part (2014, p. 181)—an order in which (self-)sacrifice is at the basis of the moral or ethical life, and in terms of the lives of Christians, at the basis of the sacred significance of the Eucharist.

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He notes that forgiveness can be learned from such things (2014, p. 182), though forgiveness is not a human right, and there is no obligation within the covenant, to give it (2014, p. 182). It comes in the form of a gift and is deserved, for example, by one who has practiced a life of “penitence, contrition, and atonement,” not as parts of a contract, but as things which are freely offered (2014, p. 182). So, forgiveness completes a process with reciprocated recognition, as two persons give up their resentment in an “exchange of gifts” (2014, p. 182). Such a moment reveals also that sacrifice leads to reconciliation through, and only through, according to Scruton, self-sacrifice. The “Cross” may mark a transition into a different order of things, without victims, though it must be said that this is not the only thing or even the most important thing that is marked by the “Cross,” of course. One must be careful here: this order is not evidently or necessarily an entirely other order, since the connections, the relations and the (sacred) covenants that bind the two orders cannot be dismissed, negated or obscured. Although Scruton affirms the link between this new order and self-sacrifice, as a foundation of the “moral life,” and with the sacred bond of the Eucharist, which inscribes and commemorates God’s “supreme self-sacrifice” (2014, p. 182) for the sake of all human beings, it is clear that the various orders require an enduring and vital relation, just as they require an enduring and vital bond. It is the spaces of this relation and the times of this bond, in particular, that, in an essential sense, open up the full reach, power and meaningfulness of the sacred narrative, text and encounter, and the fullest and deepest dimensions of sacred encounters, sacred events, sacred narratives, and sacred experience. The sacred, according to Scruton, for example, in the form of a being, manifestation or sign, appears or arrives, so to speak, or presents itself when one is receptive and inviting. It appears, arrives, or presents itself when we seek it and welcome it, in the form often of a gift: He is right to question Girard’s emphasis on “sacrificial violence,” since such violence cannot furnish a necessary and sufficient representation of the sacred (2014, p. 182). Those moments, or experiences in time, when the gift is manifest, or irrupts into or is unconcealed in the fabric of space and time, and then into the sphere of experience or apprehension, and is received obediently, willingly and graciously, are no less important than moments of sacrificial violence and killing. Scruton draws an analogy with love: amongst other things, falling in love means feeling dependent and bound to the beloved, but also seeing clearly a division between being with and being without the beloved. Jealousy is partly a product of that division and its integral states of absence and longing. Being with the beloved again returns the lover to a state of renewal, and in this way, a struggle between destruction and creation, a kind of dialectic of

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love, presence and absence, recurs, enough to generate a hesitation, perhaps, since that which is deeply desired may be forbidden or distant or unattainable (2014, p. 182). In this context, the body of “the other” is understood to be external to the order of the covenant, and penetrates it from a “place of inscrutable imperatives” that must be followed, but Scruton adds, freely (2014, p. 183). So, the sacred, as a gift, in its very manifestation, or irruption, or unveiling, serves to highlight not just a relation between sacrifice and violence, but love, division, absence, longing, renewal, imperatives, inscrutable but also binding proscriptions of various kinds, hesitations, commitments, freedom, receptivity and grace, and so on. The experience of the sacred is just the revelation of a different order, in which creation and destruction are the reigning principles (2014, p. 183). But this other order is accessible, at least in part, to us, as the order of love is accessible to lovers, as a revelation (2014, p. 183). But it must be said that creation and destruction as poles, are not necessarily the only principles that rule: love or grace rules both, presumably in those moments when the sacred reveals itself, or is revealed as a gift; and renewal or communion, in their unfolding, surpass, and transcend such principles (2014, p. 183). Indeed, Scruton argues that the great moments of life are just those which bear this order (2014, p. 183). Such vows presuppose or entail love, freedom, binding imperatives, commitments, freedom, receptivity and so on. The “new life,” or renewal, they bear is a gift which originates in that place where creation and destruction occur not only for human being, it is true (2014, p. 183). However, the full picture of the sacred, the manifestation of the gift, dawning revelation, freely embraced vows and “new life,” or renewal, cannot be complete without love and communion joined to creation and destruction and also without a reconstitution of, or transformation within, the fabric of the order of things (2014, p. 183). It is true, as Scruton argues, that birth is characterized by rituals of “acceptance and gratitude,” and by protective vows (2014, p. 183). But birth is also marked by desire, receptivity, communion, election and grace, as preconditions, for example, of the revelation of the sacred and its fateful manifestation and irruption, in the form of the gift, through love. It is true that sexual love manifests a gift; the lovers in this sense make a gift of themselves, and also ready themselves for the sacrifices which family and the love of children demand (2014, p. 183). The gift is manifest in such contexts in and through the lovers themselves, on this interpretation, and the way in which the lover and the beloved transform themselves, and their bodies, each into a gift addressed fully and intimately to the other, to a very significant degree at any rate, and place themselves in a bond that points to a sacrifice, a family, children, commitment, love, and so on. Death, according to Scruton, is that time when we give up

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the gift of life, funeral rites embody the awareness and remembrance of this gift, and acknowledge the blessed or sacred dynamic in which being is given and taken away, so Scruton notes the vital connection between human being, “the sacred, the sacramental, and the sacrificial” (2014, p. 183). Scruton’s last point is a profound one, to be sure: the coincidence, or better, intersections, that bind, in our lives, the sacred, the sacramental, and the sacrificial, represent a striking phenomenon. Certainly, in Christianity in particular one finds much evidence of such intersections: for example, in the messianic dimension of Christology, the crucifixion and the sacraments embodied in the apostolic church. Scruton argues our lives as free beings belong to a “life in community” which in turn depends on the order of the covenant (2014, p. 183). Communities, however, do not persist in the absence of sacrifice: members are encouraged to sacrifice their lives at war, various comforts for their children, and to sacrifice through forgiveness even for those whom they have “no special interest” in (2014, p. 183). In this context, rituals are actualized and sacrifices are brought into being as an experience of the community—their repetition brings members together in a shared purpose, so Scruton adds: since they are “instruments of social reproduction,” one should not be surprised to find that they are universal (2014, p. 184). Certainly, it is possible to argue forcefully that effective and authentic communities are dependent to a significant degree on the existence of the order of the covenant. And certainly, one can argue that communities cannot endure (at least, entirely) without sacrifice, which has its place, of course in the existence of the order of the covenant. But much depends on one’s understanding of sacrifice: it could mean bloody slaughter, to put it bluntly, or premeditated killing, or even willful destruction, just as it could signify a surrender, an act of love or forgiveness or foregoing here. In short, though it may be true that communities cannot endure without some kinds of sacrifices, generally speaking, and though it may be true to claim that sacrifice actually has an integral place within the existence of the order of the covenant, it is clear that not all sacrifices sustain, reinforce or renew the bonds that communities require in order to persist. What is needed here is a more nuanced and differentiated account of sacrifice. At the very least, it is crucial to acknowledge that some sacrifices are sacrilegious, destructive, punitive, desecratory and/or deleterious, and in that sense, do not contribute either to the existence and persistence of the covenant or to the sacred order of the covenant, in particular, in terms of its communitarian, revelatory, messianic, redemptive and/or restorative qualities. There is a need, of course, and a desire, for rituals, but not of rituals of all kinds—since for example, desecration, sacrilege, blasphemy, even genocide and annihilation can be ritualistic in structure and form, and therefore, can become even more systematic, sustained, deleterious or savage—just as there is a need and a desire for types of ritual in and through which sacrifice is

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presenced as an integral element within the order of a unifying and restorative, healthy, communal experience. The repetition of rituals unites a community certainly, in some respects, but also reminds its members of, and reenacts, the very reasons why they are together as a community and those things which they value and affirm, and binds them together, fundamentally, as a community. Nonetheless, he raises an important question (2014, p. 184): that the world can be seen in two ways, namely “the way of explanation,” which seeks an understanding of the natural world, causation and causal relations, and those laws which bind the whole structure and all the internal relations together; and “the way of understanding,” as a “calling to account,” which seeks reasons and meanings. It is a proposition that can be defended robustly, and Scruton does just that (2014, p. 184). Of course, that is not to say that the world can only be approached in these ways, as some commentators on the sacred suggest, or say, and Scruton, to his credit, does not make that claim (2014, p. 184). So he understands the sacred and the supernatural, not in terms of “irruptions” of the supernatural into the natural order, since he believes that the idea of a supernatural cause is “close to contradictory,” but as “revelations of the subject” in the context of which one can ask and answer “why” questions, which are particularly important parts of the second way (2014, p. 184). Now, it must be said that the reasons why one should believe that causes, or causation, even in a supernatural sense, whatever that might be, are only meaningful or understandable, in non-contradictory ways, when applied to the order of the natural world, is not self-evident or clear. Much depends on the logic of causes, or of causation, and on empirical studies of causes, and causal relations. Nor is it self-evident, or clear, that only natural causes, or causal relations, whatever that may mean, are not “close to contradictory” (2014, p. 184). A deeper, clearer and longer account of causes, causality and their complexities is clearly required, though that remains beyond the scope of this study. Scruton also links the manifestation of the sacred with emergencies (2014, p. 185). In such moments, we must face a truth about our condition: the boundaries of our condition are marked on one side by being, and on the other, by nothingness, or at least one might argue, the immanent possibility of nothingness (2014, p. 184). The echo of Sartre may be deliberate here, but Scruton’s ontological commitments and metaphysical trajectories are quite different from Sartre’s. The “I” cannot be found by the scientific study of the human being, Scruton argues, because it is transcendental in the sense that it does not exist as a body exists, or as physical or material things exist—it belongs, presumably, to another, but not less real, or actual, ontological order—and because it is not physical or material, and cannot be made an

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object of observation, as the human body or the brain, as neurons and neural structures, or human behavior, can (2014, p. 184). Yet it would be rash to dismiss it on this basis, as Scruton intuits. The analogy he draws between the existence of the metaphysical “I,” one might say, and the existence of God, is an intriguing one, though it is not demonstrative, needless to say—but it also need not necessarily render the search for God futile (2014, p. 184). He is right to draw the analogy, in short; what is also needed however is an account of the nature and limits of such analogies. His suggestion that we stand “on the edge of a mystery” need not unsettle scientists or theologians (2014, p. 184). If mystery is understood in an everyday sense, in terms of things that are difficult, obscure or incomprehensible, then there is plenty of room for assent and dialogue within the domains of modern science (particularly modern physics) and in the spheres of religion and the sacred. All in these domains and spheres presumably have an interest in getting as close as they can to that “edge,” though the differences in contexts and in the nature of the inquiries, and their ends, of course, must not be forgotten (2014, p. 184). Scruton does not forget them. He reminds us that in the context of the sacred, faith is especially important: it calls on us to live with mystery, not to “wipe away the face of the world” (2014, p. 186). To reinforce the analogy, without pushing it too far, one could argue with some force that there is no reason in principle why scientists and theologians would not wish to live with mystery, or learn to do so, especially when one considers how much remains unexplained, and how much presumably remains to be discovered or observed—in short, how much is not known, and may never be known, about the cosmos, as a whole, its origins and ends, if any, as well as the origins, modes and ends of the sacred, its manifold and complex, and emergent, manifestations. He turns to Christianity, at this point in the argument, a familiar move: he notes that there is more to be explored about our relationship with God (2014, p. 186). His view of the Incarnation is a thought-provoking one, but seems a little confused, for if the Incarnation is understood as a mystery, if it is intended to be received as a mystery, then it is difficult to see how it would explain God’s presence, at least in a clear, intelligible and coherent way. Its mysterious nature, manifestation and reception, then, would seem to draw the believer away from explanations and into the domain of openness, receptivity, acceptance and commitment; or in short, into the domain of faith, love, forgiveness, redemption and grace, for example. It transcends mere stories, their mere recurrence and reception in just that (significantly, sacred and metaphysical) sense. But Scruton adds a note of caution: the laws of physics are causal; they link complex conditions and prior simpler conditions; so, teleological principles cannot leave a “discernible mark in the order of nature,” as physics

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understands it (2014, p. 187). Nonetheless, he notes that it is as if we live in the light of such principles—in the order of the covenant we are guided in some direction, by reasons which have an innate authority, or power (2014, p. 187). If we seek their foundations, we look, he argues, forever beyond the “physical horizon” (2014, p. 187). This kind of broad argument, however, is not the same as the argument for intelligent design. Scruton argues, with good reason, that neo-Darwinian theory, does not, and arguably, cannot, entirely explain the phenomenon of design in nature by referring to natural selection acting on “random genetic mutations” alone, especially when it attempts to furnish a complete explanation of the fundamental forms and “body plans of species” (2014, p. 187). This much seems defensible. He notes that it is now clear that more information is needed to create a “viable” animal than the information contained in its “genetic code” (2014, p. 187). However, he also notes that a rational or logical appeal to such facts as “evidence” for intelligent design constitutes a departure from the natural sciences: biology, on this reading, sets out to explain complex things such as intelligence in terms of “simpler phenomena like codified replication” (2014, p. 187). If one attempts to argue that intelligence is the result of intelligent design, one commits the logical error of reading “the effect into the cause” (2014, p. 187); one commits the logical error of trying to explain intelligence “by means of intelligence” and so, makes intelligence inexplicable (or the argument becomes circular, one might say). An interlocutor may counter by arguing that it is, perhaps, inexplicable in fact, but in so doing, according to Scruton, they would be proceeding with theological rather than scientific claims, and one might add, in the strictest (modern) sense of that term (2014, p. 188). Scruton makes a number of important points about ritual, its meaning and place in an account of the sacred (2014, p. 193). The sanctifying role is critical especially in relation to some of the world’s religious systems, including the great monotheistic faiths. Within these faiths and their rituals, the life of the community is not just affirmed, legitimized, promoted, reinforced and sustained; it comes to represent a higher ontological and existential order. That is, its very existence is understood in terms of a bond not just to an order of sanctified beings, and sanctified being, but also in relation to a bond that brings distinct human beings, and their sacred traditions, objects, texts, observations, practices, and so on, together, and unites them as one, and also binds them to an order that extends even to the realm of the divine or the transcendent. Scruton’s point about “reasoned necessity” is also a critical one (2014, p. 193). It would be rash, and empirically false, to assert that the life of these communities is not reasoned, or is irrational, for it is reason, amongst other things no doubt, that allows them, speaking generally, to identify, analyzes,

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evaluate, understand, interpret, preserve, follow, disseminate, and so on, elements of the tradition, commands, the texts, the appropriate objects, representative symbols, the necessary obligations and practices, and so on and so forth. In the liturgy, as he argues, the community perpetuates its continuity with its past; it remains in touch with its ancestors who inhabit, so to speak, in terms of this perpetual relation, not some purely historical place. Rather the community addresses its ancestral past in “the eternal present, which is theirs” (2014, p. 193). The meaning need not be obscure: in this context the community and its past are bound in a relation that keeps the sacred elements always alive, meaningful, valid, vital and sustaining, a kind of eternal now. One might think of a believer reciting the prayer or a mantra that a sacred or holy founder recited thousands of years ago or pilgrims in many faiths who follow faithfully the footsteps of ancestors, in actual or symbolic ways. Scruton allows for some adjustment to rituals over time, which seems sensible, but he insists, correctly, that the congregation does not receive them as “mere inventions” (2014, p. 193). Innovation can be unorthodox, sacrilegious or desecratory, and in that sense, dangerous, deleterious or subversive; that much is quite clear. It could break, or occlude, or interrupt, the continuity that is required for such communities to survive as such. So it seems defensible to argue that departures are allowed only if they do not destroy or taint the constant and always valid “essence,” or to put it somewhat less grandiosely, the foundational beings, the sacred objects, traditions, teachings, texts, events, rituals, practices and horizons, amongst other things, that are constitutive of the identity of the community and regulative in terms of its collective life (2014, p. 193). The “absolute identity” of form and content requires not just the perpetuation of the elements and their relations, but also the rejection of innovations which threaten their very existence, structure and fabric (2014, p. 193). The enhancement that ritual brings and perpetuates is actualized when it expresses some higher commitment or some renewed resolve within the community or its members, in the context of traditional doctrine, for example. In Judaism, as Scruton notes, it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the “God of Israel” who is worshipped in ritualized forms which are passed from generation to generation, and which are the expression of sacred doctrines, teachings and texts, inherited from the beneficiaries of God’s message, revelation and/or law, which are not mere distillations of moral values, principles, precepts and guides, but perpetual signs and representations of the sacred and the holy, namely, God’s choices, God’s knowledge and awareness of their being, God’s interest in their fates, and of God’s embrace of that community and its future, and so on (2014, p. 193).

Chapter Six

The Future of an Illusion?

Now Freud, like Durkheim, makes a number of sweeping (and somewhat hasty) claims, for example, concerning “what is perhaps the most important item in the psychical inventory of a civilization. This consists in its religious ideas in the widest sense . . . in its illusions” (1961, p. 14). His work on religion, the sacred and religious belief deserves more attention once again especially because it contributes two important elements that remain influential in relation to modern commentaries and reflections on religion and the sacred: the proposition that religions are illusory (or extended more extremely, delusions); and the proposition (as in Durkheim, notably) that religious claims and beliefs explain nothing. Freud argues that over time, we first observed “regularity and conformity to law in natural phenomena,” and so, natural forces no longer had human qualities (1961, p. 17). But our “helplessness remains” with a yearning for the father (1961, p. 17). The “gods” have three tasks according to this analysis: to exorcize “the terrors of nature,” they must reconcile us to a heartless Fate, they bring compensation for all the suffering and loss which civilization imposes (1961, p. 17). But, he adds, there is “a gradual displacement of accent”: the gods were masters of nature and so arranged it so that they could “leave it to itself,” except for occasions which demanded miracles (1961, pp. 17–18). In relation to destiny, there persisted a suspicion that the “perplexity and helplessness of the human race could not be remedied” (1961, pp. 17–18). Freud’s emphasis on helplessness and our yearning for the father is a consistent and striking note (1961, p. 17). Yet it is difficult to see how any scientific process could demonstrate or prove such a claim, and it is not surprising that Freud’s experimental work and observations, as a whole, did

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not provide conclusive or even compelling evidence for the claims. Nonetheless, he did not abandon the claim. Of course, helplessness does sometimes figure prominently in religious traditions, for example, in the Book of Job or in mystical traditions where the subject reaches out to God’s mercy or grace, in complete submission, but it does not follow from this that religions in general, or the appeal to sacred beings and presences in general, are based on helplessness; nor does it follow that longing must be motivated or guided by helplessness. Longing has different modes, degrees, forms, sources, foundations and ends (one need only think of the many beings, in their different plights, situations and contexts, who might long for God, or for some state or being, or some sacred union, or forgiveness, or absolution, and so on, perhaps as a penitent, or as an acolyte, or as a messiah, a monk, a nun, and so on). Sacred beings also have many forms and functions. It is doubtful that gods have only three tasks (1961, p. 17). Certainly some exorcize the terrors that nature holds, but this is not true of all of the gods, or even of most; some reconcile men to Fate and its cruel ways, but Fate does not play a fundamental or central role in all religions; and some compensate “men” for the pain and privations which civilization imposes, but once again this is not obviously or clearly true of gods in general (1961, p. 17). A far more detailed, informed and nuanced account is needed of sacred beings and the place, meaning and function of the gods within that framework. There could conceivably be an infinite number of tasks. Certainly, they are understood, in many cases and contexts, as rulers of nature, but only in polytheistic contexts, for example (1961, p. 18). Many of them are subservient also (for example, to Zeus), or all but one are relegated to the status of idols which must be overcome or destroyed (as in Judaism); it is certainly not “plainly” true, then, that the gods had surrendered no parts of their domain of power (1961, p. 18). Nor is it true of the God of Judaism, Islam or Christianity, or of the human condition in Taoism or Shinto, that a nasty suspicion continued, namely, that the confusion and helplessness of humans could not be overcome (1961, p. 18). Jehovah, Allah or Christ are hardly gods who “were most apt to fail”; hardly sacred beings whose “counsels,” for example, through the prophets, messengers and revelations, have to be understood as inscrutable (1961, p. 18). Yet Freud pursues the idea of Fate in some detail. The most “gifted” in antiquity saw that Moira (Fate) dictated the gods’ own destinies, and as nature came to be seen as more autonomous, the gods withdrew more and more, and morality increasingly became their “true domain” (1961, p. 18). Their task then was to address the problems and evils that pertain to civilization, and the pain which human beings bring to one another in their coexistence, and to monitor the realization of the precepts of civilized life, which men disobey or do not follow—precepts which are believed to be

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divine in origin and which are “elevated” and “extended” to the cosmos (1961, p. 18). The account is generalized, significantly, and quite vague. The reference to the “most gifted” of “antiquity” is unclear (1961, p. 18): why should the notion dawn only on them? And what does giftedness have to do necessarily with sacred beings and such notions (1961, p. 18)? Of course, Greek religious adherents may have believed that Moira transcended the gods and that they followed their own destinies, but this belief is hardly representative of religious beliefs in general, or of relations between sacred beings and people who are gifted, or otherwise, in general (1961, p. 18). Freud certainly does not show that it is representative. As for the third function of the gods, according to Freud, governing and guiding morality, it must be said that some gods were said to behave quite immorally (for example, gods in ancient Greek religions who abducted children, or devoured their own children). It is clear, at the very least, that one cannot attribute, in generalized terms, such a third function to the gods without ignoring, overlooking or excluding morally troubling questions and issues with regard to the behavior of some of them. So, even if one grants that their “task” is to balance the problems and evils of “civilization,” to attend to the pains and evils men cause in relation to each other because of their co-existence together and to keep an eye on the realization of the precepts of “civilization” which are imperfectly followed (1961, p. 18), one still requires a detailed and nuanced account of the gods whose function it is to do such things and the gods whose functions are different or more complex. These precepts may have a divine origin, of course; they may be elevated above society; and they may be “extended” to the whole world, but one suspects that there is more to the story here: for example, are all, or some, of the precepts that operate in this sphere derived from a divine or sacred source (1961, p. 18)? Are there precepts which are derived from human civilization (1961, p. 18)? Are these precepts, as a whole, uniform or complex? Are they consistent across all or some sacred traditions? And so on. These are not insignificant questions, and they need to be considered and answered carefully. Freud returns to the theme of helplessness: ideas are fashioned out of “man’s” need to live with helplessness and endure it, drawn out of memories of helplessness in childhood and of humanity (1961, p. 18). Such ideas bring protection against the threats of nature and Fate, and against the harm that comes from living among other human beings, but such a life serves a higher purpose in which human nature is perfected (1961, p. 18). This tendency to attribute to complex traditions, and systems, such as religion, a single or dominant basis in the human condition is questionable in logical as well as empirical terms. In logical terms, it is important to establish

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whether the basis is sufficient or necessary, yet Freud does neither. In empirical terms, it is important to set out conclusive evidence in support of the claim, yet Freud does not do that either. Worse, it is difficult to ascertain what phrases like “the childhood of the human race” actually mean, or amount to, if they amount to anything at all (1961, p. 18). Instead, he speculates on a condition and on a desire. The “possession” of such ideas is also unclear: who, other than Freud, possesses these ideas, in what form, to what extent, to what end, and why, according to the empirical evidence (1961, p. 18)? Perhaps those who possess these ideas are offered twofold protection, as he argues (against dangerous Fate and nature, and against threats from human society), but it is difficult to tell, since it is also difficult to tell not only who they are, but how numerous they are (1961, p. 18). Nonetheless, Freud is incisive when he comes to the essence of the matter: he argues that life in the here and now serves a transcendent purpose; he grants that it is not always easy to guess what that is, though it definitely represents the perfection of human nature (1961, p. 18). Now, this much is defensible to be sure, in the context of many religious and sacred traditions, such as Apollonian, Judaic and Christian traditions. However, a number of important questions arise again, in logical and empirical terms: do all, or most, religions exist in order to ensure that life serves such a purpose, and, one might add, little or nothing else (1961, p. 18)? Is the essence or gist unitary or single or monolithic (1961, p. 18)? Do all, or most, religions exist in order to ensure that that purpose, whatever it may be, “certainly” means a perfection of human nature (1961, p. 18)? In what sense is it certain, especially if it is not easy to ascertain what that higher purpose is, or the extent to which it applies to all or most religions (1961, p. 18)? And what would it mean to perfect our nature in the light of religions which are quite different and, in some respects, incommensurable or irreconcilable (1961, p. 18)? These are difficult but significant questions that Freud does not answer. He nonetheless also affirms the spiritual content of the human being: it is the soul, he argues, which separated from the body, becomes exalted. The events of the world express the will of a higher intelligence, which orders things for the best, that is, to make life enjoyable (1961, p. 18). A benevolent Providence orders all and ensures that we do not become playthings of a powerful and pitiless nature. Death itself is not the end, nor a return to nothingness, but the start of a new life on the way to a higher state of being (1961, p. 18). And, according to Freud, this position affirms that the same moral laws which we put in place extend to nature as a whole and are maintained by a “supreme court of justice” which has far greater power and consistency (1961, p. 19).

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Elevation and exaltation in relation to the soul are certainly important elements in religion and sacred experience (though this is not to say, of course, that they are necessary elements or even sufficient elements). Though many religions do highlight the intentions and actions of a superior intelligence which orders the natural world “for the best,” a benevolent Providence does not have a central place, or even a place at all, in all or most religions or sacred traditions (1961, p. 19). Freud needs to show at this stage of the argument that it does, or that it is characteristic of religions, or sacred traditions, in general. He uses it quite loosely to refer to a general belief in a scheme which will ensure that we will not become the hapless victims of natural forces which are pitiless, overpowering and destructive. But then there is the important question of the relation between Providence, benevolence and a forgiving God, and it is not surprising that Freud does not go far down that difficult path. Nonetheless, the questions cannot be ignored if a more intelligible and coherent account of that relation and of those beings and orders is to be produced. Certainly, also, he captures something important about some religions, especially theistic religions, in his emphasis on death, not as extinction, but rather as a beginning: a “new kind of existence” to be found on a path that leads to a higher level of being (1961, p. 19). But note again the complexities that arise from such a proposition concerning religion: in the context of this path, it then becomes important to set out, clearly and intelligibly, the relation, for example, between a religion that emphasizes a state of extinguishment, so to speak, like nirvana, or oneness with nature, and a religion that emphasizes a state of eternal being, represented by the heavenly or paradisiacal state of the soul, or some disembodied entity, after death and after a separation from the natural world (1961, p. 19). If we follow Freud and look the other way, it is not always evident or clear that this general view which he propounds does in fact announce that the moral laws which have been set up actually govern the world, with one exception: these moral laws are kept in place by a powerful, consistent, supreme “court of justice” (1961, pp. 18–19). Just which moral laws function in this way is a question that needs to be unpacked and clarified further. Worse, the logical and empirical questions are not answered satisfactorily: what is the logical relation between the laws which derive from civilizations and moral laws which govern the cosmos (emphasis added; 1961, p. 19)? And what is the empirical evidence that can be used to support and justify the assertion of the existence of just this kind of relation? Freud, having examined briefly the connection between moral laws, Providence and the perfectibility of human nature, turns to the view of good and evil: in the end, evils are meant to be destroyed, and life after death brings perfection that is not available in the natural world (1961, p. 19). All is guided by a superior wisdom, the “infinite goodness” that courses through it

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and the justice that drives it—all characteristics of the sacred being who fashions the cosmos (1961, p. 19). Behind such divine beings, Freud argues, one finds the figure of the father at the nucleus which marks in a fundamental way a return to the “historical beginnings of the idea of God” (1961, p. 19). When God is seen as a single person, our relationship to him recovers the sort of intimacy and intensity that is found, according to Freud, in a child’s connection to the father (1961, p. 19). It may be true that, ultimately, good will be rewarded and evils will be punished, either in this life or in the life after death (both possibilities which, Freud intuits correctly, have their place in the world’s various religions or sacred traditions). It may be true that the horrors, the pains and the hardships of existence may be transcended, just as it may be true that ongoing life after death, or in this world, will bring that perfection that we desire or miss in our natural state (1961, p. 19). Many religions and sacred traditions do affirm a higher wisdom which guides such a course, which is infinitely good and just; for example, a sacred being (1961, p. 19). Freud once again draws the analogy between this sacred being and the figure of the father, but though the analogy itself clearly had quite a hold on his thinking, and this point needs to be reiterated, the empirical evidence he had collected does not furnish proof of the hypothesis. Moreover, there are logical questions that arise, and multiply, in relation to the analogy itself and the service that Freud wishes to put it to. For example, to what extent is there an analogy between the father of the child and a sacred or divine being who is benevolent, and forgiving (or not), who is not a father in any literal, or any literally meaningful, sense? Or: to what extent is there an analogy between the father we know (or think we know), as children, and encounter in the world, and the sacred being who forgives or punishes, but who remains essentially divine, mysterious and transcendent—that is, whom we do not know in similar ways? And: to what extent is there an analogy between the forgiveness or the punishment that is meted out by our own father, understood literally, and the forgiveness or the punishment that is meted out by a sacred or divine judge, God? It may be, as Freud asserts, that God is “a single person” (though this seems to be a metaphor rather than a literal description, since the analogy between God and a human person can only be taken so far without breaking down), and it may be that “man’s” connections to God could recover that intimacy and intensity that Freud finds in the child’s connection with their own father (1961, p. 19). However, it must be noted again that the relations between a human father and a transcendent progenitor are clearly not identical and may be quite dissimilar in several important senses. It must also be noted again that the intensity and intimacy that is shared by a daughter or son, and their (human) father, can conceivably be of a different order and degree, if the son or daughter, and their creator, happen to be divine.

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It is notable that on almost every level, once the questions are raised and pursued, the analogy weakens and worse, begins to break down. Proponents who affirm such analogies (which begin to break down in this kind of way, under sustained analysis) do leave themselves open to the charge of committing the analogical fallacy. Freud attempts nonetheless to argue that fundamentally this analogy represents a kind of return to the “historical beginnings of the idea of God” (1961, p. 19). He may be right, but on the evidence he produces and on the logic he chooses to adopt here, it must be said that the attempt is unconvincing and unproven at best, and at worst, fallacious and non-demonstrable. The reasons are clear enough: it is difficult to ascertain exactly what Freud knows about the “historical beginnings of the idea of God,” particularly as it relates to the many religions of the ancient world (most of which, it must be remembered, are not mentioned by Freud at all) (1961, p. 19). As a corollary, it is also difficult to ascertain whether his knowledge of these things is true. Freud admits that he is focusing on one phase only which imprecisely corresponds to the “final form taken by our present-day white Christian civilization” (1961, p. 20). He recognizes that all the parts that make up such a picture do not always cohere or fit well together. Nevertheless, he does believe that those religious ideas are highly prized: they are the most valuable possession of “civilization,” for many feel that their lives would be intolerable without them. A series of questions then arises for Freud: what of these ideas in a psychological sense? What is the origin of the esteem which they enjoy and what is their true value? (1961, p. 20) The extended development certainly requires careful attention and deliberation, as Freud would no doubt agree (1961, p. 20). The question of whether a single phase is necessary and sufficient is an important philosophical question, though Freud does not pause to consider it in detail. It is debatable that Freud has in fact singled out the phase that corresponds, even roughly, to the “final form” “taken by our present-day white Christian civilization,” since his conception of this civilization does seem to be unsubstantiated or unjustified (1961, p. 20). Nonetheless, his estimation of the importance of religious ideas is defensible, since it stands to reason that many of these ideas, and the value attached to them, can and do make life tolerable, meaningful and worthwhile, just as many ideas of the sacred do in many communities and more broadly, civilizations (1961, p. 20). They have a very real worth and significance; this much seems uncontroversial. He then attempts to locate the need out of which such ideas arise. They have arisen from the “same need” as the “other achievements of civilization”: out of the need to defend ourselves against the overwhelming power of nature (1961, p. 21). He also finds another motive: the “urge” to correct the

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deficiencies of civilization which we experience in painful ways (1961, p. 21). One enters, as it were, an ancient heritage and claims it as one claims a multiplication table or geometry, and so on, though the religious ideas are generally understood in relation to sacred or divine revelation. Freud believes that when we personify the forces of nature, we follow a model derived from our childhood: we learn from an early stage that we can influence them by fashioning a connection with them (1961, p. 22). According to Freud, it is quite natural to personify things that we wish to understand so that we can control them (“psychical mastering as a preparation for physical mastering”), but Freud attempts here to identify a motive and a cause for this kind of thinking (1961, p. 22). It is an interesting hypothesis: religious ideas arise from the need to defend ourselves against the powerful and potentially destructive powers of nature, and an urge to correct the “shortcomings of civilization,” which are causes of pain and suffering (1961, p. 21). But one wonders if Freud is clear enough or goes far enough here. It is not clear why there should be one need and one urge, for our experience and observations would suggest a multiplicity rather than singularity, so to speak, manifest complexity rather than monolithic urges, desires and needs. An empirical study of the origin and genesis of religious ideas will hardly produce one and only one need; one and only one desire; and so on. Much would depend on the ideas, the particular communities, the inherited traditions and teachings, the foundational texts and narratives, and so on. Though it may be natural for us, in some respects, to personify things that we want to understand, it does not follow that we cannot understand anything in the sphere of religious ideas without personification, any more than it follows that we wish to personify something in order to control it later, and nothing more. There are forces and powers which are worshipped as sacred even when they are not given to personification or to understanding, or better, to full understanding—one need only think of the place and meaningfulness of mystery, and the way of negation, for example, and their integral and significant places in the order of the religious as well as the sacred. It is not entirely clear also why the desire for personification and control, if they are real, should themselves be subject to one motive and one genesis. It does seem to be the case that Freud has underestimated and, in fact, underdetermined the complexity of religious ideas, the needs that underpin them, the urges that drive them and the elements of mystery that figure prominently in their ontology, discourses and historiography. In Totem and Taboo, Freud deals again with the origin of totemism as a religious idea, in light of the relation between father and son. God is the father; the desire or need for the father then is at the genesis of totemism in religion. Subsequently Freud focused on our weakness and helplessness and explained religion’s emergence in these terms, in order to “transpose every-

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thing that was once the father complex into terms of helplessness” (1961, p. 22). There can be little doubt that totemism is intimately related to some godreligions, but Freud does not demonstrate in either book the connection with all such religions or sacred relations. For this reason, his argument is incomplete and underdetermined, and potentially fallacious. It is not at all clear, nor will it ever be perhaps, that all the sacred animals of the gods are, in fact, totem animals: such a claim goes well beyond available evidence and indeed, possible observation or testing. Nor does Freud provide conclusive evidence—or even convincing evidence for that matter—to support the proposition that the earliest and most fundamental restrictions, such as “prohibitions against murder and incest,” in fact, all do originate in totemism, and only in totemism (1961, p. 23). It is difficult to see how any human observer or investigator could arrive at this conclusion in either empirical terms or in logical terms, given the incomplete evidence and the questionable or problematic nature of the assumptions with which one is faced in such cases. It is difficult to resist the conclusion then, that his own estimation of the specific contribution that psycho-analysis can provide to the “solution of the problem of religion” is unduly optimistic (1961, p. 23). He extends his argument nonetheless, but not in terms that strengthen his thesis: for example, he insists that in relation to the father, the son finds that he is always bound to remain a child, that he can never abide without protection against mysterious and higher powers (1961, p. 23), but without providing proof of the connection between such structures and networks, and religion as a whole. Freud asserts that the son creates the gods which he fears and then attempts to propitiate them, even as he entrusts them with the task of protecting him (1961, p. 23), without any proof for the truth of the proposition at any stage. Freud attributes this yearning for a father to a motive which is the same as the need for “protection against the consequences of his human weakness,” and argues that a defense against the helplessness of a child lends characteristic properties to the “adult’s” reaction to the inescapable helplessness, which is itself produced by religion, again without providing any proof, let alone conclusive evidence, to support such sweeping generalizations (1961, p. 23). He adopts a similar approach, not surprisingly, to the religious ideas which he understood as teachings and claims concerning instructive facts and conditions of reality which influence one’s belief (1961, p. 24). They provide information about the most important things in life and are prized greatly: anyone who takes them up, according to Freud, can consider themselves enriched considerably (1961, p. 24). Their “claim to be believed,” according to Freud, rests on three answers which do not cohere well: first, these teachings should be believed because

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our ancestors believed them; second, there are “proofs” which we have inherited from them; and third, it is not permitted to ask or question their authentication in any way (1961, p. 26). Severe punishments and interdictions applied, and still do. Such things should awaken suspicion, according to Freud. Such prohibitions serve a purpose: society knows very well, he argues, the insecurity that is associated with claims made “on behalf of its religious doctrines” (1961, p. 27). So, in short, we must believe because our forefathers did, though they were more ignorant—they believed in things we cannot, so the possibility arises that their religious doctrines are similar; the “proofs” they pass down to us in texts cannot be trusted (1961, p. 27). There are many problems with this kind of analysis. He argues that the teachings deserve to be accepted because our ancestors believed them, though he does not grant that some of the things that our ancestors believed are not believed by us any longer (1961, p. 26); the implicit assumption here is that those who follow the ancestral teachings do so uncritically or blindly, generally speaking, yet there is no evidence to justify such a generalization. He argues that we have “proofs” which have come to us from those ancient times but does not differentiate between proofs which are conclusive and “proofs” which are questionable, or incomplete, or problematic (1961, p. 27). He argues that it is not permitted to bring up the issue of their authentication but without considering carefully the disagreements, debates, disputes and/or controversies that continue to surround the question of the legacy of these ancestors, in some respects, their understanding of the origins and genesis of the faith, the nature of mythological, metaphysical and/or theological content and the precise meaning of some of the narratives, symbols and teachings, and so on and so forth, in numerous religions and sacred traditions (1961, p. 27). He seriously underestimates, and underdetermines once again, the meaning, role and significance of questioning, and critical hermeneutics more broadly, in relation to religious ideas in numerous learned societies and religious and sacred traditions (1961, p. 27). It is difficult to find conclusive evidence to anchor the contention that the general belief that drives religion, if one assumes that there is one, in these contexts, is that we “ought” to adopt the beliefs because ancestors or forefathers adopted those beliefs (1961, p. 27). The role of extrinsic elements (texts, narratives, events, experience, revelation, and so on) is not considered carefully. It is ironic indeed that Freud should so emphasize untrustworthiness in such proofs, when his own empirical work, and logic, are prone to marks of that kind of thing (1961, p. 27). So, not surprisingly, he insists that we come to a particular conclusion: given all the information we inherit in terms of culture, it is just those elements which help us to solve the puzzles of the universe and reconcile us to the sufferings of the world that “are the least well authenticated” (1961, p. 27). Of course, he is correct on the question of revelation as a source, though

