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

3. The Shopping Mall as Sacred Space

0 3 . The Shopping Mall as Sacred Space I believe one of the reasons malls have grown rapidly and their popularity increased is that they fulfill our need for order and orientation. Malling means centering. Yin-Fu Tuan, professor of geography at the University of Minnesota, says that "to be livable, nature and society must show order and display a harmonious relationship."' Or as philosopher of religion Paul Tillich said, we seek to "unify multiplicity." The Nature of the Center A theoretical framework from religious studies helps explain people's fondness for centeredness.' Human beings have always tried to center their lives and their world. Returning to the center has been a universal tendency, whether that center be a family reunion, a hometown, a native land, or a religious center such as Rome or Jerusalem. This human propensity to design centers is illustrated by the prevalenceof both circularconstruction and construction usingsuch related shapes ashexagons,octagons, squares, and crosses. These geometric expressions reflect that same reality 'It will beobvioustomany readen that the followinndirussion is dewndent on the seminal worksof Mircea ~ l i a d e and Paul ~ h e a t l e ~ : ~ h e i r mntribuAonsto the history of religions and human geography, respectively,are indispensable. 34 . The New Religious Image of Urban America and have thesame purpose: toincorporate all thedimensions of the earth-north, south, east, and west-the four corners of the world and the cardinal points of the compass. The number four, incidentally, was a sacred number for many Native Americansprecisely becauseof its all-embracing nature. The Native American shaman, Black Elk, observed that much of Indian activity-from drawing to dancing, to building their homes, whether tepee, hogan, or igloo-was done in a circle. Thesocialand religiousmeeting placefor the Navaho, a structure which connects this world with its place of origin, is the round ceremonial center called kiva. This circular and cyclical activity was a reflection of the "power of the world which worked in circles also; for example , the wind whirls, the seasons cycle, birds often fly concentrically , the sun and moon (both round) go and come in a circle. Everything tries to be round. The circularity of space for the Native American isalsosymbolized in thesacred hoop and the desire of every tribal member is to keep the hoop unbroken. The inclusivenessof circular design echoes how we experience the world and perceive reality. These circles, squares, and crossesare a way of saying that the universe and, finally, our lives are symmetrical, well regulated, ordered, and under control. The quadrilateral symbol, in whatever form, is a miniaturization of the world, a microcosm, a small picture of how we understand thelarger universe to be. By this propensityto center, we are telling ourselveslife is integrated and whole. Centers are not only measured spatially and mathematically , they can beexistential as well. The Quakers begin their silent meditation with the phrase"centering down"- that is, becoming stable, anchored, "together," to more easily get in touch with the cosmic center, the sources of stability and peace. Communities have always centered themselves. Some- The New Religious Image of Urban America . 35 times they have a functional center, as in many towns and villages laid out in the nineteenth-century, where there is a literal meeting of the auadrants at the town center. For example , you cannot avoid them if you drive through Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts or Gettysburg, Pennsylvania . Other communities have ritual or ceremonial centers, such asparks, groves, or recreational areas. In religiousstudies we callsuch an area an axis mundi, the axleor pole around which our world turns and without which our world would collapse. These areas are indispensable to our personal and communal life. These centers are either built as a result of a hierophany (manifestation of the holy) or by ritual construction. Shopping malls are examples of the latter-what Mircea Eliade, the renowned religious historian at the University of Chicago , calls "mythic geometry." The geometric designs in the mall also tell a story about how we ultimately understand the world to be; they are a replication of thelarger planet. Wehavesaid by this paradigmaticstructure that our experience of the world isoneof balance and harmony. We have traveled to the"center"and discovered unity. Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist, calls the circle an archetype, an original image found in the collective unconsciousof humankind. The pictures precede obviously the formulation and foundation of the living religions...