The sacred space
My contribution to the debate on secularism.
If debate there must be, I well intend to participate so as to defend my way of looking at it. In France, religions in general have taken over the public space. It is time to return them to their rightful place. That means, in the hearts and nowhere else.
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This Knol is the translation by Astrid ROSART of :
L'espace-sacré
The sacredness of an entity is not intrinsic to it. It is a quality recognized or granted by an outside party. As with authority, this quality cannot be decreed, it is won or deserved with the appreciation of one who depending on his goodwill, will grant it or not.
The logical consequence of this preamble is that I can only talk about the sacred for me. If I recognize an entity as sacred, it is such for me alone. Its sanctity cannot be opposed to anybody, a fortiori, it cannot be imposed on others. Better than that, nobody else but me can desecrate my holy entity. I am the only one who can change my view and decide that henceforth such a place, such a space, such entity is no longer sacred. My neighbor, whether he has or not recognized it as such, will never desecrate it in my place.
I note here, the stupidity of the religious wars that lead men to fight to retain or regain their sacred sites, sacred territories, sacred spaces, sacred shams. But it should also be noted that religions have always strived to popularize another approach to the sacred, a deadly approach, giving power to a few that have taken ascendancy over their fellows until leading them by the nose, and bringing them into battle without much difficulty. Our brother Goethe rightly said: “Nothing is more odious than the majority because it consists of a few energetic leaders, of rogues who accommodate themselves to circumstances, of weaklings that assimilate themselves and of the mass that follows suit without knowing at all what it is that it wants.” This uncompromising stance, in my view, also applies to religious communities, from orient to occident, and to other sects of all kinds. Incidentally, this applies perhaps also to Masonic obediences. I will have to delve deeper to see if in our practices, there is not a bit of disguised seizure of power and a lot of followership. In the followership of masses, including in masses called "enlightened" likely resides the weakness of democracies.
At this point in my presentation, we still do not know what I mean by sacred space.
The sacred:
After careful consideration, and after numerous unsuccessful attempts to formulate a personal definition, I resolved to echo that of Mircea Eliade:
The sacred is the manifestation of the invisible in the visible. Eliade found the right words to say exactly what I couldn't with mine, a matter of vocabulary, and culture, likely.
In this definition that I make mine, it is indeed the one who perceives the link between the visible and the invisible that attributes the sacredness in a manifestation. It is not sacred in itself, it is so by decision of the one who observes it. And if the observer is "blind" the manifestation could very well be sacred to everyone, except for the one who does not "see" the link with a hypothetical invisible.
Let's not fall into the gross mistake that would consist in saying that he is wrong compared to all the others or that the "blind " are not entitled to the sacred. Religions have already taken care of that with beautiful unanimity.
Each one has, to its flock, defined what is sacred and what is not, what should be done and not done, those who will go to heaven and those who won't. And while we're at it, let's assign the latter to hell and its torments, and for the more gullible, so as to extract the gold they could hold, was invented the Purgatory and the indulgences, masterpieces of cynicism and the barely “softer” variant of seventy virgins in another well known multinational. By the way, why seventy and not sixty-nine? It would have been even more horny, more exciting, more motivating.
I note here that Nature, in its great wisdom, gives birth to one hundred and six boys per one hundred girls so as to create a healthy emulation among the breeders (or 0.94 virgin per young male). A simple arithmetic shows that the big boss could not keep his promise if by chance less than 1.4 percent of its male followers took him at his word. And facing the vexed martyrs that would hold him accountable, he could always answer "Jahvait… qu’à pas te faire sauter" But more likely, let's bet that to save face, the stuck big boss will not hesitate to dip into his buddies' harem. For the people who invented the numbers, the arithmetic and the algebra, it is not very glorious, and for the others it is little better.
Let's be fair and fraternal, and recognize that because Man is naturally lazy, most of the time and in all obediences, he has been satisfied with dictates that came out of the blue by way of answers to his existential questions, not realizing that at the same time he left other rogues to take care of deciding for him. The great mass of individuals, the weakest, have in my eyes, excuses. The more intelligent have none.
Faith in a god as a ready made answer to all existential questions and the sacralization of a whole mess of places, formulas, constructions, characters, rituals, icons, relics and gimmicks, are a laziness of mind, a brake, I say, a limit to the search for truth along with a cheap cure for insomnia. These insomnias that are the lot of quite a few atheists and agnostics. Social Security, while very deficient, should nonetheless pay a pension to believers for their involuntary contribution to the limitation of the deficit. This institution born of the spirit of solidarity, therefore the eldest daughter of fraternity, does not know what it owes to religions, providers of balm to the heart. But if the Social Security does not distinguish between those who believe in God and those who do not believe, it is perhaps because the collateral damage that religions generate elsewhere, in Ireland, the United States or the Middle East for example, by far exceed the savings that I just mentioned.