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it needs to be said that the question of the truth of revelation goes well beyond the question of the truth of assertions made about revelation. Nonetheless, he is right to insist that the authenticity of the assertion is a fit subject of investigation. But the conclusion he draws does not follow: that the most important elements which help us to solve the riddles of the universe and reconcile us to suffering are those that are not authenticated well at all (1961, p. 27). Interestingly, he does not include an account of attempts to authenticate these; nor does he set out the conditions that will suffice for such authentication to take place. It is quite clear that the appeal to an urge or a need cannot do all the work required to authenticate revelation and claims made about it in the world’s diverse traditions of the sacred, and manifold expressions of sacred experience and knowledge. The question of proof, especially empirical proof, in relation to personal experience, which can yield truths as well as falsehoods, to be sure, and to extraordinary events, needs careful consideration, reflection and study. Freud considers various claims in this context, in the present. The first set of claims is made by spiritualists in the modern era (1961, p. 27). They assert that the individual soul survives, and they attempt to prove the truth of this belief by appealing perhaps to their experience. Freud is unconvinced because he argues they cannot refute the fact that those spirits that appear to them and the things that they reveal are nothing more than the products of their own thinking (1961, p. 27). It is notable here though that Freud attacks assertions with assertions of his own. He does not show or prove at any point that such appearances and utterances in general are merely products of their own thinking or mental activity (1961, p. 27). It is not surprising, of course, that he should choose such an antagonistic approach; it is very difficult to see how anyone could prove such counterassertions by appealing to father-figure fixations or single urges and needs. It is also very difficult to see how anyone could prove that all the assertions and information which spiritualists take from spirits are nonsensical, foolish and/ or meaningless (1961, p. 27), especially since Freud seems not to have looked at many such cases or much of the existing evidence at all. So, having asserted his objections to the claims of the spiritualists, he turns his attention to the philosophy of “As if” which affirms that our thinking incorporates many hypotheses which we recognize as baseless and absurd (1961, p. 28). These are fictions, he argues, though we must behave as if we believe in them. Freud believes that this is exactly the case with religious doctrines because of their significance in maintaining social structures (1961, p. 28)—and philosophers are the only ones who could affirm such a belief: one who thinks in ways which are not influenced by philosophy and its “artifices” will not accept the belief, for in their view, something which is absurd or contradicts reason cannot be accepted (1961, p. 29). Freud is re-

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minded of his children, who expressed disdain when told that a story is in fact a fairy tale, and he adds: we may expect people to adopt the same stance in relation to the “fairy tales” which constitute religion, notwithstanding the philosophy of the “As if’” (1961, p. 29). The assertion that human thought-activity includes many hypotheses which are groundless and even absurd, or fictitious, is affirmed (1961, p. 28). Believers have to behave, according to Freud, “as if” they believe in such “fictions,” because such behavior is needed to maintain social structures (1961, p. 28). He compares this kind of reasoning to the position that some things are believed because they are absurd. And he attributes this kind of thinking broadly to those who are under the spell of philosophy, forgetting that logic and sound reasoning are also integral parts of philosophy and that artifices are themselves subject to logical analysis and evaluation (1961, p. 28). The admission that a belief is absurd or irrational (1961, p. 29), in one sense, is equivalent to the admission that it may be contrary to good logic. His use of the fairy tale analogy is misleading: fairy tales are fictions; claims about extraordinary events may not be fictions. The question must be settled in science by appealing to the full range of evidence, where possible, and careful, sound reasoning. Unfortunately, Freud does not fulfill either of these tasks. He makes rash, generalized, unsubstantiated and certainly unproven assertions about religion and fairy tales here, and fails to subject the “as if” position to the rigorous logico-philosophical scrutiny that it deserves (1961, p. 29). He sets out two important tasks, though, and discusses the role of illusion. He asks about the place of the force of those teachings and the source of their efficacy, since he regards it as independent of reason (1961, p. 29). He argues that we must focus on the “psychical” basis of religious ideas, which are treated as teachings, not “precipitates” of experience or products of thinking, but rather illusions which fulfil ancient, powerful and urgent human desires (1961, p. 29). Therein lies, according to Freud, the secret of their power. He reiterates the idea of the “terrifying impression” of our helplessness in those years when we are children and the deep desire for protection, provided by the father; he repeats the claim that this helplessness persists through life and necessitates a clinging to the father, who is even more powerful (1961, p. 29). In this way, the belief in the benevolence of Providence helps us to overcome our fear of life’s threats; the setting up of a moral world-order fulfils the requirements of justice; and the continuation of our existence in a future one gives a framework within which such wish-fulfilments unfold (1961, p. 29). The whole system, according to Freud, and its assumptions, provide the framework for answers to riddles that we face concerning the origin of the universe, the connection between body and mind, and so on. He

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notes the psychical relief that comes when the conflicts of childhood which arise from the father complex, and which are never entirely overcome, are removed and carried to a universal solution (1961, p. 29). So, his answer is that religious ideas, presented as teachings, are illusions (1961, p. 29). As such, they are fulfillments of wishes and urges which are powerful and dominant (1961, p. 29). He links their power to the need for protection which we feel in our childhood, and which is provided by the father, though he does not note tellingly, the protective role provided by others in our childhood lives who have little or nothing to do with our actual fathers and father figures. He argues that it is a powerful sense of persistent helplessness that drives us towards the figure of the father (but again, he does not pause to consider our attraction to others who fulfil the same, or an analogous, function) (1961, p. 29). However, he extends his argument to assert that there is an attraction to an even more powerful “father,” benevolent Providence, which eases our fear (1961, p. 29), though why such a thing should be equated with a father figure, and no other kind of valid authority figure, remains a mystery. Of course, the vitality of such symbolic relationships and dynamics can hardly be denied. What is in question is the content, form and function of all the relevant elements that comprise such dynamics and their interrelations, especially given the complexity of the question of power, authority and protection, not just in the lives of children but also in the lives of all adults. The father complex may be an important part of the answer, but it is a rash assertion to claim that it is the whole of the answer. Certainly, such an assertion cannot be deduced from the available evidence, and nor should it be. Freud does clarify his reference to illusions, significantly: he means by “illusion” something other than an error; he notes that Aristotle’s belief that vermin come from dung is an error, but it would be false to call it an illusion. But one finds an illusion in Columbus’s belief that he had found a new passage to the Indies, for there is a wish here and it plays an important part in his error, Freud notes (1961, p. 30). Illusions are characterized by him as things which derive from wishes, and in that sense, resemble, to a significant degree, psychiatric delusions, though there are significant differences, too: for example, in delusions, we see an essential contradiction between the delusion and reality. Freud has already noted that illusions are not necessarily untrue, and so do not necessarily contradict reality. For example, a middleclass girl may harbor the illusion that she will marry a prince someday, which is in the domain of possibility, even though it may be unlikely. So, Freud calls a belief an illusion when a wish fulfillment is an important motivational factor (1961, p. 31). On this basis, somewhat questionable and insubstantial, it must be said, Freud generalizes about all religious “doctrines”: these are illusions and

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cannot be proven; some are very improbable and do not cohere with things which have been carefully discovered about reality, so they can be accurately compared to delusions (1961, p. 31). They cannot be refuted, and they cannot be proven. He admits that too little is known about them, and that there many questions which we cannot answer through science alone. However, he regards scientific work as the only kind of work which can produce knowledge of reality “outside ourselves” (1961, p. 32). It is illusory to expect such knowledge from things like intuition and introspection since they cannot produce anything, according to Freud, except particulars about the mental life of human beings, which is not easy to interpret—and never knowledge about questions which are answered readily in religions (1961, p. 32). He really does not show, nor can he show in any empirical sense, that all religious doctrines are illusions and resistant to proof (1961, p. 31). What is also resistant to proof, however, is his own proposition concerning all religious doctrines (1961, p. 31). The samples he provides are not substantial enough; and the conclusions he draws from these samples are questionable, to say the least. It is true, as he argues, that no one can be forced to accept the doctrines as true, but no one should be compelled either not to believe in what the evidence suggests or not to pursue the truth of the matter carefully and rigorously (1961, p. 32). It is true also that some of these doctrines are improbable and incompatible with things that have been “laboriously” arrived at in relation to reality (1961, p. 32), but two caveats need to be stated here: first, it does not follow that all such doctrines can be described in this way; second, Freud’s understanding of the world’s reality is by no means unproblematic (resting in one respect, for example, on the existence of single urges and/or needs, and an overarching though ultimately problematic, and worse, unjustified emphasis on father figures) (1961, p. 32). His attempt to compare religious doctrines to delusions is problematic in empirical and logical terms (1961, p. 31). In empirical terms, the evidence he presents is by no means sufficient; in logical terms, he overgeneralizes, and oversimplifies, the field, so to speak, of actual and possible religious “doctrines” (1961, p. 31). He certainly does not show that these doctrines are all similar to, or just are, delusions. He notes that “the reality value of most of them we cannot judge” and yet he judges that these are all like delusions; he notes that just as they are unprovable, so, too, they are irrefutable, but fails to note that in that sense, as in other senses, his analogy falters on yet another level (1961, p. 32). Doctrines held by delusional beings can generally be refuted, and/or treated, to some degree, at least, some of the time. His note of epistemological humility is welcome at this point but does not do enough to dispel the logical leaps and empirical gaps in some of his earlier assertions, and conclusions. If it is true that we do not know enough to adopt a critical approach towards them, then a more modest approach to our judg-

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ments concerning all religious doctrines may be advisable (1961, p. 32). If it is true that the riddles of the world are not revealed readily to our inquiries and that there are many things which science cannot explain, then greater caution, and rigor, ought to be pursued (1961, p. 32). It is certainly not demonstrated in his work, or self-evident in any sense, that scientific work is the only kind of work which produces knowledge of reality “outside ourselves”—this does seem to be a deeply ingrained bias in Freud’s work, and unfortunately, it is one that contaminates the foundations of his investigations of “all” religious doctrines (1961, p. 32). As a theoretical presupposition, it is not only questionable, it may turn out to be unnecessarily reductive and simplistic. Ironically, it does sound similar in one respect to some religious doctrines, for example, which insist on one road, and only one road, to an understanding of reality (1961, p. 32). The point here is not that such doctrines may be false; the point is that such doctrines as Freud’s, though articulated in the name of legitimate and authoritative scientific inquiry, fail a number of empirical and methodological, and indeed logical, standards and tests (1961, p. 32). His judgments concerning the illusory nature of intuition and introspection are also questionable. He asserts that they only offer particulars about the mental aspects of our lives, which are not easy to interpret (1961, p. 32), but again there is no proof or demonstration of such things. Certainly, these are not justified by his scientific work (1961, p. 32). Freud does not show that there is a necessary connection, it must be said, between intuition and introspection on the one hand, and only such particulars, on the other hand (1961, p. 32). He does seem to underdetermine the content of these at this point; it is conceivable, at the very least, that intuition and introspection could open up for us, and/or reveal, particulars about other things such as states of affairs or events in our physical lives or in the physical lives of others (1961, p. 32). Nor does he show that intuition and introspection do not ever provide any information about those questions which, he asserts, religious doctrine answers quite easily (1961, p. 32). Note in passing the somewhat inaccurate, and rash, reference to the ease with which religious doctrines, to his mind, address questions—there is quite a bit of empirical and historical evidence, after all, to suggest clearly that such questions are sometimes not answered very easily at all within traditions of religious doctrine, and this is certainly true of some such “doctrines” in Judaism (for example, concerning messianism and mysticism), Christianity (for example, concerning Mary or the Trinity), Buddhism (concerning the doctrine of enlightenment) and Islam (concerning the correct interpretation of certain suras), and so on and so forth (1961, p. 32). The level of sweeping generalization that he operates on here, and the questionable inductive processes that underpin it, really do raise important logical (and empirical) questions. He is surely correct though to insist that it

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would be “insolent” to allow an arbitrary will to dominate here and assert that a portion of the religious system is more or less acceptable (1961, p. 32). It is a pity, it must be said, that this kind of caution, and prudential judgment, does not extend more fully to his own analysis and understanding of religious doctrines, broadly speaking, and indeed the vast and expansive fields of religion and the sacred, more generally (1961, p. 31). The questions, as he realized, are indeed momentous, certainly too much so to be catalogued or categorized simply, or in a sweepingly generalized way, in accordance with an arbitrary will (1961, p. 32), which after all may conceivably harbor some illusions about the content of religious doctrines as a whole, or may even suffer from some illuisions about the nature, content and significance of all such doctrines. But Freud provides another contentious series of assertions which does suggest that will rather than reason is driving the analysis: on the questions of religion, he asserts that human beings are guilty of every kind of “dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor” (1961, p. 32). He attacks philosophers also: they use words, he argues, in ways that remove them almost entirely from their original sense (1961, p. 32). For example, God’s name becomes an imprecise abstraction which is self-created and they “boast” that they have grasped a transcendent, purer notion of God, even though this God is only an insubstantial reflection and no longer the powerful being one finds in religious doctrines (1961, p. 32). So, Freud spares neither religious apologists, religious advocates nor philosophers. It is not that the truth of such assertions is questionable or unsubstantiated; the problem is that it is difficult if not impossible to determine, clearly, who, exactly, is at fault here and why. He seems to be arguing that there is a strong connection between religious questions (though this category in itself is vast and complex and encompasses some things which are discontinuous, diverse or incommensurable) and levels of “dishonesty” to be found among people who presumably are religious, among others; he also seems to be arguing, on a charitable interpretation, that some “philosophers” are not careful or accurate enough with the meaning of their words, which are therefore distorted or obscured to such a degree that they lose much of their original meaning (1961, p. 32). But this is all problematic, to say the least. First, it is not clear which questions he has in mind in this context (1961, p. 32). Some questions are historical; some are hermeneutical; some indeed are scientifically relevant and important (for example, recent work on archaeology and the excavation of geographical sites related to religious founders, or founders of sacred traditions, or in neuroscience and religious experience, and the active interest taken in these by Jews, Christians and Buddhists, among many others). It is certainly not accurate, and a little misleading, to assert that “questions of religion” in general, whatever that might mean, do not bring into view some

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concern with the truth and facts concerning important religious figures and sacred sites and objects, for example (1961, p. 32). Second, he gives a sketchy and quite insufficient account of dishonesty (1961, p. 32). It can hardly be said by someone whose will is not arbitrarily being imposed upon complex structures, systems, events, experiences, testimonies and phenomena, and so on, and who is familiar with the history of modern science, that it is peculiar to those who are religious, or concern themselves, sympathetically, with religious questions (1961, p. 32). But perhaps Freud is arguing something a little different: perhaps he meant that dishonesty is not peculiar to those who are religious, or concern themselves, sympathetically, with religious questions, just that it is the major characteristic, or more characteristic, in the domain of such questions (1961, p. 32). If so, these positions would hardly be more provable or justifiable, it must be said, in empirical as well as logical terms. Much would depend on the evidence he has in mind, but it is very difficult to determine at this stage. Third, the attack on “philosophers” is vague and perplexing. He asserts that “they,” whose identities remain unclear, give some vague abstraction a name, but it is one which is self-created, “God” (1961, p. 33). Why they should give this name to, and only to, such an abstraction is unclear; why they should give this name to something abstract, and not otherwise, remains unexplained (1961, p. 33). Why they should relate God to an abstraction, let alone to one that is vague, or imprecise, remains unexplained. Why all of “them” are doing this sort of thing, and in the same kind of way, presumably, is also quite perplexing (1961, p. 33). If Freud is right about them, a reflective philosopher is likely to conclude that their methods and claims about God are ripe for philosophical analysis and critique (1961, p. 33). It is ironic to say the least, that Freud is attacking them in part because of their vagueness or lack of precision! Freud claims that they, having named some vague abstraction “God,” can then “pose” as deists or believers; they can even “boast” that they recognize a transcendent concept of God (1961, p. 33). If that is so, then scientists as well as philosophers ought to respond critically. The evidence these “believers” produce is insufficient and the logic they adopt may certainly be problematic (1961, p. 32). Freud does recognize the limits of his inquiry, though he does not allow that to temper his judgment, somewhat rash in the light of the evidence he produces, that religious doctrines are just illusions (1961, p. 33). Yet he notes that the task of assessing the truth-value of religious doctrines does not fall within the scope of “the present enquiry” (1961, p. 33). He believes that it is sufficient to have recognized these in psychological terms, as illusions (1961, p. 33), though the evidence is not sufficient to justify the belief. He argues that it would be good if God did create everything and that there is a benevolent Providence, an after-life and so on, but that it is a notable fact that such

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talk is all rather wishful (1961, p. 33). Of course, there may be some things that we are bound to wish for that may not, on that basis, be false necessarily, or turn out to be false necessarily, but Freud did not pause to explore this important question. He raises questions which attract significant debate and disputation: for example, the question of approximately when, and by what kind of human beings, religious doctrines were fashioned (1961, p. 33). It is a little questionable to argue that a particular kind of human being creates such doctrines, especially since no known historical or historiographical account which is exhaustive would necessarily allow us to deduce that all such doctrines are created by them, and all in analogous ways (1961, p. 33). It is quite conceivable that a number of different kinds were responsible (1961, p. 33). For example, one can only take the analogy so far before the manifold differences and discontinuities, indeed, oppositions, become apparent, and prominent: it is difficult to insist on analogies alone if one wishes to understand deeply the doctrines of ancient animism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Taoism; or within particular religions, on analogies between the doctrines of the followers of Dionysian faiths, with their maenads and satyrs, and the doctrines of the Apollonians; so, too, with the doctrines derived from the Gospels, for example, and those derived from the Gospel of Judas, or Gnostic gospels; and so, too, with the doctrines of Origen and those of Celsus or those of Augustine and the Manicheans; or those of Aquinas and Luther; and so on. There are many such examples in many religions (1961, p. 31). It is doubtful that we will discover their motives, it must be said, fully, especially in more ancient religious systems and the emergence of their various doctrines. Freud’s faith in science, and what he refers to tellingly as the “scientific spirit,” is both notable and optimistic: this spirit prompts a specific attitude towards the things of the world; when it is faced with religious matters it is more hesitant but does cross “the threshold” (1961, p. 38). But as more people attain knowledge, more people abandon religious belief (1961, p. 38). It can hardly be said that pausing just “a little,” hesitating, and finally crossing “the threshold,” in relation to the study of religion, are foreign to inquiries by philosophers or even some religious thinkers (who are historians, for example) into religious questions, and religious doctrines, or for that matter, doctrines concerning the sacred (1961, p. 38). The rich intellectual tradition of debate and reflection in the philosophical literature on such matters, points to just that kind of “attitude” (1961, p. 38). Yet Freud remarkably and significantly remains largely silent about that rich intellectual and reflective tradition, over two thousand years old now, when he thinks about religion, broadly, and not just religious doctrines, in particular. Religion, he asserts, is our “universal obsessional neurosis,” which emerges from the Oedipus complex, the connection to the father

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(1961, p. 38). On this basis, he predicts a turning-away which is as inevitable as a “process of growth” (1961, p. 38). But he does sound a significant note of caution, it must be said: he notes that these are mere analogies which assist us to understand a phenomenon (echoing Durkheim) which is social, just as he notes that individual pathology fails to provide a completely “valid counterpart” (1961, p. 43). It is a breathtaking, sweeping generalization: religion is the “universal obsessional neurosis,” and by implication, little or nothing more than that (1961, p. 43). The connection between a need, an urge, a fixation and the father figure, itself problematic as argued earlier for numerous reasons, not least of which is the lack of evidence that allows such a conclusion to be proven, and religion as a whole, is not demonstrated. Its universal nature is also not proven—admittedly it is difficult to see how empirical work of the kind that Freud conducted could ever prove or demonstrate the truth of such a proposition or hypothesis (1961, p. 43). Its obsessional quality, in universal terms, also remains unproven, and unsubstantiated (1961, p. 43). Certainly, he adopts a similar approach in other important works like Civilization and Its Discontents, in which he asserts that religion has one “technique” which consists in devaluing existence and mis-shaping the picture of the world in a way, he asserts, which is delusional (1962, p. 31), again without demonstrating or substantiating such sweeping propositions. Once again, he compares it as an obsessional neurosis with that of children and traces its origin to the Oedipus complex and to the persistent relation to the father, without presenting any justification or proof that could withstand logical or empirical scrutiny (1961, p. 43). He does grant that the explanation is subject to a little doubt, by implication, but he argues nonetheless that if he is correct on this matter, one can suppose that, inevitably, human beings will turn their backs on religion (1961, p. 43). The enlightened attitude, it seems, entails that of a “sensible” teacher who does not confront it, but rather attempts to “ease its path and mitigate the violence of its irruption”—never mind that the complexity of its paths and their distinctive characteristics, or the non-violent effects of these irruptions, constitute significant and substantial questions and produce significant and substantial subjects of inquiry in their own right (1961, p. 43). He notes that the analogy does not “exhaust” the “essential nature” of religion, even though he has been arguing that obsessional neurosis is the very essence of religion (1961, p. 43). Not only does it not exhaust religion, however, Freud fails to demonstrate that it is a necessary and sufficient characteristic of religion, taken as a whole, and indeed of the sacred content of all religions, taken as a whole. He notes also the limits of the analogy he employs but fails to note the dis-analogous elements that, as they increase and multiply, weaken the structure of his analogy more and more. He notes with admirable candor that though the analogy is limited, and in fact incon-

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clusive, the pathology of the subject fails to provide a completely valid counterpart (1961, p. 43). He moderates his “zeal” and not a moment too soon: he notes the “appearance of contradiction” because he has discussed complex things too quickly, and his honesty is both welcome and praiseworthy (1961, p. 47). He notes, memorably, that he must “moderate” his “zeal” and grant the possibility that he, too, is pursuing an illusion (1961, p. 47). He wonders whether the effect of the religious “prohibition” on thinking is as bad as he supposes and notes, with memorable honesty again, that it is possible that human nature will remain unchanged even if education is “not abused in order to subject people to religion” (1961, p. 47). He grants that these are difficult and complex questions, and some may be insoluble now, or in the future (even if his earlier analyses do not always suggest the same thing). He invites the reader to grant that there is a justification for holding on to a hope for the future that there may be a treasure to be found that would enrich the whole of civilization and that a non-religious education is an experiment that is worth pursuing (1961, p. 48). And with admirable candor, he admits that if such an experiment turns out to be unsatisfactory, he would be quite ready to surrender the “reform” (1961, p. 48). There does seem to be a contradiction between the sweeping claims made earlier with their abundant confidence and indeed, some zeal, as he admits, and the element of epistemic humility bound to a sense of limits and boundaries that he sounds in the closing sections of his book. And there can be little doubt that the overall impression is that he has attempted to tackle many complex and difficult questions, and perhaps some insoluble ones, somewhat hastily or imprecisely. He is right, too, about this: perhaps he is harboring an illusion about religion, for example, that in a broad and evidentially insubstantial, and also unjustified, sense, all religion is an obsessional neurosis and little or nothing more, and in a universal context (1961, p. 48). He is right that the effects of religion are radically underdetermined in his work, and that the evidence that is required to secure his conclusions is generally very thin or lacking. His claim to incomplete knowledge, though at odds in some ways with the breathtaking confidence which colors many of his earlier assertions, and presuppositions, nonetheless is valuable. The experiment of a non-religious education may be worth trying, but no good experiment in education can possibly be based on sweeping generalizations and grandiose, questionable assertions and speculations, based on problematic assumptions, which are unsupported either by rational justification, sound reasoning or compelling evidence (1961, p. 48). Freud is refreshingly open about the presuppositions he makes concerning human nature, and these play a formative role in the development of his own views concerning religious believers. He refers to his own wholly “descriptive judgement” that the human subject has a “weak” intelligence and is

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governed by “instinctual wishes” (1961, p. 49), a view of human nature that really does require careful analysis, clarification, evaluation and justification (which Freud does not provide here). He argues that it is senseless to start by dismantling religion by force and all at once, just as it is hopeless, for “the believer” will not part with his beliefs easily, either through logic or by prohibition (1961, p. 49)—and one might add, why would they, given the relative lack of evidence, moderation, justification or proof, within the overall critique? He argues that such an undertaking would probably require some cruelty, since he compares the effect of the consolations that religion offers to a narcotic, which dulls, presumably not just the body, but also the mind (1961, p. 49). That religion may have quite different effects on many people, which would not have anything to do with drowsiness, dullness, numbing and sleep is a question, unfortunately, that is not considered at this point. Moreover, it is difficult to justify the proposition, inductively arrived at, to be sure, that “man” is characterized by a “weak intelligence” and governed by his instinctual life (1961, p. 49). It is always significant that Freud, when he makes such sweeping claims, rarely pauses to consider relevant counterexamples; yet these are important parts of the available evidence and they ought to be considered. If they are not, Freud runs the risk of falling prey to the dominance of his own instinctual, or subconscious, wishes, unsympathetic or hostile though they may be, concerning religion—that is to say, he is less likely to alter his views concerning religion, sweeping though they may be, in the light of the available evidence and in line with authentically scientific inquiry. There is ample, and rich, evidence, for example, on the topic of believers who not only allow their beliefs to be “torn” from them, but on the dynamic relationship between religious belief and doubt (1961, p. 49). The analogy drawn between religious belief and a “sleeping draught” is shallow and unconvincing, and he provides no compelling evidence for it: there is ample evidence also of the vital, energized, intellectual and rational struggle with the question of faith and doubt (for example, in the writings of Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard, and in the “dark night of the soul” tradition, among many others) that suggests forcefully that the struggle with religious belief, and its objects, is more dynamic, complex and sophisticated than Freud realizes or allows (1961, p. 49). It is a gross caricature, unbecoming of a scientific study, or even of the scientific attitude, to suggest that believers are all like sleepwalkers, or are similar to beings who are under the effect of something like a narcotic which silences or negates their rational, intellectual, reflective and/or creative faculties, as Freud’s analogy does suggest, intentionally or unintentionally. Not surprisingly, and this is particularly notable in light of recent developments in relation to the “new atheism,” Freud associates religion with delusions. He holds fast to a distinction: his illusions, he asserts, are different

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to those of religion because his can be corrected (1961, p. 53)! They are not like delusions either, he argues, presumably because they can be corrected: if experience shows him, and others who agree with him, that they are mistaken, then they will change their view. His characterization of his own position here is noteworthy, revealing and important: a psychologist who has no illusions about the difficulty of discovering his “bearings” in nature, and who tries to assess the development of human beings in relation to the small amount of knowledge gained from the investigation of the “mental processes” of subjects in their growth from childhood to adulthood (1961, p. 53). An idea forces itself upon him—that is how he describes the process—namely, that religion is analogous to a childhood neurosis, and yet he has enough optimism to suppose that we will overcome, somehow, this neurotic phase, since many children do outgrow neuroses (1961, p. 53). He notes with refreshing and memorable honesty that his discoveries which stem from individual psychology may be inadequate, their application to human beings as a whole may be unjustified, and his own optimism may have weak or no foundations—he grants the existence of many uncertainties, though he believes that one ought to say what one thinks and excuse oneself on the basis that “one is not giving it out for more than it is worth” (1961, p. 53). So, he argues that there are illusions that can be corrected and illusions that cannot; the latter belong to religion, according to Freud. The former can be corrected, possibly, by experience; the latter persist blindly, Freud suggests. Such views remain in Freud’s overall argument, and they do seem to be asserted blindly or in a largely willful way—in the sense that experience or evidence or logic that might counter or even contradict these, is ignored, overlooked or forgotten—and with a persistence that has some of the hallmarks of an illusion, it must be said, as Freud understands it (1961, p. 53). So, it is not surprising that he repeats the view, not scientifically, evidentially or logically (for that matter) justified in his own research: religion is like a “childhood neurosis”; it belongs to a neurotic stage in human development, even though there is no conclusive evidence offered to substantiate in any kind of satisfactory scientific or logical way, the claims that are being made (1961, p. 53). And yet, the suggestion that religion is akin to delusion still persists, for example, in the work of Richard Dawkins, among others. It is not coherent to argue on the one hand, as Freud does, that uncertainties may abound in the psychology of the subject, and yet, on the other hand, insist on the analogy (not yet rigorously argued or thoroughly tested) that religion and delusion, in some profound sense, are similar or identical, or one and the same (1961, p. 53). Freud ironically appeals to reason and experience (as he ought to), though his blindness to evidence to the contrary, or to evidence that is inconsistent

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with his sweeping undemonstrated thesis, continues to haunt and destabilize his understanding. He argues that religious doctrines must be put aside because in the long term, reason and experience will prevail, though the conflict is assumed rather than demonstrated, it must be said. If religions confine themselves to belief in a transcendent, sacred being with qualities that cannot be defined and purposes that cannot be understood, they will “be proof against the challenge of science” though they will also cease, according to Freud, to command our interest (1961, p. 53). He asks us to observe the difference between two kinds of illusions, one of which he claims for himself: the religious person, he argues, must defend the religious illusion with all their power, and if it is discredited, then a whole world will collapse (1961, p. 54). Despair results. Freud believes that he is free from that kind of prison, perhaps because he is prepared, unlike the former presumably, to give up much of what constitutes human infantile wishes—and he adds, somewhat presumptuously it must be said, that he can actually accept it if some of his expectations are revealed to be illusory (1961, p. 54). We ought to be guided by reason and experience in science, of course, and the fact there is no necessary contradiction between religion and science (as many scientists believe including Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Stephen Jay Gould, among many others), does not give Freud pause (1961, p. 54). Freud asserts but does not prove that belief in a transcendent spiritual being is necessarily irrational, or illusory, or delusional (and in the sense that he notes uncertainties and limits in relation to scientific fields of study, he also cannot produce conclusive proofs of such claims); he does not prove that such higher beings, as a whole or generally, have qualities that are necessarily indefinable; and he does not demonstrate that the purposes of such beings, if they exist, are indiscernible (1961, p. 54). In short, there is not much proof or demonstration of many of the key claims upon which he builds his sweeping account of religion. He notes that if religious illusions are “discredited,” then the world of the believer in those illusions collapses, yet, tellingly, fails to note that if scientific illusions, or rather pseudo-scientific illusions, implicit for example in the assertion that all religion is delusional or that all religion is part of a neurotic phase in human development, are discredited—or at least, not evidentially or epistemically justified at all—then the world of the scientific believer will tremble at its foundations, quite conceivably (1961, p. 54). There may be bondage to infantile wishes, of course, in some senses, but it does not seem to be peculiar to the religious believer, as Freud understands him or her. The wish to insist, willfully one might say, on the connection between religion, childhood and neurosis, as an essential or basic relation, may just be the product of an attachment, especially since it is not justified by Freud’s body of evidence.

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Freud concludes by affirming the overarching importance of science, but can countenance no important links or connections at all between it and religion (notwithstanding the rich tradition alluded to earlier, which includes many of the most significant scientists from the advent of the scientific revolution to the modern age, and a significant body of evidence, for example, embodied in their work, that explores the existence of many links and connections and in fact, suggests just the opposite view to Freud’s), no possible or actual connections, cooperation, complementarity or reconciliation. He affirms a concept of science at the end that not only sounds unduly optimistic, it is notably not supported by any conclusive studies, nor by any convincing or demonstrative evidence at all: We believe that it is possible for scientific work to gain some knowledge about the reality of the world, by means of which we can increase our power and in accordance with which we can arrange our life. If this belief is an illusion, then we are in the same position as you. But science has given us evidence by its numerous and important successes that it is no illusion. . . . No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere (1961, pp. 55–56).

Chapter Seven

The Ontological Question

The importance and relevance of ontology in relation to the sacred (and indeed to religion in its manifold relations with the sacred) is not sufficiently examined by any of the thinkers and scientists referred to in the study so far. Many thinkers like Martin Heidegger, Dale Jacquette, Richard Norris and Mircea Eliade certainly note its importance, as a branch of metaphysics and in relation to the sacred. It is important to understand just what they take ontology to mean and be. Jacquette examines ontology in detail and with great clarity: What exists? This is what we really want to know: whether and in what sense spatiotemporal physical entities, numbers and sets, propositions and universals, persons and minds and God, among other things, are real. Before we can address questions of what specific things or kinds of things exist, we need to understand the concept of existence, of being as such, or what Aristotle in the motto from Metaphysics . . . refers to as being qua being or being as being. . . . What is it, what does it mean, to be? This is the ultimate question for pure philosophical ontology. We cannot meaningfully assert the existence or nonexistence of physical entities, of numbers, sets, universals or anything else, unless or until we comprehend what it means for something to exist in the most general sense. The fact that the actual world exists is not generally in doubt, and perhaps cannot sanely be questioned. The mere presumptive fact of the world’s existence nevertheless offers no philosophical insight as we try to fathom what it means for the world to exist as a problem in pure philosophical ontology and try on the basis of a good analysis of the concept of being to rigorously justify belief in the existence of the world. The question of being asks what it means for something to exist (2002, p. 1).

So, ontology is concerned with what exists, with everything that is. But it is important to be clearer here about its heritage, so to speak, and its nature. 133

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Three preliminary points need to be set out here to avoid confusion. First, it is inquiry into the nature of existing things, or existence more broadly, or in the language of traditional metaphysics (on which much of Heidegger’s analysis, for example, will turn), being and beings. But it is not any kind of inquiry. The word, crucially, has as one of its roots the ancient and rich Greek term, logos, and it brings a vast, intricate and momentous tradition of questioning, thinking, reflection and inquiry into view. That is, it is rational and logical inquiry into the question of being, and beings, conceived broadly, as a starting point. Second, it is not rational inquiry into some things that exist, and their nature and characteristics for example, but rather systematic rational and logical inquiry into the nature of all being and all beings. Third, we do not then just want to know “whether and in what sense spatiotemporal physical entities, numbers and sets, propositions and universals, persons and minds and God, among other things, are real,” but also what the nature of the relation is between these things as things that are, or existing things, and what is real, or not real (2002, p. 1). So, the question, “what does it mean to be?” is a crucial ontological question, like the question “what does it mean for something to exist?” or, by extension, “what does it mean for something to be real?” (2002, p. 1). But Jacquette goes further and rightly so: there are “ultimate” questions which belong properly to “pure philosophical ontology,” for we do need, as he argues, to “comprehend what it means for something to exist in the most general sense” (2002, p. 1). But there are other kinds of questions too. It is also important to inquire into the “precise meaning,” or the meaning more generally, of words such as “being,” “to be,” “exist,” “existence,” to be “real,” “actual,” “present,” “manifest,” and so on (2002, p. 2). There is a temptation, he notes, to explain the meaning of being or “what it means for something to exist” by using synonyms: to exist is to be, or “to be real,” to be “actual or present” but this approach is problematic since the synonyms also need to be explained (2002, p. 2). He notes also that it is not very helpful to draw distinctions between different types or categories of being, because we do not entirely know what it means for something to “exist”—he argues that we cannot expect to give an account of the concept of being by referring “triumphantly to any given choice or subdivision of types of existent things” (2002, p. 2). We still need to know what it means for such things to be, so what is needed is a deeper understanding of the concept of being: we might, he argues, “appeal to even simpler properties,” if possible, or we might appeal, in our search for greater clarity, to metaphor and analogy (2002, p. 2). So, ontology includes meta-ontology. That is, such words as “‘being,’ ‘to be,’ ‘exist,’ ‘existence,’ to be ‘real,’ ‘actual,’ ‘present,’ ‘manifest,’ and like cognates” need to be understood in the context of that systematic rational and logical inquiry which constitutes ontology and its meta-dimensionality

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(2002, p. 2). As he notes importantly, synonyms also require explanation, especially at the level of metaontology. Metaphors and analogies help, conceivably, but they also require explanation, and clarification. If we try and explain being in relation to simpler, or more basic, properties, then those properties will also require explanation and clarification, conceivably. It seems then that we are bound to meta-ontological inquiry also. But there is an existing body of thought that might help us here: the history of ontology gives us important methodological inroads in relation to the question of the meaning of being. These questions and their inter-relations are not entirely clear. An analysis of being will explain what the meaning of exist is. It is the concept of being that is important here, amongst other things. By pursuing these paths, according to Jacquette, we will come to the concept of being in an indirect way—we see that the “only theory of being that makes headway with these long-standing metaphysical puzzles” in that space where it can be found, is in logic, which is the “only philosophical study more basic than ontology” (2002, p. 2). The history of ontology is rich, profound and thought-provoking. It certainly offers “a useful methodological inroad to the meaning of being,” as he notes (2002, p. 2). The connections can be obscure, and they can also be forgotten, neglected or under-valued. The ontological analysis of being, and the concept of being, that is, of “what it means for something to exist,” is related to the attempt to answer two important questions, at least, that is, why there is something (“rather than nothing”), and “whether, and if so why, there exists only one logically contingent actual world” (2002, p. 2). There are challenges here not just at the level of existing things (which is often assumed or presupposed) and concepts but also at the level of coherence: not just the coherence of the whole ontologically speaking, if there is such a thing, but also the coherence of ontological inquiry and indeed, ontological explanations. It is important to note, as he notes, recalling the two roots of the word ontology, ontos and logos, that we should not be surprised to find that the theory of being that allows us to progress with these “longstanding metaphysical puzzles” is in the domain of logic, the one branch of philosophy that is “more basic than ontology” (2002, p. 2). Ontology is bound up with rational systematic inquiry and it is also bound historically and linguistically to logic; in these senses, though it is not a scientific discipline strictly speaking, it nonetheless stands to reason. Jacquette goes further—he distinguishes between not one or two senses of the term ontology, but four: we have two interrelated groups of distinctions; pure philosophical ontology is not the same as applied scientific ontology, and ontology in the applied scientific sense can be described in two ways, as a discipline or as a domain (2002, p. 3). Ontology as a discipline is understood as a “method or activity of enquiry into philosophical problems about the concept or facts of existence” (2002, p.

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3). Ontology as a domain is “the outcome or subject matter of ontology as a discipline” (2002, p. 3). Applied scientific ontology understood as an existence domain is subdivided into “the theoretical commitment to a preferred choice of existent entities,” or to the “real existent entities themselves” which includes the natural world in its entirety (the extant domain) (2002, p. 3). Ontology as a theoretical domain offers descriptions or an inventory of all existing things in light of a particular theory (which could itself be true or not true). Ontology as the extant domain, on the other hand, includes all “real existent entities,” whatever they may be, in the light of a “true complete applied ontological theory” (2002, p. 4). Consequently, we need to proceed with caution with philosophical works which deal with ontology, if an author writes about “ontology” without qualification, so as not to confuse the “intended sense” with “any of the alternatives” (2002, pp. 3–4). Ontology signifies firstly, “pure philosophical ontology” which differs from “applied scientific ontology” which can be seen as a discipline or as a “domain”: to be understood as a “discipline” means that it signifies “a method or activity of enquiry into philosophical problems about the concept or facts of existence” (2002, p. 2). When ontology is understood as the extant domain, it focuses on actual things in the world (including “all real existent entities,” all actually existing things, whatever they are), which are identified within the framework of a systematic rational and logical—and Jacquette adds, “complete”—applied ontological theory (2002, p. 2). It will be important to bear these meanings of ontology in mind. In the end, the inquiry into the meaning of being, and beings, in the context of a pure philosophical ontology will be quite fundamentally important in relation, for example, to the ontology of the sacred, for the concept of being, or existence, is crucial to an understanding of those objects, or of the propositions concerning those objects, which belong to the world of the sacred. It will be important to bear in mind applied scientific ontology, where relevant, and in its two senses: as an existence domain with its manifold theoretical commitments, choices and claims (in relation to preferences, for example, concerning existing things, or “real” things which might exist) and as an extant domain (in relation to things that actually exist in the world as a whole). In the Encyclopedia of Religion, there is an intriguing and informative short section on ontology by Richard A. Norris, and it is instructive to look closely at that entry, since Eliade may have been familiar with it, and since there are important differences in the understanding of ontology as a discipline or as a domain. Norris offers a helpful historical overview. He argues that “ontology” means “discourse about, or study of, being” (2005, p. 6830). He notes that it was used “originally” as “an equivalent” for “metaphysics,” which “Aristo-

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tle, in Metaphysics 4.1, had defined precisely as the science that treats ‘being insofar as it is being.’” Norris notes correctly that Plato had considered the question of “being” (to on, ousia), which for him meant the “what” of things as a stable object of certain knowledge. Hence he thought that the term being was properly employed only of the self-identical, changeless, and hence eternal, realm of Forms—that reality, grasped by intellect alone, which is imaged in, but at the same time contrasted with, the mutable realm of “becoming.” It was Aristotle, critical of this outright identification of being with the immutable and transcendent Forms, who insisted that the verb “to be” is universally applicable and then proceeded to ask what it means to be (anything). Because, as he frequently observes, “‘being’ is said in many senses,” he denies in effect that the term is used univocally or that it defines an all-inclusive genus. He nevertheless thinks that its primary or focal use is to denote the subject, whether of discourse or of change and action: To be is to be some concrete “thing” (ousia)—a changing, individual composite of two correlative principles, form and matter or (in more general terms) actuality and potentiality. The former of these is the active principle of the thing’s growth and development (phusis, “nature”), the intelligible identity of it which the mind grasps in knowledge and expresses in judgment, while the latter is the substratum of possibility that allows for change (2005, p. 6830).

