Abstract

This chapter provides a synthetic treatment of the long history of human efforts to measure, divide, and coordinate space and time for religious purposes. The author demonstrates how evolving technologies for orienting people in space and time have served as both partners and competitors with religious institutions, disciplinary practices, and sources of knowledge about the cosmos. Examples discussed include the development of systems of calendrical reckoning for identifying religiously significant dates, and the strategic use of towers for the diverse religious purposes of celestial and terrestrial observation, surveillance of populations, and broadcasting of messages. The author concludes this wide-ranging discussion by introducing the notion of “logistical media,” a term that is coined to refer to the fundamental, pre-discursive mechanisms and techniques used to coordinate all religious communications and activities, negotiating between heaven and earth, nature and culture, and cosmic and social organization.

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