CJ Fitchett Class Reading #5

The three approaches to understanding sacred place are the Ontological Approach, the Cultural Approach, and the Phenomenological Approach.

a.The Ontological Approach: Began with field research among indigenous tribes, asking how place and time were understood in the earliest mythic tales of tribal wisdom. From this approach, a sacred place is set apart from everything profance, it is a site recognized as manifesting its own inherent, chtonic power and numinosity.
b.The Cultural Approach: Every place considered sacred by humans is always a social construction of reality. A sacred place is most readily defined, culturally at least, as a site over which conflicting parties disagree. A place which people are willing to fight and even die
c.The phenomenological approach: Approach that gave voice to the operations of divine power among sacred places and experiences.