“Being” is indeed used in many senses and in relation to different kinds of things, not just divine forms, as Aristotle noted (2005, p. 6830). Certainly, “to be” means to exist as a concrete thing, but it also means to exist in some form or mode or act (2005, p. 6830). Ontos, the ancient Greek root of “ontology,” signifies that which is, as a Greek etymological dictionary will point out, routinely. The cosmos then, is, and nature conceived in the broadest terms then, is, amongst other things, the realm of what is (though the broader ontological question concerning whether that realm contains, so to speak, all there is, should not be overlooked or forgotten). Norris notes also that Aquinas was interested in ontology, under the influence of Aristotle, in particular: this account of what “being” means is developed in Aquinas’s metaphysics, in which he expands Aristotle’s distinction “between actuality and potentiality,” that is, we not only find the distinction between form and matter which in some sense “determines” the “what (id quod, essence) of a thing,” but between what “a thing is and the fact that it is (id quo, existence)” (2005, p. 6830). In this sense, “essence” is understood as a potentiality; it is translated into “act” “only through existing,” so ontology which attempts to explain “what it means to be this or that (thing)” needs to explain what it is that gives something (“substance”) its identity, and also what “accounts for its ‘being there,’” for example, its existence in the world (2005, p. 6830). Ontology, then, is concerned with being in its actual or potential forms; it explores rationally and/or logically various distinctions such as the distinc-

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tion between the form of the existing thing and the matter that determines what it is, and between what it is and the fact that it is, or between what sort of existent it is and the fact that it exists. Ontology, according to the Thomistic understanding, not only gives an account of what exists as something that is, as something that has this or that identity as an existent, but also of what accounts for its being, or for its existing. In other words, ontology sets out, rationally and/or logically, the question of being, of beings, potentiality, actuality, form, matter, identity, essence (potential brought into actuality by virtue of being, or by virtue of existing), act, what it means to be an existing thing, and what accounts for its being there (or here), that is to say, its existence in actuality (2005, p. 6830). But this is not the only way of understanding ontology. As Norris notes, Wolff in his First Philosophy or Ontology, which is responsible for establishing the “normal modern use of the term,” saw ontology as a part of metaphysics: the study of being as a genus (“general metaphysics”), as distinct from “special metaphysics,” that is, theology, psychology, and cosmology (2005, p. 6830). Being, according to Wolff, is a univocal word which means “what is,” universally, and the “fundamental principles” are the law of noncontradiction and the law of sufficient reason (2005, p. 6830). Ontology is indeed a part of metaphysics, the rational study of being as a “genus,” or further, being as being (2005, p. 6830). That is, ontology is concerned with the logos of being in the sense of being as a term which is “univocal,” that is denoting “what is” in terms of properties or characteristics which are universal, not particular (2005, p. 6830). In other words, ontology seeks to set out the fundamental and universal principles and laws that govern being, universally. Being is subject to fundamental principles such as the law of sufficient reason, which are themselves rationally and/or logically intelligible and explicable, and which, in turn, help us to grasp the nature and structure of “reality” to a very significant degree (2005, p. 6830). So, ontology becomes the philosophical branch of metaphysics that inquires not just into the nature and meaning of being, but also into the nature and meaning of the laws and principles that govern being. The Kantian turn however introduced some complications in relation to this picture of ontology. Kant rejected the idea of a science of generic being which is “abstract and deductive in form”—he regarded ontology as his transcendental philosophy, which was not concerned with “things in themselves” (noumena) but with the conditions of human sensibility, for example, all the “forms of sense-perception and the categories of the understanding” through which the “objects” of the world are “constituted as such” (2005, p. 6831). The analysis of being then becomes a study of the ways in which the knowing subject “objectifies” the “content of experience and so constitutes the ‘beings’ of the phenomenal world” (2005, p. 6831).

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Norris notes, too, that Hegel also turned against Wolff’s “dogmatic ontology” and pursued investigations which were couched in terms of logic which explored the process from simple to complex things, from “being” to “concept,” by which Geist (mind) “appropriates itself through self-objectification” (2005, p. 6831), or in other words, by which Geist unfolds in time and space through objective things, towards self-consciousness. The transcendental turn in Kantian philosophy, which emphasizes a priori conditions of sensibility, that is, conditions of human sensibility which precede experience or make such experience possible, emphasizes, according to Norris, not “things in themselves” (noumena), which exist in some sense in the world, but the preconditions that make human knowledge possible, such as perception through the senses and the categories by which we understand and categorize the objects of the world as we experience it (2005, p. 6831). The emphasis is thus not so much on being as being, or on “things in themselves,” but rather on an inquiry into our ways of perceiving and knowing objects in the world as phenomena and as the content of experience, as such (2005, p. 6830). In this context, ontology gives way to transcendental analysis; the inquiry into being, and beings, gives way to an investigation of preconditions, and conditions of sensibility, of perceiving, knowing and experiencing existing things, without denying, of course, that things are, that things exist. Norris notes more recent developments also. He notes that the project of ontology had been neglected for some time before it resurfaced in the works of Edmund Husserl, who sought a secure foundation for knowledge, through phenomenology, which, in turn, attempted to locate and describe “what is” in relation to the “transcendental ego” or “pure consciousness” (in contrast to the self, in the world, which belongs to the objective domain of scientific inquiry) (2005, p. 6831). It was Martin Heidegger, one of his students, in an influential work, Being and Time, who, according to Norris, revived ontology (2005, p. 6831). He distinguished “being” (from “to be”) and “beings” (“what there is”) (2005, p. 6831). Ontological inquiry concerns itself with the former; ontic inquiry concerns itself with the latter (2005, p. 6830). The key to the question of being according to Heidegger, as we shall see, is Dasein (the human being in the world) for whom the ontological question, and ontological inquiry, are critical. To understand then, what it means to be is to understand what is “presupposed in the human existent’s asking about its being” (2005, p. 6831). Ontology, in these terms, may be a home for transcendental analysis, but its focus is not the conditions of human sensibility, but rather the (pre)conditions of what it means to be, in-the-world (2005, p. 6831). Though it is not quite true to claim that the “project of ontology” was neglected in more recent philosophy—see, for example, the work of Heideg-

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ger and Buber, Tillich and Marcel, Gilson and Maritain, among many others—it is defensible to claim that the contributions of Husserl and Heidegger were notable indeed (2005, p. 6831). Husserl emphasized the importance of phenomenology and the study of consciousness of existing things, and Heidegger, especially in his early work, emphasized the question of time and Dasein, that is, the question of what it means to be, in the world (2005, p. 6831). To ask the ontological question, then, is to ask what it means for the human subject, or for Dasein, to ask about the nature of its own being in the world; to ask what it means to be a being and also to inquire into the meaning and nature of being, as a being in the world, and beings (2005, p. 6831). And, indeed, it is to Heidegger that we must turn inevitably, given his radical reformulation of our understanding of ontology and the ontological question. But before doing this it is important to clarify the distinction between ontic inquiry and ontological inquiry further. Paul Tillich elaborated on the distinction in quite memorable terms in a number of works and especially in The Courage to Be (1952). But it might help first to set out the context in the Western philosophical tradition that allows for these two kinds of inquiry to emerge. It is not possible, of course, to give a full account of the early philosophical tradition in this respect here, but it is possible to point at some critical developments. If one returns to the origins of Western philosophy, for a brief while, once again, it is already possible to discern the emergence of reflection and inquiry which one can come to recognize, much later, as ontology, in its early or incipient forms, as noted earlier; it is perhaps better described at such an early stage of its inception as inquiry which is ontic rather than ontological, since it seemed to be concerned not so much with systematic rational or logical or empirical investigation at that stage, but with general talk, imbued by myth and religion—characterized by deep perplexity often—of things that are and things that are not. Indeed, the level of perplexity seemed to prevent a systematic rational or logical or empirical approach to the issue, namely the mystery of the origin of the cosmos and, in particular, whether or not it had a beginning or is without beginning. So, for example, Sextus Empiricus records a story involving Epicurus and his nascent interest in the question of being or the question of what is: The poet who writes First of all, came the Chasm; and then Wide-bosomed earth, seat of all . . . refutes himself. For if someone asks him what the Chasm came from, he will not be able to answer. Some people say that this is the reason why Epicurus turned to philosophy. When he was still very young he asked a Schoolmaster who was reading out First of all came the Chasm . . .

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what the Chasm came from if it came first. The schoolmaster replied that it wasn’t his job, but the job of the so-called philosophers, to teach that sort of thing. ‘Well then,’ said Epicurus, ‘I must go along to them, if they are the ones who know the truth about the things that exist’ (Against the Mathematicians, quoted by Barnes, 1987, p. 57).

Four things should be noted here: first, there is the distinction, which is implicit, between “the philosophers,” and other inquirers or thinkers (who were not regarded as “philosophers,” such as the schoolmaster); second, Epicurus turns away from the latter towards the former (and in an important sense turns away from merely ontic inquiry towards philosophical inquiry which is to say, ontological inquiry); third, a turn towards philosophy is, in this sense, a turn towards ontology, since it is a turn towards not unquestioned, received, traditional or conventional ideas about the being and origins of the cosmos (which belong, in short, to the broader realm of ontic thinking, which does concern itself, to be sure, with things that exist, but not necessarily with the reasons why or the rational or logical explanation why things are as they are) but rather towards “the ones who know the truth about the things that exist”; and finally, the crucial question that emerges here, and it is an proto-ontological question, is the question of the truth, intelligible and explicable in rational and logical terms, of “the things that exist,” the laws that govern them (and are intellectually, rationally or logically intelligible and explicable), the qualities or characteristics discernible to reason (or observation), the general principles which apply to the order of the cosmos, and the intellectual or rational search for the arche, the first principle of the order of the cosmos, which is (Barnes, 1987, p. 57). Barnes notes that kosmos signified in ancient Greek “an orderly arrangement . . . a beautiful arrangement . . . something which is pleasant to contemplate. . . . The cosmos is necessarily, ordered—and hence it must be in principle explicable” (1987, p. 19)—which is to say, in one sense, that philosophical ontology, as systematic rational and/or logical inquiry into, and explanation of, the order of the things that are, is possible in such a cosmos. Barnes also notes that we are told that arche is a term “first used by Anaximander” (1987, p. 20), one of the first ontologists in the Western philosophical tradition: “its cognate verb can mean either ‘to begin,’ ‘to commence’ or else ‘to rule,’ ‘to govern’. An arche is thus a beginning or origin; and it is also a rule or a ruling principle” (1987, p. 20). It is certainly noteworthy that ontos, kosmos and arche bring into view, though not in an entirely clear way admittedly, a conception of a world that is, an order or arrangement that applies to that world which is, and a beginning or a commencement which is (real); when logos is added, as it is in the appearance of ontology, as a systematic form of philosophical inquiry (distinct from other forms of thinking), what is opened up, momentously, is a world that is, an order and arrangement that are, a beginning or a commence-

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ment, all of which are thought to be intelligible and explicable in rational, logical and/or empirical terms. It is worth remembering again at this point that ontos is derived from on which signifies being, what is (rather than what is not) and logos signifies a rational or true explanation, a principle of reason in things that are, like the cosmos. For example, Parmenides, as is well known, distinguished between being and non-being: Decision in these matters lies in this: it is or it is not. But it has been decided, as is necessary, to leave the one road unthought and unnamed (for it is not a true road), and to take the other as being and being genuine. How might what is then perish? How might it come into being? (Barnes, 1987, p. 134).

Aristotle also distinguishes between being (on) and beings (onta) in Metaphysics (1003a), so it is hardly surprising that ontology (a much later term) will focus on the nature meaning and significance of being, and beings, in general, as part of metaphysical inquiry. Barnes notes astutely that logos is “cognate with the verb legein which means ‘to say’ or ‘to state’” (1987, p. 21). But he also notes that the word has a richer set of meanings: “to give a logos or an account of something is to explain it, to say why it is so; so that a logos is often a reason… [one] can explain or give the reason for things” (1987, p. 21). In this way, ontology, once it is established as a branch of metaphysics much later on, will come to focus not merely on things that are and things that are not, or in other words, things which exist, and things which do not exist, or things which are real and things which are illusory, it will attempt nothing less than an explanation of being, as described earlier, a systematic account which stands to reason or which is true; it will also attempt to give a rational account of why things are and why things are not, or why things exist and why they do not. It is in this sense that ontology is frequently said to be the science of being (understood broadly and in rational and logical, rather than strictly empirical, ways). But it is important also not to forget the contributions of earlier philosophers, the forerunners of Parmenides, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, though a detailed account is outside the scope of this book. It should suffice for now, to mention two such thinkers. Thales, for example, whom Aristotle regarded as the founder of natural philosophy (Barnes, 1987, p. 61), attempted in his quest for the arche, to give an account, an explanation, of the first principle of being. Aristotle attributes to Thales the now-familiar view that the first principle of the things that exist is that from which they all are and from which they first come into being and into which they are finally destroyed, its substance remaining and its properties changing . . . he came to his belief [that the first principle is water] because . . . water is the natural principle of moist things (Metaphysics, 983b6-11, 17-27; also quoted in Barnes, 1987, p. 63).

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Aristotle also notes that Anaximander, one of the earliest natural philosophers, affirms a different first principle, but it is striking again that the first principle is related to all things that are, or that come into being, and pass away: It is with reason that they all make [the infinite] a principle; for it can neither exist to no purpose nor have any power except that of a principle. For everything is either a principle or derived from a principle. But the infinite has no principle—for then it would have a limit. Again, it is ungenerated and indestructible and so is a principle. For what comes into being must have an end, and there is an end to very destruction. Hence, as I say, it has no principle but itself is thought to be a principle for everything else and to govern everything. . . . And it is also the divine; for it is deathless and unperishing, as Anaximander and most of the natural scientists say. . . . With eternal things there is no difference between being possible and being actual (Physics 2013b6–11, 13–30; quoted in Barnes, 1987, pp. 75–76).

The emerging concern with ontos, kosmos, logos and arche, amongst other things, signals a momentous shift towards the domain of ontology, not just ontic thinking, as the domain in which ontos and logos are drawn together to form, later, a coherent, rational and/or logical body of inquiry and questioning, that will have an integral role in the emergence of metaphysics. Tillich was no stranger to such philosophical traditions, of course. He also drew an important distinction between “ontic” concerns and “ontological” concerns. He argues that ontic thinking emphasizes self-affirmation, for example, which refers to our affirmation of our own being, in relation to the threat of non-being, exemplified by death: Fate and death are the way in which our ontic self affirmation is threatened by nonbeing. “Ontic,” from the Greek on, “being,” means here the basic selfaffirmation of a being in its simple existence. (Onto-logical designates the philosophical analysis of the nature of being.) The anxiety of fate and death is most basic, most universal, and inescapable. All attempts to argue it away are futile. Even if the so-called arguments for the “immortality of the soul” had argumentative power (which they do not have) they would not convince existentially. For existentially everybody is aware of the complete loss of self which biological extinction implies. The unsophisticated mind knows instinctively what sophisticated ontology formulates: that reality has the basic structure of selfworld correlation and that with the disappearance of the one side, the world, the other side, the self, also disappears, and what remains is their common ground but not their structural correlation. It has been observed that the anxiety of death increases with the increase of individualization and that people in collectivistic cultures are less open to this type of anxiety (1952, p. 42).

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So “ontic” means the affirmation of the self in terms of its actual existence, its being, and “ontological” means the inquiry into the logos of all beings, and of being; ontology is not just concerned with philosophical analysis; it is also concerned with a rational understanding of the nature of being, its modes, its possible and actual forms, and so on (1952, p. 42). “Sophisticated ontology,” as Tillich calls it, is concerned with the question of the double structure of the being of the “selfworld,” that is, the question of the correlation between self and world, with the appearance of the one and the appearance of the other, the disappearance of the one and the disappearance of the other (1952, p. 42). “Reality,” on this interpretation, is ontologically significant and rationally intelligible and explicable in relation to the basic structure of being outlined above and the correlation that exists between self and world. So “ontic” inquiry reveals “simple existence,” the brute fact, one might say, of being; “ontological inquiry” reveals relations, correlations, structures, complex modes of being, which are philosophically analyzable but also rationally or logically intelligible, explicable or understandable more broadly (1952, p. 42). But Tillich goes further in arguing that the ontic threat of non-being is closely connected to courage: The observation is correct yet the explanation that there is no basic anxiety about death in collectivist cultures is wrong. The reason for the difference from more individualized civilizations is that the special type of courage which characterizes collectivism (see p. 92 f.), as long as it is unshaken, allays the anxiety of death. But the very fact that courage has to be created through internal and external (psychological and ritual) activities and symbols shows that basic anxiety has to be overcome even in collectivism. Without its at least potential presence neither war nor the criminal law in these societies would be understandable. If there were no fear of death, the threat of the law or of a superior enemy would be without effect—which it obviously is not. Man as man in every civilization is anxiously aware of the threat of nonbeing and needs the courage to affirm himself in spite of it (1952, pp. 42–43).

“Basic anxiety” is an ontic phenomenon that the existential subject tries to overcome (1952, p. 42). Its ontic mode is presence, in potential or actual form. Its potential or actual presence, that is, its ontic reality as a part of the self’s experience in the world, makes such things as war and criminal law understandable, according to Tillich, for example in collectivist societies. The ontic reality of the fear of death stems from the threat that exists in the existence of the law, or from the existence of some superior enemy, and so ontic anxiety, “basic anxiety,” irrupts into being, into the world of the self which faces these threats and the threat of their own nonbeing (1952, p. 42). Courage is needed then in order to affirm the self and to affirm its being,

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despite the various threats that confront the self in all its ontic modes (1952, p. 42). In ontological terms, courage would be analysable, intelligible or explicable in conceptual, rational and/or logical terms; in ontic terms, one might say, the very force of fear and anxiety is felt and affirmed at the level of simple existence. In ontic terms, we have the question of the threat of nonbeing as a foundational threat; in ontological terms, we have the question of the threat of non-being as a category or concept to be analyzed, explicated, evaluated and discussed, and so on. Tillich elaborates on the threat of non-being to our “ontic self-affirmation” which is absolute in the face of mortality and relative in the face of a threatening fate (1952, p. 45). The absolute threat is the background to the relative threat, for fate would not make us inescapably anxious unless death lay behind it, “in every moment within existence” (1952, p. 45). So, nonbeing is an ever-present threat. It stands behind the “insecurity and homelessness of our social and individual existence” (1952, p. 45) and behind attacks on the fabric of our being for example, in the form of disease, accidents, and so on. The anxiety of nonbeing is what grips us, according to Tillich (1952, p. 45). We attempt to transform this anxiety into fear and to stand with courage against those objects which contain the threat. We do not succeed entirely, but we are conscious that it is not the struggle against these objects that generates anxiety; it is our situation as human beings, as such (1952, p. 42). So, Tillich raises an ontological question: is there such a thing as the courage to be, to affirm oneself in the face of threats to our ontic self affirmation? (1952, p. 45). Self-affirmation, as the ontic affirmation of one’s being, basically, stands in the face of an absolute threat, that of ontic non-being, which brings into view an end to the being of the self and to its ontic self-affirmation (1952, p. 42). The anxiety of the self is an inescapable part of its ontic being in the world, precisely because, according to Tillich, the threat of death makes the threat of the nonbeing of the self’s ontic self-affirmation possible (1952, p. 42). This is what Tillich means when he argues that death, as the threat of ontic non-being, “stands” in every moment that belongs to being, and to self in all its ontic modes, in the world (1952, p. 42). Anxiety is a direct result of this relation, and the anxiety of non-being which “takes hold of us” is its ontic manifestation (1952, p. 42). The subject tries to transform this anxiety, a fundamental ontic mode of being in the world, into fear, and then attempts to meet this fear with courage, to stand courageously against those things in which the threat to the being of the subject is embodied. But, according to Tillich, the subject realizes that anxiety is not just generated by the struggle against, and with, such things; it is

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generated by the human situation itself, that is, it is an ontic phenomenon which cannot be reversed or displaced (1952, p. 42). And so, Tillich concludes that there is a courage to be, that is, a courage to affirm oneself, despite the things that threaten one’s ontic self-affirmation (1952, p. 42). So, on an ontic level we have the fact of being, self, the act of self-affirmation, the fact of the threat of non-being and anxiety and fear as ontic modes of being in the world; in ontological terms, for example, we have the question of the concept of being and non-being; of the concept of courage, fear and anxiety, the existential categories, analysis and meaning of self-affirmation, freedom and authenticity, and the intellectually, rationally or logically analyzable, intelligible, explicable fabric of concepts, meanings, distinctions, relations and inter-relations, and so on (1952, p. 42). No less important is the distinction between being and existence, though the two are no doubt related. Both Heidegger and Tillich, among many others, write of being in relation to the ground, which is a complex ontological term that suggests a firm foundation or reason, a cause (which may itself be unconditioned or primary), a source, a depth, amongst other things. The complexity does not just arise from its multiple senses but also from its multiple uses and contexts. Both Heidegger and Tillich use it as a metaphor. So, Tillich, for example, uses it symbolically to speak of human experience which uncovers an object of infinite or “ultimate concern” (1965, p. 43) which he affirms “underlies everything that is, is its creative ground or its formative unity, and cannot be defined beyond these negative terms” (1965, p. 43), including the natural world as a whole. “Ultimate concern” orients the subject towards the ultimate, the unconditional, the infinite, the eternal, the transcendent, or God, an important set of relations, as we will see in relation to the sacred (1952, p. 43). But these thinkers do not equate being and existence. Being can be spoken of as a ground, but it has a broader meaning too. In the words of Tillich: “existence” is a rough alternative to “being,” because it excludes the “potentialities of existence which we usually call the essences of things” (1952, p. 45) which bear, as it were, the power of being; they can become beings—for example, something might bring about the disappearance of trees but the “power of becoming a tree” could persist and under the right circumstances, trees might reappear—a clear distinction, argues Tillich, between essence and existence, or two kinds of being (1952, p. 45). In addition, one finds according to Tillich, “that being which is beyond essence and existence,” God, “being itself” or “ground of being,” which transcends the distinction which “otherwise belongs to everything finite” (1965, p. 45). So, ontology is concerned not just with essence, in the sense set out above (the “potentialities” of being, not just the actualities), existence, being, and beings, it is also concerned with the relations between these terms and con-

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cepts, and indeed between existing things, being and beings, and their actual relations, in the world. Though many have written on the sacred, the subject of the ontology of the sacred, philosophically considered, does require more attention: for example, Campo (2017) focuses on pilgrimages in the USA; Kilde (2017) focuses on architecture and religious diversity in the USA; Johnston (2016) focuses on ancient religions; Carroll (2015) considers space and religious studies in the USA partly as a critical response—successfully executed—to Lane (2002) and his attempt to argue that Elaine’s ontological theory is inadequate (though Lane does not provide an in-depth account of ontology’s extensive philosophical and especially, metaphysical roots and trajectories); Sarbacker (2015) examines power and meaning in the Yogasutra and the numinous in Indo-Tibetan yoga (2005); Barth (2013) looks at Eliade’s concepts of sacred time and space in the context of religious studies; Taylor (2002) focuses on polytheism and the recovery of the sacred; Szerszynki (2008) examines technology and the sacred; Millbank (2003) focuses on reconciliation and ontology; Garfield (2001) explores the sacred and profane in Nagarjuna; Anttonen (2000) adopts an ethnographic approach; Ricoeur (1995) focuses on narrative and the imagination in religion; Smith (1987) explores theory and rites; Wells (1997) examines ontology in the thought of Marcel; Geertz (1993) focuses on archaic ontology (after Eliade) and on the Hopi Indians (1992); Irwin (1990) focuses on ontology among the Huron; Levinas (1989) looks at the question of whether ontology is fundamental; Nasr (1988) examines knowledge and the sacred; among many others.

Chapter Eight

The Path That Leads to the House of Being (Heidegger)

In one of the most famous interventions of its kind, Heidegger opened Being and Time with the startling assertion that the question concerning the meaning of Being has been forgotten in the modern age. The very question that stimulated the thought of Plato and Aristotle has been forgotten as a question which drives genuinely philosophical reflection. Since that momentous contribution to the history of Western thought on the part of the ancient Greeks, a dogma has arisen, according to Heidegger, which insists that the question is superfluous and that further inquiry along these lines is not worth pursuing, or not necessary. Heidegger insists that it is necessary again to articulate the question concerning the meaning and significance of Being (1962, p. 24). Indeed, he argues that the question must be formulated; in this way it can be made clearer, more visible, as it were, and its distinctive qualities can be brought out, carefully (1962, p. 24). Untersuchen (“investigating”) is the key, “in which one lays bare that which the question is about and ascertains its character” (1962, p. 24); what we ask about in the question “is determined and conceptualized”; “that which is to be found out by asking” [das Erfragte] (1962, p. 24). And since inquiry presupposes an inquirer, and therefore an entity with its own “character of Being” (p. 24), we are already asking, and thinking, within a context of being, within an ontological context: the inquirer is, the inquiry is (1962, p. 24). But the understanding of Being remains unclear, even vague; we seem to be only acquainted with the surface of a word (1962, p. 24). So, according to Heidegger it is necessary to develop a concept of Being: In the light of this concept and the ways in which it may be explicitly understood, we can make out what this obscured or still unillumined understanding 149

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So Heidegger highlights the importance of foregrounding the concept of Being in order not just to overcome the neglect of Being in modern thinking, but also in order to shed light on aspects of Being and its meaning which have become obscured or forgotten, for example, by “traditional theories and opinions” which are themselves questionable or unreflective, or hostile to the ontological field which is concerned with the meaning of Being (1962, p. 25). He pointedly reminded us that what we seek in our investigation of the question of the meaning of Being, and indeed in our investigation of the meaning of Being, is not “entirely unfamiliar,” though traditional theories and opinions, which are misguided or misleading and therefore function as hindrances, may suggest otherwise (1962, p. 25). But he went much further: When we come to what is to be interrogated, the question of Being requires that the right way of access to entities shall have been obtained and secured in advance. But there are many things which we designate as ‘being’ (“seiend”), and we do so in various senses. Everything we talk about, everything we have in view, everything towards which we comport ourselves in any way, is being; what we are is being, and so is how we are. Being lies in the fact that something is, and in its Being as it is; in Reality; in presence-at-hand; in subsistence; in validity; in Dasein; in the ‘there is’. In which entities is the meaning of Being to be discerned? From which entities is the disclosure of Being to take its departure? Is the starting-point optional, or does some particular entity have priority when we come to work out the question of Being? Which entity shall we take for our example, and in what sense does it have priority? (1962, p. 25)

What the question opens up, once formulated, is the fact that “Being” is used to designate many things, and it is used in different senses: when we talk about a friend or family member, when we comport ourselves to someone we love, when we consider what we are, how we exist, the question of Being arises (1962, p. 25). It arises when we talk or think or comport ourselves to someone (like our beloved) or to something (like love) that exists, and we designate those things as existing persons, or things, and existing as they are (1962, p. 25). To say that they are real, or present-at-hand (like a flower), that they subsist, in some sense, that they are here (or there), is already to have opened up the question of Being (1962, p. 25).

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We begin to discern the meaning of Being through entities; Being is disclosed through their being (here or there), though it remains unclear at this stage, which entity should serve as our example and in what sense that entity should be given priority (in our unfolding investigation of the meaning of Being) (1962, p. 25). The aim is to make the question of the meaning of Being clearer by making it more transparent, which means subjecting it to a process of elucidation that involves explaining how Being is to be looked at, philosophically, again, how its meaning is to be understood and conceptually grasped, opening the path to choosing the right entity as an exemplar, and reflecting carefully and deeply on the genuine philosophical way of gaining clearer and deeper access to it, as an ontological reality (1962, p. 26). If we are to formulate the question about Being explicitly so that it becomes completely transparent to itself, then we must explain how Being “is to be looked at, how its meaning is to be understood and conceptually grasped”; we must open a path that allows us to choose the “right entity” and to figure out an authentic way of gaining access to it (1962, p. 26). Our inquiry must be constituted by these things: looking, seeing, understanding, conceiving and choosing proper access to Being, and therefore these are “modes of Being for those particular entities which we, the inquirers, are ourselves” (1962, p. 26). In order to figure out sufficiently the ontological question, the question of Being, we need to make “an entity - the inquirer - transparent in his own Being” (1962, p. 26). The posing of this question itself, according to Heidegger, is an “entity’s mode of Being” which gets “its essential character from what is inquired about—namely, Being” (1962, p. 26)—inquiring is one of the intrinsic possibilities of its Being, and so he calls it Dasein (1962, p. 26). It then becomes important to give a correct explication of Dasein in terms of its Being (1962, p. 26). Our own mode of being (as inquirers or investigators), embodied in our willingness to look at the meaning of Being again, understand it, form concepts of it, choose it (which means choosing to pursue the question of its meaning and value seriously), try to gain deeper access to it—these are not just regulative in terms of our mode of being and activity, but also constitutive of our inquiry (1962, p. 26). In this context, we are entities which are capable of inquiring, of opening up the question of the meaning of Being (1962, p. 26). This is one of the possibilities which is intrinsic to Being and its meaning, and so, Heidegger launches his inquiry into the meaning of Dasein, that is, as a being that inquires as one of the possibilities of its being, in the world, and which is capable of giving a proper explication—that is, an explication that will help us to overcome traditional theories and opinions which have muddied the water or obscured the subject—of entities in the light of their being (1962, p. 26).

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In other and later works, Heidegger expands his understanding of ontology considerably (see, for example, 2015a and 2015b, 2013, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2006, 2004, 2003, 2002a, 2002b, 2001, 1999, 1997, 1998, 1995a, 1995b, 1994, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c, 1988a, 1988b, 1977, 1976, 1975, 1972, 1969, 1968, 1967, 1966, 1964, 1959, 1956 and 1949). In “What Is Metaphysics?” (originally published in 1929), which Heidegger revised in 1949, he reflects in a sustained way on the ground of philosophy, on its foundation concealed in the past, which brings into view, so to speak, beings, as light brings forms into view, in relations between revealedness and unconcealedness: In whatever manner beings are interpreted—whether as spirit, after the fashion of spiritualism; or as matter and force, after the fashion of materialism; or as becoming and life, or idea, will, substance, subject, or energeia; or as the eternal recurrence of the same event—every time, beings as beings appear in the light of Being. Wherever metaphysics represents beings Being has entered into the light. Being has arrived in a state of unconcealedness. But whether and how Being itself involves such unconcealedness, whether and how it manifests itself in, and as, metaphysics, remains obscure. Being in its revelatory essence, i.e. in its truth, is not recalled. Nevertheless, when metaphysics gives answers to its question concerning beings as such, metaphysics speaks out of the unnoticed revealedness of Being. The truth of Being may thus be called the ground in which metaphysics, as the root of the tree of philosophy, is kept and from which it is nourished (1964, p. 206).

It is in the light of Being that beings appear as beings: that is, in this light, the light of the ground, or the foundation, so to speak, beings appear; beings appear as beings; and beings appear as such to thinking, and that thinking is called metaphysics (1964, p. 206). It is a thinking that represents beings, and when it does represent beings, for example, as spirit or as matter, and so on, it is the light of Being that makes such thinking and representation possible (1964, p. 206). Unconcealedness is the state in which and by which beings are represented within metaphysics as beings, in the light which is “entered” by Being so that such representation can take place within the context of metaphysics (1964, p. 208). He notes, significantly, the ontological states, the origins, the modes, and so on, and the thinking that takes place within this illumination, and the dynamic relationships, which cannot be explained fully or conclusively by metaphysics (1964, p. 208). Many questions arise within metaphysics in its attempt to think, understand and explain Being: the question of whether Being is involved fully in unconcealedness; the question of how it is involved; the question of whether it manifests itself in and as metaphysics; the question of how it does so, if it does (1964, p. 208). All these questions are obscure, he insists; Being in its

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essence, according to Heidegger, is a source of revelation but one which metaphysics, and the thinking that takes place in metaphysics, cannot recall and encompass (1964, p. 208). Nonetheless, he argues that metaphysical thinking, when it offers answers to the question of beings as beings, “speaks” out of the depths of Being without recalling or understanding fully Being’s revealedness, that is without capturing the truth of Being, which one might identify as the ground which sustains and nourishes metaphysics, as a tree is sustained and nourished by the ground out of which it emerges and grows (1964, p. 208). That is, metaphysics becomes concerned with beings, rather than Being which is the ground of beings, and of beings thought of as beings, or, metaphorically, with the tree rather than the ground which feeds and sustains it and which remains obscure to the inquiry, as deep roots remain obscure when one looks at a tree (1964, pp. 208–209). So, according to Heidegger, metaphysics, which thinks beings as beings, fails to recall Being, and philosophy which is the home of metaphysics, fails to focus on the ground out of which it grows and is sustained (1964, p. 209). When it thinks metaphysically, then, philosophy departs from its ground, which nonetheless it cannot escape any more than a tree, even a flourishing tree, can escape the soil and roots to which its very being belongs, and out of which its being emerges (1964, p. 209). The attempt to think this ground, or to conceptualize it, which, in a sense, is a metaphysical project, that is, the attempt to recall Being in its truth and unconcealedness, instead of merely thinking and representing it in terms of the being of beings, carries the thinker out of metaphysics (1964, p. 209). This is an important and characteristic claim by Heidegger in such works. In attempting to think of Being as a ground, one thinks what appears as, or what appears to be, the ground of Being (1964, p. 209). But what appears as, or what appears to be the ground of Being may be something quite different to the ground of Being itself, and as such, the ground of Being itself remains unrecalled, unexperienced (as something other than an appearance or a representation, presumably)—that is, the truth of Being remains obscure to such thinking (1964, p. 209). Thinking which recalls such truth, which means thinking which understands Being as ground, not Being merely as beings, cannot find metaphysics sufficient even if metaphysical thinking tirelessly investigates and searches the ground and the soil and the roots of the tree that represents beings (1964, p. 209). Metaphysical thinking then, though it remains fundamentally philosophical, or at the foundation of philosophy, cannot recall or reach the ground of Being—in order to think this ground, and its truth, fully or sufficiently, according to Heidegger, one must overcome metaphysics (1964, p. 209). But what does this mean? Well, it means many things, if true: it means that we must reject the view that metaphysics explains or grasps the ground

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of Being; it means we must reject the belief that metaphysics can and does explain the relations between the ground and beings as such; it means we must become aware of the limitations that constrain metaphysical thinking and the things that remain obscure within the light of metaphysics; it means that metaphysics, which unfolds within the context of rational thinking, a project that is characteristic of “man” represented as the rational being, must be overcome (this emphasis does not mean of course that irrational thinking should take its place, just that the limits of rational thinking and the limits of rational beings must be recalled) and in that sense metaphysics as a rational project must also be overcome, amongst other things; a transformation is therefore required (1964, p. 209). Overcoming metaphysics, then, is part of the unfolding of the question which aims at an understanding of the ground of Being and its truth, but it also signifies the remembering of Being (1964, p. 209). In Being and Time, Heidegger attempted to set out the forgetting of Being to prepare a path that leads to the overcoming of metaphysics; in later works, the attempt highlights the fact that the ground out of which such thinking emerges must be the very thing that is recalled (1964, p. 209). The Being that makes such thinking possible is not dependent on that thinking for its being—the Being which is engaged by such thinking, and engages such thinking, stirs, drives and animates it, in the forms of response or correspondence, among others (1964, p. 209). But why must we overcome metaphysics? Heidegger’s answer is memorable if not entirely convincing. It is important to be clear about his project, if one might call it that. He was not attempting to replace philosophy with a prior discipline, nor was he attempting to return to the ground of metaphysics in order to demonstrate forgotten presuppositions within philosophy, nor was he attempting to show that it is not a science because it lacks a secure foundation (1964, p. 210). He was attempting to highlight the nearness or remoteness of the ground out of which philosophy, understood as the attempt to represent beings qua beings, possesses its very nature and significance (1964, p. 210). What he is at pains to show is the question of whether Being itself, which has its own truth (that is, the truth of which is unique and persistent, for example, as ground), involves and engages human beings in their very nature (1964, p. 210). He is at pains to highlight also the question of whether metaphysics, which fails to recall or remember Being, for example, as its ground, can continue to obscure Being’s involvement in human beings and their nature as illumination that constitutes the very essence of this relationship and connection, which in turn returns human beings to a radiance that leads metaphysics, and all who think it, again to a state of belonging (to Being and their ground, as a tree and its manifold branches are returned to

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their soil and their roots, and to the ground which makes the being of the tree possible) (1964, p. 210). Metaphysics, though it speaks of beings among beings, and beings as such, turns on a certain conception of Being (for example, as beings), but it does not thereby allow Being’s voice, so to speak, to be heard, mainly because metaphysics has forgotten the truth of Being, and fails to recall its truth as unconcealedness—indeed, Heidegger argues, again and again, in later works that the nature of unconcealedness, and the truth of its relation to Being, fail to be recalled (1964, p. 210). For example, within metaphysics, the question of the nature of truth recurs in relation to the question of truth and knowledge and in relation to the truth of those propositions which constitute knowledge (1964, p. 210). However, unconcealedness is, in a fundamental sense, prior to such conceptions of truth (because it is prior presumably, in an ontic sense, to the being of beings for whom conceptions are even possible) (1964, p. 210). The Greek term aletheia attracted him in this context and he reflects on it in a sustained way, especially since it contains, according to Heidegger, something which metaphysicians have failed to recall, that is, the meaning and nature of unconcealedness as a part of the essence of Being as ground (1964, p. 210). In this sense, representational thinking within metaphysics has failed to understand the true nature of the truth of Being as unconcealedness, and worse, has led to its forgetting, notwithstanding detailed studies of, and reflection on, the thought of the pre-Socratics (1964, p. 211). What is lacking in metaphysics, according to Heidegger, is due recognition and understanding of the unacknowledged and as yet unarticulated nature, meaning and significance of unconcealedness, in which form, one might say, Being continually announces itself (1964, pp. 210–211). So, Being and its truth remain obscured by metaphysics. Metaphysics fails in this sense perhaps because some major forms of metaphysical thinking function as forms of forgetting; it fails also perhaps because the failure to recall its ground becomes an essential feature of its own emergence and development and destiny (as that part of philosophy which continues, it seems irrevocably, to forget its own ground, since concealedness now constitutes its own core) (1964, p. 211). It is part of its destiny, as Heidegger would have it, that it continues to speak of being (for example, as beings) without ever actually articulating and grasping the truth of Being in its essence. Worse, it fails even to ask the question of the truth of Being in its essence (1964, p. 211). And it fails to ask the question continually because it conceptualizes Being only in terms of its representation of beings as beings (and little or nothing more). What is called “Being” in metaphysics then, is beings as beings (and little or nothing more)—this catastrophic confusion is at the heart of metaphysics, according to Heidegger: it is no mere accident but

