Lane’s three approaches by Diana Cox

In Lane’s book, Landscapes of the Sacred, he describes three different approaches for understanding a scared place. The first approach is the ontological approach which begins with field research among indigenous people, asking how time and place were understood in the earliest mythic tales and tribal wisdom. In this approach the sacred place is radically set apart from everything profane. It is a site recognized as manifesting its own inherent, chthonic power and numimosity. The sacred place is where supernatural forces invaded the ordinary. The disadvantage to this approach is that it does not recognize the sacred and profane, religion and culture as overlapping parts of the human experience.
The second approach Lane describes is the cultural approach. In this approach the sacred site is inherently posses a power drawn from which or beyond themselves. It is usually defined as a site over which conflicting parties fight or even die. However, this approach does not recognize the place itself as a participant in the formation of that experience. The last approach is the phenomenological approach, which is a way to give voice to the participant in the process of experiencing a sacred place. It is to be fully present at any locale and to recognize the reciprocity involved in touching and be touched by particular objects of nature such as plants, rocks, and geographical features.
These three approaches are ways to experience and understand a sacred place. Lane presents these approaches in such way that readers understand the concept based on his explanation and his usage of examples that bring the approaches to life. For further explanation of Lane’s approaches, our class had a discussion on each approach and how it directly deals with Lane’s axioms. These concepts are helpful for students to understand and comprehend different aspects of sacred places in our world.