The feeling of the sacred was born, among other things, from the fear of the unknown. As a response to the meaning of life. How to lead a dignified existence and why? We come from no one knows where and we go to the same unknown place or a different one without anyone having offered us answers. In the same way that the human being is a political animal, due to the need to organize society, he is also a spiritual and religious animal with common beliefs, practices and values. It has an internal dimension and a social dimension. Related News REVIEW OF: standard Yes ‘Fear’, by Robert Peckham: terror updated César Antonio Molina The British historian studies how in general fear is a form of coercion for dictators, tyrants and autocratsThe bureaucracy of religion, which It has done more harm to it by degrading it to temporality, fortunately it has been lost over the centuries. But not the intimate and individual feeling of the sacred as consolation, as mystery, as hope. ESSAY ‘The odyssey of the sacred’ Author Frédéric Lenoir Publisher Deusto Year 2024 Pages 362 Price 22.95 euros 5The sacred, “the most beautiful thing we are given to feel,” according to Einstein. The world, for centuries, has revolved between spiritualism and materialism. One contradicts the other but deep down they complement each other. The first offers hope, the second denies it at all. The French philosopher, Comte-Sponville, goes all out and talks about a secular and even atheistic spirituality. ‘Homo Sapiens’ is a spiritual animal. Lenoir separates very well the terms of transcendence and immanence. The first responds to a dualistic interpretation: the divine and creation. This is what Jews and Christians do, as do Muslims. Immanence is based on the idea of the presence of the divine, of invisible forces or of the absolute in the world itself: animism, stoicism, eastern spirituality, esotericism. Mysticism corresponds to transcendence. But there are situations in which transcendence and immanence can coincide. The idea of God can encompass both ways. Another difference that must be taken into account is belief and spirituality. The first are the basis of our collective life; while spirituality is the intimate experience of the sacred. Reason has a space, but feelings and emotions are also human. The most diverse spiritualist beliefs have become dogmas in the great monotheistic religions. Reducing spirituality or the sacred to beliefs is amputating its foundation and limiting it to its religious dimension. This book by Lenoir is not based on beliefs in general, but on spiritual search, the sacred and beliefs in supernatural forces or in an invisible world that have acquired very varied forms throughout history: shamans, polytheism and monotheism , secularism, spiritualism linked to individual conscience and critical reason, materialism, even digital technology, artificial intelligence and transhumanism. Lenoir, like so many of us, worries about the consequences of this new cultural and social revolution on our way of conceiving and living the sacred. Why is ‘Homo Sapiens’ a spiritual and religious animal? Why is it the only animal that performs funeral rituals? Why do you believe in the soul, in an afterlife, in the resurrection? Anything goes to question the meaning of life and the mystery of the world (‘Homo spiritualis’). But ‘Homus religiosus’ also tries to relate to the invisible world. But as in everything in life there are affections and great disaffections. This last group has always been represented by atheists and materialists. They affirm that spirituality and religion are a deadly disease for humans. Enlightened reason and atheism denounced spiritualism and its beliefs as illusory. They forgot that inner experience is also a condition of freedom. Reason has a place, but feelings and emotions are also human. Rudolf Otto writes that God is not the main object of religion, but the mystery. The mystery of the world and the enigma of life and death. Great battles Jung explains contemporary spirituality very well. The son of a Protestant pastor, he distanced himself from religion and Christianity. He rejected its institutionalization, the anthropomorphic representation of divinity, the repression of instincts, contempt for the body, morbid chastity, feminine absence, as well as a not very clear idea of evil. Through the practice of psychiatry he realized the importance of religion in the psyche of individuals and their personal spiritual experiences that made them experience the numinous. Jung confirmed that religion permeated everything, that our collective unconscious is full of religious myths, symbols and archetypes. Thus he insisted on the need to remain spiritually rooted in the culture of origin. He came to realize that although a person can become an atheist, it will be more difficult for him to change his religion profoundly, since it makes up our identity. Jung, throughout his life, had great battles with his colleagues and also with theologians. The conclusion that Lenoir explains and summarizes perfectly is that “whether conscious or not, the human being is a religious animal: ‘Homo religiosus’.” And emulating the oracle of Delphi (a well-known anecdote), Jung had it written on the lintel of the door of his house and also on his tomb: “Whether we believe it or not, the sacred is present.” The conscious and the unconscious connect through the numinous experience. As in all his books and articles, Frédéric Lenoir, director who was for so many years of the magazine ‘Le Monde des religions’, does not disappoint with his wealth of knowledge and his great didactic ability. In this essay he defends the last stronghold of the human being besieged by transhumanism and the technologies to which he gives a good rebuke. Well, it is one thing to “want to improve the human condition and another to try to modify human nature to the point of wanting to overcome it.” A great book. Reading it you will not feel alone.
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