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rather an event, one which is not due, strictly speaking, to an error or to lack of care in writing or to some kind of negligence, but rather to the mistaken belief that metaphysics itself frames the very question of Being, and is fully capable of doing so (1964, p. 211). It then ironically constitutes the very obstacle that makes any kind of original relationship or encounter between Being and human nature, or human beings, obscure and impossible to recall. Metaphysics, understood in this way, leads to the oblivion of Being, even as the forsakenness of beings remains hidden from view. Unless metaphysics in this sense is overcome then, this state of oblivion, perpetuated unknowingly by metaphysics, and veiled by its development, becomes more and more decisive (1964, p. 211). The overcoming of metaphysics, then, also requires a reconsideration of the question, “what is metaphysics?” (1964, p. 212). We must, according to Heidegger, commence again a concern for the oblivion of Being within the unfolding of metaphysics and the dominance of its insufficiently examined presuppositions and assumptions (about being and beings as such). It is a necessary task now. We need, as he stated famously in many works, to become more thoughtful, and more attentive. A different kind of thinking needs to emerge, one which is attuned to Being itself, for example as unconcealedness, and is brought into being by its truth, for example, as aletheia, rather than by purely representational or calculative thinking (1964, p. 212). He was not in doubt about the momentous nature of this philosophical task, and it is achieved, for example, by reorienting our thinking toward a different starting point, a “different point of origin” and not necessarily greater and greater effort in the same directions (1964, p. 212). This reorientation is intended to unfold within the thinking that is made possible by the truth of Being, for example, as unconcealedness, and with due attention to, and attunement with, what is being unconcealed in our nature as human beings—it must bring us closer again to the primordial involvement of Being and beings, and to the recollection of this essential relationship (1964, p. 212). But what does it mean to recall such things and who is capable of such recollection? We must open a path of thinking that listens attentively to the truth of Being and to the essential truth of unconcealedness, which involves us in the future of Being itself, not beings as beings. To do this, according to Heidegger, we must free our understanding of human nature and our representation of it, in terms of beings (as beings), from the twin concepts of subjectivity and “man,” essentially, as the rational animal (1964, p. 212). Heidegger used “Dasein” in Being and Time, to name being in the space of the opening created by the involvement of Being and beings (1964, pp. 212–213). But the task is to think being there as being that can be experienced, at the outset; that can be thought in spatial terms, for example, as the location of being in its truth, that is, as Being unconcealed in space (and time). The

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essence of being there is in fact its existence as Heidegger notes in this work and many others. But what did he mean by “existence”? He used it as an interchangeable term with being there. It refers to something that is real, not just the being of “mensch” as it does in Being and Time (1964, p. 213). What philosophy must do is recall the truth of being there not just in its historicity and receptivity, but also in its openness, that is to say, in the space where Being is concealed and unconcealed, where Being appears and withdraws, gives and yet withholds, without ever being exhausted or mastered by the order of logical, metaphysical, conceptual or dialectical thinking, and certainly without the existence of “man” or “woman” being identified with Being as such (1964, p. 213). In the earlier works, “existence” signified a mode which belongs to Being, manifest in beings who exist in the very openness of Being, to beings and as beings (1964, p. 214). “Existence” does not mean “standing out” but rather standing in instancy [Instandigkeit] (1964, p. 214). In this way, Heidegger captures the complexity of “existence” in numerous ways: as “standing”; “standing in”; “standing in” an openness (which belongs to, and returns the existing thing to, Being); as enduring in this standing; and embracing with care being as being towards death—these together bring into view, open up one might say, existence in its essence fully (1964, p. 214). He meant that “man” exists as stones, trees and rivers do not: it is true that all of these are found in the real world which exists, however, “man” is a being who stands uniquely in Being in its unconcealedness, and can reflect upon this connection and recall it, and be conscious of it (1964, p. 214). This instancy, which belongs essentially to his existence, means that he is more than a self, more than just a self-conscious subject; his being is ecstatic not just rational, since he stands, endures and is encouraged, so to speak, in the very openness, and illumination, of the unconcealedness of Being, which makes being among other beings possible (1964, p. 214). So, the (narrow) metaphysical conceptualization of Dasein as self, must also be overcome (see Being and Time especially §§63 and 64; 1964, p. 214). “Time,” in its relationship to being, then, refers, in his early work, to the thinking of the ancient Greek philosophers who think of being, according to his interpretation, as presence (1964, p. 215). In a sense, to be is to be present as being and so, time and enduring come into view (1964, p. 216). It is in time that Being’s unconcealedness emerges, but time is not sufficiently defined or described by the language of metaphysics, according to Heidegger, which conceptualizes it (merely) as change or duration, or the experience and enduring of change, or even as eternal recurrence (1964, p. 216). It is quite different fundamentally since it cannot be recalled or thought fully, in its relation with Being, openness and unconcealedness, within the framework of such metaphysical concepts; it points always not merely to process and

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change, but to Being and to openness, in the truth of their emergence and to the truth of that emergence as unconcealedness (1964, pp. 216–217). In this way, Heidegger argues that time is never really understood deeply, for example, in relation to space because its relation to openness is never really recalled within the confines of metaphysical thought, which continues to represent beings in relation to concepts such as those mentioned earlier, without ever situating that analysis within the truth of Being and the necessity of recalling that truth in its entirety (1964, pp. 216–217). Even “the truth of Being,” once it is represented as such and such, for example, as presence, must remain something other, something fundamentally heterogeneous—or in other words, something which cannot be encompassed by the metaphysical representation of it, as representation (1964, pp. 216–217). So, he argues such representations must leave Being in a fundamental sense unthought (which means both inadequately thought and in a fundamental sense, still other than what has been thought by metaphysics): to understand Being, rather than just represent it, then, is to open and enter into the intersection between Being and human nature, and it requires thinking beyond such metaphysical concepts and representations (1964, pp. 216–217). Understanding, unlike metaphysical thinking, for example, as representation, is ecstatic in the sense that it attempts to stand and endure in Being’s openness to human beings in the truth of that unfolding—which still remains concealed from and unrecalled by metaphysics (1964, pp. 216–217). So, ontology attempts to characterize the true nature of beings in two ways: it attempts to explain their beingness [die Seiendheit des Seienden, the beingness of being], that is, what makes them distinctively beings, as beings, and it attempts through metaphysics to represent them as a whole in relation to divine beings such as the gods (1964, p. 217). Unconcealedness, in accordance with classical ontology, brings human beings, for example, into relation with divine beings, and in that sense, ontology is essentially ontotheological: that is, it seeks to explain beings in the natural world in relation to and in the light of beings which are believed to exist in a divine order of reality (1964, p. 218). In this context, there is some continuity between classical ontology as ontotheology and the emergence of a distinctively Christian ontology as an ontotheology, for these systems bring together, in an encompassing ontotheology, beings which have become unconcealed in time from the very beginnings of the world (1964, p. 218). So, metaphysics as the ancient home of ontology, as ontotheology, functions to explain these things in two ways: it represents beings, as beings, and it seeks to do so in a comprehensive or encompassing manner subject to the laws of reason (1964, p. 218). In other words, it conceptualizes in order to represent beings as beings; it employs representational forms of thinking in its attempt to explain the phenomenon of unconcealment and the experience of the truth of Being in its involvement with human beings, as beings, but in

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so doing, it loses sight of, or forgets, or abandons, the incipient and unfolding experience of unconcealment which is an integral and essential part of the truth of Being (1964, p. 218). It always, according to Heidegger, seeks beings as beings and therefore, focuses constantly on what has already entered the sphere of appearance or presence or manifestation; it always has its sights, so to speak, set on what is manifest out of the interrelationship between Being and beings, through the phenomenon of unconcealment, and so loses sight of or forgets the question of what Being is, as such, or in other words, what remains concealed in the very phenomenon and process by which beings as beings are manifest at all (1964, p. 218). So, it is necessary to start again, according to Heidegger, to “make a fresh attempt” in order to grasp in and through metaphysical or ontological thinking just what it means to ask about the nature of being [seiend], in particular, as set out in the Preface to Being and Time, just what lies concealed in the question of seiend (1964, p. 218). He did not miss the irony: metaphysics and within it, ontology, seek to shed light on being, its nature and its truth, yet lose sight of what the question of being which they pose, conceals; in this sense, they lead us to the oblivion of Being. What is required then is fundamental ontology [Fundamentalontologie] (1964, p. 219). Fundamentalontologie is not an entirely satisfactory name though, as he notes, since it is still ontology, which is complicit in the abandonment, forgetting or oblivion of Being (1964, p. 219). A greater transition is required in which the truth of Being (which includes everything that lies concealed in the concepts and representations of being and beings employed by metaphysics historically) is recalled, not merely the truth of beings (as beings) which dominates and pervades the thinking that characterizes them. We must go back and see clearly how these questions which are so integrally woven into the fabric of metaphysics and within itself, ontology, have served to obscure and displace the nature of Being, its truth and its relationship to all beings through unconcealment (1964, p. 219). We must therefore leave metaphysics, in a sense, in order to see its trajectories and its paths more clearly; to see how representational and abstract conceptual thinking which pervade it, have obscured and indeed blinded us, for example, to the experience of the unconcealedness of Being, in its inception (1964, pp. 219–220). We must disentangle conceptions and representations from dynamic, living experience, according to Heidegger, and so, clear the path for a transition from thinking which is dominated and pervaded by such forms to a different and more attentive, meditative form of thinking [das andenkende Denken], that opens up new paths of inquiry into the question of what metaphysics itself is, as metaphysics, and what its ground is (1964, pp. 219–220).

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In other words, Heidegger is challenging us to ask again how this metaphysics, as thinking and as the analysis of beings, has become so pervasive and dominant; how it has come to lay claim, supposedly in an authoritative or encompassing way, to explaining everything that is, even as the forgetting, the oblivion and the abandonment of Being is taking place unabated, according to Heidegger—insofar as it has been forgotten or abandoned, according to Heidegger, it is left out of the question, and in that sense, remains unthought (1964, pp. 219–220). Accordingly, in another important essay which he wrote after Being and Time, he explores the unthought within metaphysics (and ontology) further: it “holds itself in a truth which has long since been forgotten and it is without ground” (“Overcoming metaphysics,” 2003, p. 96). He links metaphysics in its forgetting, to anthropology: in the time of “completed metaphysics,” philosophy becomes anthropology and so falls prey to “the derivatives of metaphysics” by which he means physics, broadly conceived, including the physics of human life, biology and psychology—philosophy then “perishes of metaphysics” (2003, p. 99). But then the one decisive question comes to the fore: to what form does man belong? (2003, p. 99). Heidegger notes that “form” is considered here in quite an indefinite and metaphysical, Platonic sense, “as what is and first determines all tradition and development, itself, however, remaining independent of this” (2003, p. 100). Such an anticipatory acknowledgment of “man” leads to the search for Being primarily and exclusively in “man’s environment,” and to an affirmation of “man himself” as “human stability,” as “the actual me” (2003, pp. 99–100). In becoming anthropology, metaphysics, within philosophy, has become preoccupied with beings, and especially human beings. In becoming this, it has entered more deeply the obscurity of the era of forgetting, of abandonment and of oblivion (of the truth of Being, as ground): it is presupposed, without any sufficient ground or foundation, by this philosophico-anthropology that the decisive answers lie in the sphere of human beings and more particularly in the domain of “man” (2003, p. 100). This questionable “anticipatory acknowledgment of ‘man’” leads to the quest for Being first of all and only in that domain and environment (emphasis added), and only in relation to “man himself as human stability”—that is to say, as the only stable foundation for thinking into the nature and truth of Being (2003, p. 100). By taking this questionable path, philosophy, as the home of metaphysics, enters the abandonment of Being and links the history of Being, which means presumably the history of thinking of and about Being, to the advent of nihilism (in a particularly important passage). The “essence of the history of Being of nihilism is the abandonment of being” which leads to the “self-release of being into machination” (2003, p. 103). This process binds human beings in “unconditional service” (2003, p. 103). It is not a decline nor is it “negative,” and not any kind of human beings can be

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said to cause “unconditional nihilism in a historical manner” (2003, p. 103). There is a question, a necessary one, concerning which kind of humanity is able to achieve the “unconditional completion of nihilism” (2003, p. 103). The “ultimate abandonment” of Being is evident in the “armament mechanism of the plan”—the “world wars” with their “totality,” according to Heidegger, are themselves consequences of the abandonment (2003, p. 103). “Man,” who becomes the “most important raw material,” is enveloped by this process and therefore, becomes the “subject of all consumption”; “his” will is one with the process and “he” therefore becomes also the “object” of the abandonment of Being; in this way, the world is transformed into an “unworld” (“world” in relation to the history of Being signifies the “nonobjective presencing of the truth of being for man in that man is essentially delivered over to Being,” whereas “unworld” signifies that the world has become an unworld because Being still presences, but without “really reigning”) (2003, pp. 103–104). This passage introduces a number of themes which continued to emerge emphatically in many of Heidegger’s later writings, particularly after the catastrophic destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The “abandonment of being” into the sphere of machination (and the age of atomic weapons) lies at the heart of modern nihilism, for “man’s” being, releases itself, or is released, into the unquestioning or unreflective service of such destructive technologies (2003, pp. 103–104). He argues consistently that this stage of human development is not merely negative, and not merely a decline. Some kinds of humanity can bring about or accept unconditionally the bringing to completion of the age of nihilism, embodied in the embrace of catastrophic and annihilatory technology. What he calls the “armament mechanism” of these epochal developments is characterized by a vacuum in which Being is abandoned as a ground and being is consumed in the service of manufacturing in the growing sphere of technology and machination, reinforced by an enabling culture (2003, pp. 103–104). So, according to Heidegger, the “world wars” have a distinctive and troubling character, their totality, in the sense perhaps of their worldwide context and impact and effects, but also their totalizing tendencies, that is, the encompassing hegemonic paradigms, as well as their potential for annihilation, in which Being is negated, forgotten and abandoned (2003, pp. 103–104). These wars, and the annihilation of beings, aim to regularize and stabilize a certain form, that is, beings as things that are to be used up or consumed, beings as raw material to be exploited in the name of the paradigm of what one might call a relentless technologocentrism (2003, pp. 103–104). Beings, and especially “man,” come to be regarded as and remain, in the context of this terrible ruling paradigm, the subject of all consumption (2003,

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p. 104). That is to say, “man’s” will is completely equated with the process by which such paradigms become the norm and so “man’s” world is transformed into an unworld, in which Being is abandoned and forgotten, beings are annihilated in the context of totalizing tendencies tied to the emergence of the age of catastrophic machination, and the truth of Being, for example, as a ground of beings, is forgotten and abandoned (2003, p. 104). “World” in this sense means, in relation to the history of Being, the coming into being, through presencing, of the “truth of being for man” which is that “man” is in an essential way, delivered over to Being (2003, p. 104). In the emergence of the “unworld,” tied to the age of nihilism, Being still presences, as Heidegger would argue, but its reign is weakened or diminishing, presumably to the extent that the reign of the age of machination and the advent of nihilism is strengthened or valorized (2003, p. 104). The ideology or ruling paradigm of consumption for the sake of consumption in the age of technologocentrism underpins and drives the emergence of the unworld: the circularity of consumption for its own sake is the only process which characterizes the “history of the world which has become an unworld” (2003, p. 107). “Leader natures” refers to those who permit themselves to serve this process as its “directive organs on account of their assured instincts”—they are the “first employees” within that course by which the “unconditional consumption of beings in the service of the guarantee of the vacuum of the abandonment of Being” is effected (2003, p. 107). The nature of leaders comes to be seen in terms of service to the procedure by which the existence of the unworld is reinforced. The procedure is driven by the circular cycle of consumption in which what is consumed is consumed in the very name of consumption and exists in order to be consumed in this way; being, and beings, in the service of the circularity of consumption. And in that context, according to Heidegger, consumption is unconditional—for example, in the sense that the circularity is encompassing and totalizing, and it is carried out in a spirit of service in order to guarantee the vacuum in which Being is abandoned (2003, p. 107). Heidegger’s thinking is at once arresting, vivid and apocalyptic in such passages: “It is first the will which arranges itself everywhere in technology that devours the earth in the exhaustion and consumption and change of what is artificial. Technology drives the earth beyond the developed sphere of its possibility into such things which are no longer a possibility” (2003, p. 109). The recurring motifs of forgetting, abandonment, oblivion, totalization, annihilation and devouring, which he associated variously with the advent of the age of machination and of nihilism (and of course, the emergence of technologocentrism as a ruling paradigm in which the circularity of consumption and the unconditional service to machination reign) are debatable to a significant extent, but quite striking and unforgettable.

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Indeed, he suggests that we are entering a final stage of development or transformation which is troubling and quite conceivably catastrophic: the “realism and moralism of chronicle history” represent the final stages of the full identification of “nature and spirit with the being of technology” (2003, p. 109). “Nature” and “spirit” are “objects of self-consciousness” and the unconditional reign of self-consciousness, according to Heidegger, forces them into a uniformity from which they cannot be freed, metaphysically (2003, p. 109). He argues that it is “one thing just to use the earth, another to receive the blessings of the earth” and to be at home in the light of that “reception” so that the shepherding of “the mystery of Being” can be actualized (2003, p. 109). The identification of nature and spirit with the being of technology and its unfolding through machination, for example, attains a uniformity (between nature and spirit) which is binding and dominant, then. The earth becomes, consequently, raw material, something to be consumed for the sake of being consumed. The cost is potentially catastrophic in the sense that the earth’s “blessings,” its nature as our “home” (not simply our raw material), and being’s place within the reception, out of Being, of beings as beings, as well as care for the mystery, which Being and beings are related and involved, are forgotten or threatened with oblivion (2003, p. 109). He saw a world of immense suffering, as a result of these transformations. “Mere action” will not change anything because “Being as effectiveness and effecting closes all beings off in the face of Appropriation” (2003, p. 110). Even great suffering which encompasses the earth cannot bring about a transformation because it is “only experienced” as passive suffering, as passive (2003, p. 110). Yet, according to Heidegger, the earth is “preserved in the inconspicuous law of the possible which it is” and the will “forces the impossible as a goal upon the possible” through machination, which commands this “compulsion” and dominates it, and derives from the “being of technology,” in relation to the “concept of metaphysics” in the process of self-completion (2003, p. 110). The “unconditional uniformity of all kinds of humanity” bound by the law of “the will to will” sheds light on “the meaninglessness of human action,” realized absolutely (2003, p. 110). “Mere action” will not be enough, since Being “as effectiveness and effecting” shuts beings off when “the face of Appropriation” emerges (2003, p. 110). Suffering emerges and multiplies; it “surrounds the earth” making a transformation difficult because that suffering is only experienced as passive suffering, which cannot facilitate meaningful or effective action (2003, p. 110). Nonetheless, Heidegger argues that the earth is “preserved” in, and is characterized by, “the inconspicuous law of the possible” (2003, p. 110). Machination, emerging out of the dominance of the being of technology (governed by the paradigm of technologocentrism) “orders this compulsion” and enables its dominance, and the concept of metaphysics completes itself,

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so to speak, that is, in the age of nihilism and in the context of the abandonment of Being (2003, p. 110). Humanity then is brought into an order and held there, so to speak, in an “unconditional uniformity” under a rule and a “will to will” (rather than a will, for example, to seek the truth of Being) which reveals meaninglessness in an absolute sense (2003, p. 110). In other words, Heidegger seems to mean that there is a dominance of the will here which makes action in the name of difference or change—in the name of something other than uniformity, such as freedom—difficult, if not impossible; and this state or this transformation, he suggests, makes clear the meaninglessness, or futility, of any course of action, such is the power of the appropriation in the context of nascent machination, within the dominant paradigm of technologocentrism. This does sound dystopian, and somewhat overstated, but it is quite likely that he was articulating the position with some awareness of its rhetorical form, function and force. He writes of desolation, not surprisingly, and not just forgetting and abandonment: the earth is desolate because it is subject to a process which is willed but not understood, or knowable, when the “being of truth” is defined as certainty in which “representational thinking and producing” initially “become sure of themselves” (2003, p. 110). Under this kind of reign of the will, both the “being of pain” and of joy are seemingly severed from human being (2003, p. 110). Heidegger then raises the question of whether this “extreme measure of suffering” can produce a transformation (2003, p. 110). He answers that there is no transformation “without an anticipatory escort,” but how would such an escort approach us unless Appropriation “opens out, which, calling, needing, envisions human being, that is, sees and in this seeing brings mortals to the path of thinking, poetizing building”? (2003, p. 110). It is notable that he does not write of the path of thinking and building philosophically, here, a possible path which, one could argue, Heidegger himself has been in the process of opening up and indeed, instantiating within the very critique of metaphysics and the lapse into technology, machination and the advent of nihilism, that he has been articulating. The relationship between the will and certainty is crucial. The desolation of the earth begins with the will which insists on a process; that process (for example, by which the circularity of consumption becomes entrenched) though it is willed, is not known, in itself, and is not knowable, even if the “being of truth” is posited as certainty, and certainty is taken to be its defining state (2003, p. 110). This dominance of the will, which blinds it and us to the ground of Being and brings about its oblivion, produces suffering and cuts human beings off from the “being of joy” (very much, presumably, as a state of enslavement cuts off the slave from the “being of joy” which comes out of the intrinsic, but constrained, freedom which is an aspect of their being, as beings) (2003, p. 110). It also blocks and obscures the path of

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meditative, or deep, thinking just as it blocks, and obscures the path to the building and transformative power of poetizing as a form of meditative or reflective, deep thinking (2003, p. 110). What is required, according to Heidegger, in this rich, elusive and remarkable passage, is an Appropriation: an opening of a path that allows an “anticipatory” escort to “draw near” so that it can facilitate the necessary and desired transformation (2003, p. 110). That opening and that path call and need human beings, just as they envision human beings, free from the dominance of the will to technology, machination and more broadly, technologocentrism, for example, that is, to see, “and in this seeing,” deliver us to a more authentic path, namely, the opening that leads to “thinking, poetizing building” rather than building which comes out of the technologocentric paradigm (2003, p. 110). In later works, Heidegger elaborates on his understanding of the task of thinking in relation to “poetizing building” (though not necessarily in relation to the fundamental importance of meditative, deeply reflective and potentially transformative philosophical thinking): before we so bluntly pronounce dwelling and poetry incompatible, it may be well to attend soberly to the poet’s statement. It speaks of man’s dwelling. It does not describe today’s dwelling conditions. Above all, it does not assert that to dwell means to occupy a house, a dwelling place. Nor does it say that the poetic exhausts itself in an unreal play of poetic imagination. What thoughtful man, therefore, would presume to declare, unhesitatingly and from a somewhat dubious elevation, that dwelling and the poetic are incompatible? Perhaps the two can bear with each other. This is not all. Perhaps one even bears the other in such a way that dwelling rests on the poetic. If this is indeed what we suppose, then we are required to think of dwelling and poetry in terms of their essential nature. If we do not balk at this demand, we think of what is usually called the existence of man in terms of dwelling. In doing so, we do of course give up the customary notion of dwelling. According to that idea, dwelling remains merely one form of human behavior alongside many others. We work in the city, but dwell outside it. We travel, and dwell now here, now there. Dwelling so understood is always merely the occupying of a lodging (2002b, p. 233).

We ought to attend to the thinking of the poet, according to Heidegger—the poet who speaks of human being and dwelling (2002b, p. 233). But dwelling does not refer to a house, or a place. It does not claim that the “poetic” is tied to “an unreal play of poetic imagination” (2002b, p. 233). Yet dwelling and the poetic are related: perhaps they bear each other, for example, dwelling “rests on” the poetic (2002b, p. 233). If he is correct, it becomes important to think of the essential nature of dwelling and poetry. The “existence of man” can then be thought of in relation to dwelling (not just in relation to machination and abandonment). In thinking of “man” in this way, then, we surrender

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“customary” notions of dwelling, such as the idea that dwelling means “one form of human behavior alongside many others,” always “merely the occupying of a lodging” (2002b, p. 233). He is thinking of Hoelderlin in particular here: when the poet speaks of dwelling, he is not thinking merely of occupying a lodging; the poetic is at the foundation of dwelling, dwelling’s resting place, in a way for example, that machination and the ideology and culture of consumption cannot be dwelling’s resting place (2002b, p. 233). Essentially, the poetic and dwelling are connected in this kind of way: This does not mean, though, that the poetic is merely an ornament and bonus added to dwelling. Nor does the poetic character of dwelling mean merely that the poetic turns up in some way or other in all dwelling. Rather, the phrase “poetically man dwells” says: poetry first causes dwelling to be dwelling. Poetry is what really lets us dwell. But through what do we attain to a dwelling place? Through building. Poetic creation, which lets us dwell, is a kind of building. Thus we confront a double demand: for one thing, we are to think of what is called man’s existence by way of the nature of dwelling; for another, we are to think of the nature of poetry as a letting-dwell, as a-perhaps even thedistinctive kind of building. If we search out the nature of poetry according to this viewpoint, then we arrive at the nature of dwelling (2002b, p. 233).

When Heidegger argues that the poetic is that upon which dwelling rests, and that the relation is essential, he means that the poetic cannot be reduced to a mere ornament, a mere ornamental or decorative, or pleasurable, function (2002b, p. 233). “Man” is not raw material in the circular process of consumption, or merely a subject of representational, or calculative thinking; “man,” as being, dwells poetically in an essential sense (2002b, p. 233). The poetic opens the possibility even as it highlights the essential nature of letting us, as beings, dwell. Building, which is exemplified by poetic creation, and creations, allows us to dwell, in an authentic sense, so Heidegger calls on us to confront two demands: first to understand “man’s existence” differently, that is, in relation to the “nature of dwelling”; second, to understand poetry, and the poetic, in terms of its essential nature, as a lettingdwell, as, perhaps, the distinctive kind of building (2002b, p. 233). In this way, the true nature of dwelling can appear to us. But many questions remain unanswered, and Heidegger notes this in quite a memorable, but quintessentially poetic, metaphorical and elusive though no less thought-provoking way. Where, he asks, do we find information that informs us about the true nature of “dwelling and poetry”? (2002b, p. 233). We can claim to “arrive at the nature of something” only in the place where it is received, and it is received in language’s “telling,” but only in those cases where the true nature of language is respected (2002b, p. 233). One finds in

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the world “an unbridled yet clever talking, writing, and broadcasting of spoken words” and we act, according to Heidegger, as if we are the masters and rulers of language, the very opposite of the truth of the matter (2002b, p. 233). Language becomes (merely) “the means of expression” and as such, it lapses “into a mere medium for the printed word” (2002b, p. 233). In this way, the true relationship between language and “man” is inverted since, Heidegger insists, “strictly, it is language that speaks,” and by extension it is “man” who ought to listen (2002b, p. 233). When language “tells,” the hearer receives, and where the hearer receives the telling, they arrive at the (essential, presumably) nature of something, but “only when and only as long as he respects language’s own nature,” that is, its capacity to tell, to give and to reveal, only when he dwells poetically in the momentous event of the telling (2002b, p. 233). But what does it mean then in this context to say, “poetically man dwells” (2002b, p. 235)? Does everyone dwell poetically or unpoetically? And if we dwell unpoetically, for example, in the age of the emergence of encompassing machination and the age of the advent of nihilism, does this mean that the “poet’s words” are lies? No, answers Heidegger, the “truth of his utterance is confirmed in the most unearthly way”: when “man” becomes blind, there “always remains the question whether his blindness derives from some defect and loss or lies in an abundance and excess” (2002b, p. 235). It is an “excess of frantic measuring and calculating” that is at the root of “man’s” “unpoetic dwelling” (2002b, p. 235). Only by remaining “heedful of the poetic” will it be possible to reach a true turning point in relation to that dwelling, according to Heidegger, and only if we take dwelling poetically seriously, again (2002b, p. 235): that is “why authentic poetry does not come to light appropriately in every period” (2002b, p. 236). How do we dwell together as beings? Do we dwell together as beings poetically? No, according to Heidegger, not if dwelling together poetically means listening to language’s telling and responding, not as masters of language but as listeners who return and relate to it, attuned to its speaking, telling and revealing. The truth of the poet’s speaking is “confirmed in the most unearthly way”: that is, dwelling “can be unpoetic” because it can be true or untrue to its essence, and its essence is poetic (not calculative or dialectical, presumably). Heidegger draws an analogy: for one to be blind, in truth, he must necessarily and essentially be a being whose nature it is to be generally “endowed with sight,” that is, unlike in his nature to a stone or a tree (2002b, p. 235). Dwelling unpoetically then, he argues, in terms of “man’s” inability to “take the measure,” for example, under the illusion of his mastery over language, can be traced back to that excess of calculative thinking. It is as if the frantic nature of this will to calculation and measurement reinforces the sense of

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one’s mastery, but according to Heidegger, it only highlights the prevalence of the illusion of mastery. Not surprisingly, from the 1960s to the 1980s Heidegger argued that human beings had “mostly lost their hearing”! (1988, p. 83). He began to speak of being “struck” by a lightning flash, so to speak, which prompted him to reconsider the “meaning of Being-ness” (1988, p. 83). He was inspired by Aristotle’s claim that Beings “are announced” (ausgesagen) in “manifold ways” (1988, p. 83). He also focused on the question of science and ontology: One could say it more clearly: Science has the possibility of viewing ontological structures from its own standpoint, but it cannot grasp them as such nor think them. But when that happens, namely, when the essential thematic arises for an ontological reflection (ontologische Besinnung) that does not mean that it becomes isolated as a separate domain, so that a gulf develops between it and the so-called factical (das Faktische). On the contrary, the ontological remains that which determines the factical itself, and this is precisely what is seen in its own right through the ontological reflection (1988, p. 88).

These are very significant developments in his later thought. Although science can view and study “ontological structures,” it cannot, according to Heidegger, think them or understand them as “ontological structures” (1988, p. 88). So, when authentically “ontological reflection” needs to take place, it does not take place in isolation from the factical, since as the inquiry into the nature of Being, and beings, it is the condition of possibility, for example, of the factical itself—it is that which “determines the factical” itself, as the factical (1988, p. 88). So, Heidegger situates ontological investigation in relation to science but without forgetting its fundamental importance. Significantly, he revisits also the distinction between the ontic and the ontological in relation to Being. In the words of Boss: The ontical refers to that characteristic of Being which appears to us in a more “mundane” or “vulgar” sense; that is, the pre-reflective Being of so-called ordinary everyday life, the unconsidered Being of manifest and “unpenetrated” appearances, or the mere (unexamined) surface of life, persons and things. In contrast to this ontical characteristic, though actually contained by and “hidden” within it, is the ontological characteristic, the fundamental “meaningfullness” of beings, the fundamental structure of Being, of things, persons and happenings. This is the special characteristic of Being which may be approached and fully understood through thoughtful consideration (Besinnliches Denken) and which is the sought after “prize” of Heidegger’s Daseinsanalytik and, of course, Boss’s daseinsanalysis. Given these distinctions it becomes clear that ontic description and research stays with the immediately manifest appearances of things, of beings, whereas ontological investigation tries to penetrate this surface to discover its fundamentally meaning-full constitution. This ontological task is accomplished in Heidegger’s Analytik and Boss’s

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daseinsanalysis, by a phenomenological hermeneutic approach which seeks after the essence of things through phenomenologic “interpretation” (Auslegung, literally, “laying out” in full view) (1988, pp. 93–94).

It is true that the “ontic” (or the “ontical”) refers to what we consider the “mundane” or “vulgar” aspects of Being (1988, p. 93), but it also refers to those aspects which are not subject to systematic and coherent rational, logical or philosophical inquiry, as we have noted. Certainly, in a broader and extended sense, it refers to “unconsidered Being of manifest and ‘unpenetrated’ appearances, or the mere (unexamined) surface of life, persons and things” (1988, p. 93). The ontological, however, though it refers to the “fundamental ‘meaningfullness’ of beings, the fundamental structure of Being, of things, persons and happenings,” also constitutes the philosophical inquiry into the essential nature of Being in terms of its involvement with beings as beings, as stated earlier (this is how Heidegger put it), and plays a crucial role, in its recalling of the question of Being, in the overcoming of metaphysics, as we have seen (1988, p. 93). In this light, it can certainly be seen as “the special characteristic of Being” and in relation to “thoughtful consideration” (Besinnliches Denken) (1988, p. 93). Logos brings to ontos, as we have also seen, reason and reflection, deep analysis and evaluation, or deep thinking. So, it is true to say that ontic “description and research stays with the immediately manifest appearances of things” while “ontological investigation” attempts to get beneath the surface in order to reveal the meaning-fullness of beings, and their involvement with Being (1988, p. 94). The analysis of Dasein which is made possible by the union of ontos and logos takes place, then, in the field of ontology. It is quite possible to situate the ontic in the particular, for example, as a being among beings, and to situate the ontological in the universal (the question of the nature of Being and beings). So, in a sense, frantic measuring and calculating ontical research focuses on “particular being” (das Seiende or Seiendes); ontological research focuses on not just “the meaning-full constitution of these beings, their ‘beingness’ (seiendheit),” but also the broader question of Being-ness as such (Seyn), the importance of the question and the “wonder that there is any Being at all” (1988, p. 94). In a word, “ontic looking” is bound to the everyday “appearance of particular being” while “ontological seeing” aims for an understanding of the “being-ness” and the “Being-ness of this being” by seeking to reveal or unconceal its “essential nature” (1988, p. 94). However, “ontological inquiry” has a number of other important dimensions: it seeks not only to understand the beingness of beings and of Being, it also seeks to show what metaphysics has forgotten or obscured or abandoned, as noted earlier; it also seeks to recall Being in its essential modes, for

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example, unconcealedness; it also seeks to open the path to appropriation and transformation. It seeks to accomplish these tasks not merely through one approach also, not merely through the “phenomenological hermeneutic approach,” but also by drawing attention to, and recalling, the essential relation between Being and dwelling, especially in the context of poetizing building, amongst other things (1988, p. 94). There can be no question that Heidegger reflected deeply, certainly, in numerous late works, on the connections between ontology and art in general. For example, in the 1960s, he had written on the Greek poets and the revelation of Being in a lightning flash, with Heraclitus of Ephesus in mind, primarily: Already in ancient Greece poets and thinkers touched on this mystery. The illumination [Helle] which grants every present being its presence manifests its gathered, suddenly appearing dominance in lightning. Heraclitus says . . . “but the lightning guides everything.” This means: the lightning brings and directs the appearance of the formation of the in-itself-present by a single strike. The lightning is thrown by Zeus, the supreme God. And what of Athena? She is the daughter of Zeus (1967; 2013, p. 121).

