Daniel Mejia ontological approach

A sacred place is very powerful, and it works in many mysterious ways. The ontological approach states that "a sacred places is radically set apart from everything porfane; it has its own inherent chthonic power and numinosity" (Lane,43). To understand what this means we have to take this quote and dissect its different parts. The word chthonic, is a Greek word meaning, from within earth. A sacred place has this earthly power coming out of it. Numinosity is a combination of two words, Numen and Numinous. The word numen is supernatural force that is associated with the supernatural. The word numinous describes a place filled with some kind of divine presence. Fianlly a sacred place is radically set apart from any ordinary place.