Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The ritual form
- 3 Self-referential messages
- 4 Enactments of meaning
- 5 Word and act, form and substance
- 6 Time and liturgical order
- 7 Intervals, eternity, and communitas
- 8 Simultaneity and hierarchy
- 9 The idea of the sacred
- 10 Sanctification
- 11 Truth and order
- 12 The numinous, the Holy, and the divine
- 13 Religion in adaptation
- 14 The breaking of the Holy and its salvation
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology
12 - The numinous, the Holy, and the divine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The ritual form
- 3 Self-referential messages
- 4 Enactments of meaning
- 5 Word and act, form and substance
- 6 Time and liturgical order
- 7 Intervals, eternity, and communitas
- 8 Simultaneity and hierarchy
- 9 The idea of the sacred
- 10 Sanctification
- 11 Truth and order
- 12 The numinous, the Holy, and the divine
- 13 Religion in adaptation
- 14 The breaking of the Holy and its salvation
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Summary
The Holy, it was stipulated in the first chapter, has two fundamental constituents: the sacred, its discursive, logical component, those of its aspects that can be expressed in language; and the numinous, its non-discursive, non-logical, affective component; its ineffable constituent, that of its aspects which cannot be expressed in words but is, rather, experienced inarticulately.
This chapter will be primarily concerned with the numinous and, later, the divine, but because we have, so far in this book, been largely concerned with the sacred, the foregrounding of the numinous constitutes something of a transition. We have, of course, already had brief encounters with the numinous, particularly in its most common manifestation, communitas. Nevertheless, it may be well to take stock briefly before proceeding, the better to locate present discussions in those preceding them.
Chapter 9 argued that the locus of the sacred, in bodies of religious discourse, lies in certain expressions, labeled Ultimate Sacred Postulates, enunciated in ritual and sometimes elsewhere as well. These expressions are peculiar in that they are typically absolutely unfalsifiable and objectively unverifiable, but are nonetheless taken to be unquestionable. It was further argued that this quality of unquestionableness is the essence of the sacred. Indeed, the sacred was defined as the quality of unquestionableness imputed by congregations to postulates in their nature objectively unverifiable and absolutely unfalsifiable. Sanctity is, thus, a quality of discourse and not of the objects or beings that constitute the significata of such discourse. It is not Christ that is sacred.
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- Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity , pp. 371 - 405Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999