So, illumination is linked to Being in its unfolding, and to being in its involvement with Being. This flash then, gives to every being, so to speak, that is present their very presence; it makes their presence possible and is manifest in this sudden gathering of its dominance, in the flash of light (1967; 2013, p. 121). According to Heidegger, it not only gathers and dominates, it guides, as lightning, according to his interpretation of the Heraclitean fragment, “brings and directs the appearance of the formation” of the “in-itself” in a single flash, very much presumably, as Being, as the ground of beings, and the being of beings, gives to beings their presence, in an ingathering that shows its dominance, suddenly, and brings and directs the appearance of the formation of the being of beings, in a single event of unconcealment (1967; 2013, p. 121). Questions, too, are gathered into one question, according to Heidegger: These questions press on us as questions. They are gathered into a single one, which is: How do things stand with respect to the being enclosed of the human being in its technical-scientific world? What is it that prevails in this being enclosed? Can it be the closing-off of mankind from what first directs it to its ownmost destination, in such a way that the human being could acquiesce to what is fitting for it, instead of disposing of itself by means of the scientific technological calculation of itself and its world, of itself and its technical selfproduction? (Is not hope, if it can ever constitute a principle, precisely the unconditional egotism of human subjectivity?) (1967; 2013, p. 126)

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Four questions drive this meditation, though he considered these as aspects of a single overarching question, which is ontological: the first question reminds the reader of the “being enclosed of the human being” in a world dominated by the techno-scientific paradigm, and by implication, the abandonment of the ground of Being; the second raises the issue of the prevalent state of beings as beings in such a time; the third expands on the nature of this state, that is, the possible or actual “closing-off of mankind” from its original source of orientation and direction, in relation to “mankind’s” “ownmost destination”—that is, the destination that is most fitted, most destined, for “mankind” in the light of Being’s involvement with beings and in a way that might bring involvement or belonging, acceptance and acquiescence, rather than “mankind” “disposing of itself” by employing the “scientific technological calculation of itself and its world” and “its technical self-production”; the fourth question raises the problematic issue of hope, the possibility of a principle which is alien to the ground of Being but at home, so to speak, in the age of “scientific technological calculation,” and that “unconditional egotism” which is characteristic of “human subjectivity,” perhaps, as Heidegger understands it, in the grip of that kind of—calculative—thinking (1967; 2013, p. 126). This kind of thinking, according to Heidegger, constitutes an enclosure that closes off beings as beings, from their destiny and from their “ownmost destination” and it is necessary to break out of “this enclosure that shuts it out of its destiny” (1967; 2013, p. 126). Technical-scientific planning and action are not the answer, Heidegger argues, for the enclosure cannot be shattered by human beings; neither can it be opened up without human effort. What does he mean by opening up? Well, the first step is not to evade “the foregoing questions,” that is, to reflect on them deeply and thoroughly, to reflect deeply on “being enclosed as such” and what persists within it (1967; 2013, p. 126). It may not be even a question of shattering the enclosure, though it is a question of “decisive action itself that first grants the possibility” of a qualitative change in our relationship to the world (1967; 2013, p. 126). It is critical and necessary, he argues, to see that human “thinking is not a sovereign act” and can “only be dared when engaging with that domain from which the global civilization that has nowadays become planetary derived its beginning” (1967; 2013, p. 126). This enclosure, actualized and reinforced by technical-scientific thinking and planning, encompasses “mankind” and makes it impossible to break free, even though freedom is part of our “ownmost destination”; it closes off human beings not only from their freedom but also from their “destiny,” as free beings, from their true and authentic destiny (1967; 2013, p. 126). One of the things which is particularly important and valuable here, notwithstanding the inductively broad and rhetorically amplified register once again, is Heidegger’s implicit association of authentic philosophical (ontological)

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thinking, for example, as a source and expression of human freedom, with critical (meditative) thinking about the nature of that enclosure which otherwise serves to blind human beings to their prevalent state, or to a dominant paradigm which holds them hostage, so to speak—that is to say, in a concealed and prevalent violation of their essential freedom, as human beings. He adds intriguingly and significantly, given the emphasis on poetic thinking and dwelling, in other works, that it is, perhaps, not merely a “question of breaking through this enclosure,” but rather a question of the fundamental importance of authentic philosophical (ontological) thinking providing a necessary condition of decisive action, so that a very different possibility, or path, is opened up—one that makes possible the transition to a qualitatively different relation between human beings and the world, and a qualitatively different, and transformative, relation to the enclosure (1967; 2013, p. 126). It is also necessary to open “global civilization” to deeper perspectives, for example, by taking a step back (1967; 2013, p. 127). This signifies the “retreat of thought from global civilization” but without rejecting it, so that it is possible to reach “into that which had to remain unthought in the beginning of Occidental European thinking” but which nevertheless is granted to us for the purpose of thinking (1967; 2013, p. 127). In quite extraordinary terms, Heidegger asserts that illumination comes only when beings enter “the open and into the free domain, when they can unfurl themselves” (1967; 2013, p. 127). It is this openness, which by its sheer force traverses them, that makes it possible for things to be situated and arranged, in time, binds them to “becoming and perishing” as they are, and grants “extension and duration,” to mention some of the key ontological conditions, relations and transformations (1967; 2013, p. 127). This retreat in order to uncover what remains unthought at the inception of “Occidental European thinking” is momentous and essential (1967; 2013, p. 127). It is a more fundamentally ontological, reflective step, in order to shed light on beings, and Being, to bring them into the open, into the domains of conscious and deep reflection, where their truth can be unfurled, not obscured or forgotten. The openness that Heidegger reflects on here, in quite unforgettable terms, is already made possible by the existence of darkness and shadows, on the one hand, and light, on the other hand, as ontological primal conditions, in which the unthought and the obscured wait, as it were, for their emergence or reemergence into the light of incipient reflective thinking, in terms of their extension and duration, two fundamental and essential modes of their being in space and time, and their ontological precondition of mutual belonging (1967; 2013, p. 127). Certainly, Heidegger found reinforcement of such thinking in the thinking and language of the ancient Greek philosophers, generally, particularly in relation to the notion of unconcealment. They called the “free offering of

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freedom [Freigabe des Freien]” which conditions openness, “un-concealment” (1967; 2013, p. 127). Heraclitus, for example, indicates that direction with a fragment which Heidegger quotes: To the self-appearing belongs the property of concealment (1967; 2013, p. 127). The “secret of the illustrious Greek light” is found here, that is, according to Heidegger, in the unconcealment that persists within; it allows things to emerge (1967; 2013, p. 127). Heidegger asks a momentous question here: might there be an “unthought relationship” between the enclosure of being which prevents us from realizing our destiny, for example, as thinking, free, poetically dwelling beings, on the one hand, and the unconcealment that continues to be unthought and “persists in its withdrawal”? (1967; 2013, p. 127). The nascent, in a sense, quality of the unthought and its obscured or neglected or forgotten relation to the truth of what is, in space and time, closely connected to the phenomenon of unconcealment. The free offering of freedom in this sense signifies, in part, the fundamental offering of freedom, so to speak, as a gift perhaps, or in other words, the bestowing of freedom as a condition of being and beings; it signifies the free emergence or incipience of the unthought into the light of thinking beings as beings, and Being as Being; it also signifies the freeing of what was forgotten, neglected or obscured, from concealment into the light and openness, so to speak, of free thinking. It is as if concealment is, ontologically speaking, so that unconcealment in time may emerge out of its obscurity or oblivion and may do so freely and as a fuller expression of freedom (1967; 2013, p. 127). Heidegger insisted on this relationship (and the question of this relationship) between enclosed being and our own destiny as thinkers, poetically dwelling—but also, one might add again, philosophically oriented and informed—who pursue the overcoming of that concealment or enclosure, in a sense, which persists and grows in and through the processes of forgetting, obscurity, neglect and so on, by which what remains unthought withdraws itself, as it were, more and more, from the light of thinking freely and essentially about the obscured and forgotten truth of Being and beings (1967; 2013, p. 127). This being enclosed (pun intended) is overcome by the destiny of thinking, freely offered, pursued and realized, and must be, since it prevents, withholds unconcealment. Perhaps, he argues, the sign that directs us to the “secret of the still unthought” also directs us simultaneously to the “domain of the provenance of art” (1967; 2013, p. 128). Does this domain provide the origin of the call to create or to be creative? Can art remain silent about “that which remains concealed” insofar as it provides an encounter with everything that cannot be “planned nor controlled, neither calculated nor manufactured?” (1967; 2013, p. 128). The “voice” of unconcealment, and that remaining silent, for example, which conceals unconcealment, so to speak, then, is the voice and the silence

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we encounter in the “domain of the provenance of art” (1967; 2013, p. 127), especially, one presumes, when it is attuned to the unthought. There are things which we do not know, he argues, but what we do know is that the unthought that is concealed in the “light of Greece, and which first grants this illustrious light, is more ancient, more primordial and consequently more permanent than any work and construct devised and produced by the hand of man” (1967; 2013, p. 127). We also know, he argues, that that unconcealment which remains withheld is still “inconspicuous” and unimportant in a world which derives its norms from “astronautics and nuclear physics” and associated ways of thinking (1967; 2013, p. 127). Our abode, according to Heidegger, is granted fully here, one presumes, when our ontological state and condition rest on such a determination, one in which the voice of the unthought in the context of the dynamics of unconcealment is heard and listened to, when it is connected and attuned to the overcoming of enclosure and concealment, and the concealment or withholding of unconcealment, presumably, in the openness and light of deeper thinking, and doing. But he did claim that we really do not know if the time of such an abode on earth will be manifest, or will ever be fully manifest, perhaps because he had become cognizant more and more, for example, of the protracted and sustained processes of concealment and enclosure, forgetting and oblivion, in relation to the truth of Being (1967; 2013, p. 127). What we do know, he argues, is that the unthought lay hidden even at the inception of Western philosophical thinking, among the Greeks, though it granted them a sign or a semblance of its radiance, as something which is ontologically more primordial and more enduring than work created and produced by the work of human beings (1967; 2013, p. 127). In that light, the unthought, especially in terms of its relationship with unconcealment, and self-concealment (which, importantly, the work of art can also sustain and promote), is neglected or forgotten or obscured yet again in a time and in a world in which planning and controlling, calculation and manufacturing, and thinking attuned to these kinds of things, reign. Heidegger asks, recalling Pindar: what can a word, for example, a poetic word, do when it is confronted by the “action and the acts of the gigantic laboratory of scientific technology”? (1967; 2013, p. 128). The word, unfolding in the light by which the unthought is brought to deep thinking and reflection, seems powerless when one considers the “gigantic laboratory” that the world, in one sense, has become. But Heidegger ends on a note of hope: perhaps things “stand differently,” in fact; perhaps a word such as this is more powerful, or less powerless, than one might believe; perhaps the word and its provenance are more vital and more dynamic than one might be inclined to presuppose, especially in an age in which encompassing scientific or technical, or more broadly technologocentric, thinking reigns.

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He calls on us, as beings, to listen to a word by another Greek thinker (not coincidentally, another poet, and not coincidentally, in an essay Heidegger completed in Athens): the voice, for example, of the unthought, in and as speech, for example, endures beyond acts and deeds; it determines life, and more broadly being, so long as language frees it, calls it forth out of the depths of the “musing heart,” or out of the depths of concealment, enclosure, obscurity or oblivion (1967; 2013, p. 128). In some of the final works, Heidegger returns to these themes and expands upon them. A few examples should suffice for now (for it would take a number of volumes to discuss these themes and concerns in Heidegger’s work as a whole). For example, he reflected on the question of ontotheology, that is, the twofold nature of the question which brings into view beings and ultimate being, or which brings into view the importance of “ground” in which “Being manifests itself” (“beings in general are the ground in the sense of foundation upon which any further consideration of beings takes place. That which is the highest being is the ground in the sense of that which allows all beings to come into being”) (1988b, p. 340). In an essay on time and being, he reflects again on the event which extends time (for example, from Being to beings) allowing a “dedication” to appear, a “delivering over to beings of what belongs to them, ontologically, that is, Being as presence and time as openness, in their mutual belonging” (1972, p. 19). And in the Zollikon Seminars, drawing on material from the 1940s to the early 1970s, shortly before his death, he reflected on the human being as “the guardian of the clearing, of the disclosive appropriating Event [of being]” (2001, p. 177). He argues that the human being is not the same as the clearing, but rather stands in it, so to speak, in ecstatic experience, and as such, is essentially cleared [gelichtet], and in turn is cleared himself in a distinguished way (2001, p. 178). That is, the human being in this context is closely related to and is appropriated by the clearing, in the sense perhaps of emerging from and growing through this relationship with it and its own connection with Being and unconcealment. It is in this sense that he called the human being the “needed” “shepherd of the clearing” (2001, p. 178). We have already seen that forgetting, the withholding of unconcealment and/or some obscurity are evident, or implicit, in the unfolding history of the sacred, and in a number of notable accounts and theories of the sacred; it is time now to return to the question of the sacred and the profane, and to the dynamic relationship between being, beings and unconcealment in the domains of the sacred.

Chapter Nine

“A Sacred, Mythic Geography” Eliade, Ontology, and the Sacred

Eliade was certainly aware not just of the rich and profound heritage and importance of ontology, but also of the rich and profound relations between ontology and the sacred, even at those times when others in the field were turning away from ontological questions, inquiries, disciplines and domains. More than any other thinker in the vast and expansive field of the study of the sacred, perhaps, Eliade recognized the critical and enduring nature of the relation between ontology and the sacred (see, for example, 1994, 1991, 1987a, 1987b, 1985a, 1985b, 1978, 1978–1985, 1976, 1975, 1972a, 1973, 1967, 1968, 1965, 1964, 1963, 1961, 1960, 1959a, 1959b, 1959c and 1958, among others). A brief survey of his contributions—a full survey would require more than one volume, so voluminous is his work in this area—over many years to this interdisciplinary field will serve to show the remarkable extent of his own research, insights and achievements (which have been noted by many, including Campbell 2017a, 2017b, McMullin 2013, Hanegraaff 2012, Heyduk and Williamson 2011, Wedemeyer and Doniger 2010, Howes 2009, Cervigni 2007, Dubuisson 2006, Rennie 2001, Ellwood 1999, Wasserstrom 1999, Baeten 1996, Pals 1996, Rennie 1996, Idinopulos and Yonan 1994, Cave 1993, Olson 1992, Martin 1990, Ricketts 1988, Strenski 1987, Carrasco and Swanberg 1985, Brauer 1976, Allen 1978, Dumezil 1970 and Kitagawa and Long 1969). In some of his earlier works, for example, on images and symbols, their meaning and significance, he reflected on the idea of “centres”: he argues that Oriental cultures recognized an infinite number of these and each one was identified as the “Centre of the World,” which constituted a “sacred 177

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space,” that is, each is “consecrated by a hierophany, or ritually constructed, and not a profane, homogeneous, geometrical space” (1952; 1961, p. 39). Eliade identifies a “sacred, mythic geography,” and contrasts it to “profane” geography: the former is considered real; the latter is considered “abstract and non-essential”—the “theoretical construction” of a place that we do not inhabit, and as a consequence, do “not know” (1952; 1961, p. 39) He explores the idea of sacred space in these terms. It is a symbolic space (though not always purely so); it is consecrated, for example, by virtue of its connection to a hierophany (literally, a revealing or unveiling of the sacred or holy); it can be connected also to ritual structures. It is distinguished from profane “geography,” profane spaces and places, a point that he will develop in further works. Sacred spaces can be multiple and dispersed, even though they may be understood as “centres,” and Eliade suggests, they are the “only kind” that are considered essential and real, for example, in a concrete sense. These are spaces that are lived in, so to speak, and are known, as such. He expands on the idea of sacred geography: In mythical geography sacred space is the essentially real space, for, as has lately been shown, in the archaic world myth alone is real. It tells of manifestations of the only indubitable reality- the sacred. It is in such space that one has direct contact with the sacred- whether this be materialized in certain objects (tchuringas, representations of the divinity, etc) or manifested in the hierocosmic symbols (the Pillar of the World, the Cosmic Tree, etc.). In cultures that have the conception of three cosmic regions—those of Heaven, Earth and Hell—the “centre” constitutes the point of intersection of those regions. It is here that the breakthrough on to another plane is possible and, at the same time, communication between the three regions (1952; 1961, p. 40).

Sacred space is “real space,” in an essential ontological sense. In the “archaic world” (though the term is not always clear it must be said), he argues, the understanding of what is real is anchored in and guided by myth (1952; 1961, p. 40). Manifestations, or revelations, of the sacred are regarded as the “only indubitable reality,” presumably because in such spaces the believer is in “contact” directly with the sacred, either in the form of a connection with material objects (tchuringas, statues, icons, emblems and so on) or in the form of a manifestation in “hiero-cosmic symbols” such as the “Pillar of the World,” the “Tree of Life,” and so on (1952; 1961, p. 40). He argues that in some cultures, particularly those that understand what is real in relation to “three cosmic regions,” such as “Heaven, Earth and Hell,” rather than one, the “centre” represents the space where the three intersect (1952; 1961, p. 40). In this sacred space, another possibility opens up: here, the believer can attain a “breakthrough” into a transcendent plane, and “at the same time,” have access to “communication between the three regions” (1952; 1961, p. 40). In this sense, then, sacred space expands the ontological

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horizons and possibilities and brings numerous planes into relation, for example, through the process of manifestation or revelation, or more broadly communication. But this conception of sacred space, ontologically structured in terms of regions, objects, representations, symbols, rituals, hierophanies, dynamic interconnections and intersections, and communication, is bound also to sacred time: he argues that Christianity rejects the idea that cyclical time is reversible and replaces it with irreversible time, that is, its hierophanies are singular and unique: for example, the life, death and resurrection of Christ are not reversible or repeatable; it is, in his own words, in ontological terms, “a complete fulfilment of the momentary” for time, and one might add space, are “ontologized,” that is, time is “made to be,” and it is presumably made to be in relation to space which means “that it ceases to become, it transforms itself into eternity” (1952; 1962, p. 169). It is only the moment that is “transfigured by a revelation” that connects temporality with the infinite, and in that sense, instantiates the “supreme hierophany”: the transfiguration of the historical event into hierophany. This means something more than the “hierophanising” of Time, for sacred Time is familiar to all religions. But here it is the historical event as such which displays the maximum of trans-historicity: god not only intervenes in history, as in the case of Judaism; he is incarnated in a historic being, in order to undergo a historically conditioned existence. . . . In reality, this “historical event” constituted by the existence of Jesus is a total theophany; what it presents is like an audacious effort to save the historical event in itself, by endowing it with the maximum of being (1952; 1962, pp. 169–170).

Since the hierophanies, for example in Christianity, are not repeatable (one might think of the appearance at Emmaus or the resurrection), in time, or at least in time understood chronologically, time itself becomes ontologized, like space, that is, time is itself brought into being, or into the order of what is real, in the sense that it is transformed into a “favourable moment”—Eliade’s analysis reinforces the initial point made about the heightened and transfigured ontology of spatio-temporality in such traditions of the sacred, that is, hypertemporalization, and by extension (no pun intended!), hyperspatialization, as crucial dimensions of the sacred (1952; 1962, pp. 169–170). The distinction is an important one in these works: in this context, for example, Christ’s life, crucifixion, death and resurrection as non-repeatable events which contrast with events in ordinary (chronological) time, since they occur at the intersection of time and eternity. In that sense, time is “fulfilled” even as it is ontologized: it is, and it is in a supratemporal or hypertemporal sense, not just a temporal, or evanescent, sense (1952; 1962, p. 169). In other words, perhaps less obscure or perplexing, time in a sense

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ceases to become, that is, ceases to change, to belong merely to the order of time and flux; it is as if time and its content, so to speak, these foundational events in Christianity are then present, so to speak, for all time, that is, open out, to eternity (1952; 1962, p. 169). He emphasizes that it is not “any temporal moment” that “opens out into eternity”; it is only “favourable” moments,” that is, instants “transfigured by a revelation” which can be characterized in this way (1952; 1962, pp. 169–170). In this context, then, time is transfigured and its ontologization bears, so to speak, its fulfilment, at the very threshold at which the two modes, time and eternity, intersect, through the unfolding, for example, and constitutive structure, or event, of a hierophany. Eliade understands the (foundational in this context) historical event as an event that “displays the maximum of trans-historicity” for the deity, or supernatural being, shows himself or actively intervenes in history, for example in Judaism or Islam, and is “incarnated in a being” in time, so that “he” lives a “historically conditioned existence” (1952; 1962, p. 170). So, the historical event, for example, of Christ’s life, death and sacrifice, opening up time to eternity, becomes understood as a “total theophany”: the historical event becomes fully endowed with a maximal ontological value (since the temporal now intersects with the eternal, so to speak), and with what Eliade calls the “maximum of being” (1952; 1962, p. 170). It would not be difficult to apply this kind of Eliadean framework to other sacred systems that involve hierophanic elements such as the Abrahamic tradition, Shinto sacred geography, rite and worship, and the world of Islamic pilgrimage. In other important early works, Eliade elaborates on the idea of an archaic ontology: premodern societies include the “primitive” as well as the cultures of ancient Asia, Europe, and America, and if we understand the “authentic meaning of an archaic myth or symbol,” we see that the meaning implies a “metaphysical position” (1954; 1959, p. 3). There is nothing to be gained, according to Eliade, from searching archaic languages for philosophical terms, for example, “being,” “nonbeing,” “real,” “unreal,” “becoming,” “illusory,” and so on, which cannot be found in any ancient Australian or Mesopotamian language (1954; 1959, p. 3). However, he notes that though the word may be absent, the thing is present; though it is “said” (“revealed in a coherent fashion”) in and through symbols and myths (1954; 1959, p. 3). This is a rich and significant passage that shows Eliade’s understanding of ontology developing quite markedly. We have seen how space and time are understood ontologically in the earlier work, and how time is ontologized, for example, in Christianity, among other faiths. In premodern societies, according to Eliade, the authentic meaning of the myths and symbols of this archaic world, so to speak, is bound up with a “recognition of a certain situation in the cosmos,” which is implicitly metaphysical, or more properly, one might say, implicitly ontological (1954;

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1959, p. 3). As he points out, it would be futile, perhaps, to search all, or many of, the languages of the archaic world, if that were possible, for ontologically charged words like “being,” “nonbeing,” “real,” “unreal,” “becoming” and so on (1954; 1959, p. 3). But their absence in such languages does not mean, of course, that “the thing” is not present, for example, or revealed in and through myths and symbols, or more generally, representations of various kinds (1954; 1959, p. 3). This claim is based on a deep insight: sacred objects, events or spaces, generally, can acquire value, power and resonance—these can become, in his unforgettable phrase, saturated with being—in a number of ways, not simply from being named or expressed in a word: objects or acts are given a value, and so take on a reality since they participate in a reality that transcends them; so for example, if there are many stones, one is sacred, and therefore is saturated with being, since it constitutes a hierophany or is used to remember a mythical event (1954; 1959, p. 3). The object carries an external force that imbues it with meaning; this force may be found in its substance or form; and it is sacred because its “very existence is a hierophany: incompressible, invulnerable, it is that which man is not”—its reality is perennial (1954; 1959, pp. 3–4). The way in which objects or acts are understood as real is a thoughtprovoking and important one, in ontological not just phenomenological terms. A particular object, for example, associated with a messianic or worshipped figure, a sacred relic, a sacred stone, a sacred setting, is a source of enduring energy and spirit that inspires and commemorates a “mythical act” but also a mythical place, a mythical relation or connection, a mythical unconcealing, and so on (1954; 1959, pp. 3–4). The reality of such things is profoundly significant, sometimes foundationally so, in the life and understanding of the worshipper. Such objects and sites become saturated with being, ontologically amplified and intensified, not just because they bear, as it were, the traces of a sacred presence, being or revelation, and not just because they carry and perpetuate the myth of that presence, being or revelation, but also because they mark the enduring vitality and energy that informs, constitutes and regulates the bond between the worshipper and that presence, being or revelation, between the hierophant and the hierophany (1954; 1959, pp. 3–4). In this context, the sacred object or site functions as a receptacle in which an exterior presence, being, force or revelation fills it with significance, energy, urgency, meaning and/or value. So, the object or site embodies and expresses those things which transcend the human worshipper or believer, that is they are reminders, in object or form, of the hierophany’s incompressibility, invulnerability or persistence—in an important sense, they resist time, temporality and finitude, and their reality comes to be understood in relation to this perenniality (1954; 1959, p. 4). Moreover, they seem to function as

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perpetual reminders, and signs, of the essential structure, relations and vitality of perenniality. Eliade notes the importance of repetition in the logic of this analysis of the hierophany and its hold on the hierophant and worshippers more generally. The conscious repetition of recognized paradigms uncovers an original ontology, and the power of nature and the objects made by human beings take on a reality, because they participate in a higher reality, and repeat something primordial (1954; 1959, p. 5). The structure of such an archaic ontology needs to be understood deeply, according to Eliade, across cultures, so that we might approach the problems that confront us in relation to “archaic spirituality” (1954; 1959, p. 5). The hierophany defines, structures and marks a ruling paradigm in the life of the hierophant or worshipper. In that sense, the repetition of its gestures, acts and behaviors unconceals an original ontology (1954; 1959, p. 5). The power manifest in the world, or energy, the objects associated with it by human beings, gain their vitality and influence because they participate in a reality which is transcendent, in the sense, for example, of enduring perenniality. Certainly, these gestures gain meaning, significance and value from their connection to a primordial act and its repetition. But they also gain power from the commemoration and connection to primordial beings, ancestral narratives and sacred structures, energies, words, signs, portents, manifestations and revelations (and so on). It is scarcely possible to understand Judaism or Christianity or indigenous Aboriginal religions or Buddhism thoroughly, for example, without taking into consideration not only a primordial act and its repetition, but also the place, function, meaning and significance of commemoration of, and/or connection to, these primordial or foundational beings, transcendent or immanent presences, ancestral narratives and structures, powerful energies and words, signs, symbols, and manifold manifestations, revelations and hierophanies (and so on). One need only think of numerous divine manifestations in Judaism and their link, for example, to the repetition of the structure of messianism; manifold appearances and miracles which reinstate, strengthen and/or revitalize community bonds in relation to sacred presences and beings in Christianity; the place of ancestral beings, paths and narratives in indigenous Australian religions (some examples will be explored below); or the manifold incarnations of the Buddha, and the sacred presences and beings, for example, in the Mahayana tradition, among many other examples in sacred traditions and systems. Primordial acts are only one aspect of a very complex structure of hierophanies, manifestations, revelations and transformations. What Eliade calls an archaic ontology (1954; 1959, p. 5) then, is certainly worth exploring, but it is not purely archaic, because some of the structures, characteristics and motifs span the archaic and the modern period: indeed the roots, so to speak, of the faiths outlined above though archaic in some senses,

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nonetheless persist, for example, in ritual, in the structures, practices and expressions of those faiths in the modern period (Judaism is a good example here with its roots in the worship of one God, a divinely inspired and constitutive law and ancestral narratives that stretch back across many millennia). The reality of these things for archaic as well as modern worshippers is closely bound, in Eliade’s words, to an original ontology, and to presences, influences, objects, narratives, perennialities, repetitions, signs and symbols (and so on and so forth) which, it must be said, were, are and remain saturated with being, but also are revitalized (for example periodically), sustained and, at times, strengthened and indeed impelled by their connection to energy, matter and spirit—in short, to an enduring and encompassing ontological connection with being (1954; 1959, p. 5). He is quite right about this: it is indeed necessary to understand the originary, inceptional, essential and operative presences, forms, structures, functions, relations and mechanisms thoroughly, so that we can understand the problems that confront us in the context of “archaic” spirituality (1954; 1959, p. 5), but also, one might add, within the horizon of a modern spirituality which, after all, in many respects—for example in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and many other modern manifestations of systems of the sacred—is closely connected to archaic hierophanies, manifestations, revelations and/or epochal transformations. Eliade is right to note also that there is an important ontological conception underlying archaic forms and structures of spirituality—certain “facts” which show in the context of archaic humanity, reality is understood in relation to the imitation of a divine archetype; facts which “show us how reality is conferred through participation in the ‘symbolism of the Center’,” for example, towns, temples, homes are considered real because they are assimilated into such centers; and rituals and profane things assume the meaning they have and “materialize that meaning,” only because they reinstantiate acts “posited ab origine by gods, heroes, or ancestors” (1954; 1959, pp. 5–6). Certainly, it can be argued that such a conception highlights the fact that reality in the archaic world of the sacred is indeed a function of imitation, for example, some sacred archetype, since for example, that archetype is represented in objective forms of various kinds by worshippers and hierophants, for example, in images, in sculptures, in ritual objects, perhaps even in idols, and so on (1954; 1959, p. 5). Certainly, it can be argued that reality is “conferred” through “participation in the ‘symbolism of the Center’,” for example, in the form of towns or cities, temples, religious structures and so on, which gain energy and power by virtue of their actual or symbolic association with the center (1954; 1959, p. 5). Certainly, rituals and “significant profane gestures” gain meaning, but also value and power, even as they render that meaning material and empow-

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er it, by virtue of the conscious and deliberate repetition of acts “posited” by deities or heroes or celebrated ancestors (1954; 1959, p. 5)—one need only think here of mysteries (for example, in ancient Eleusis), ancestral worship, walking in the footsteps of sacred or holy forerunners, and so on. The power of the “primitive” ontological conception is attested to by Eliade, again and again: his examples reveal the one primitive ontological idea, that is, a certain object or action is regarded as real because “it imitates or repeats an archetype,” or in other words, reality is understood through repetition or participation; that is how it becomes imbued with meaning (1954; 1959, p. 34). There is then a tendency towards archetypes in the light of which believers imitate and repeat gestures, acts, rituals and so on, and this pattern gives meaning and significance, in short, constitutes reality, as they understand it. It is in this context that Eliade posits an analogy between such “primitive ontology” and Platonism: he understood Plato as the most significant philosopher of this ontology, that is, as the philosopher who gave “philosophic currency and validity to the modes of life and behavior of archaic humanity” (1954; 1959, p. 35). Some may see a paradox here in the sense that the worshipper or hierophant in an archaic or “primitive” culture regards themselves as real, or more fully real (Eliade did not resolve this ambiguity fully) in the sense that they also at the same time cease to be who they are (though Eliade adds here, crucially: “for a modern observer”); that is, they are content to imitate and reinstantiate others’ gestures within themselves, and within their own lives and practices (1954; 1959, p. 34). In other words, they see themselves as real (and alive), most truly themselves, “only, and precisely insofar” as they cease to be themselves (and no one else) (1954; 1959, p. 34). But his characterization of Plato’s thought is problematic: although in one sense Plato was interested in the myths and narratives, and indeed beliefs and practices, of archaic Greece (and other cultures), he nonetheless, especially though the figure of Socrates, insists repeatedly on the laws of reason, the logos, over and above the mythos, on the systematic pursuit of dialectics (and dialectical reasoning), for example, in the Apology, Crito and Phaedo. In other words, Plato’s genius is not due so much to his uncritical adherence to, or unquestioning imitation or repetition of, ancestral or inherited myths and sacred narratives, cosmogonies, mysteries, and so on, but crucially, again through the figure of Socrates, to his articulation of a significant point of difference and even in some senses, a point of difference with “mentalities” which function in terms of mere imitation or uncritical conformity (1954; 1959, p. 35). For example, the emphasis in his work especially on logos, on ratio, on aporiai, or on mathematics and geometry, on a rationally or logically explicable—not merely ecstatically apprehended—arche, on theoretical as well as practical reason, on reflection and critical questioning,

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while it is important not to overstate the place of these, nonetheless places Plato in quite a different position to the one that Eliade places him in, namely, within the confines of some kind of “vision of archaic humanity” (1954; 1959, p. 35). In some respects, then, Plato’s vision is progressive and innovative and, in metaphysical terms, goes well beyond the content of “archaic humanity” (notwithstanding the ambiguity of Eliade’s term) (1954; 1959, p. 35). Moreover, Platonic dialectics, especially in its Socratic forms and functions, goes well beyond the spirituality of his time (whatever that might mean) by extending its reach to the critical investigation of unexamined lives, unexamined values and unexamined spiritualties, in particular, for example, Dionysian or ecstatic and affiliated poetic, for that matter, beliefs and practices, and by association, overtly irrational beliefs, proclivities, orientations and practices (1954; 1959, pp. 34–35). Eliade does see the limitations of his own characterization of the “Platonic structure” of ontology: he admits that recognizing the “Platonic structure of that ontology” is limited for it is also important to consider the negation of time through the pattern of imitation and repetition described earlier (1954; 1959, p. 35). So, for example, a sacrifice does not just replicate the “initial sacrifice revealed by a god ab origine,” at the onset of time, it also occurs in the very same “primordial mythical moment,” that is, it reproduces and repeats the original sacrifice (1954; 1959, p. 35). He adds: the same is true of repetitions in general, such as imitations of archetypes, in and through which human beings enter the mythical epoch out of which the archetypes emerged (1954; 1959, p. 35). So, there is a second feature of primitive ontology: an event or an act takes on a reality only through the “repetition of certain paradigmatic gestures,” and implicitly abolishes “profane time,” duration and “history”; he who replicates the gesture moves within the mythical temporality in which the revelation unfolded (1954; 1959, p. 35). Indeed, the Platonic structure, problematic as it is, cannot fully explain a number of things associated with archaic ontology, and is not intended to fulfill this function. In this sense, a sacrifice repeats an initial event (sacrifice), recalls and reinstantiates or coincides with that event. The element of repetition is crucial, certainly, and the imitation or replication of an archetype or an archetypal event is critical since these kinds of gestures and activities project us into an “epoch” which is saturated by myth and in which the archetypes, or more particularly, the archetypal events are disclosed and revealed (1954; 1959, p. 35). One might think here of indigenous believers following in the footsteps of their sacred ancestors, and representing these journeys, beings, footsteps and sites in their artwork, or of imitations, bound up with recollection and in many cases, reactualization, for example, on a symbolic level, of a foundational sacred event like Passover in Judaism or the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

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So, as Eliade argues, there is a second characteristic of “primitive ontology”: acts, events, objects, and so on, assume a “certain reality” because of the recurring or abiding pattern and logic of repetition, or imitation, of known “paradigmatic gestures,” which generally entail “an implicit abolition of profane time, of duration,” even of “history” (1954; 1959; p. 35). This point is not self-evident, it must be said, as “history” and “duration” are aspects, no doubt, of the realization of an act, imitation or repetition, but Eliade’s suggestion that “history” gives way to recurrence which is stable and unchanging, for example, in a ritual or ceremonial context, is defensible (1954; 1959; p. 35). The community of believers within the orders and dimensions, the reality saturated with being, of the sacred, speaking generally, attempts to repeat a sacred gesture, a sacred word or sign, a sacred act, or a sacred event, for example, and even though these must unfold in time, in history and in duration, nonetheless the repetition binds the gesture, the repeated word or sign, the act or event (and so on), not just to time and duration and history, as a situated gesture or act or event, but also and at the same time to a mythical context, a “mythical epoch” in which the primordial or original revelation unfolded—to the realm not just of history but above all of hierophanies and archetypes, which are in one important sense, timeless and abiding (1954; 1959; p. 35). It is as if the repetition of a sacred gesture, a sacred word or sign, a sacred act, or a sacred event, ties the community of believers, in its immanence, to a horizontal spatio-temporal order and, at the same time, to a vertical archetypical, sometimes messianic or primordial, order which is mythical and in that sense, transcends the world of time (alone), mere duration and history in all of its intrinsic spatio-temporal flux and flow. Eliade does not overlook the importance of memory, time and conformity either: the “reduction of events to categories and of individuals to archetypes,” which takes place in Europe almost continuously, happens in accordance with archaic ontology, and one might add, according to Eliade, memory returns to the “historical personage of modern times” its status as an imitator of the archetype and replicator of archetypes which archaic communities are always aware of, though some modern communities may forget (1954; 1959, p. 44). “Popular memory” is restorative in the context of the two integral orders outlined above, but it also brings into view again and again the meaning and significance of archetypes, imitation and the reproduction or reactualization of “archetypal gestures” (1954; 1959, p. 44). Without such memory, often collective it must be said, the meaning and significance of such things return again and again to the “members of archaic societies” and stand, so to speak, vitally in their consciousness as a community, ensuring that the most important things, in the context of the sacred, in the ongoing life and activities of

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the community are not forgotten, or if they are forgotten by some, can be recalled by others (1954; 1959, p. 44). Eliade cites as an example numerous “cosmo-mythological lunar conceptions”: in relation to death and regeneration, one discovers once again the reproduction of an archetype, “projected upon all planes—cosmic, biological, historical, human” (1954; 1959, p. 88). One also finds that time in this context has a cyclical structure, which is “regenerated at each new ‘birth’ on whatever plane” and an eternal return which shows an ontology that is untainted by time and change: he argues that just as the Greeks, with their analogous myth, tried to “satisfy their metaphysical thirst for the ‘ontic’ and the static” (that is, the belief that world stands still because it always returns to the same state), so, too, archaic communities affirm the cyclical nature of time (1954; 1959, p. 88). The past, Eliade argues, is a “prefiguration of the future”—events are not irreversible and transformations are continuous (1954; 1959, p. 88), for everything is a repetition of some primordial archetype which marks the moment when the archetypal gesture emerged, and so, the world is held, so to speak, in the “same auroral instant of the beginnings” (1954; 1959, pp. 88–89). He finds, not surprisingly, a pattern of cyclical time, repetition, archetypal “gestures,” and projection “upon all planes,” suggesting their encompassing energy, vitality and significance (1954; 1959, p. 88). The cyclicality—of conceptions, beliefs and practices—is associated with regeneration, with a new birth, a (re)vitalization conceivably, on all planes. The idea of the eternal return, for example, uncovers an ontology that is, particularly in its mythical and/or archetypal context, untainted by time and flux, that is, lifted out of the order of mere change and perishing by virtue of its persistent or recurrent connection with the abiding and recurring planes of myth, primordiality and archetypycity (1954; 1959, pp. 88–89). Within this order of understanding, events in time are reversible and a transformation is not final (1954; 1959, p. 89). One might assert that there is nothing new under the sun: according to this structure, metaphysical, ontological and mythical, all things are the repetition of the known primordial archetypes and the pattern of repetition, which recalls and reproduces or actualizes “the mythical moment” in and through which “archetypal gestures” are, and are revealed (1954; 1959, p. 89). The ontology of time, according to this order, and by association space, opens the possibility of the “appearance and existence of things” in the order of being, and beings, and is therefore also associated with birth and rebirth (actual or symbolic), repetition, imitation and/or regeneration (1954; 1959, p. 89). Some, like Freud or Dawkins, might argue that in some respects this way of seeing or representing things seems childish or nonsensical. Eliade’s response is notable: it does not matter much, according to Eliade, if the formulas and symbols in and through which the “primitive” represents what is real

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seem “childish and even absurd to us,” since it is the deep meaning of primitive “behavior” that is the stuff of revelation, and that behavior is dictated by their faith in “an absolute reality” which is contrasted to the profane order which is itself considered unreal, and does not, and cannot amount to a “world”—in fact, according to Eliade, and he repeats this point numerous times, the latter is the essence of the unreal, the opposite of the created, the existent and in an important sense, it represents the “void” (1954; 1959, p. 92). So, he argues that we can speak of an archaic ontology, which allows us to understand, rather than dismiss “scornfully,” the most astonishing behavior that we see in the primitive world in its attempt to sustain a “desperate effort” to keep in touch with being (1954; 1959, p. 92). He notes forcefully, and with some validity, that it is the deep meaning of the behavior of ancient or primitive beings or groups that has revelatory power and, one might add, persisting vitality and influence (1954; 1959, p. 92). This behavior is governed by a belief and commitment to an “absolute reality” which is ontologically distinct from, and therefore unlike, the order of the profane and its “unrealities” (that is, in contrast to the reality-conferring, one might say, dimensions and powers of the sacred) (1954; 1959, p. 92). By this logic, the profane is regarded as the very embodiment of the unreal: the sacred is associated with reality, the profane is the opposite of the sacred, therefore the profane is associated with unreality (1954; 1959, p. 92). The argument is certainly valid—Eliade seems to mean in such claims not that profane gestures are not real, of course, but rather that the sacred becomes the focal and reference point of an encompassing conception and understanding of what is real, and of what belongs essentially or fundamentally to being, and what does not. It would therefore be a mistake to assert, or assume, that adherents to some sacred system, or hierophanies, which are ontologically rich and significant, are childish, or that beliefs associated with them are nonsensical. We have seen that the reasoning can be valid, just as we have seen that some of these beliefs, at least, are intelligible, coherent and/or defensible. Eliade’s analysis, and reasoning, is most interesting, and significant, in ontological terms, and unless one looks at it in just such terms, one may well miss the full meaning, force and significance of the point: by extension, it might be argued, the sacred is associated with the order of being, and the profane is associated with the order of unbeing. The pattern becomes clearer then; put generally, the sacred is associated with the order of existence, the profane is associated with the order of nonexistence; the sacred is associated with the order of the plenitude of being and beings, the profane is associated with the void, or with nothingness. One can disagree with the fundamental position, of course, or dispute its veracity, but one cannot counter by saying that the argument is invalid.

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So, Eliade, not surprisingly, argues that “we” have some justification in referring to an “archaic ontology” and that only by keeping such an ontology in mind can we actually understand fully—without resorting to scornful, dismissive and not well-informed objections—the behavior of the communities that constitute the “primitive world,” their vital and significant connections, in terms of their behavior, as well as their consistent and vital attempts to maintain “contact,” with being (1954; 1959, p. 92). In later works, Eliade develops his understanding of the importance of ontology in relation to the sacred further, especially, for example, in relation to dreams and mysteries: no long analysis is needed to show that a dream cannot attain to any such ontological status. It is not lived by the whole man and therefore cannot succeed in transforming a particular situation into one that is exemplary and universally valid. . . . It is not assumed to be an unveiling of the nature of reality, nor is it the revelation of a type of behavior which, being instituted by the Gods or civilizing Heroes, imposes itself as exemplary (1960, p. 16).

In such works, “ontological status” is clarified: it involves things that are known and lived by the “whole” being (not just held in intellectual terms) in ways that transform the “particular situation” into a universal, and universally valid, one; since it participates in some sense in being, it is for one and it is for many, or for all; it is valid in the here and now, but it is also by extension valid for all time (1960, p. 16). A dream is not equivalent, logically or empirically, with unconcealment of being or the unveiling of reality in its true nature, nor is it a revelation which shows itself as exemplary, and in that sense, universal (1960, p. 16). A dream is not necessarily tied to religious experience, as authentic revelation is, presumably, in terms of its ontological status: For all primitive mankind, it is religious experience which lays the foundation of the World. It is ritual orientation, with the structures of sacred space which it reveals, that transforms “Chaos” into the “Cosmos,” and therefore renders human existence possible—prevents it, that is, from regression to the level of zoological existence. Every religion, even the most elementary, is an ontology: it reveals the being of the sacred things and the divine Figures, it shows forth that which really is, and in doing so establishes a World which is no longer evanescent and incomprehensible, as it is in nightmares, and as it again becomes whenever existence is in danger of foundering in the “Chaos” of total relativity, where no “Centre” emerges to ensure orientation (1960, pp. 17–18).