As a Mason, how could we conciliate the glorification of work and show mental laziness, which in this case amounts to treason?
How to settle for the reflection of others to adopt their conclusions without having weighed, reversed, criticized, and finally accepted them if they deserve it in our eyes?
How to ride the canons of fashion and recognize as sacred all the spaces and places where rush hordes of believers, which are certainly of "good faith"?
I fraternally give them credit but I'm not sure they all deserve it. Indeed, the recent reactions to the caricatures of the prophet were so violent that the stupidity of these reactionaries can not alone explain them. The followership I mentioned above is at work in this religion as well as in the others, make no mistake.
To not expose this followership would be contemptible, and the leaders' senseless determination would not, for all that, be an excuse. So no mental laziness nor use of tranquilizers, but rather some lucidity to serve the search for truth.
In this approach, how to accept a limitation to the search for truth by postulating immediately that a creator principle exists?
Moreover, how to accept this limitation while our Constitution proclaims exactly the opposite ?
How to understand this fundamental contradiction that gives a headache simply by evoking it?Hiding in our constitution may be inconsistencies, for example, the affirmation of the creative principle "Great Architect" together with the search for truth without limit constitute one. Indeed, in this search, the sincere Mason will logically be brought, at least in terms of a hypothesis, to consider that the Great Architect does not exist. He will then realize that, right under mathematician Georg Cantor's nose, the Masons unknowingly invented the concept of "the empty set".
In our obedience the Great Architect should be an open window to the infinite speculations to give a chance of progressing to those who are too anchored to their certainties. And we would make it a Trojan horse of a deism that does not even have the courage to tell its name ? Directed against those who doubt endlessly ? A trap for the a little too free and wandering consciences of atheists? If the Great Architect to G.L.D.F. should be this Trojan horse, the only thing left for me to do would be to burn him on the altar of rationalism, or to emigrate to other faiths with a more creative intelligence and also more concerned for efficiency in this world down here, as the world beyond that is uncertain. If today's Masonry does not have this concern for efficiency, personally, I wonder what it can be useful for in our society that is so sick, that it tramples on the weak for a greater wealth of the strong. But the G.L.D.F. asserts that it works for the progress of humanity, however it is still necessary to use means that are appropriate for this noble goal. Freedom of expression is one of them, it is now more than ever the time to use it to better defend it and keep it. The publication of my board in the Journal will be my personal contribution to this progress that is dear to me. But will the editor dare ? In the absence of courage will he even have the will? To convince him, I count on our brother second supervisor, newspaper correspondent of the Grand Lodge of France (Note: "presentable" excerpts of this board have been published under the title "The Sacred" in No. 147 of March 2008's issue of “Points de vue initiatiques”. Thank you for the effort made)
And sacred space? (My sacred space should I say).
It is the subject of my board, to which I have finally arrived bearing in mind everything I just said and that is only my opinion, I repeat emphatically.
Pending the return to my household of free thinker, if a space is sacred to me, it is I who decides so. After many years of doubt and hesitation, I reached to a good idea of this much talked about space that is the object of this board. I know where and in whose custody it is. I can tell you it is very beautiful. It is the visible manifestation of a principle that isn't so, the principle of life. It has a function, dimensions and forms in connection with this function, proportions that meet the golden number. It is comfortable but difficult to access because one must show their credentials to enter (without determination, no introduction). I know where is hidden the key. (See: La-rosace-initiatique). It is equipped with central heating and an automatic regulation ensures it more or less than 98,6°F. at all times. It is mine because She is willing. And it is important to me.
For me sacred space is.................
Well no! I will not name it. The sacred is intimate. Revealing it to you would lead you, I know, to respect it so as not to pain me. In some way, you could find yourself forced by my confidence and by the fraternity which unites us.
Brandishing your SACRED like a standard, is to make a declaration of war to the whole world. Mine will remain nestled in the bottom of a pair of panties.
This will be my declaration of love and peace, to the whole world obviously. But I feel that now, I would like to be left alone with a sacred which would not be secret and strictly personal. For in the collective sacred, publicly spread, slyly sprouts absolute evil : stigmatization (by default) of others.
I said confidentially on the 10th March 2006
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