The articulation of the sacred attitude to nature

• Main Author: Valentyna Paterykina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ukrainian Center for Cultural Studies 2013-02-01
• Series: Cхід
• Subjects: природа; сакральне; профанне; священне; релігійне; святе; вотивні речі.
• Online Access: http://skhid.kubg.edu.ua/article/view/13430

A man lives in natural environment and considers it the primordial of his being on the Earth. But depending on the nature causes terrible feeling. It is the state that is caused by sacral things. Sacral things have ambiguous meaning in philosophical literature; it is different from "religious", "dark", "spiritual". Such terms can be synonyms and they have to be differentiated. Indistinct content of term "sacral" enables to use it for any natural landscapes, manmade constructions. Man's existence itself is soaked with sacral value as archaic person schematize the Universe, his behavior attitude to nature. It oversteps religion which is a certain systematizer as well. It is impossible to go beyond sacral for it covers everything. To be revealed in nature a religious person has to be soaked with sacral. At the same time the man with sacral feelings transposes his attitude to the places determined individually as unusual. Religion applies term sacral to its myths. But it forgets that religion can disappear , but not a sacral thing. Religion uses such terms, which are those among sacral features. People settle spontaneously based on natural-biological needs and colonization principle does not rely on religious views, on the contrary, a man gives the places regarded as outstanding ones supernatural features. A man chose places for settling with favourable conditions and imparted unusual traits for them. Worship sites were divided into sacral ones and those bearing political-ideological role. At the same time sacral symbol has got exoteric and esoteric sense; it covers and uncovers spiritual aspect. But what cover-up do they mean when God himself has changed into simulator during post-modern times? Contradistinction process of "spiritual", "heavenly", "secular" has originated from monotheistic religions that have resulted in secularization and desacralization afterwards. When studying natural worship places you need to consider more ethically terms "sacral", "spiritual", "religious".