In the “primitive” world, as Eliade would have it, religious experience provides a foundation, that is, a basis in relation to ways of understanding the structure of reality, and what is, subsequently (1960, p. 17). It provides a basis also for rituals and ritualization, since it unveils or reveals “structures

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of sacred space,” for example, the transformation of chaos into cosmos, and therefore also unveils or reveals the conditions that allow human being to emerge (1960, p. 17). Eliade broadens and expands his conception of ontology considerably: in this context, every religion according to Eliade, does not just presuppose an ontology and beings and realities which have an ontological status, every religion is an ontology (1960, p. 18). What this means is that to the extent that the sacred intersects with religion, the sacred also is, or relates to, an ontology. The reasoning is clear, and valid: if a religion is an ontology and if the sacred is part of religion, then the sacred also, in that sense, is an ontology, or part of an ontology. Although Eliade does not develop the point in great detail here, the point is not exactly obscure: put very broadly, and generally, every “primitive” religion reveals or unveils something significant, for example, concerning being or beings, what is and what is not, in essence; moreover, every “primitive” religion reveals or unveils the being of sacred existents and divine “Figures,” in the sense that it “shows forth,” or brings forth, that which really is (and, by implication, not that which really is not, which belongs to the realm of the illusory, non-being or unbeing) (1960, pp. 17–18). In showing forth, or bringing forth (for example, through unconcealedness, transformation or creation) that which really is, it sets up a “World” which is first of all, not, in itself, fleeting and unintelligible (or incomprehensible) such as the world one finds, for example, in nightmarish dreams, and second, it also sets up a “World” which is seen and understood ontologically as no longer evanescent and incomprehensible (1960, pp. 17–18). So, there is a strong and integral connection here between religion, the sacred and ontology: the religious solution lays the foundation for an exemplary behavior, and in consequence, compels the man to reveal himself as both the real and the universal. It is only after this revelation has been assumed by man in his entire being that one can speak of religion. All religious structures and forms, rudimentary though they may be, participate in this ontological status. If, in a primitive society, some tree or other is regarded as the “Tree of the World,” it follows that, thanks to the religious experience which originated that belief, it is possible for the members of this society to attain to a metaphysical understanding of the Universe; for the symbolism of the Tree of the World has revealed to them that a particular object may signify the whole of the cosmos; and thereby the individual experience is “awakened’ and transmuted into spiritual action (1960, pp. 18–19).

Religion as an ontology provides a foundation for something exemplary, such as an event or act or “gesture,” which “compels” the human being to “reveal himself,” or stand forth, as something real—since what he or she partakes of, or in Heidegger’s sense, is involved in, the real—and not merely

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particular, but universal (1960, p. 18). All of this has the force of a revelation which is taken up by the human being in their “entire being,” not just for example, in intellectual or moral terms (1960, p. 18). Religious structures and forms, then, though they may be “rudimentary,” or seem so to some, nonetheless have this ontological status (1960, p. 18). For example, if a tree is understood as the Tree of the World in primitive or archaic religions, it would follow, according to Eliade, that the religious experience which provided the foundation of that belief makes it possible for the adherents to form a “metaphysical [and by implication ontological] understanding” of the cosmos: the Tree of the World opens up to them all the revelation that something particular may signify something universal. In this kind of way, one’s own experience is heightened, “awakened” and transformed into “spiritual” awareness, insight and action (1960, pp. 18–19). This dynamic relation between the particular and the universal presupposes an ontology, he argues: if the myth expresses a mode of being in the world, Eliade asks, what then has happened to myths now, or to be more precise, what has replaced them and their essential function (1960, p. 24)? If it is still true that “participations in myth and collective symbols” are still found in modern times, they do not, according to Eliade, entirely fulfill the role—central and essential—that one finds in “traditional societies” (1960, p. 24). Religious myths, in this sense, express and reveal an inescapable ontological status as well as an ontological mode: they embody and express, even as they reveal, a mode of being in the world. What this suggests is that, fundamentally, these modes, whatever they may be, for example, being towards death, cannot be understood fully or deeply in non-ontological terms, and may not be intelligible or comprehensible at all, without reference to an ontology. That much seems reasonable, and defensible. In this sense, myths fulfill a key function, even an essential one, in “traditional societies” and communities, largely because they make possible the participation of the particular in the universal, the evanescent in the abiding, the fleeting in the archetypal, and so on (1960, p. 24). The question of what takes their place, if they have disappeared or if they are in eclipse, in modern societies, is a resonant, powerful and insistent one in Eliade’s work, and one which remains true to the essential and integral place of ontology in his thinking, as we shall see in his analysis of Australian religions and systems of the sacred. But what does “participation” mean here? (1960, p. 24) In Australian religions, Eliade finds much evidence of the importance of imitation or repetition in the context of sacred archetypes and by extension, rites of initiation: the tjurunga is a “pictograph or metaphorical record on wood” [EA Worms, “Djamar, the Creator,” Anthropos, XLV 1950, pp. 643–655]; Djamar is represented in some of the markings, as well as objects associated with him (1973, p. 37). Initiates are permitted to “read” these

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correctly, but the galaguru does not just symbolize Djamar, it replicates the first bull-roarer that he left beneath the rock of Ngamagun; so wherever an “authorized replica of this galaguru is carved, carried or stored,” Djamar’s being and place (Ngamagun) is “occasioned again”—his presence is “obtained, repeated and multiplied” (1973, pp. 37–38). The tjurunga is a “pictograph” which records metaphorically or symbolically the supernatural being, lesser beings and associated motifs (1973, p. 37). It is certainly a part of the ontology of the life of the group. It cannot be read and understood by any being; it is in an important sense for the eyes of the initiated, who is taught to decipher and read the sacred object correctly and therefore, for example, to participate in the order and its manifold power (1973, p. 37). The galaguru symbolizes Djamar, the supernatural being, but also replicates the “original bull-roarer that Djamar deposited under the rock of Ngamagun,” that is, it stands as a “faithful” record of a past event that is lifted into the order not just of time and being, but of archetypes and repetition or imitation (1973, pp. 37–38). So, as Worms and Eliade argue, in every place and at every time when the galaguru is replicated authentically, or carved, carried or stored, Djamar is brought into view again and again in the sacred life of the tribe, and on the basis of the sacred ontology that is at its foundation (1973, pp. 37–38). The original location of the ontologically charged and framed event also comes back into view, so to speak, in a sense lives again (Ngamagun), and in that place, the presence of the supernatural being is “obtained, repeated and multiplied” (1973, p. 38), in a highly charged and vital process of participation and interrelation. So, the ontological foundation here is tied, forcefully and repeatedly, to a “mythical geography”: even the most barren landscape is a tribal “home” when it has been transformed by mythical Beings, whose presence and influence make it sacred (1973, p. 42). These “Primordial Beings” shape the landscape and place “spirit children” and “spirits” of various animals, “brought forth from their own bodies,” there (1973, p. 42). That is, arid places can be made familiar; monotonous places can be made distinctive, when the ontology of creation is employed and repeated, and when the transformative archetypal events and beings are present, so to speak, and/or represented, again and again. In this way places which may be “arid” or “monotonous” become sacred and vital, by virtue of their primal or repeated association with ontologically primordial, supernatural beings (1973, p. 42). These beings did not, according to the sacred tradition of the tribe, merely shape the landscape; they introduce spiritual existents, for example, animals, which spring forth from their own creative bodies. In this context, everything which belongs to the ontological order of existence, for example, mountains, billabongs (water holes), customs, assume a reality and are seen as “real, valid and meaningful” precisely because they have this ontological status,

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amongst other things, that is, they enter the order of being because they come “into being in the beginning” (1973, p. 43). Certainly, Eliade affirms the connection between this ontology and ancient Australian origin myths, such as the “Aranda myth of origins”: Supernatural Beings arise from their slumber and emerge from the earth (1973, p. 45). The places where they were born are full of their vitality and power— they are the ones who “had been born out of their own eternity” (altjirana nambakala) in diverse shapes and phenomena; some emerge in animal shapes such as the kangaroo or emu, others in the form of human beings. These “totemic Ancestors” journey over the earth, “giving the central Australian landscape its actual physical features” before returning to their original state, “turned into rocks, trees, or tjurunga objects” (1973, p. 45). According to the myth, these beings appear on the surface of the world, and these sites are therefore “impregnated” with their presence, vitality and power; they have different shapes and their appearances or manifestations vary, for example, some have non-human animal forms and others have human forms (1973, p. 45). These are the “totemic ancestors” who wander the earth and in so doing give places and spaces their physical aspects (1973, p. 45). On the completion of their wanderings, they return to their original state or are turned into features of the sacred landscape such as rocks, trees or ritually charged sacred objects, situated in sites that have been transformed into “sacred centres”: in the words of Strehlow, quoted by Eliade: “the sites which marked their final resting places were, like their birthplaces, regarded as important sacred centers and were called by the same name—pmara kutata” (1973, pp. 45–46). The two kinds of pmara kutata cannot be approached by anyone, only the “initiated men, and only on special ceremonial occasions” (1973, p. 46) when participation is permitted. At any other time, these places had “to be avoided on pain of death” (1973, p. 46). What this origin myth, and others like it, reveals is an essential ontological structure: what is most notable, according to Eliade, in Strehlow’s account (1947), is the “singular mode of being of the Aranda’s mythological ancestors”—the ontological structure gives them a unique position when one considers the varieties of “Supernatural beings known to the historian of religions” (1973, p. 48), beings which are, like the “celestial gods,” eternal and immortal (1973, p. 48). They have a kind of “ontological originality” as totemic Ancestors since they are immortal, for example, but are also “exhausted by their creative works” before they return to their original ontological state and return to their point of origin beneath the earth, from whence they nonetheless continue to “see and judge man’s deeds” (1973, p. 50). Their modes of existence, their essential ontological structure bound up as these are with land, earth, emergence, manifestation and inescapably, geography, are complex and vital: Eliade adds that they could be “killed”

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and, as a consequence of this death, some part of them (their “spirits”) could rise up to the celestial domain and become “celestial bodies and phenomena” (1973, p. 50). They (for example, ancestors), it is believed, are also capable of existing simultaneously beneath the earth, in different “cosmic and ritual objects” (such as rocks and tjurungas), as “spirit children,” and also as mere mortals in whom they can be “presently reincarnated” (1973, p. 50). Eliade notes that these Australians’ beliefs have distinctive characteristics, for example, the mysterious link between place (“mystical geography”), the myth-oriented history of their land (shaped by the acts of Ancestors) and their “responsibility for keeping the land ‘living’ and ‘fertile’” (1973, p. 50). He notes that the ontological structure of the Primordial beings (the Ancestors that populate their myths) is by no means simple—in fact, it encompasses participation in the “mysteries of life and fertility, of death and rebirth” (1973, p. 50). It is believed that they live and die and rise again, so to speak; they multiply and are present, in time and space (mythic); they are able to exist simultaneously, for example, beneath the earth, in and through ritual objects such as tjurungas, but also in waterholes and rocks, and so on, in spiritual forms (“spirit-children”), and as human beings as incarnations in the here and now (1973, p. 42). They do have a distinctive ontological feature however: the powerful connection between them, their land, the “mythical history of that land” tied to ancestral deeds and acts, and their followers’ dedication to the maintenance of the life, vitality and fecundity of that (sacralized) space (1973, p. 42). The inescapable ontological structure of these beings, and representations of them, in their primordiality (for example as mythical Ancestors) is not only complex, it reminds us they are beings who dynamically involve themselves in, or incarnate the mysteries of life and fertility, of death and rebirth, that is, some of the most vital, fundamental and essential structures in the ongoing sacred life of the tribe (1973, p. 50). Initiation rites play an integral role in the grand and repeated pattern that rests on the ontological structure at the very foundation of the sacred in such communities: the rites of initiation lead the neophyte into the traditions of the group, and they learn “all that happened ab origine,” a knowledge that is complete, “mythical, ritual, and geographic” (1973, p. 55). They learn of the events of the Dream Time, and what they need to do to sustain the “living and productive world,” just as they learn of that mythical, or mystical, geography affirmed by the group, and recognize the multiple sites where the supernatural Beings left their imprints—this world is both meaningful and sacred, with a sacred history, marked by the existence and acts of those Beings; a “world in which every prominent feature is associated with a mythical event” (1973, pp. 55–56). In initiation rites, there is an introduction, an induction in a sense, to the traditions, especially the sacred ones, of the tribe. “Knowledge” is passed on,

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but so, too, is practice; there is an epistemic dimension but also a practical and ethical one, as well as the wisdom of the tribe’s elders and ancestors. The revealing of a mythical or mystical geography is crucial and the connection to ritual is vital, as one can see not just in Australian religions, for example, through rituals involving the elders (men), the neophyte and the place and meaning of the tjuringa, but also in initiation rituals with ritual spaces and special objects in many sacred traditions such as Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism, among many others. The world of these rituals gathers fuller meaning and reality through its contact either by repetition, representation or association, and so on, with some sacred being and some special object, event or place which is inhabited by the supernatural being or has been transformed by their presence or their power, in some way. In this world, one can always be taught to orient themselves since every major feature is associated with a mythical or mystical power, presence or event. This notion of mythical or mystical geography can be extended, of course, more generally to sacred mountains, for example, and their crucial place in many traditions of the sacred, for example, in Japan, where Mount Fuji is associated with divine presences or powers (in Shinto), Mount Sinai in Judaism (where Moses receives his revelation from Yahweh), the Mount of Olives (from which Jesus ascends in the New Testament) and Mount Kailash which is sacred in Hindu as well as Buddhist traditions. In these kinds of examples, one finds initiates, neophytes or the chosen ones, given access in which epistemic (“knowledge” or insight) as well as ethical, practical, ritual, orientational, transformational and geographic or topographical elements figure prominently and integrally. One finds not just “a world in which every prominent feature is associated with a mythical event” (1973, p. 56), but also a world in which prominence is maintained and perpetuated by a mythical or mystical association, pattern of repetition or replication with a geography and the never-ending work of remembrance, recollection, telling and retelling and vitalization, revitalization and renewal. Eliade is attuned to this kind of sacred drama: so, for the Australian aborigines, the “vestiges of the mythical drama are more than a cipher or stencil” which empower him to understand the sacred meanings found in the landscape (1973, p. 57). It is believed that these reveal a sacred history which he participates in, for example, as the descendant, and in a sense, the very product of those journeys and those acts of the mythical Ancestors, and, indeed, as the very reincarnation of one of them (1973, pp. 57–58). This sacred and abiding geography, and its rich and abiding ontological structure, embody and manifest his existing, ancient family tree, and an ongoing, vital adventure in which he is an integral part—a part whose magnitude is reflected by the lower or higher rank of the ancestor who is reincarnated in his form and presence (1973, p. 58).

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The Aranda regard the mythical or sacred drama as not simply a cipher or “stencil” but the intelligible and coherent record of a sacred history which is tied to a sacred place by a sacred being or holy presence (1973, p. 57). The involvement or participation of the Aranda in being, then, in this crucial ontological sense, is not just existentially charged, or phenomenologically accessible (at least to some); it is primarily structured and understood in ontological terms: for example, in the light of the wanderings or the journeys of some sacred being whose performance of an act, or unfolding of an event, is situated in a known and now-sacred place. Such an account is vacuous once removed from the concept of being, or beings, of places and spaces, times, phenomena or manifestations, memory and recollection, rites, manifold relations, performances, constellations, journeys, movements and events. According to Eliade, the sacred geography of the Aranda is vitally linked to “mythical history,” though one might add that this “mythical history” is scarcely meaningful without its presupposed ontological structure and its paradigmatic pattern of repetition and imitation: the geography of the Aranda, he notes, has a structure and a significance precisely because of its vital association with mythical, or mystical, history and geography; they follow tracks taken by the Supernatural Beings and their mythical Ancestors (1973, p. 60). They rarely seek a sacred place by the shortest way, but instead seek the very same path marked out by the supernatural Being in that place—there is a kind of ontological fidelity, then, with regard to space (but also to time, which is reinstantiated), for the mythical or mystical history that transfigures a “chaotic land” establishes a sacred and “articulated world” which in turn, promotes the unity of the group and the tribes (1973, p. 60). Aranda geography reveals such things, like many other indigenous sacred systems and structures, but it also reveals the fundamental place and function of ontology. The existence of ancestral paths, for example, presupposes the existence of ancestors; the existence of ancestors presupposes being; the existence of paths and sacred sites presuppose the existence of objects, spaces, time, events, passages, relations, meanings and interrelations, chaotic states and ordered states, and so on. The existence of repetition and replicated journeys and passages as sacred elements that bind a tribe or group or community together, and constitute their identity to a very significant degree, are based on an intelligible, recognizable and enduring ontological picture, so to speak, of what there is and what it fully means, even if only certain members of the group or tribe or community understand this. Eliade does not miss the crucial link with sacred art also, or rather the sacred function of art, a sacred aesthetics, one might say, more broadly, which is part of an intricate development of a sacred system that stems itself from a deep and saturating ontology which is linked to a cosmogonic dimension: the “increase” of the various species in that place is effected by repaint-

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ing the rock figures, an act which is fundamentally religious, not magical, for the men are reactivating their contact with the source of life (1973, p. 83). This creativity which is associated with the Dream Time is repeated in that place, and the increase in the species of animals and plants there is associated with a re-actualization of the vital relationship with the heroes of the Dream Time, by virtue of the re-enactment of the original creative act, or by chanting the myth which records this event (1973, p. 83). The repainting of the Wondjina, then, or rock figures—another act of repetition in the sacred order of things and meaning—which constitutes a religious or mystical act or event, based on a sacred ontological structure involving space, time, imitation and participation, represents a reactivation or renewal of the contact that exists between the community and the mystical or mythical source which is remembered and honored in the work of art. The Dreamtime of the community remains alive, so to speak, in the very act of repainting (or recalling) and the ongoing reactivation of that contact serves at least four important functions: it links the community to its mythical or mystical heroes; it refreshes the Wondjina; and it “reenacts” the “original creative act” in physical, musical or other ritual terms; and it allows the creation myth, for example, to be chanted and re-chanted, thus reinforcing the sacred order and system of rites, acts, narratives and meaning that bind the community and the tribes together. Eliade argues broadly that “ultimately the historian of religions cannot renounce hermeneutics” (1973, p. 200), but, one ought to add, neither can they renounce ontology, so long as they presuppose or affirm existing things, or concepts of being (and non-being), order and chaos, and so on. Indeed, in an important essay, “Mythology Ontology History” in Eliade, Myth and Reality, (1975, pp. 92–113), Eliade attempts to draw a distinction between ontology and history: what is essential is no longer tied to “ontology” (that is, of how reality came into being) but to a “History” that is supernatural as well as human, since it is the outcome of the acts of the Ancestors and Supernatural Beings who are not the same as the “all-powerful, immortal Creator Gods” since they “die” and “become something else,” but this “death” is not an end since they endure in their creations (1975, p. 108). Their “death” transforms their mode of being and the “mode of being of mankind” (1975, p. 108). There is a kind of communion: “man feeds on the God and, when he dies, joins him again in the realm of the dead” (1975, p. 108). However, Eliade seems to confuse ontology and cosmogony, and in this sense, though not deliberately, exacerbates the forgetting and/or neglect of ontology, in its complexity, vitality and depth, in much modern thought (1973, p. 108). Cosmogony is an attempt, broadly stated, to explain how things came into being, if at all; that important task is simply not possible without a set of presupposed or assumed ontological conditions, elements,

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categories, concepts, structures, relations, and so on. The very concept of emergence that is deeply embedded in any such attempts already requires— and is made possible—by an ontology, and also by a range of ontological commitments even if those commitments are not recognized, understood, appreciated or articulated fully, or at all. It is difficult if not impossible to understand how a “drama acted out by the Ancestors of men and by Supernatural Beings” is even conceivable without presupposing the concept of being, of beings, of events, actors, structures, places, relations, recipients, and continuity (in being), for example, in time and space (1973, p. 108) “Changes in modality” do not just feature in a historical sense and in historical accounts, of course, in meaningful ways; they require, and presuppose, existing things, modes of being, both particular and universal, change, transformations, beings, objects and relations, dissoluble and indissoluble, and so on; they also require, and presuppose, concepts of being and non-being (creation and destruction, death and survival or renewal, and so on) and states of reality (chaos, order and disorder, and so on) (1973, p. 108). Indeed, the very concept of “communion” hardly makes sense once removed from the notion of two existing beings, at least, in a state of relation, for example, in time and space (though in the transcendently mythical or symbolic order of things, also, ontologically constituted and informed, presumably, relations may of course be otherwise) (1973, p. 108). Eliade suggests this much when he discusses the sequence of dramatic events that constitutes the adventures of mythical or supernatural beings: he emphasizes the fact that the “great mythologies of Euro-Asiatic polytheism are more and more associated with the events that occurred after the world’s creation” (1975, p. 109). The emphasis is on the things that happened to the gods, not just on their creations and though there is a “creative” side to all divine adventures, it is the sequence of dramatic events that constitute these, that is emphasized (1975, pp. 109–110). The emphasis on things that happen, on happenings, on creation, on the period after creation, on sequences, events and crucial agents (beings) all bring into view and open up inescapably and insistently the question of ontological presuppositions, an ontologically constituted structure or system and ontological commitments of various kinds. To push the point further, such a discussion or analysis of “dramatic events” cannot function in fully meaningful or coherent ways without such presuppositions, structures, systems or commitments (1975, p. 109). For example, Ba’al, Zeus, Indra, and other such beings, and their respective pantheons, do not just figure in mythological systems, with their own structured meanings, those systems, and all systems like them, turn on ideas, concepts or analogies of being, beings and non-being. Crucially, Eliade makes a similar point about the (inescapable and insistent) ontological question when he emphasizes the connection between my-

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thological narratives and the gesta of the gods—indeed, he notes that at a certain time in “History,” particularly in Greece, India and Egypt, elites lost interest in this divine history: For these elites, the “essential” was no longer to be sought in the history of the Gods but in a ‘primordial situation” preceding that history. We witness an attempt to go beyond mythology as divine history and to reach a primal source from which the real had flowed, to identify the womb of Being. It was in seeking the source, the principle, the arche, that philosophical speculation for a short time coincided with cosmogony; but it was no longer the cosmogonic myth, it was an ontological problem (1975, pp. 110–111).

The “ontological problem” concerns primordial conditions which precede these histories (1975, p. 111). The conditions, as Eliade suggests, precede, at least in a logical sense, the emergence of mythologies, “divine histories” and myths (1975, p. 111). The question of whether or not he is right about the “elites” and the “essential” is outside the scope of this study, but certainly deserves further attention (1975, p. 111). Certainly, it would be difficult to conceive of an understanding of what is essential in the life of these elite groups without due attention to primordial situations, conditions, events, beings, relations and the phenomenon of inception, generation and/or emergence. It then becomes necessary to look at the situation and the conditions that gave rise to mythology and myths, or to “divine history” (or any other kind of history for that matter) (1975, p. 111). Perhaps a “primal source” is crucial; perhaps primal sources and conditions are crucial; perhaps the key metaphor is that of a womb out of which all that is real and all that exists, all that is, comes (1975, p. 111). Nonetheless and notwithstanding the conceptual and empirical difficulties in determining just what happened, how and why, there can be little doubt that some of these groups sought the source, for example, by seeking not just to grasp, but also to comprehend, the source, and its nature, or the principle, the arche, and its nature. The “ontological problem” (1975, p. 111) appears when they seek not just to relate it to birth and creation and transformation but also to being: what is genuinely remarkable, for example, in early Greek (Pre-Socratic) philosophical thought, is that the understanding of birth and death, on a cosmological or cosmogonic scale became intertwined with logos, arche and ontological reflection which sought to make the elements of the primordial situation intelligible, rationally explicable and coherent (so it is not surprising to find ontological questions concerning the nature of the first principle, the arche, and the nature of the logos, as the principle of reason, gaining prominence in PreSocratic thought). What is essential, then, cannot be understood fully without an integral ontological account and understanding, since there can be no full understand-

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ing of the essential and the real, whatever one thinks of these, without a concomitant understanding of being, and of primordial conditions, situations and events in relation to the emergence of being, for example out of nothingness, and beings. Eliade recognizes this much explicitly, in relation to the ancient Greeks. He argues that what is “essential” is characterized by a “prodigious” return effected by an “effort of thought” which would mean, on this interpretation, that the earliest speculative thinking within philosophy originated in mythologies (1975, p. 111). Moreover, the pursuit of systematic thinking, if Eliade is correct, is closely, integrally and dynamically related to a fundamental ontological quest, namely the attempt to identify and comprehend nothing less than the “absolute beginning” which cosmogonies record, nothing less than the uncovering of the mystery of “the Creation of the World” or, crucially, of the mystery of “the appearance of Being” (1975, pp. 111–112) What is essential is threefold, then, at least: primordial conditions and situations are essential, for without an understanding of these, it is difficult, if not impossible, to explain how things appeared, arose or emerged, or persist, at all; ontology is therefore essential, for without it, it is difficult if not impossible, to understand how all those things that came into being actually entered the order or realm of being, for example, out of nothingness or the void, or the order of being and its emergence out of chaos, let alone the profound, but necessary, questions of the origin of being, space, time, matter, energy, and so on, as well as the nature and meaning of being and existence, beings and existents, and so on. The earliest philosophical speculations do seem to have been related to mythologies, for example, in the case of the Pre-Socratics, though it is difficult to determine the precise nature of this relation, in part because we have only fragments of texts in many cases. These speculations did not merely seek to understand the “absolute beginning” or the “mystery of the appearance of Being” (in that sense inescapably ontological) (1975, p. 112), they also sought to explain such things and to make them intelligible in the light of logos and extended and deep reflection. It was not a mere attempt at unveiling, or unconcealment, but a significant and profound attempt to understand and explain reflectively, rationally and coherently the very principles that animate being, beings and the existing ordered and intelligible fabric of the cosmos. Eliade’s analysis does not always give due emphasis to this kind of historical and epochal transformation in ancient Pre-Socratic thought, or more broadly, in his own words, the Greek “philosophical genius”: he notes that it is probable that the “Greek genius,” on its own, could not have “exorcised” mythology, since their “philosophical genius” embraced the “essence of mythical thought,” for example, the idea of the eternal return of things, the cyclicality of life, just as “the Greek mind” believed that “History could not

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become an object of knowledge” (1975, p. 112). In their physics and metaphysics, he argues, correctly, that they developed important and fundamental themes found in mythology, such as the importance of the arche or the first principle, and the constitutive function of memory (1975, p. 112); in this context, it is not difficult to see that philosophy “could employ and continue the mythical vision of cosmic reality and human existence” (1975, p. 112). But Eliade notes that it is only when we discover History, that is, only when “the historical consciousness in Judeao-Christianity” emerges and is recognized, and only when we assimilate the “new mode of being represented by human existence in the World,” that myth can be passed by, so to speak—though he hesitated to claim that “mythical thought” had been eclipsed (1975, p. 113). Indeed, he argues that it survived, though in a very different form, and in particular, in historiography (1975, p. 113). It is not entirely true, of course, to claim that the “Greek philosophical genius” accepted the essence of mythical thought, the eternal return of things, the “cyclic vision of cosmic and human life,” since it is clear that any full account of such “genius” or the “Greek mind” must recall the fact that skepticism, Pyrrhonism, Cynicism and agnosticism, amongst others, all have important roots in Greek reflective and speculative, or more broadly stated, cosmological, metaphysical and epistemological thinking (1975, p. 112). Perhaps Eliade is right to claim, however, that the “Greek mind” did not “consider that History could become an object of knowledge” (the emergence of the concept and understanding of history in ancient Greek thought and culture needs careful attention, though that remains outside the scope of this study) in the sense that most of these cosmologists or philosophers were not particularly interested in “History” as an object of knowledge (1975, p. 112); certainly there is little evidence to suggest that they were interested in metahistorical analysis and reflection, both of which are much later developments. It is not surprising, though, that when he discusses once again, Plato’s “archaic ontology” (1975, p. 124; pp. 34 ff.), he notes the importance of the myth of the eternal return but does not note also the importance of the place, meaning and role of dialectical reason, the logos, Socratic (rational) dialogue and questioning, and the logic and elaborate metaphysics, and ontology, of the forms and their copies or “shadows” in the world. But Eliade is certainly right to argue that “Greek physics and metaphysics developed some basic themes of mythical thought” (such as the question of origins, of emergence, of phenomena, the archai, primordially essential situations and so on) (1975, p. 113). Philosophical thought, for example, in Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides and Empedocles did “employ and continue” with elements taken from “the mythical vision of cosmic reality and human existence,” though it needs to be noted that such elements became incorporated increasingly into broadly metaphysical and physical and logical

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(for example, dialectical) speculations, reflections, analyses and explanations (1975, p. 113). There can be little doubt, however, that myth was not left behind entirely, or abolished, for example, as one can see in historiography in a Hegelian or neo-Hegelian, or more broadly, in a Judeo-Christian context.

Chapter Ten

Ten Reflections on the Ontology of the Sacred

It is clear that ontology is a significant element in an encompassing, or even a detailed examination of the sacred. It is clear also that a full account of the sacred cannot be given if this dimension is neglected, forgotten, overlooked or underestimated—and we have seen that it has not always been given the place and the recognition that it fully deserves in a comprehensive or detailed account of the sacred. Of course, to be fair, a comprehensive account may not be possible within the boundaries of a single text or study. However, it is possible to set out at least ten short reflections on the ontology of the sacred, in the light of the analyses of the works of key thinkers on the sacred in the preceding pages, in the hope that these will point to further directions, orientations, investigations and reflections on the ontology of the sacred in the future. James recognized the importance of ontology, to be sure, though his account is relatively brief in this context. This is understandable, for he was interested primarily in an understanding of religious experience in relation to pragmatic and psychodynamic frameworks. If he is correct and religious experience, especially in relation to the sacred, suggests a “human ontological imagination” (1917, p. 248), then it follows that ontology is a significant, but also an integral element in any encompassing account of the sacred. The point is well made, too: our imagination, in picturing, representing or figuring the sacred, clearly presupposes a range of ontological concepts, objects and commitments: for example, it is scarcely possible for the imagination to function optimally without fundamental and integral concepts such as the concept of being (and non-being), existence and non-existence, as well as conditions which allow a picture, a representation or a figure to emerge, such as time, space, matter, energy and/or relations of various kinds. 203

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However, it must be said that it is not sufficient to restrict the ontology of the sacred—or the ontology of religious experience for that matter—to the human imagination, if that is what James had intended to do. The things of the human imagination can be insubstantial, fleeting, subjective, solipsistic, illusory or tenuous, and so on and so forth; we have seen that a number of elements in terms of the ontology of the sacred are objective (space, time, places, structures, persons, communities, relationships, sites, texts, objects, and so on), and more importantly, those objective things which may be insubstantial, fleeting or tenuous, and so on, nonetheless assume an abiding, highly charged, consecrated, hallowed, powerful and/or resonant quality. The conditions that are ontologically given to the human imagination, presumably, such as space, time, matter, energy and/or relation, and so on, cannot be (purely, at least) the things of the imagination alone; temples, churches, mosques, places, structures, persons, communities, sites, texts, hymns, icons, and so on, are not in any justifiable or demonstrable sense imaginary and only imaginary—or only to be understood or apprehended through the imagination—since they can be observed, deciphered, heard, experienced externally, and so on; nor are they purely the work of the human ontological imagination, or for that matter, any other kind of imagination, for the very same reasons. James argues that religious experience manifests a “willingness to be” (1917, p. 248), and this constitutes a remarkable ontological proposition, it must be said. Certainly, one could extend James’s point to include the related claim that the sacred manifests the same thing. In what sense? Well, if one considers an experience of a sacred event, such as a divine revelation on a mountain, say a holy mountain like Meru or Sinai, recipients, such as Moses or a Hindu sage, accept the content of the encounter and in that sense, exist in the light (no pun intended) of that experience. So, in this context, a willingness to be (1917, p. 248) would suggest at the very least, an act of the will, an acceptance or embrace (of the revealed message, or code, in particular, if any, and the experience), an orientation, for example, and a return, for example, a return to one’s community with the revealed message or code or prophecy, and so on. Not every experience of a sacred event follows this pattern, of course, but there is certainly some evidence in many of the world’s religious traditions, especially those which are theistic in nature, to support such a view. In the context of hyper-spatialization, in particular, there is indeed a “glowing center” (1917, p. 379), as James called it, that may belong ontologically to this kind of experience of the sacred, in the sense of being and illumination, or being and enlightenment, as intrinsic or subsequently integrated features of post-revelation existence, but also in the sense of a centeredness, newly gained, for example, as a consequence of such encounters or such experiences, in the revealed content but also in the revealing source,

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particularly if it is a sacred or holy being who is an object of adoration or worship, a sacred sound, a sacred manifestation or hierophany, amongst other things. In the context of hyper-temporalization, in particular, if these claims are defensible, and James is right to defend them, then the willingness to be (1917, p. 248) does also allow, as James argues, “other orders of truth” (1917, p. 423) to be opened and communicated or revealed. It stands to reason that if experiences of the sacred are possible, and if revelation is possible within the context of such experiences, and if revelation can include the communication, annunciation or transmission of truths (such as the truth of an imminent catastrophe, birth or incarnation), then it follows that orders of truth can be opened up, in some way (as they are, for example, opened up, presumably, in prophecy which is truthful). If all of this is sound, then James’s attempt to establish the “world of our consciousness” as the “only one” (1917, p. 51) that really matters in relation, for example, to the world of religious experience and meaning, and, by extension, to those sacred elements or relations that pertain to that world, is not surprising, given his commitments to, and extended defenses of, psychology in a pragmatic key, so to speak, but it is not entirely convincing or coherent. Our consciousness is no doubt important, and it might be argued that the sacred extends to the consciousness of both believers and non-believers alike, especially in the form of recurring symbols or images or figures, for example (the Star of David, the crucifix, mandalas, repeated gestures, codes, rituals, and so on), but there can be no convincing assertion or coherent defense of human consciousness, however one understands it, without a range of ontological concepts, conditions, objects and commitments, and so on, being presupposed, at its very foundations. So, the world of our consciousness is no doubt noteworthy, but even more noteworthy is the (ontologically structured) relation between our consciousness and the concept of things which are, which exist, and which therefore attach ineluctably to being, in one sense or another. Durkheim’s analysis turns on the existence of two kingdoms, or two worlds, and therefore a dual ontological structure that is characterized by an absolute heterogeneity: that of the sacred and that of the profane. The chasm he finds in the relation is not merely a logical one; it is, crucially, an ontological one also, since it concerns not just two registers or classes, but two antagonistic orders of being. They cannot exist in the same space, in the same thing. In the context of hyper-spatialization, in particular, the universe in which such orders are found bears a deep and unbridgeable bipartite division (1915, p. 40). The religious force carried by the sacred, moreover, is, he asserts, nothing other than the collective and anonymous force of the clan (1915, p. 220). It has already been argued that this proposition is question-

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able; just as the proposition that “religion” is primarily a “system of ideas” and one in which “the individuals represent to themselves the society of which they are members” is questionable (1915, p. 226). However, a number of further points should be made here. First, it is not entirely true, as a number of critics have pointed out, that the two orders are absolutely heterogeneous and cannot exist in the same place or in the same thing. In a number of traditions of the sacred, such as Orphism, the two can and do co-exist in the same ontological structure, the fabric of one’s being: for example, in the myth of Dionysus-Zagreus, a myth that captures, in the words of Cornford, “the twofold nature of man, good and evil” (1926, p. 537); Zagreus, son of Zeus and Persephone-Kore, is enthroned by his father. The Titans kill and dismember him and eat his limbs. Zeus smites them and asks Apollo to bury the limbs. So, human beings are made “from the ashes of blasted Titans” (Cornford, 1926, p. 537). And since the Titans had consumed divine flesh, they contain within themselves “a particle of the heavenly essence, imprisoned and entombed in a body of evil nature. . . . The child of earth is also the child of the starry heavens” (Cornford, 1926, p. 537)—and at the same time and in the same body. It is not unusual to find this kind of ontological structure, or this kind of ontological constitution of a body and a nature, in hyper-spatialized or hypertemporalized modes of being, in the world’s diverse sacred traditions: it can also be found, for example, in analogous forms in some Christian monastic traditions in which a monk flagellates himself not just in order to punish and mortify the evil in his nature, but also, at the same time and in the same place, in order to affirm his stark commitment to a sacred way of life and/or devotion to a holy being or code. It can also be found in recent remarkable developments in some parts of India in which women who menstruate are not only able to enter the inner chambers of a Hindu temple but are also empowered to do so in law. In this context, the ontological duality is not necessarily characterized by radical or absolute heterogeneity, but also by complex and dynamic interrelation, adaptation and transformation; and although the sacred and the profane can and do co-exist in the same ontological structure or embodied constitution, it does not follow that there is a place for one, and only one, of the binary elements within the broad context of the dynamic of the sacred and the profane. It also needs to be noted that the “religious force” that is often associated with such constitutions and structures of the sacred, cannot therefore be purely the collective and anonymous force of the clan (1915, p. 220). In accounts, representations, explanations and configurations such as those outlined above, this religious force derives not simply from a relation with a clan or community, but more fundamentally and essentially from a sepervenient relation to a sacred or holy being or beings, to an explicit sacred representation or image of such a being or beings, or to a sacred space that is consecrat-

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ed or hallowed in the name of such a being, or beings, all of which, generally, predate in chronological and/or in mythical time and space, the lifespan of the clan or society, particularly in ontological and cosmogonic terms. Moreover, the related proposition that “religion” is primarily a “system of ideas” and one in which “the individuals represent to themselves the society of which they are members” (1915, p. 226) is also flawed. The sacred elements in a religion, for example, as we have seen, do not just consist of ideas, systems and relations within the binding structures of a clan or society; even these ideas, systems and relations rarely relate only to other ideas and systems of ideas within the boundaries of a society alone. When one finds a sacred tradition or relation, and a religion that attaches to it in some way, or is energized within the orbit of such traditions or relations, it is not uncommon also to find objects, spaces, representations, imitations, rites, sites, histories, and so on. It is also not uncommon to find individualized experiences of the sacred in some religions which do not require necessarily a society in order to be valid or meaningful: one might think here of mendicants who actually shun society and practice the systematic renunciation, certainly, of social ties and relations, in their pursuit of enlightenment, atonement or purification, or hermits who turn their backs completely on society and civilization and live alone in nature or in isolation. The primary function of such religious modes, in pursuit of the sacred or the holy, is not to help the individual to represent to themselves the society to which they belong (or once belonged to), but, on the contrary, to represent to themselves a commitment, even a radical and absolute one, to a sacred mode of being, a consecrated way of life, and to the pursuit of some religious end, such as enlightenment, nirvana, oneness, atonement, redemption, purification, and so on. As a corollary, then, Durkheim’s proposition cannot possibly be true, if this analysis is accurate, namely that the “outward manifestations of a religious life” are fundamentally “one and simple,” or that they respond “everywhere to one and the same need” and that they derive from “one and the same mental state” (1917, p. 414)—in any case it is difficult to see how any scientific or empirical test could possibly justify such a view. Russell sets out three elements of religious worship, as we have seen: acquiescence which “promotes and increases love and worship”; these are, he argues, “intimately interconnected” and “form a unity” (2009, p. 553). All three can “give infinity to action and thought and feeling” (2009, p. 553) and life “in the infinite,” a point which extends the point about the sacred and its modes of (hyper-)temporalization (in which time itself is energized and charged, heightened and intensified, beyond what is ordinary, or what is common) which brings into view, so to speak, an abundance, even an excess, of being, or its traces, signs, portents (and so on), and as a consequence, an experience of consecration, hallowedness, adoration, rapture, and so on.

