KEY TERMS: Exploring the Sacred Paths Flashcards
Aesthetic
Concerning beauty or artistic perception; important for religious expression.
Cosmogonic Myth
Sacred story that tells of the creation or founding of the world and of basic human realities.
Ethics
Thought and study about moral decisions on the basis of traditions of right and wrong.
Healing Rituals
Religious rituals devoted to promoting health, often complementary to modern medical practices.
Kenosis
“Emptying out”; in ritual, the movement of separation or doing away with the old state.
Liminal
In ritual, the state between separation (kenosis) and restoration (plerosis).
Monism
The view that all reality is one unified divine reality.
Monotheism
Belief in one almighty God, separate from the world.
Myth
Story about sacred beings in the beginning of time, telling how existence came to be as it is and providing the pattern for authentic life.
Nondualism
View that ultimate reality and the phenomenal world are not different.
Path of Transformation
Practice in a religious tradition that changes one from the wrong or inadequate state to the ideal state.
Plerosis
“Filling up”; fulfillment or restoration movement of ritual.
Polytheism
The belief that many divine powers share in the world’s operation.
Religious Traditions
Sacred stories and basic ideas and practices that religious communities “hand over” from generation to generation; that which is handed over is thought to maintain a recognizable unity while changing over time.
Rites of Passage
Rituals connected with the critical changes or passages in a person’s life, especially birth, puberty, marriage, and death.
Rituals
Activities of many kinds that connect people with sacred realities, including prayer, sacrifice, chanting, pilgrimage, festivals, disciplines of meditation, and much more.
Sacred Space
Space that is made special by connection with the sacred, providing orientation and rootedness for a people.
Sacred Story
Master story of a religion, providing identity for the adherents.
Sacred Time
Special time of ritual and festival, when mythic events are made present once more.
Sacred, The
What is experienced as ultimate reality, the mysterious Other that is the ground of ultimate value and meaning.
Symbols
Words, pictures, ideas, rituals, and so on that evoke deep meanings by connecting with sacred reality.
Transformation
The act of reaching the ideal state of wholeness, perfection, or salvation.
Understanding
“Standing under” another’s way of thought and life, comprehending it by reference to one’s own experience.
Worship
Respectful religious activity in special times, directed towards sacred beings or realities of ultimate value.