12 / CHRONICLESnThe Hindu temple, in contrast, displays no simple plan;nit is teeming with statuettes, proliferating like plants in thenjungle. Through these many forms, the Hindu religionndoes not pay its respects to the rich variety of existence; onnthe contrary, it expresses contempt for the material world sonvery different, ontologically difiFerent, from the eternalnrepose of absorption in Nothingness. The ground plan of anmosque, unlike that of a Christian church or the patio of anClunyite monastery, is of no particular shape and reproducesnno willed and interpreted form. This deliberate lack ofnform is to indicate that the Moslem has no privileged placenwhere he would be nearer to Allah, who always sees himnand is immeasurably superior to him, inscrutable in hisnways. This is also why Islamic art recognizes no humannfigures (the creation of man is Allah’s act, not to benimitated) and deemphasizes the intellect through the use ofnthe flowing lines and repetitive circularity of what we callnthe arabesque.nThese few illustrations tell us the interconnectedness ofnthe sacred which traditionally defined the artist’s role andnwithin which he finds it possible and joyful to trace hisnlines. This means that there is a sacred style and that itnrequires a certain sacred content, too. When the Renaissancenpainter (a Mantegna, an Occello) becomes toonpreoccupied with perspective, over against the deliberatenlack of perspective of medieval painting, this means thatnman becomes its center (it is from the painter’s perspective,nfrom his self, that the world is observed) instead of thencenterless figuration of the created world. Geometry takesnover humanity.nNot only art, but also public and political life follow thendictates of the sacred, at least in traditional societies. Citiesnand temples and royal palaces as well as burial grounds werenalways traced according to sacred requirements. A city or antemple is built around the center of the world (“axisnmundi”) which runs through it; it is founded in sacred timenwhich then remains a commemorated day or period; andnthe rites of foundation, primordial gestures, are to benrepeated to the letter, thereby enabling the population tonreconnect itself with the time and place of origin. Place,ntime, and ritual were at the beginning divine realities: Thengods themselves chose the place and the time, and theynonce performed the sacred motions or dances. The Americann(Mexican) Indians’ bear-dance, the dances of Africanntribes, the artistic dances of Hindu celebrants are allnreligious rituals, through which the members of tribe orntemple commune with the founding gods and goddessesnand capture their continued benevolence, while also conjuringnthe evil spirits.nIn general, then, the sacred presupposes a cosmos dividedninto strata, from the most sacred to the most profane, andnpresupposes also a hierarchy of performers and worshipers.nIn other words, in the universe of the sacred there is anninteraction between the macrocosm and the microcosm,nthe divine and the human, the permanent and the changing,nthe clergy and the laity. The line between sacred andnprofane is clearly drawn, it is inviolate, unless crossed by thenappropriate person, so as not to damage the social-sacrednfabric. In the nonmonotheistic religions the line is verynsharp because individual and collective well-being dependsnon the correct manipulation of the macrocosm: celestialnnnbodies, intracosmic powers, spirits. Any mismanagement innthis domain—the slightest deviation from the magicalnmanipulation of sacred objects and ceremonies—maynbring down curses on man, member of the microcosm.nIn monotheistic religions, all these cosmic and intracosmicnforces are abolished. The one-God with his personalnattributes cannot be softened by any ceremony, but only bynright living, an interiorization of the moral commandments,nby prayer and good deeds. Here the magical elementnis discarded, but the danger is then an exaggerated rationalismnwhich also discards symbols and sacraments andngenerally the rich presence of the sacred. A good manynthinkers, this writer among them, believe that the exclusivengrowth of the rational, at the expense of the sacred, hasndesiccated Western civilization, making ours the first desacralizednsociety in history, a danger to ourselves and tonother civilizations.nDesacralization, first noticed in art and literature, andnrelatively late in religion itself, is the nonbelief in antranscendent agent, followed by the “profanization” of thensacred. One by one, with a kind of devilish systematizationnand logic, first the divine, then its mirror-image, thenhuman figure, are discarded, and later the familiar featuresnof objects—until in every branch of art the strange,ninhuman, and the shocking, finally the totally meaningless,ntake their place. The reason is that man believes he has nonneed of the divine nor of the channels of revealing thendivine; he believes all powers have been given to him, ornrather that they are self-generated powers, crowned bynrationality. Science solves all problems, our contemporariesnare told, and few notice that science itself becomes thusn”sacralized,” but only with a kind of blind sacredness,nopening on nothing and nowhere.nBehind this process of desacralization, noted by MaxnWeber, Rene Guenon, Titus Burckhardt, and OswaldnSpengler, a new cosmological landscape has emerged, onenthat has replaced the traditional cosmology of all peoplesnwho did nothing more than play variations on the samentheme. The basic theme was, as we have seen, the divisionnof the cosmos into strata inhabited by difiFerent and unequalnforces, a most inspiring picture for poets, thinkers, artists,nand religious geniuses. These teeming spirits and powersnwere conveyors of influences which, in turn, manifestednthemselves in relics, talismans, amulets, but also in a widenvariety of objects and symbols. The cosmos was always thensame yet always different, and its motions were of differentnqualities, from the perfection of circular movement to thenimperfection of sublunar ones.nThe cosmos, the world-all, was itself never-changing,nimmobile, and closed upon itself, and beautiful in its basicnimmutability which was also mirrored in the regularity ofnhistorical events and the sameness of human destiny. Art,nhistoriography, and politics thus had eternal models andncanons of beauty. Man himself knew his place, rather lownon the scale of things and beings, but a safe place if thenprotective forces were rightly invoked and given tribute.nThere was no question of excessive individualism, sinceneven the gods were subject to Fate, and in the Hindunpantheon they could even die when a Great Cycle came tonan end.nNow this cosmology is no more. It was gradually re-n