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In the context of the sacred, however, the picture is a little more complex: religious worship often entails an attitude of faith, not necessarily divorced from reason, in a sacred being, a sacred book, a sacred event or a sacred object, amongst other things; the acquiescence it embodies, at times, since we have noted that the believer is not always acquiescent (they may sing, shout, doubt, question, dispute, protest or even despair and rage, as some of the apostles do, for example, in the New Testament, or as rich and important examples in mysticism such as the “dark night of the soul” experience show), does not seem to be an essential characteristic of religious worship, at all times. Moreover, love of sacred things, and love as a sacred thing itself, are not always promoted and increased by acquiescence: in some sacred traditions, love is bound to active struggle, spiritual leadership (against great odds), active evangelization or socio-political critique, revolution or transformation (as in the life of Paul or Jeremiah). Though such figures may acquiesce at times, it is not the case they are generally acquiescent as worshippers and it is notable that they are often not recognized for their acquiescence—their lives and experiences, indeed their worlds, and their being, of which religious worship is an integral part, may be tumultuous, confronting and/or declamatory. Russell argues that religion and the sacred seek “union with the universe” as an ontological given (2009, p. 553), and there is an element of truth in this claim. It is true that many sacred traditions highlight union with God, or with all things, or oneness, rather than fragmentation, division, conflict and/or profanation. There is indeed a kind of subordination of “the finite part of our life to the infinite part” (2009, p. 554), one might add within the mode of hyper-temporalization, in particular, in many religions, and that infinite part is often felt or experienced, for example, by mystics in the world—an important part of the dynamic that binds the sacred and the holy to the temporal and the finite, as we have seen. Russell’s analysis of the two natures in human beings is also apt and suggestive: part animal (which represents disunion) and part “universal or divine being [that] seeks union with the universe and desires freedom” from those things “that impede its seeking” (2009, p. 554). The sacred certainly often manifests such things as the attempt to surmount our animal natures, or the awakening of the divine spark in human beings, or the better angels of our nature, the perfection of being, and so on. The dichotomy between the sacred and the profane is overcome, for example, by the attainment of wisdom, through the practice of some sacred tradition: “wisdom” can find “union even with what seems most alien” (2009, p. 555), even the profane and the desacralized; wisdom, he argues, in the context of the experience of the sacred or the holy, is truly free—that is free, for example, from dichotomies, divisions and radical heterogeneities—

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“when it asks” not for exclusion or compartmentalization or separation but when it “asks nothing” (2009, p. 555). It is not entirely clear what asking nothing means, in this context, nor is it obvious that this is a true characterization of wisdom, but Russell’s understanding of wisdom is quite striking and defensible in relation to its connection with union and deep connections of various kinds—it is certainly defensible to argue that wisdom often points to, or entails an apprehension of deeper unities and affinities, deeper patterns, meanings or order, in things. The world of the mystic, according to Russell, is understood in these terms: “little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe” (1932, p. 3). One can go further, as we have seen, but certainly it can be argued forcefully, as Russell argues forcefully, that feeling is important in mystical experience, not just thought, imagination, encounter, perception and interpretation, and so on. The question of the relation between feeling and the external world (in which the mystic breathes and lives) and its modes of being, beings and objects is an important one nevertheless, but one that is outside of the scope of this book. “Mystical philosophy,” with its embrace and affirmation of sacred objects and beings, for example, is understood by Russell as “belief in insight as against discursive analytic knowledge; . . . in a way of wisdom, sudden, penetrating, coercive, which is contrasted with the slow and fallible study of outward appearance by a science relying wholly on the senses” (1932, p. 8). This may be true; but it is not always easy to draw a clear line between insight in such philosophies and reason, as one can see from the works on the sacred and the religious by thinkers such as Maimonides, Augustine and Aquinas. But perhaps Russell meant not that insight and discursive analytic or rational knowledge are mutually exclusive, or radically heterogeneous, but rather that one tends to dominate at those moments when mystical experience is most acute. After all, it is not discursive, analytic or rational knowledge in general, that he is focusing on in this passage, but rather such forms and modes of knowledge in relation to science. But what did he mean by “insight” here? Well, “mystic insight,” he argues, has a “negative side”: that is, it embodies “doubt concerning common knowledge”; but it has a positive side, too, for it prepares the mystic for the “reception of what seems a higher knowledge” (1932, p. 8). It also is more closely linked to wisdom since it is penetrating, coercive (in the sense of being compelling or dominating), and sudden. In the light of hyper-spatiotemporalization, a mystery might be unveiled, as one sees in many sacred texts and traditions, and in the process a “hidden wisdom” might be glimpsed or attained, leading to a “sense of certainty and revelation” from “reflection upon the inarticulate experience gained in the moment of insight” (1932, p. 8). Russell writes sympathetically and imaginatively in such passages and his understanding of the world and being of the mystic, generally, in the context

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of the encounter with the sacred, for example, in the world, is quite striking and unforgettable. It does deserve further attention, though it would require nothing less than another book to do it justice. He boldly proposes three characteristics of mysticism, of course: first, there is the “conception of a Reality behind the world [not just] of appearance and utterly different from it” (1932, p. 9), and seeing glory in things, “felt always and everywhere” (in a kind of acute hyper-spatialization and hyper-temporalization) “close at hand, thinly veiled by the shows of sense” (1932, p. 10). The mystic, in this context, “lives in the full light of the vision” (1932, p. 10), in the sense, perhaps, of James’s ontological idea of willingness, and with a knowledge that surpasses all others, of being, time and existence. Second, Russell argues that “reality is one and indivisible” (grasped potentially by one who is wise, presumably), in a kind of hyperspatiotemporalization that is neither fragmented nor radically heterogeneous (1932, p. 10). Third, there is the “denial of the reality of Time,” the “denial of division” and the affirmation that all “evil is mere appearance, an illusion produced by the divisions and oppositions of the analytic intellect” (1932, p. 10). Of course, not all forms of mysticism highlight these three things, grounded on a rich and elaborate ontological conception of Reality, with objects and subjects in time and space, states of divisibility and indivisibility, oneness and manyness, so to speak, and so on, but Russell did not argue that they do; what he is arguing is that mysticism can be characterized in general by these three things and by implication, that most or all of these things are scarcely conceivable or intelligible at all without an ontological structure at their foundation. There may be more than three forms of mysticism, of course, for example, the encounter not just with a Reality or a vision or a sense of oneness, but with a sacred being or sacred presence, as many traditions attest (from Judaism to Christianity and Islam to Hinduism and Greek polytheism, among others), but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to understand mysticism and its nature and ontology fully without the three characteristics that Russell affirms, expounds and defends. Ayer’s understanding of religious claims and mystical experience are both germane to an understanding of the sacred, more broadly. Russell’s objections to a number of arguments and claims made by Ayer, and their force, have been noted. But it is necessary to go further. Russell notes with some justification that Ayer’s view that the words "God exists" are “mere meaningless noise” (“like ‘Abracadabra’”) is problematic (1936, p. 541). For if Ayer is right and the words are not just false but meaningless, then an ontology that underpins claims about sacred being, sacred beings, sacred objects (that is objects which are consecrated precisely because they are touched by God, perhaps), or associated with divine being, is also fundamentally false and meaningless. But there is no logical contradiction between the

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claim that the natural world exists on the one hand, and the claim that God exists, on the other hand—just as it is evident in empirical terms not just that such claims about God are meaningful, in religious and non-religious communities, but that there is no positivist, or more broadly empirical, principle of verification (no matter how broadly Ayer defines it) that can demonstrate the falsity of such claims (1936, p. 541). As Russell notes, whatever “may be the logical definition of deity, the word ‘God’ is one which arouses certain emotions” and, by extension, their connection to some sacred object in the external world is “not disposed of by Mr. Ayer's arguments” (1936, p. 541). Claims about sacred beings also arouse certain emotions, and by extension, their own connection to objects or events in the external world are also not disposed of by the argument that claims which cannot be verified empirically must necessarily be meaningless, nonsensical or insignificant. The sacred is hardly always outside the bounds of intelligibility, whether one agrees with its claims or not. This much is clear from the approaches of Otto, James, Durkheim, Russell, Cottingham, Scruton, Eliade and many others. The claim, made by Ayer among others, that “the information which they yield is incommunicable to those who are not equipped to receive it” (1990, p. 5) is also one that has important implications in relation to the sacred, if it is true. But it is not true. Not all mystics claim that the information they have is incommunicable, in this context. Ayer’s claim is not true of all mystics; some communicate, and do so meaningfully, as one can see from the responses of thinkers like Otto, Cottingham and Scruton, among many others, to their writings and narratives. Of course, the interlinking of information, communication, meaningfulness and intelligibility which one finds in Ayer’s arguments deserves close critical attention and reflection. Even if communication is relatively unintelligible, or completely unintelligible (the ambiguity is not resolved fully in Ayer’s work on this topic), it does not follow necessarily that there would then be “nothing to discuss” (1990, p. 5), in relation to religious claims, mystical experience and the ways in which these claims and such experience intersect with the sacred. It needs to be noted also that in the world’s sacred traditions, which extend to many religions, some mystics claim to have a “special faculty” (Ayer, 1990, p. 5), it is true, but not all make such a claim. Many claim that their religious or mystical experience gives them special access to information or revelation, it is true. But one should not confuse the claim that one has a “special faculty” with the claim that one has a “special experience” (Ayer, 1990, p. 5). These are quite different things and require different ontologies and quite distinct epistemic positions. Accordingly, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that religious claims and mystical experience are misunderstood and misrepresented somewhat in Ayer’s positivism. (This sense is reinforced

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by the relative absence of references to the vast literature on these topics, and indeed to the multifarious and multitudinous works on the sacred, in his work in general.) The actual truth claims that a mystic makes are beyond the immediate scope of this work, as is the complex and challenging question of the relation between ontology and epistemology, though it should be noted at this point that those truth claims cannot be deemed to be true or false, or indeterminate, in the absence of an ontology that sets out the very conditions and objects that make the existence of the mystic, the existence of the experience, the existence of the mystic’s and their critics’ understanding of the content of the experience, the claims, the information, and so on, possible. One of the major problems here is the existence of incommensurable or radically heterogeneous pictures of the world, with vastly different ontologies, one of them saturated, or almost saturated, with the sacred and its traces, one of them stripped of the sacred altogether. Ayer noted the importance of a given privileged “general picture of the world” (1990, p. 6), which one appeals to “authoritatively and decisively in this context” and the ways in which, “at the best of times,” it remains “subject to debate, controversy and revision” (1990, p. 6). (Russell also, among many others, notes this powerfully.) But this is no less true of a simpler ontology, that is, one which consists entirely of physical or verifiable (the two are often one in positivist ontologies and epistemologies), objects and entities. Ayer grants that it “becomes clear that what is at issue here is whether or not we have underestimated the variety of things that are to be found in the world” (1990, p. 7). But it is difficult to see how this issue could possibly be resolved by recourse to the positivist principle of verification, and nothing else, especially since the principle of verification cannot be used to verify the existence of things that are not physical or observable, but may nonetheless be real. The existence of a mystical or sacred power of vision, Ayer argues, as we have seen, “might conceivably disclose the existence of objects, or properties of objects, which would otherwise have escaped our notice” and so the domain of the sacred is opened up at least as a possibility in Ayer’s analysis, though he argues also that it “would not, however, follow that our previous conception of the world had been anything worse than incomplete,” just as it “would not follow that we had been mistaken in attributing reality to the items that we had previously identified, or even that they were in any degree less real than the items that we were now in a position to incorporate” (1990, p. 7). So, an ontology that consists exclusively or predominantly of physical or material things would need to be augmented or expanded; in this context, then, the sacred can act, at least at the level of possibility, as a reminder that such ontologies may be underdetermined, unnecessarily reductive or just too basic. If there are non-physical things, and the sacred has reminded us since time immemorial that there are such things, and that they include spiritual

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things, taken broadly, which are accessible to some through experience in the world, and are revealed to them in that way, then Ayer would be willing to grant that a richer and broader ontology would be required. Though he may be right to argue that “no experience however intense can possibly establish such propositions as that reality is spiritual, or that time and space are unreal, or that things which appear to be different are in some manner identical” (1990, p. 7), nonetheless Ayer grants that it is not always easy or straightforward—contrary to what positivism sometimes suggests— to “formulate an adequate criterion of reality,” one in which all physical or material things are explained, let alone one which is opened up and expanded by the multifarious and insistent modes and being of the sacred (1990, p. 7). It is also quite conceivable, of course, that an ontology which includes and integrates items which inhere in the ontology of the mystic or the ontology of a religious experience within the context of mysticism, especially in the sense that it turns on some sacred being, some sacred place, some sacred event, or some sacred encounter (and so on), or more broadly, spiritual phenomena, may nonetheless be incomplete in itself; not all mystics claim to have access to a complete ontology, after all. But, once again, and this point is critical, it would not follow that the claims made on the basis of that incomplete ontology are insignificant, meaningless or false, simply because the ontology is incomplete. Ayer himself notes, as we have seen, that even in an acceptable “scientific picture of the world” which “accounts for the primary facts of observation,” other methods “of accounting for these facts might be conceivable” (1990, p. 220). So, too, other ontologies which integrate the sacred as an empirical fact or experience of the sacred as a reality, may be possible or conceivable, if not necessary. Ayer acknowledged shortly before his death, as we have also seen, the possibility of taking “a more liberal view of what the world contains,” even if he did maintain that religious experiences in themselves could not sustain propositions such as that “the world had a creator” without them being “independently established” (1990, p. 223). In this context, the sacred highlights the fact that there are objects (Ayer uses this term in a somewhat different sense) and items and experiences, some of them intensely personal, piercing and/or individualized, in the natural world which invite, even compel, reflection, understanding and response. The sacred, in this sense that Ayer captures vividly and unforgettably, notwithstanding the objections of Russell, Wittgenstein and many others, calls every attentive thinker, then, to the question, again and again, of the constitution and sufficiency or verisimilitude of the “view of the world” that is held and defended, and, more fundamentally but also inescapably, of the ontological picture that provides the foundation of every such “view of what the world contains” (Ayer, 1990, p. 223).

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Cottingham is interested in the relationship between trust, belief and knowledge in a theistic context, and as we have noted, the intersections between theism and the sacred are significant, meaningful and fairly extensive (for example, the sacredness of periodizations, divine encounters, codified laws, revelation, synagogues, temples, churches and mosques, and so on). Theism, as a subset, to put it crudely, of the sacred, according to Cottingham, entails a voyage or a journey, as indeed the sacred does in many forms: he writes, with Pascal in mind, “the costs of the voyage are not so formidable that we risk great loss in embarking” (2015, p. 27). The motif of the journey, not always undertaken with certitudes firmly in place, is an important and recurrent one in many traditions of the sacred: journeys up sacred mountains (Fuji, Meru, Sinai); journeys to sacred destinations (Jerusalem, Mecca, Bodhgaya, and so on); pilgrimages (Jerusalem, Mecca, Shikoku, the Seven Holy Cities in India, and so on) and wanderings, among many others. These journeys and wanderings do not just sustain a connection with the past, and with a living tradition, or with a sacred or holy ancestral being or structure, as many have noted, they are important ways of dealing and coming to terms with doubt, or expressing one’s faith, commitment and resolve. Though they have many forms, attributes and motives, they do provide evidence of participation in the being of the sacred, the affirmation of an enduring and/or revitalized connection, a devotion to the abiding existence and vitality of the sacred and the holy, in and beyond the natural world. It is no surprise that many of the greatest odyssey narratives, notwithstanding important topographical and geographical, cultural and contextual differences, such as Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, highlight common motifs in the ontology, historiography and narratology of the sacred: divided beings, departures, mortal (and moral) threats, conflicts (within and without), hospitality, community, love, loyalty and betrayal, fidelity, sacred presences, powers and places (for example, Odysseus is favored by the goddess Athena and Aeneas receives portents and signs), mercy and justice, and so on and so forth. These journeys and wanderings within the context of the sacred are not often undertaken as part of a wager, though Cottingham favors Pascal’s wager as a framework for journeying in the context of theism. But as we have noted, the world’s traditions of the sacred do not always foreground doubt, nor do they turn generally on a wager; they may turn on a vow or a promise or a duty, for example, or on a calling or revelation, amongst many other things. The power of the journey motif in the context of the sacred, generally speaking, reminds us, amongst other things, of the perennial vitality and resonance of the particular faith tradition; of the significance not so much of the departure, but of the return, the efficacy and transformative or healing and (re)unifying energy that it embodies, and the enduring and (re)vivifying

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influence and connectedness to being in the dynamic of the sacred that it affirms and codifies, in an important sense—that is, for example, in and through the life of the community that it helps to found, and that it sustains, constitutes, structures, regulates, inspires, consecrates and drives. The picture of the world, whatever one thinks of it, cannot be complete ontologically without a full account of the conditions of such journeys and wanderings, their abiding contexts and powerful meaning, their enduring value, their manifold objects, conditions and structures, and their consecrated and hallowed relations, times, places and things. In this context, Cottingham is justified in questioning the picture that emphasizes that the “natural world which is open to scientific investigation” is “all that there really is” (2015, p. 33), since narratives such as those mentioned above suggest otherwise in quite forceful (literal as well as symbolic and figurative) ways. As he noted, the “human world of value and meaning on this physicalist picture, has an altogether more shadowy and more secondary kind of existence: it is a kind of temporary effluent or byproduct of our human brains” (2015, p. 33), but this proposition, though defensible in some respects, does not go far enough: it is important to note that that kind of picture has certain limits and boundaries which invite deeper and broader ontological reflection (not least because the whole picture itself, and the “human world of value and meaning” within the framework of that kind of “physicalist picture,” are not in themselves, or in relation to each other, either physicalist or materialist things!), richer and more expansive pictures of the world as a whole, and more fully realized and complex explanations of the nature, forms and manifestations of being, and its foundational relation to beings, all taken as a vast and complex whole. Of course, it may not be entirely possible, or possible, to form a sufficiently detailed, necessary ontological picture of this vast, expansive, aweinspiring, intricate world, with its multitudinous consecrated and hallowed elements, beings and relations, but the undertaking, and the journey can hardly be said not to be worthwhile, as Cottingham seems to realize. Scruton attempts to locate “our religious need” in the relation between IYou (perhaps under the influence of Buber) and its “intentionality” which is projected “beyond the boundary of the natural world” and in turn reveals such a need, which also reveals, of course, the sacred that inheres in, and belongs to, many structures of, and relations within, human religiosity (2014, p. 175). In this sense, religiosity characterizes and highlights an intersubjective response and relation, that is, one which is situated within the mode of hyperspatialization, for example, and which carries the believer “beyond the world of objects” and into sacred or holy space (2014, p. 175). In this mode, one addresses the sacred or holy and is addressed by it. No doubt this is true within the context of the intersections between religion and the sacred, but it is not sufficient to account for the diversity and

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complexity of the sacred. It is not essential for an I to relate to a You, or more broadly to a Thou, within the context of the sacred; the I can relate to an it, also, in quite meaningful and significant sacralized ways, for example, a sacred object (which is not a subject), a sacred event, a sacred relic, a sacred text, and so on, and not necessarily a sacred being or a sacred other (which is a subject). This objective aspect of the sacred cannot be emphasized enough; it extends to non-subjective as well as subjective things and relations (where “subjective” is understood not in terms of mere changeable opinions or fleeting insubstantial things, but rather in the sense of pertaining to a subject in a subject to object relation, or in a subject to subject relation). The question of whether there is a “religious need” (2014, p. 175) is an important one that deserves careful attention. Is there one need or are there numerous needs? If there is more than one need, which is met by the sacred or the religious, in some way, how is one to order these needs accurately or truly? These are important questions. If one grants for the purposes of argument that there is such a need, do art, in the broadest sense, and the “recorded history of mankind tell the story” of this need and the story of “our quest for the being who might answer it,” as Scruton argues (Scruton, 2014, p. 176)? Well, it is important to pause here and consider these questions carefully. First, it is difficult to see in empirical terms how the many traditions of the sacred which one finds in the religions of the world, especially theistic religions, answer one need, and only one need. For example, the need of the pilgrim to Lourdes is not the same as the need of the pilgrim on the way to Mecca, or on the way to Jerusalem, necessarily; perhaps it is quite distinct; perhaps it is intensely personal. There is much scope for complexity, diversity, even ambiguity or uncertainty, in the space between a pilgrimage to a sacred place, a sacred journey and the domain of desires, needs and orientations. Similarly, it is also difficult to see in logical terms how the many traditions of the sacred which one finds in the religions of the world, especially theistic religions, answer one need, and only one need. Perhaps the pilgrim to Lourdes or Mecca or Jerusalem is seeking to meet not a need but a want; or perhaps they are driven by a sense of duty which does not necessarily fulfill a need, but is intensely desired nonetheless. Moreover, perhaps art and the “recorded history of mankind” do not simply tell the story of one need and one quest, or of what Scruton calls “our quest for the being who might answer it” (2014, p. 176), but rather the story and an account of multiple and complex needs and wants, motives, desires and pursuits, on the part of these pilgrims or wanderers journeying in the orbit of the sacred, and of their diverse and complex quests for being, or for beings, or for consecrations or sacralizations which might answer to these kinds of things. But perhaps Scruton is not arguing that they do meet one and only one need. Perhaps he is arguing, more broadly, that they meet something deep

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and undeniable and abiding in us. This is a significant question, too. Art, and the recorded history of humanity, certainly would record, one imagines, our quests and our needs, but it is unlikely that our needs are going to be anything other than plural; it is unlikely in empirical terms that the evidence, taken from the diverse and complex traditions of the sacred which inhere in the religions of the world, for example, will suggest otherwise, just as it is unlikely that in logical terms, the need of one will be generalizable, inductively, and with complete accuracy, to the needs of all. Scruton also raises the crucial question of the origin of the religious need, as we have seen, if indeed there is one such need. He focuses on the order of the covenant which allows love to expand and “fill the gaps between our deals”; which binds “us into it with secure threads” (2014, p. 176). However, a covenant in the sense that he sets out requires two parties or two subjects, one of whom is divine and one of whom is human, such as God and Moses. But not all religions which have sacred elements manifest such an order or such an order between two such subjects. Indeed, some religions with sacred elements or relations do not feature covenants in this sense at all—and importantly, this fact does not make their status as religions or sacred traditions less applicable, less relevant or less true. The comfort they afford, if any, is not necessarily tied to the comfort that flows from a covenant between a divine subject and a human subject, or between a divine subject and a community of human adherents. The sacred, and this point is quite crucial, does not just open up and highlight the existence and reality of divine to human covenants but also the existence and reality of other kinds of compacts and relationships, for example, between being and beings, or between ancestral figures, places and dreamings, on the one hand, and human followers, on the other hand, or between primal ch’i, on the one hand, and human adherents on the other hand. The complex and multifarious web of covenants, compacts and interrelations is one of the sources of the needs and wants that might be called “religious,” certainly, like being, the logos, some primal principle or their manifestation in the natural world. Freud contends that “religious ideas” arise from a need to defend humanity from destructive and superior forces of nature and “rectify the shortcomings of civilization” which bring suffering (1961, p. 22). This proposition has important implications in relation to the ontology of the sacred. First, the religious need extends to sacred elements and relations, as we have seen: gods, sacred beings, sacred figures, structures, objects, encounters, revelations, and so on. If one grants for the purposes of argument that this need is real and evident, what follows about these sacred elements and relations? If we need religion, then it follows that we need the sacred elements and relations that form part of religion.

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But is the causality that Freud explores sufficient? No: “religious ideas” can arise from many sources; certainly some can be traced to a need to defend humanity from the destructive and superior forces of nature, for example, in traditions in which rituals and sacrifices are held to placate the gods of nature; certainly, some can be traced back to a need to “rectify the shortcomings of civilization” which cause suffering, for example, in traditions which emphasize the triumph ultimately of good over evil, or in traditions which emphasize mercy, forgiveness, grace, atonement or redemption (1961, p. 22). But there are other possible, conceivable and actual causes, also, as the vast body of literature attests: for example, being unfolding in time and space, primordial creation and generation, incarnations, annunciations, appearances, visions, covenants, compacts and revelations, and so on, which are not necessarily oriented either towards defending humanity or rectifying the shortcomings of civilizations. Freud also contends that religious ideas, and by implication, elements of the sacred that inform such ideas, are caused by deep and powerful wishes and urges which manifest our helplessness and fuel a desire for protection, and for a father figure. In this sense, religious ideas bring before us an even more powerful father figure and an even more powerful analogue, “the benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life” (1961, p. 29). But it is important to look at the evidence here and at the truth of these claims. First, some religions, and some religious ideas, do not emphasize a father, or symbolic father figure, who plays this kind of role, or who plays only this kind of role. Certainly, in the Judeo-Christian tradition broadly, God “the Father” can be, and is, understood not merely as a being who protects and rectifies, not one who merely responds to human helplessness and weakness, but also as a being who creates and generates, loves and redeems, delivers and reveals, but also, crucially, responds to strength, determination and resolve (for example, in the narratives concerning Moses, David and Jacob, among many others). “He” is hardly associated only with helpless human beings, and only with helping and protecting them. In nontheistic religions, moreover, like Buddhism, joy and joyfulness, among others, are associated with the Factors of Illumination, and Buddhists may attain Buddhahood—hardly a sign of helplessness. Religious ideas, and ideas of the sacred, do not always highlight or turn on an idea of Providence either; such ideas belong predominantly to monotheistic faiths such as Judaism and Christianity; other faiths, and other religio-sacred traditions, though they may feature or highlight structures of love and care and a direction for a community of believers, such as Confucianism or some strands of Buddhism, nonetheless feature neither a deity nor a divine plan, necessarily.

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Notably, for example, in Chinese traditions of faith, in which many sacred elements, objects and relations are found, one finds several complicating factors in relation to Freud’s theory of religious ideas and desires. In Confucianism, for example, which certainly incorporates ideas of the sacred as well as ideas of faith and of reverence, it is government that is benevolent or otherwise, not a ruling father figure embodied in a deity. And the Chun-tzu, or “noble human being,” in this tradition is certainly not understood either in terms of helplessness or in terms of a drive, informed by childhood attachments, towards a protecting father figure expressed in the form of a divine being (see, for example, Confucius, Analects 14: 7 and 14:24, among others). Humanness is not so much associated with helplessness and weakness, for example, but with virtue, courage and love, especially filial devotion between an I and a You. In religious Taoism (tao-chiao), which incorporates ideas of consecration, ritual, meditation, reverence and communion, though the desire for protection in the context of wayward civilization and the desire for social harmony are important, it is not divine Providence that drives these developments but the tao, a force or way out of which things come, and to which things return. (Interestingly the tao is not likened to a father at all in some traditions but to a mother, which complicates Freud’s psychodynamic structure even more—see, for example, Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, I and IV). Of course, Freud’s insistence that all religious doctrines are illusions which are not provable is also not provable, since it is difficult to see how one could devise a sufficient empirical (psychological) test for all such doctrines, since time immemorial. Worse, it is not always clear what Freud understands by that term. He seems to mean at times that the things that the doctrine asserts to be true are illusory; at other times he seems to mean that the content of the doctrines themselves is illusory. But neither is proven, and perhaps never can be proven, to be true. The Doctrine of the Mean, for example, which is an integral element in Confucian faith traditions (Chung-Yung) and which binds harmony to the attainment of equilibrium can hardly be said to be illusory since, firstly, the doctrine exists in reality, as part of a living tradition, and secondly, though it may be deemed to be true or false, it cannot coherently be said that it is illusory (as an existent)—that is, the determination that it is illusory, or really non-existent, is either false or a category error. (A proposition or a teaching that is found in a doctrine can be either true or false, but the doctrine understood as a whole cannot be said to be illusory if it is a real component of an explicit religious system or some part of a documented sacred tradition.) Finally, if religion is “the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity” (1961, p. 43), then some elements of the sacred—some of its objects, some of its beings, some of its relations and dynamics—are parts of this neurosis. But one cannot but wonder what possible (psychological or psychodynamic) experiment, or what body of empirical evidence which is sufficient, could

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prove such a sweeping proposition? Part of the problem here is the underdetermination that makes such a sweeping and unsubstantiated proposition possible; the radical oversimplification that underpins such claims—so, as we have noted, it is not at all surprising that Freud associated “religion” with one technique, namely a way of “depressing the value of life and distorting the picture of the real world in a delusional manner” (1962, p. 31) or with one system of “wishful illusions” (1961, p. 43). It is perplexing that he did not devise tests specifically geared towards the detailed and systematic investigation, in empirical (and psychodynamic) ways, of either the relation between religious ideas, allied ideas of the sacred and common practices, with effects that have little or nothing to do with “depressing the value of life” (of course, it would be necessary to look critically also at the narrow conception of life that is presupposed and valorized in Freud’s discourse) or with actual techniques which emerge from these ideas and practices in the sphere of the religious and the sacred which have little or nothing to do, in actuality, with individual obsessional neuroses, or for that matter, with distortions of “the picture of the real world” (1961, p. 43) produced by delusional patients. In not going down this empirical path in any substantial, demonstrative way—notwithstanding the profound challenges that the designer of such experiments faces, as we have noted, to be fair—it is entirely possible that Freud was right about his own view of illusory pursuits: “I will moderate my zeal and admit the possibility that I too am chasing an illusion” (in the sense of the effects of religious “prohibitions” not being as “bad” as he had supposed) (1961, p. 47). The possibility needs to be admitted, but it also needs to be acknowledged, given the omissions and limits of his own hypothetical, theoretical and experimental approaches in the vast and intricate, not always continuous or commensurable, fields encompassing such things as religious ideas, presuppositions, inclinations, drives, forces, beings, desires, wishes, attachments, techniques, experiences and psychodynamic states, mental processes, objects, relations and phenomena. Though Heidegger did not focus on, or dwell in, the ontology of the sacred in many texts, his profound reflections on ontology and being, and beings, nonetheless do raise some particularly important implications in terms of a broader and deeper understanding of the ontology of the sacred. It is not just that the ontological question that “stimulated the thought of Plato and Aristotle has been forgotten as a question which drives genuinely philosophical reflection” (1962, p. 24) that is important here. The question of the ontology of the sacred has been forgotten, or set aside, to a significant degree, for example, in the work of Freud and Durkheim (among many others), that is, as a question which drives genuinely philosophical (metaphysical) reflection. To be fair, neither Freud nor Durkheim, among others, were philosophers. Nonetheless, some awareness of the importance of the

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ontological question certainly is important given that the sacred is not a modern phenomenon, and in fact, has very ancient roots that predate philosophy and science, especially if one is going to pronounce broad inductive generalizations concerning the sacred, its foundations or causes, its existence and its objects relations, forms, modes, and so on. This much should be borne in mind just as the relation between ontic elements and phenomena, and ontological reflection, should be borne in mind. Heidegger argues powerfully that since “that momentous contribution to the history of western thought on the part of the ancient Greeks” (1962, p. 24), a dogma has emerged that refuses not only to acknowledge the importance of ontological reflection and investigation but also insists that the question is superfluous, as we have seen. It then becomes necessary to return to the question of being and beings, and all that is, in the realm of the sacred in the world. The question, of course, needs to be formulated carefully and thoughtfully so that the distinctive characteristics can be brought into the light, investigated coherently and illuminated while acknowledging openly that the investigating (Untersuchen) takes place in an ontological context that is already given: the world of the investigator, and so of the investigation, the isness of the inquiry, is already at the outset and at its foundations situated within an ontological framework. So, it would be rash, or unjustifiable, to set aside, neglect or overlook this context and its fundamental and essential importance. But then the investigation must answer the question of what it means to speak of the being of or the existence of the sacred. We cannot be satisfied with an investigation of the surface of terms, as he himself noted. A concept that is ontological at its foundations is needed in relation to the sacred and its being, or existence in the world (at least as a starting point). One can then set out clearly and coherently those things that obscure or hinder our understanding of the sacred, its nature, its objects, its beings, its relations and its manifold phenomena, many of which have been set out in this study, among others. What is sought after all, as Heidegger noted, is hardly something that is entirely unfamiliar to us, even if some studies and reflections do not grasp its importance well, or at all. As Heidegger noted, when we talk about something, when we “comport ourselves” to it, we do so in the context of being; “what we are is being, and so is how we are” (1962, p. 25). If something is, then Being is at its foundation (ontologically speaking) and in its “being as it is,” that is, in reality, present-at-hand, in “subsistence,” in the “there is,” and so on (1962, p. 25). But one may ask, in “which entities is the meaning of Being to be discerned?” (1962, p. 25). Or these questions: “from which entities is the disclosure of Being to take its departure? Is the starting-point optional, or does some particular entity have priority when we come to work out the question of Being?” (1962, p. 25). Which entity shall we take for our example, and in

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what sense does it have priority? (1962, p. 25). If the sacred is, if it subsists, if it is meaningful to say “there is” in relation to the sacred, and if human beings comport themselves to it, at least to some extent, then being is at the foundation of the sacred, and ontology is meaningful in relation to the sacred. And there can be little reasonable doubt that the sacred is—that is, there is the sacred—for example, in the world’s religious ideas, religious systems and forms. Wherever we represent the beings or modes of existence of the sacred, the there is in relation to the sacred in all its objects, forms, relations, appearances, phenomena and manifestations, ontology appears, or in Heidegger’s terms, ontology enters the light; Being’s unconcealedness shines forth in the representation and in the ontology, and in the light that it sheds on the sacred and the existence of the sacred as concept, as phenomenon, as tradition, as inherent element in many religions, as consecration, as ritual, and so on and so forth (1964, pp. 207–208). But when we forget or neglect to ask “whether and how” Being is involved in this unconcealedness, how it is manifested “in, and as metaphysics,” we may lose sight of its “revelatory essence” (1964, pp. 207–208), so long, that is, as metaphysics is bound to physics, or more generally, to empirical science and the commanding domains of the verifiable, the physical, the material, the observable, the sociological and the psychodynamic (and so on). The truth of the being of the sacred in the world, its isness, one might say, in space and time, cannot be understood coherently or fully so long as, in Heidegger’s terms, inquiry or investigation “speaks out of the unnoticed revealedness of Being” (1964, p. 208), or in other words, perpetuates consciously or not, the failure to recall or remember Being, or the ground of its existing at all, as a source of revelation, and revelation as part of its essence. In neo-Heideggerian terms, so long as such inquiries or investigations concern themselves with appearances, fixations, wish fulfilments, illusions, delusions and neuroses, and so on and so forth, and the being of such things in human beings, then for so long will the truth of the ground of the being and existence of the sacred, in its manifest groundedness, complexity and revealedness, remain obscure, forgotten, neglected or concealed—for so long as thinkers and scientists think out of the apparent depths of being without recalling or understanding the truth of the ground or what is the same thing, the truth of Being, then for so long will the revealedness and revelatory power of Being remain obscure, forgotten, neglected or concealed (1964, pp. 208–209). In this context, it becomes necessary to overcome the metaphysics that underpins, informs, sustains and drives such inquiries or investigations which claim to be empirical, systematic, rigorous and putatively scientific— but crucially, it must be noted, it does not become necessary to overcome metaphysics as a whole, since that is scarcely possible, at any rate. As stated earlier, then, a further transformation is therefore required.

