Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2010, Page 124
Way schools in the past century, were not merely dances but became spiritual exercises
designed to inform the student with a soul. In various New Age groups, the common quartz
crystal becomes the repository of the life forces of the universe, with intelligent power that
magnifies thoughts and feelings. Thus the common crystal, like the common urinal, finds a
devotional milieu. Need I mention the stars? In many ancient traditions, the moving planets
become the gods of fate. Religious meaning appears seemingly out of nothing originally
embodied by the object or event, as when Christ changed water to wine.
However, like badly wrought artwork, badly conceived religions and cults usually falter and
fade from human interest, albeit some create harm and havoc in the process. Art primarily
affects our aesthetic values, while spiritual values expressed in religion tend to guide our
moral choices but both are vital to human social expression. Aesthetics informs both
realms, if indeed they are separate. Visions, scents, and sounds inspire our myths—the sun,
rose perfume, and thunder. Art and spirituality mix intimately in human history, from the
Lascaux cave drawings to the Sistine Chapel and beyond. Good music can transport us to
otherworldly perceptions and emotions. We illustrate our special experiences and our myths
to our delight.
We can say that humanity creates galleries of religions that are attached to a great museum
of spiritual endeavor. Homo sapiens is Homo religioso as well as Homo aestheticus, as Ellen
Dissanayake argues. Origin myths speak to the aesthetic basis of cults that depend on these
myths for definition and direction. Seemingly fantastic stories somehow evoke transcendent
responses in devotees, not so much for what the stories say, but for what they imply in
interpretation, and what they corroborate in spiritual experience. Reliance on authority
figures who interpret sacred stories is the key to the process. How else is a Muslim, for
example, to make sense of Mohammed‘s mystic flight on his horse? How does a Jew make
sense of the burning bush as the deity talking with Moses, or a Christian the crucified Jew
that resurrected after death? How can a Hindu praise a juice called Soma and also call it a
god? Without one dominant interpretation, devotees of any myth or object might never
agree on meaning. The prophet or seer must provide a convincing version of the truth. In
the old world, a prophet‘s life could depend on how well his interpretation met reality—he
literally needed to get away with it to keep his life.
Getting away with a fantastic myth or scripture is one thing, but how we get away with it is
another. What is the motive? What is the source—is it imagination, confabulation, mental
illness, an actual event, illumination, or a sacred being? Surely we can believe anything, but
how do we tend to those beliefs? What behaviors do those beliefs inspire? Are they true?
These questions have no simple answers unless a guru‘s answer stops us from questioning
and applying our aesthetic impulses.
Let me define what I mean by aesthetics. Typically, the term refers to appreciation of the
arts and to definitions of beauty. We apply aesthetics to our sensual judgments: It smells
good that is a fantastic landscape that hymn makes me feel holy she is gorgeous or,
that is an elegant solution to a math problem. Our aesthetic judgment can refer to taste and
to what Renaissance writers called gusto. More so, I adopt a suggestion by researcher Ellen
Dissanayake that a ―behavior of art‖ means ―aesthetic making special.‖ Dissanayake argues
for a biological or evolutionary basis for the aesthetic impulse. In other words, something
occurs innately in the human drive for survival that urges us to seek and recognize beauty,
symmetry, and elegance because doing so appears to enhance our quality of life, if not life
itself. As art supports religion, our deepest instinct to survive extends even to life beyond
death. We arrange and design the environment and our perceptions to support this impulse.
We build pyramids, sacrifice animals, compose and chant prayers, and we ingest
entheogenic substances.
Way schools in the past century, were not merely dances but became spiritual exercises
designed to inform the student with a soul. In various New Age groups, the common quartz
crystal becomes the repository of the life forces of the universe, with intelligent power that
magnifies thoughts and feelings. Thus the common crystal, like the common urinal, finds a
devotional milieu. Need I mention the stars? In many ancient traditions, the moving planets
become the gods of fate. Religious meaning appears seemingly out of nothing originally
embodied by the object or event, as when Christ changed water to wine.
However, like badly wrought artwork, badly conceived religions and cults usually falter and
fade from human interest, albeit some create harm and havoc in the process. Art primarily
affects our aesthetic values, while spiritual values expressed in religion tend to guide our
moral choices but both are vital to human social expression. Aesthetics informs both
realms, if indeed they are separate. Visions, scents, and sounds inspire our myths—the sun,
rose perfume, and thunder. Art and spirituality mix intimately in human history, from the
Lascaux cave drawings to the Sistine Chapel and beyond. Good music can transport us to
otherworldly perceptions and emotions. We illustrate our special experiences and our myths
to our delight.
We can say that humanity creates galleries of religions that are attached to a great museum
of spiritual endeavor. Homo sapiens is Homo religioso as well as Homo aestheticus, as Ellen
Dissanayake argues. Origin myths speak to the aesthetic basis of cults that depend on these
myths for definition and direction. Seemingly fantastic stories somehow evoke transcendent
responses in devotees, not so much for what the stories say, but for what they imply in
interpretation, and what they corroborate in spiritual experience. Reliance on authority
figures who interpret sacred stories is the key to the process. How else is a Muslim, for
example, to make sense of Mohammed‘s mystic flight on his horse? How does a Jew make
sense of the burning bush as the deity talking with Moses, or a Christian the crucified Jew
that resurrected after death? How can a Hindu praise a juice called Soma and also call it a
god? Without one dominant interpretation, devotees of any myth or object might never
agree on meaning. The prophet or seer must provide a convincing version of the truth. In
the old world, a prophet‘s life could depend on how well his interpretation met reality—he
literally needed to get away with it to keep his life.
Getting away with a fantastic myth or scripture is one thing, but how we get away with it is
another. What is the motive? What is the source—is it imagination, confabulation, mental
illness, an actual event, illumination, or a sacred being? Surely we can believe anything, but
how do we tend to those beliefs? What behaviors do those beliefs inspire? Are they true?
These questions have no simple answers unless a guru‘s answer stops us from questioning
and applying our aesthetic impulses.
Let me define what I mean by aesthetics. Typically, the term refers to appreciation of the
arts and to definitions of beauty. We apply aesthetics to our sensual judgments: It smells
good that is a fantastic landscape that hymn makes me feel holy she is gorgeous or,
that is an elegant solution to a math problem. Our aesthetic judgment can refer to taste and
to what Renaissance writers called gusto. More so, I adopt a suggestion by researcher Ellen
Dissanayake that a ―behavior of art‖ means ―aesthetic making special.‖ Dissanayake argues
for a biological or evolutionary basis for the aesthetic impulse. In other words, something
occurs innately in the human drive for survival that urges us to seek and recognize beauty,
symmetry, and elegance because doing so appears to enhance our quality of life, if not life
itself. As art supports religion, our deepest instinct to survive extends even to life beyond
death. We arrange and design the environment and our perceptions to support this impulse.
We build pyramids, sacrifice animals, compose and chant prayers, and we ingest
entheogenic substances.
