The New Religious Image of Urban America, Second Edition: The Shopping Mall as Ceremonial Center

Introduction

Introduction Mircea Eliade, the distinguished historian of religions, wrote in the openingchapter of Patterns in Comparative Religions: We must get used to the idea of recognizing hierophaniesabsolutely - everywhere , in every area of psychological,economic, spiritual and social life. Indeed we cannot besure that there is anything-object, movement, psychological function, being or even game-that has not atsometimein human history been somewheretransformedinto a hierophany...it is quitecertain that anything man hasever handled , felt, come in contact with or loved can become a hierophany. ... We know, for instance, that all the gestures, dances and games children have, and many of their toys, have a religiousorigin-they wereoncethegesturesand objectsofworship.In thesame way musical and architectural instruments, means of transportation, (animals , chariots, boats, and so on) started by being sacred objects, sacred activities. ...In the same way tw, everytrade, art,industry and technicalskill either began as something holy, or has, over the years, been invested with religious values. This list could becarried to include man's everyday movement (getting up, walking, running ), his various employments (hunting, fishing, agriculture), all his physiologicalactivities(nutrition, sexual life, etc.). (pp. 11-12) Theseobservations appear in a chapter entitled"Approximations : The Structure and Morphology of the Sacred which lays out some general patterns by which human actions and natural objects are transformed into"hierophanties" or manifestations of the sacred. As the quote reveals, the history of religions teaches us that anything can become sacred or at least be imbued with sacrality. The present book, written by Ira Zepp, a theologian and phenomenologist of religions, explores the different ways in 4 . The New Religious Image of Urban America which thoselarge, massive, labyrinthine, commercial, architectural andfestivalplacescalled mallsappear to beorganized spatially by cosmological principles and serve as containers for a number of objects and actionsimbued with sacrality. In a real sense, Zepp's book is an "approximation"of the sacred morphology of malls which contain a multiplicity of hierophanies and religious structures. It can be said that Zepp has taken upEliade's dare; if anything man touches, walks on, builds or plays with can become sacred, then why not EMACs (Enclosed Malls Air Conditioned), especially when they are organized by principles of quadrapartition, operate on festival, calendrical time and are full of symbolic objects? In Zepp's engaginginterpretation, malls, liketheobjectsof Eliade's landscape, are "more," much more than what they appear or even claim to be. As Zepp clearly states, the malls are basicallyeconomic centers, compact worldsof capitalism in America. As one other study, The Mulling of America, has suggested, America has become a Mall. From Zepp's perspective , the morenessof malls, or rather the"otherness"of malls resides in their similarity to the religious, ceremonial centers of traditional civilizations of the ancient world which have recently attracted thecareful and continued attention of historians of religions and urban geographers. In general terms, Zepp's work on the ceremonial order of malls isabout a twentieth-century pattern of human, symbolic "orientation" in America. Z~DD's ~edestrian research (hehas -.. literally walked hundredsof milesthrough American malls as well as exhausted the literature) has revealed the ubiauitous natureof shopping malls in the united States. ~ornminities, large and small, and within their various quarters and sections , are being reorganized around or in relation to various types of shopping malls. Statistical studiesof mall-goers have revealed that they spend their largest amount of time (after home and job) in malls. This national trend of commercial and community orientation is a profound but little under- The New Religious Imoge of Urban Americo . 5 stood development of American social, commercial, and symboliclife. Zepp's basicquestion about the magneticquality and pervasive nature of mallsis:"What is thecultural and religious significance of this pattern of social and symbolic orientation?" Hisstrategy todeal with this question is tocombine his previously established sensitivity to theological elements in American life with his more recent studies in the hermeneutics and phenomenology of religions and the discoveriesof urban geography and ecology. At the center of his eclectic approach are two principles of human orientation found in thespatial and ritual worlds of malls, i.e., the principle of the"symbolism of the center" which is an expression of homo religiosw, and the principle of ritual regeneration which is an expression of homo ludens,the human as player. This complex modeof orientation combining reverencefor a center-oriented world with the human need for play and regeneration is, according to Zepp, imprinted on the physiognomy , scheduling, and...