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Since the sacred has been evident, for example, in the world’s diverse religious ideas and systems, and more broadly, it is quite coherent to argue, in Heideggerian terms, somewhat poetically it must be said, that “Being continually announces itself ” (1964, p. 211), or in other words, that Being, or existence, is continuous, and continually announced, so to speak, in the forms, objects, relations, manifestations, and so on, of the sacred over many millennia, and presumably in millennia to come. The catastrophic confusion which Heidegger identified in relation to the forgetting and oblivion of Being can be extended to the forgetting, neglect or failure to recall the importance of the ontological question at the foundation of any inquiry or investigation into the sacred, for the very existence of such inquiry or investigation is situated within an already assumed, or given, ontology, itself an intellectual or rational philosophical expression and manifestation of unconcealedness or emergence in space and time (1964, p. 211). The transformation that is required is not just a rigorous critical awareness of the limits of “purely representational or calculative thinking” (1964, p. 212), as Heidegger would have it, but also of thinking which uncritically affirms psychodynamic theory or anthropology or sociology, or more broadly, of insufficiently examined, and inadequately grounded, positivist or empirical thinking. Without it, being as it relates to, and is unconcealed through, the sacred, in and through its spatio-temporalizations, will either remain unthought, or insufficiently thought. That ecstatic understanding that Heidegger extolled, that is, in the sense of standing and enduring in Being’s openness to human beings in the truth of that unfolding (1964, pp. 216–217), especially in the domains of the sacred, is destined to remain not merely concealed, but also obscured, neglected, forgotten, under-estimated or dismissed from, and unrecalled by, investigations and inquiries into the true and abiding nature and meaning, and indeed, value, of the sacred. The very question can be obliterated, pushed into oblivion, like Being in that forgetting which is actualized through metaphysics, as Heidegger insists, itself held captive by the empirical or positivist sciences. What is required indeed is an expanded and augmented, unrelenting fundamental ontology [Fundamentalontologie], as Heidegger called it (Kaufmann, 1964, p. 219), but one, it must be said, which goes well beyond— surmounts, perhaps—rhetorical, and in some senses, sweeping dystopian affirmations and projections about machination, technology, enclosures, abjection and the advent of nihilism. Though Heidegger expressed reservations about the term, with good reason, nonetheless he argued forcefully that it is essentially ontology, and its target must be ontology, and more broadly metaphysics, which is still complicit, as he would have it, in the obscuring and abandonment or forgetting and oblivion of Being (Kaufmann, 1964, p. 219)—though only to an extent, one might add. What is required, nonetheless, is a transition which unconceals again and recalls the truth of Being as it

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releases itself and as it is manifested in sacred forms, beings, events, objects, relations, and so on, and not only the truth of (mere) religious ideas, psychological states, representations of the social, obsessional neuroses and so on, which happen to dominate or pervade beings and the thinking that characterizes and drives them. It is crucial to go back as far as is possible and try to see as deeply as we can how ontological (and indeed ontic) questions, which are ineluctably and integrally woven into the fabric of ancient Greek thought about Being and beings, and how subsequent thinking have served to displace, marginalize, forget, neglect, ignore, obscure and/or displace the question of the nature of Being, and the truth of its relationship to the sacred and its manifold phenomena through arrival or annunciation, emergence, through genesis, generation or, in Heidegger’s terms, unconcealment—in short, the dynamics, forms and modes of Being’s appearance in spatio-temporalization, matter, energy and beings. Only then will it be possible to see more fully those intellectual, rational, empirical and positivist trajectories and how those representational and theoretical modes which are pervasive, have obscured and blinded many to experiences, and accounts, which attest to unconcealedness, not merely as a concept or a category, but as a ground, from its beginnings to the emergence of the order of the sacred as a significant and integral part of the order of the world. Again: a path needs to be cleared from mere concepts and representations, which exist in calculative thought (but not simply there, one might add), in order to clear the path for a transformation in thinking which makes possible a more attentive, more meditative form of thinking (Heidegger called it das andenkende Denken, as we have noted; see 1964, p. 220): only in this way will one open a path of thinking to the question of what the sacred is and of what ontology is in relation to the sacred, and no less importantly, what the sacred and ontology are in relation to their ground and what their ground actually is—the very truth, manner and sense in which they find a dwelling (1964, p. 220). As we have seen, it is possible to observe, verify, measure and calculate persistently, even furiously (as Heidegger put it somewhat rhetorically; 1964, p. 220) and without disrespecting these activities or underestimating their value and importance in any way, nonetheless we have seen how much can be forgotten, neglected or overlooked in the process. Perhaps Heidegger is right: perhaps these challenges are due, at least in part, to the forgetting or under-estimation of the importance and value of the poetic. But it is important not to overestimate the importance of the value of the poetic here. Remaining heedful of the poetic is important, as he realized, but measurement and calculation are themselves made possible by those conditions which Being’s unconcealedness opens at its inception, also, presumably. They should not be dismissed or forgotten. But they cannot and must not—in this

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sense Heidegger was correct—be allowed to obscure the importance, or the seriousness or the depths of the poetic. And there is much evidence of the poetic in the sacred, to be sure, from its texts and narratives to its metaphors, symbols and richly configured forms, modes and imaginative worlds. The ontological structures and relations of the sacred cannot be viewed (entirely) from the standpoint of observation because as we have noted, there are non-observable things that are no less real than observable things (such as energy in the universe); nor can they be verified from the standpoint of positivism or more broadly empiricism because as we have noted, there are non-verifiable things, and indeed propositions, that are no less real than verifiable things (for example, the principle of verification itself); nor can they be understood exhaustively or even truthfully through inductively generalized investigations into psychodynamic states or sociological patterns alone, because as we have noted, there are actual or real objects, modes and relations of the sacred which are not psychodynamic states or sociological entities, or even representations of the mental and the social. The complexity and profundity of the sacred ought to become an essential thematic, in neo-Heideggerian terms, that is opened by genuinely ontological reflection (ontologische Besinnung), in order that the limits of other approaches can be revealed and elucidated more fully, and indeed, the limits of ontology itself (see, for example, Heidegger, 1988, p. 88). Of course, quite apart from the profound—and momentous—question of the sacred and its existence, its isness, no limited system or paradigm, in science or in the humanities or in the arts, for that matter, can be possible without already being determined to some extent by the order or register of the ontological, especially in terms of their relation to their ground and inception. It is no accident that this kind of ontological reflection, investigation and fundamental ontology, though it goes beyond Heidegger’s overcoming of metaphysics and his momentous confrontation with modern technologocentrism and calculative thinking, broadly conceived, nonetheless may allow the sacred to emerge more fully in its truth, potentiality and manifold actuality, in its power and complexity through the delimitation of technology and calculative thinking, and other analogous paradigms of modernity, through the opening up of the modern enclosures which serve to contain, efface, reduce and/or obscure the relationship between being, existence and the sacred, and the connection to that unconcealment, in Heidegger’s terms (1967, p. 127), which remains unthought, and persists in a state of forgetting, neglect, oblivion or (potentially catastrophic) withdrawal. Eliade, more than any other major thinker, arguably, on the sacred and the profane, understood the fundamental and quintessential importance of the question of the ontology of the sacred. He posed this question, or raised it, implicitly or explicitly, in almost every major work he produced on the sacred (and the profane). His work offers numerous notable and thought-

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provoking answers, a number of which can be clarified, augmented and expanded as potential points of future research, investigation, (meditative) thinking and debate. First, he develops the concept of mythical geography: in ontological and topographical terms, space is an essential condition of being and existence, in the sense that being signifies potentiality as well as actuality, and existence signifies actuality; space is “sacred” when it is “essentially real” which means that it is imbued with myth or it is mythologically constituted and structured especially in the context of the “archaic world” in which, he claims, somewhat rhetorically, it must be said, “myth alone is real” (rhetorically because the logic, if followed literally and rigorously, leads to absurdities: for example, if myth alone is real, and if believers in myth alone participate in the reality that is constituted solely by myth, then believers also are real, but then it follows that non-believers are not real, and a world in which myth is negated is a world which becomes non-real) (1952; 1961, p. 40). Myth “tells of manifestations of the only indubitable reality—the sacred” (1952; 1961, p. 40). In the space in which myth alone is real, the believer is in direct contact with the sacred, and therefore also with reality, with being, for example, in relation to sacred objects (such as “tchuringas,” representations of sacred figures and so on), “hiero-cosmic symbols” such as the Cosmic Tree, and so on (1952; 1961, p. 40). Moreover, mythic geography features an ontology which has, along the axis of hyper-spatiotemporalization, multiple “cosmic regions,” and rarely or never just one region, such as “Heaven, Earth and Hell”; in this kind of sacred ontology, the “centre” is the point at which the multiple regions meet and the space of intersection is where the encounter with a higher plane of being becomes possible and, “at the same time, communication between the three regions” (1952; 1961, p. 40). The ontological extension of this mythic geography is the hierophanizing of time but also, one might add, of space, or better, of the spatio-temporal continuum. Eliade points out that Judaeo-Christianity manifests “the supreme hierophany: the transfiguration of the historical event into hierophany” (1952; 1962, p. 170). He means not just that “Time” is “hierophanized” for that can be found in “all religions,” according to Eliade; “the historical event as such . . . displays the maximum of trans-historicity” which means that “god not only intervenes in history, as in the case of Judaism; he is incarnated in a historic being, in order to undergo a historically conditioned existence,” and this “historical event” for example, involving Jesus Christ, is a “total theophany,” with an amplified or heightened ontological status, that is, it endows the historical event with the maximum of being (1952; 1962, p. 170). It is doubtful, of course, that “myth alone is real” (emphasis added) for the reasons noted above—which is a way of saying not that myth is not real and essential in archaic ontologies, but rather that other things may also be

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real as well—but it is also doubtful that incarnation as a historic being endows the being, the time and perhaps the place with the maximum of being, simply because in the onto-theological hierarchies that one invariably encounters, for example, in monotheistic systems, the maximum of being would presumably apply to “God the Father,” for example, or to beings who have a maximal status in the hierarchy of being and of beings. Eliade also makes a case for archaic ontology, based on “the conceptions of being and reality that can be read from the behavior of the man of the premodern societies” (1954; 1959, p. 3). “Archaic” refers to the premodern or traditional societies collectively known as “primitive” and “the ancient cultures of Asia, Europe, and America” (1954; 1959, p. 3). The meaning of archaic myths and symbols implies a metaphysical position certainly, but more specifically, always, an ontological position, also. It may be useless as Eliade argues “to search archaic languages for the terms so laboriously created by the great philosophical traditions” (such as words like “being,” “nonbeing,” “real,” “unreal,” “becoming,” “illusory,” and so on), but it is not useless to search these languages for ontological conditions, objects, elements and so on (1954; 1959, p. 3). Just because the words may be lacking does not mean necessarily that ontological objects, elements or conditions are irrelevant or non-existent. It is a logical fallacy to infer from the absence or lack of a name, in a particular language, that the being or thing to which the name refers does not exist (for example, the ancient Romans, who were polytheists, left a space in their temples dedicated to the unknown god, or in a sense, the god without a name). And as Eliade notes, the nameless being is “revealed” and made present, but also, one might add, represented, encountered and even consecrated, “in a coherent fashion,” through “symbols and myths” (1954; 1959, p. 3). In one of his most memorable phrases, Eliade points out that “sacred objects, events or spaces,” but also one might add, beings, times and periodizations and so on, generally speaking, can “acquire value, power and resonance” and in short, become saturated with being, and as a corollary, if one follows the logic to its conclusion, also with reality (1954; 1959, p. 3). These constitute a hierophany, especially when they commemorate a sacred or mythical act or event. He adds: the “object appears as a receptacle of an exterior force that differentiates it from its milieu and gives it meaning and value. This force may reside in the substance of the object or its form; a rock reveals itself to be sacred because its very existence is a hierophany” as it “resists time” and its being or reality “is coupled with perenniality” (1954; 1959, pp. 3–4). Although Eliade insists that it “is not what man is” (1954; 1959, p. 4), nonetheless in non-theistic traditions it needs to be noted that some men, such as arahants or holy men or disciples, in Buddhism, can

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achieve maximal spiritual power, and in that sense, their being may constitute a hierophany. Eliade also makes use of a concept of “original ontology,” uncovered by the “conscious repetition of given paradigmatic gestures” (1954; 1959, p. 5). He argues once again that the “power of nature, the object fashioned by the industry of man, acquire their reality, their identity” precisely to the degree that they participate in transcendent being and therefore, reality (1954; 1959, p. 5). The gestures, in the context of original ontology, gather meaning and reality, purely “to the extent to which” they repeat “a primordial act” but also conceivably, a primordial event, a primordial encounter or a primordial relationship or covenant, and so on (1954; 1959, p. 5). But it is questionable to limit this kind of ontology to the “man of the premodern societies” for, in principle, at least, the concept can be applied meaningfully to hierophants in the modern era, and indeed, hierophants in the future (1954; 1959, p. 5). (One of the conceptual difficulties with the valorization of terms like “archaic” and “primitive,” of course, is that they somewhat erroneously suggest or imply that the things that those terms signify are very much things that lie in the distant past. But there is no compelling reason to believe, or a conclusive argument to show, that they are always like this, and never otherwise.) The horizon of archaic spirituality (1954; 1959, p. 5) may conceivably extend to the distant future, so long as the sacred remains vital, perennial and resonant, especially in relation to being and to existence. It is not surprising then that Eliade valorizes ontological conceptions which, for example, underpin “archaic forms and structures of spirituality” (1954; 1959, p. 5). He argues that there are “certain facts” which reveal, for example, that “archaic man” saw “reality” as a “function of the imitation of a celestial archetype” (or a sacred being or event); that “reality is conferred through participation in the ‘symbolism of the Center’,” for example, cities or temples, and so on, which “become real by the fact of being assimilated to the ‘center of the world’”; and that “rituals and significant profane gestures” gain meaning and “materialize that meaning, only because they deliberately repeat such and such acts posited ab origine by gods, heroes, or ancestors” (1954; 1959, pp. 5–6). This is why, presumably, he argues that “for all primitive mankind, it is religious experience which lays the foundation of the World,” transforms chaos into order (or kosmos), and in rites reveals “structures of sacred space” and “therefore renders human existence possible” (that is, “prevents it . . . from regression to the level of zoological existence”)— and why, in short, he believes that “every religion, even the most elementary, is an ontology” (1960, pp. 17–18). The proposition is a little ambiguous: it might suggest that every religion is an ontology fundamentally or essentially, or that every religion is an ontology in one vital sense. If we adopt the second interpretation, which is certain-

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ly meaningful, and take the claim literally, the truth of Eliade’s claim remains doubtful: religions are systems, sets of beliefs and practices in theistic and non-theistic contexts, worldviews, and so on and so forth, but the claim that religion is ontology is not only misleading, but false: strictly speaking, ontology is a part of philosophy, as argued at the outset (specifically metaphysics), and since philosophy and religion are not identical, religion is not an ontology. It may incorporate ontological elements; an ontology provides an account of the conditions which make it possible for religions to emerge, particularly religious entities, beings, objects, events, systems and so on, but it is not the case that an absolute identity exists between ontology and religion, or more generally, between philosophy and religion. Nonetheless, it should not be forgotten that the relationship between ontology and religion is a vital and important one. Eliade’s claim that “all religious structures and forms, rudimentary though they may be, participate in this ontological status” is defensible and coherent so long as the relationship between ontology and religion is affirmed but not in terms of an absolute identity (1960, pp. 18–19). Finally, Eliade highlights the importance of ontological originality and ontological mystery: “beings are earthborn but later ascend into the heavens to become ‘planets and stars’”; they have an ontological originality as totemic Ancestors since “they are immortal”; they are “exhausted by their creative works . . . before they return to their original ontological state and return to their point of origin beneath the earth, from whence they nonetheless continue to ‘see and judge man’s deeds’” (1973, p. 50). The places where these “creative works” become incorporated into mythic geography and the “world in which the initiate henceforth moves is a meaningful and ‘sacred’ world, because Supernatural Beings have inhabited and transformed it” (1973, p. 56). In this kind of world, intimately related to this kind of ontological status, there is a sacred history, and all the prominent features are “associated with a mythical event” (1973, pp. 55–56). The ontological problem deserves greater attention. It consists in the fact that elites seek the “essential” not in the history of the gods, but “in a ‘primordial situation’ preceding that history”—an attempt to “go beyond mythology as divine history and to reach a primal source from which the real had flowed, to identify the womb of Being” (1975, p. 110). In seeking this source, or the arche, “philosophical speculation for a short time coincided with cosmogony,” however, it was “no longer the cosmogonic myth, it was an ontological problem” (1975, pp. 110–111). We have noted that cosmogony should not be conflated with ontology. The ontological problem concerns the question of the origin of Being, and though this problem is related to cosmogony, ontology is not cosmogony, to be sure, especially since cosmogonies incorporate hymns, songs, mythologies, theologies, theophanies, mysteries, poetry, and so on and so forth.

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The sacred, in the broadest sense, incorporates elements of mythology, cosmogony, ontology, philosophical or theological thinking, and much else besides, but it is not reducible to any of these: in this sense it could be said that the earliest philosophical speculations derive from mythologies: systematic thought endeavors to identify and understand the “absolute beginning” of which the cosmogonies tell, to unveil the mystery of the Creation of the World, in short, the mystery of the appearance of Being (Eliade, 1975, p. 112).

It is an enduring mark of the complexity, vitality, resonance and power of the ontology of the sacred and its many elements, forms, modes, manifestations, trajectories, discourses, narratives, influence, and so on, that it encompasses many and diverse things. The “human ontological imagination” (James, 1917, p. 248) is crucial and ontology provides a rational and/or logical, as well as intelligible explanation of the conditions that make it possible, even if it is not the whole story of the human being’s relation to ontology. The “willingness to be” (James, 1917, p. 248) which is characteristic of many subjects who have religious experiences, deserves further attention also, in the context of ontology. The ontology of the sacred makes possible a questioning of the boundaries and limits of purely verificationist, empirical, or physicalist pictures of the world and their constitution and structure, just as it opens further investigation of the intersubjective relation between an I and You, but also an I and It, in the sense not of a subject that is objectified, but of an object that is consecrated, hierophanized, hallowed or worshipped. The ontology of the sacred, in Heideggerian terms, reminds us of the forgetting or neglect of ontology (relatively speaking) in the manifold investigations, and in the thinking that characterizes many studies, of the sacred, just as it opens the possibility of fundamental ontology, a more meditative approach and deeper ontological reflection (ontologische Besinnung), and one hopes, a deeper understanding of Being and its creative and revelatory relationship with beings in the world, and indeed of the foundations of such relations and connections. But the ontology of the sacred, broadly conceived, encompasses not just consecrated objects, events, beings, times and spaces, and hierophanies; not just beings with feelings of dependence or numinous experiences; not just expressions, representations and manifestations of the social, the psychodynamic or the psychological; not just religious experience and mysticism, ethical systems and teachings, or covenants; not just concepts of Being and beings in the world; not just a surmounting of the profane, of profanation and desacralization, but also, and crucially, ontological questions and conceptions, mythic geographies, fundamental, even essential, structures, ontologi-

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cal problems, enigmas and mysteries—and all of these within a vast and complex philosophical framework in which profoundly important parts of the experiences of human beings, and of being in the world, such as dependence, helplessness, doubt, wonder, awe, majesty, insight, knowledge, community, love, wisdom, rapture, atonement and/or redemption, and so on, can be understood more deeply, investigated, articulated, recalled, illuminated, commemorated, defended and affirmed, in ways that remain extraordinarily vital, resonant, challenging, and ultimately, thought-provoking, enriching and enduring.

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Index

Abandonment, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 171, 223 Aboriginal, 5, 14, 15, 32, 37, 182 Abraham, 100, 101, 108, 180 Acquiescence, 15, 23, 53, 54, 171, 207, 208 Aesthetic, 91, 94, 100, 196 affective, 23, 26, 58, 67 afterlife, 74 agnosticism, 72, 75, 201 Allah, 32, 110 Allen, G. W., 20 Allen, N. J., 36, 49 Allen, Douglas, 177 Analogy, 7, 9, 23, 80, 81, 93, 102, 106, 114, 115, 120, 122, 126, 127, 129, 130, 134, 167, 184 Anaximander, 141, 143 Ancestors, 16, 108, 117, 118, 183, 185, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 228, 229 Animal, 5, 14, 32, 41, 55, 56, 107, 117, 156, 192, 193, 196, 208 Animism, 96, 126 Annihilation, 99, 104, 161, 162 Anthropophagy, 42 Anttonen, V., 147 Anxiety, 143, 144, 145, 146 Apparitions, 81, 82, 83 Apollonian, 112, 126 Appropriation, 163, 164, 165, 169 Aquinas, 126, 137, 209

Archetypes, 16, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 192 Aristotle, 100, 133, 137, 142, 143, 149, 220 Arunta, 32, 33 Atheism, 33, 72, 75, 129 Atonement, 102, 207, 218, 230 Augustine, 14, 126, 129, 209 Awe, 10, 11, 12, 15, 68, 74, 91, 92, 94, 95, 100, 215, 230 Ayer, A.J., 1, 15, 19, 21, 53, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 210, 211, 212, 213 Barnes, Jonathan, 141, 142, 143 Barrow, John, 50 Barton Perry, Ralph, 20 Barth, Karl, 9, 147 Beautiful, 14, 23, 61, 94, 141 Beauty, 61, 72, 91, 92, 94, 95 Beekes, R., 2 Beingness, 158, 169 Bible, 2 Biology, 51, 107, 160 Blood, 1, 36, 39, 41, 42, 46, 104 Body, 2, 36, 39, 42, 55, 73, 86, 103, 105, 107, 112, 120, 128, 206 Bohr, Neils, 131 Bricklin, Jonathan, 20 Bridgers, Lynn, 20 Buber, Martin, 133, 215 245

246

Index

Buddha, 39, 47, 93, 182, 218 Buddhism, 29, 35, 36, 93, 123, 182, 183, 194, 218, 227 Bull roarer, 14, 42, 191, 192 Calculative, 156, 166, 167, 223, 224, 225 Caldin, E., 50 Campo, Juan E., 147 Capps, Donald, 20 Carrette, Jeremy, 20 Carroll, B. E., 147 Casti, J. L., 50 Causation, 44, 85, 105 Celsus, 126 Certainty, 23, 60, 62, 63, 64, 77, 164, 209, 216 Certitude, 92, 93, 96, 214 Chikamatsu, 100 Childhood, 111, 115, 120, 121, 130, 131, 219 Christ, 2, 11, 39, 89, 110, 179, 180, 185, 226 Christianity, 2, 3, 11, 31, 32, 35, 36, 47, 54, 61, 71, 89, 90, 93, 101, 104, 106, 110, 123, 126, 179, 180, 182, 183, 194, 201, 210, 218, 226 Christology, 104 Churinga, 32, 42, 178, 226 Chwistek, Leon, 50 Circularity, 162, 164 Cleared, 175, 224 Clearing, 175 Communion, 3, 5, 37, 38, 42, 103, 197, 198, 219 Consciousness, 9, 10, 12, 15, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 41, 51, 58, 59, 84, 94, 95, 96, 98, 139, 186, 201, 205 Consecrated, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 41, 177, 178, 204, 207, 210, 214, 215, 227, 230 Consumption, 160, 161, 162, 164, 166 Contagion, 41, 90 Contagiousness, 41 Copernicus, 57, 75, 131 Cosmogony, 5, 197, 199, 229, 230 Cosmological, 30, 72, 199 Cottingham, John, 16, 19, 53, 89–97, 211, 214, 215 Courage, 16, 99, 144, 145, 146, 219 Creature-feeling, 10

Croce, Paul Jerome, 20 Crouter, Richard, 9 Covenant, 8, 16, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 217, 218, 228, 230 Cults, 31, 40, 41 Cultural, 94, 214 Culture, 7, 90, 97, 98, 118, 161, 166, 184, 201 Dasein, 139, 150, 151, 156, 157, 168, 169 Dawkins, Richard, 1, 33, 130, 187 Death, 3, 41, 42, 73, 74, 79, 99, 100, 101, 103, 112, 113, 114, 143, 144, 145, 157, 175, 179, 180, 187, 191, 193, 194, 197, 198, 199, 213 Deductive, 51, 70, 71, 138 Deists, 125 Delusions, 1, 16, 109, 121, 122, 124, 129, 222 Demonic, 42 De Nicola, Daniel R., 50 Dependence, 1, 9, 10, 29, 55, 64, 92, 230 Descartes, Rene, 93 Design, 75, 107 Desolation, 164 Dick, Steven J., 50 Dionysian, 126, 185 Discipline, 135, 136 Dogma, 29, 49, 50, 55, 149, 221 Dole, Andrew C., 9 Domain (ontological), 135, 136, 143, 160, 168, 171, 172, 173 Doubt, 59, 60, 75, 81, 90, 117, 127, 128, 129, 133, 156, 199, 208, 209, 214, 230 Durkheim, Emile, 1, 15, 16, 19, 89–108, 109, 126, 205, 207, 211, 220 Dwelling (and poetry), 16, 165–166, 167, 169, 172, 173, 224 Einstein, Albert, 75, 131 Eliade, Mircea, 1, 11, 133, 136, 177–201, 211, 225–230 Empirical, 19, 30, 35, 36, 38, 44, 48, 50, 57, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 82, 96, 105, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 122, 123, 125, 127, 140, 141, 142, 189, 199, 207, 210, 211, 213, 216, 219, 220, 222, 223, 224, 230 Empiricism, 72, 225

Index Enclosure, 4, 171, 172, 174 Epistemic, 36, 57, 63, 69, 79, 92, 128, 194, 195, 211 Epistemological, 21, 26, 34, 57, 122, 201 Epistemology, 53, 212 Eternal, 7, 25, 38, 44, 108, 113, 143, 152, 157, 187, 193, 200, 201 Ethical, 12, 19, 41, 59, 62, 66, 67, 68, 89, 90, 91, 94, 101, 194, 195, 230 Ethics, 12, 16, 45, 59, 89 Eucharist, 3, 101, 102 Evil, 3, 41, 61, 62, 66, 67, 113, 206, 210, 218 Exodus, 34 Experiential, 23, 71, 72, 76, 77, 78 Fairytale, 119 Faith, 8, 22, 23, 26, 27, 32, 36, 41, 47, 50, 54, 77, 92, 93, 98, 106, 118, 126, 129, 187, 208, 214, 219 Fascination, 12, 13, 14 Fallacious, 70, 115, 117 Fate, 70, 109, 110, 111, 112, 143, 145 Father, 2, 16, 109, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120–121, 122, 126, 127, 206, 218, 219, 226 Faust, 100 Feelings, 10, 15, 20, 22, 58, 62, 63, 68, 230 Finitude, 6, 94, 181 Fixations, 16, 119, 127, 222 Forgetting (Being), 16, 154, 155, 159, 160, 162, 164, 173, 174, 175, 197, 223, 224, 225, 230 Forgiveness, 16, 58, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 110, 114, 218 Francese, Sergio, 20 Freedom, 35, 44, 55, 64, 72, 98, 103, 146, 164, 171, 172, 173, 208 Freud, 109–132, 187, 217, 218, 219, 220 Fundamental ontology, 16, 159, 223, 225, 230 Galileo, 57, 75, 131 Garfield, J. L., 147 Gavin, William J., 20 Geertz A. W., 147 Genesis, 101 Gerrish, B. A., 9 Giddens, Anthony, 36, 49

247

Gilson, Etienne, 139 Girard Rene, 102 Gnostic, 126 Gooch, T. A., 11 Goodman Russell B., 20 Gould, Stephen Jay, 131 Grace, 14, 23, 89, 101, 103, 106, 110, 218 Graham George P., 20 Greeks, 4, 7, 14, 94, 149, 174, 187, 199, 221 Ground, 146, 152, 153, 154, 155, 159, 160, 161, 164, 170, 171, 175, 222, 224, 225 Hackett, Conrad, 3 Hagan, Annette I., 9 Halliwell, Martin, 20 Hallucinations, 81, 82 Hamlet, 100 Hammersley, Martyn, 50 Hegel, G. W. F., 61, 139 Heidegger, Martin, 16, 133, 139, 140, 146, 149–175, 190, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 230 Heisenberg, Werner, 75, 131 Helplessness, 109, 110, 111, 116, 117, 120, 121, 218, 219, 230 Hermeneutics, 118, 197 Heroes, 16, 183, 189, 196, 197, 228 Hierophanies, 1, 8, 179, 182, 183, 186, 188, 230 Hierophany, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 204, 226, 227 Hinduism, 3, 7, 8, 25, 126, 210 Hindus, 14, 25 Historiography, 116, 201, 214 Holy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 25, 35, 41, 42, 73, 95, 100, 108, 178, 183, 196, 204, 206, 207, 208, 214, 215, 227 Horgan, J., 50 Hume, David, 50, 56, 57, 71, 95 Humility, 68, 69, 91, 92, 122, 128 Husserl, Edmund, 139 hyper-spatialization, 7, 179, 204, 205, 210, 215 hyper-temporalization, 7, 179, 205, 206, 208, 210 ideal, 12, 29, 37, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 53

248

Index

idealists, 46 Idealization, 48, 50 Idealizing, 48 Illumination, 24, 65, 150, 152, 154, 157, 170, 172, 204, 218 illusions, 1, 16, 60, 62, 67, 109, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 129, 130, 131, 219, 222 imitation, 6, 8, 16, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 192, 196, 197, 207, 228 immortal, 41, 143, 193, 197, 229 incarnation(s), 106, 182, 194, 205, 218, 226 incest, 117 induction, 43, 77, 96, 194 inductive, 33, 36, 43, 44, 77, 123, 220, 225 infinite, 6, 7, 53, 54, 55, 110, 113, 143, 146, 177, 179, 207, 208 insight, 15, 24, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 74, 85, 98, 101, 133, 181, 191, 195, 209, 230 interdictions, 31, 32, 39, 40, 41, 117 introspection, 121, 123 intuition, 22, 50, 62, 64, 121, 123 instinct(ual), 22, 55, 56, 64, 128, 129, 143, 162 irrational, 107, 120, 131, 153, 185 Irwin, L., 147 Isaac, 100, 101, 108 Islam, 2, 3, 7, 32, 89, 110, 123, 126, 180, 183, 210 Jacob, 108, 218 Jacquette, Dale, 16, 133–136 James, William, 1, 15, 19–28, 203, 204, 204–205, 210, 211, 230 Jehovah, 110 Job, 34, 110 Johnston, Jay, 147 Jones, R. H., 49 Joy, 43, 67, 91, 92, 93, 164, 218 Judaism, 2, 4, 7, 8, 32, 35, 89, 108, 110, 123, 126, 179, 180, 182, 183, 185, 194, 195, 210, 218, 226 Judas, 126 Kant, Immanuel, 50, 91, 138 Karlqvist, Anders, 50 Kierkegaard, Soren, 129 Kilde, J.H., 147

King Lear, 100 Klocker, H., 11 Knapp, K. D., 20 Knutson, Andrea, 20 Lamberth, David C., 20 Lane, B. C., 147 Levinas, Emmanuel, 147 Literal significance, 71, 72 Literature, 98, 99 Liturgy, 108 Logical analysis, 64, 120, 135 Logical positivism, 15, 76, 78, 85 Logical positivist, 72, 73 Logos, 61, 62, 134, 135, 138, 141, 142, 143, 144, 169, 184, 199, 200, 201, 217 Longing, 12, 13, 16, 94, 95, 102, 103, 110 Luther, Martin, 126 Machination, 16, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 223 Manicheans, 126 Mantra, 108 Marcel, Gabriel, 139, 147 Marina, Jacqueline, 9 Maritain, Jacques, 139 Mary, 123 Matter, 71, 137, 152, 183, 200, 203, 204, 224 Mattick Jr., Paul, 50 Meaningful, 72, 73, 76, 93, 95, 96, 99, 105, 108, 114, 115, 163, 192, 194, 196, 198, 207, 210, 211, 214, 215, 221, 228, 229 Meaningfulness, 90, 95, 98, 102, 116, 168, 169, 211 Medawar, P. B., 50 Meditative thinking, 16, 159, 164, 224, 230 Messianic, 4, 7, 11, 104, 181, 186 Meta-ontology, 134 Metaphysical creed, 63 Millbank, John, 147 Miller, William Watts, 36, 49 Miracles, 6, 36, 109, 182 Monotheism, 2, 3, 15 Moore, Edward C., 20 moral life, 16, 102 Moses, 6, 35, 195, 204, 217, 218 Munevar, Gonzalo, 50 Music, 5, 14, 98

Index Myers, Gerald E., 20 Mysteries, 23, 183, 184, 189, 194, 229, 230 Mystery, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 59, 60, 68, 106, 116, 121, 140, 163, 170, 200, 209, 229, 230 Mystic asceticism, 30 Mystical logic, 64 Mystical philosophy, 59, 209 Mysticism, 15, 21, 25, 27, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61–62, 62–63, 64–65, 66–67, 70, 73, 75, 79, 84, 85, 123, 208, 210, 213, 230 Mythical, 16, 33, 178, 181, 185, 186, 187, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 206, 226, 227, 229 Mythological, 2, 3, 14, 43, 45, 46, 118, 187, 193, 198, 226 Nasr, S. H., 147 Natural philosophy, 61, 142 Need(s), 22, 43, 64, 95, 98, 99, 104, 111, 115–116, 117, 119, 121, 122, 127, 165, 194, 207, 215, 216–218 Negative cult, 39 Neo-Darwinian, 107 Neural, 105 Neurosis, 126–127, 128, 130, 131, 219 Neurotic, 130, 131 New atheism, 33, 129 Newton, Isaac, 57, 75, 131 Nihilism, 16, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 223 Nirvana, 25, 35, 113, 207 Nonsensical, 72, 73, 119, 187, 188, 211 Non-rational, 11, 12, 13, 22 Norris, Richard A., 133, 136–139 Nothingness, 99, 100, 105, 112, 188, 199, 200 Numen, 9, 11, 12 Numinous, 6, 7, 9, 10–12, 14, 15, 19, 87, 95, 96, 147, 230 Nurtunja, 32 Objectivity, 69, 70, 87 Oblivion, 155, 156, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 173, 174, 175, 223, 225 Obsession(al), 101, 126, 127, 128, 219, 220, 223 O’Connell, Robert J., 20

249

Oedipus Complex, 126, 127 Olin, Doris, 20 Oneness, 61, 62, 113, 207, 208, 210 Onions, C. T., 2 Ontic, 16, 139, 140, 141, 143–144, 144–146, 155, 168–169, 169, 187, 220, 224 Ontological imagination, 15, 19, 20, 203, 204, 230 Ontological problem, 16, 199, 229 Ontological reflection, 168, 199, 215, 220, 221, 225, 230 Ontological structures, 16, 168, 225 Ontological question(s), 16, 20, 30, 134, 137, 139, 140, 141, 145, 151, 177, 198, 199, 220, 223, 230 Ontos , 135, 137, 141, 142, 143, 169 Onto-theological, 226 Origen, 126 Otto, Rudolf, 1, 9, 10–15, 19, 211 Overcome (Overcoming), 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 157, 173, 208, 222 Parmenides, 61, 62, 142, 201 Participation, 6, 8, 16, 41, 70, 183, 184, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 214, 228 Pascal, Blaise, 57, 93, 94, 129, 214 Paul, 89, 208 Penitence, 102 Perception(s), 20, 25, 26, 58, 59, 60, 84, 86, 91, 138, 139, 209 Personify, 115, 116 Physicalist, 96, 97, 215, 230 Pickering, W.S.F., 36, 49 Pihlstrom, Sami, 20 Pindar, 174 Plato(nism), 12, 61, 137, 142, 149, 184, 185, 201, 220 Poetic(ally), 165–167, 172, 173, 174, 185, 223, 224 Poetizing, 164–165, 169 Poetry, 16, 165, 166, 167, 229 Polytheism, 3, 8, 15, 110, 147, 198, 210 Pragmatic, 19, 28, 203, 205 Pragmatism, 15, 19 Preparedness, 92, 93 Presence, 157, 159, 170, 175, 191, 192, 195

250

Index

Primitive, 33, 69, 70, 180, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 227, 228 Prohibitions, 35, 117, 220 Prometheus, 94 Providence, 112, 113, 120, 121, 125, 218, 219 Psychoanalysis, 16, 117 Psychodynamic, 16, 19, 203, 219, 220, 222, 223, 225, 230 Psychology, 15, 28, 130, 138, 160, 205 Psychological, 10, 20, 26, 27, 86, 95, 115, 125, 144, 219, 223, 230 Putnam, Hilary, 20 Quantum theory, 70, 86, 97 Radiance, 61, 154, 174 Ramsey, Bennett, 20 Raphael, Melissa, 11 Rasmussen Joel D. S., 20 Rationalism, 21, 22 Rationalist, 22, 26, 37 Receptivity, 92, 103, 106, 156 Recollection, 156, 158, 195, 196 Reconciliation, 101, 102, 132, 147 Redeker, Martin, 9 Rescher, Nicolas, 50 Relic(s), 31, 36, 38, 39, 42, 46, 47, 181, 215 Religious doctrines, 118, 119, 122, 122–123, 123–124, 125, 126, 130, 219 Religious experience, 1, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 29, 44, 70, 75, 86, 124, 189, 190, 191, 203, 204, 205, 213, 228, 230 Religious feeling, 12, 13, 74 Religious forces, 34, 41, 45 Religious hypotheses, 79, 84 religious knowledge, 15, 70, 75 religious life, 1, 15, 27, 29, 30, 40, 43, 44, 207 Religious thought, 15, 29, 33, 34, 45, 50, 51 Revelation(s), 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 24, 26, 35, 58, 60, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 72, 74, 85, 96, 103, 105, 108, 110, 115, 118, 119, 152, 170, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 195, 204, 205, 209, 211, 214, 217, 218, 222 Reverence, 13, 62, 63, 219

Ricoeur, Paul, 147 Rite(s), 3, 6, 7, 8, 14, 31, 34, 39, 40, 41, 43, 101, 103, 147, 191, 194, 196, 197, 207, 228 Royce, Josiah, 20 Russell, Bertrand, 1, 15, 19, 21, 53–70, 70, 75–79, 85, 207, 208, 209–211, 212 Rydenfelt, Henrik, 20 Sarbacker, Stuart Ray, 11, 147 Sacramental, 3, 103, 104 Sacrifice, 3, 16, 42, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 103–104, 180, 185, 218 Sacrilege, 2, 8, 35, 41, 104 Sacrilegious, 42, 104, 108 Sanctuaries, 40, 101 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 105 Savage, 104 Scheffler, Israel, 20 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 1, 9, 10, 12, 19 Schmaus, Warren, 36, 49 Schrodinger, Erwin, 131 Scientific attitude, 64, 129 Scientific investigation, 41, 50, 95, 96, 215 Scientific method, 50, 51, 63, 66 Scientific philosophy, 15, 69, 70 Scientific picture, 84, 96, 213 Scientific reflection, 49, 50 Scientific Revolution, 132 Scientific spirit, 16, 126 Scientific temper, 68, 69 Scruton, Roger, 16, 53, 89, 90, 91, 97–108, 211, 215, 216, 217 Selfworld, 143, 144 Sentiment(s), 27, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 50, 86 Service, 55, 56, 114, 160, 161, 162 Sextus Empiricus, 140 Shah, B. M., 11 Sherman, Robert, 9 Shinto, 110, 180, 195 Shugendo, 47, 93 Slater, Michael R., 20 Smith Jonathan, 147 Smith Philip, 49 Social, 15, 43, 44, 47, 48–49, 49, 104, 119, 120, 126, 145, 207, 219, 223, 225, 230 Society, 37–38, 40, 44, 47–49, 51, 111, 112, 117, 190, 205, 206–207 Sociological, 15, 19, 43, 222, 225

Index Soul, 12, 13, 42, 43, 44, 55, 59, 60, 61, 73, 89, 112, 113, 119, 129, 143, 208 Spinoza, Benedict, 61 Spirit(ual), 2, 9, 27, 33, 42, 60, 63–64, 68, 79, 83, 84, 91, 92, 95, 112, 119, 126, 131, 152, 163, 181, 182, 183, 185, 190, 191, 192, 194, 208, 212, 213, 227, 228 Spiritualist(s), 119 Stedman Jones, Susan, 36 Strug, Cordell, 20 Stuhr, John J., 20 Subjectivity, 95, 98, 156, 170, 171 Submission, 68, 91, 92, 110 Sutcliffe, H. L., 36, 49 Symbols, 12, 15, 107, 118, 144, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 187, 191, 205, 224, 226, 227 Szerszynki, B., 147 taboo(s), 4, 39, 116 Taoism, 34, 110, 126, 219 Taylor, Charles, 20, 147 Technology, 16, 147, 161, 162–163, 164, 165, 174, 223, 225 Technologocentrism, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 174, 225 Teleological, 47, 106 Telling, 25, 166–167, 195 Temples, 4, 40, 183, 204, 214, 227, 228 Thales of Miletus, 142 Thayer J. H., 3 Theism, 6, 75, 89, 90, 93, 214 Thomistic, 137 Thompson, Kenneth, 36, 49 Tillich, Paul, 16, 139, 140, 143–146 Tjurunga, 14, 191, 192, 193, 194 Torah, 94 Totem(s), 5, 32, 33, 36, 37, 116, 117, 193, 229 Totemism, 16, 32, 35, 36, 38, 43, 116, 117 Tragedy, 100 Training, 93 Transcendence, 1, 69, 100, 101 Transcendent urges, 16, 94 Transcendental, 105, 138, 139 Transformation, 6, 30, 42, 92, 100, 103, 153, 163, 164, 165, 169, 172, 182, 183, 187, 189, 190, 195, 198, 199, 200, 206, 208, 222, 223, 224

251

Trinity, 123 Trust, 16, 91, 92, 93, 214 Turner H.W., 11 Turner Stephen, 36, 49 Turk, M., 11 Ultimate concern, 16, 146 Unconcealedness, 152, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 169, 190, 222, 223, 224 Unconcealment, 16, 158, 159, 170, 172–174, 175, 189, 200, 224, 225 Untersuchen , 149, 221 Unthought, 67, 142, 158, 160, 172–175, 223, 225 Unworld, 160, 161–162 Urge(s), 16, 94, 115–116, 119, 121, 122, 127, 218 Vague(ness), 22, 31, 48, 66, 85, 111, 125, 149, 150 Van Horn, Michael A., 9 Verification, 15, 71, 72, 75, 210, 212, 225, 230 Violence, 30, 90, 102, 103, 127 Wagner, Richard, 90, 98, 100 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 50 Waninga, 32 Wells, H. G., 80 wholly other, 11, 12, 14 Williams Robert R., 9 Williamson, Jim, 177 willingness to be, 23, 204, 205, 230 will to believe, 19 wisdom, 15, 55–56, 59, 60, 62–63, 85, 113, 114, 194, 208, 209, 230 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 21, 53, 57, 213 Wolff, Christian, 138, 139 Wordsworth, William, 90 Worldview, 95, 97, 228 Worship(per), 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 32, 33, 34, 37, 53–54, 60, 96, 180, 181–182, 182–183, 183, 184, 204, 207–208, 230 Wondjina, 14, 197 Zen, 93

About the Author

Professor Ray Younis is Lead Academic (Core Curriculum) and Professor of Philosophy at ACU. He was educated at the University of Sydney (BA Hons., MA Hons.) and the University of Oxford (D.Phil.). He has held senior managerial and leadership positions at Lincoln College (Oxford University), the University of Sydney, CQU, the University of Notre Dame and Curtin University, Australia, among others, and teaching positions in philosophy and ethics at Oxford, the University of Sydney, UNSW, CQU and the University of Notre Dame, among others. He is the recipient of several awards and commendations at the University of Sydney, CQU and WEA, among others, including the Vice Chancellor’s Award (on behalf of the Core Curriculum team) for “enhancing student learning” at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney. He has contributed chapters and papers to more than twenty books and online collections and more than twenty-five academic journals. He was a film critic for many years (in Sydney) and a wine consultant (in Sydney and Oxford). He particularly enjoys travel (and travel photography), food and wine, netsurfing (news and current affairs), reading and writing, film and theatre, classical and rock music and the company of his grandchildren.

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