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ABSTRACT
Sacred mountains are well known from all over the world, especially as places for pilgrimage. Classical phenomenology of religion used to present them as places of a hierophany and/or as spaces for a numinous experience. Although both these concepts – ’hierophany’ and ’numinous experience’ – have been the target of severe criticism in Religious Studies, it may be rewarding to redefine them as purely descriptive categories and discuss the applicability to various kinds of mountain-experiences: from religious pilgrimage in Late Antiquity as, for instance, climbing Mount Sinai, to extreme-sports in modern times as, for instance, free-soloing in the Yosemite National Park.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Sanford (Citation2007, 875): ‘This sacred encounter – with its risk and danger – illustrates Rudolph Otto’s equation of the sacred with terrifying and unfathomable mystery …’.
2. Hinde (Citation1999, 195). The ‘reservation’ points to the problem of distinguishing clearly between experience and interpretation.
3. Aetheria/Egeria II (5): ‘…hic locus, ubi descendit maiestas Dei, sicut scriptum est, …’.
4. Papini and Hexham (Citation2002, 209); for a collection of various versions see: Story of Isaiah Shembe (Citation1996, 74–84). Cf. Echtler (Citation2020, 144).
5. … sola videndi insignem loci altitudinem cupiditate ductus.
6. See Probst (Citation2017, 213–5). Cf. Ritter (Citation2008, 341), who believes in the reality of this undertaking.
7. As cited by Matthews and Everest (Citation1989, 535). A different version is given by Hartman (Citation2010): ‘eimi demokritos, philanthropos, kai atheos’. It is tempting to consider the possibility, that Shelley identified with ancient Greek philosopher Demokrit, known as an atheist.
8. Version A, lines 77–80. Version B, lines 76–79: ‘… But for such faith …’. This version makes interpretation more difficult (See Matthews and Everest Citation1989, 540, 546).
9. Version A, lines 1–2; version B, lines 1–2: ‘The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind …’.
10. Version A, lines 128–130. No significant differences in Version B.
11. Version A, line 140. Version B, line 139.
12. Honnold presents himself as an atheist (Citation2015, 145f).
13. As Hunt remarks: ‘a lady of leisure, and, not least, a lady of means’ (Citation1984, 164).
14. According to Simmons, Muir had supported ‘the extraction of Miwok Indians from Yosemite’ (Citation2016, 155). Fleck describes Muir’s attitude towards the California Indians as ‘ambivalent’ (Citation1985, 40), emphasising, however, the development towards a positive attitude after his experience of Alaska (69f). Cf. Spence (Citation1996, 42).
15. See Chidester (Citation1994, 227–9). Cf. Miller’s analysis of the ‘access rules, which privilege political elites as recipient of God’s word’, with special regard to the theophany at Mount Sinai (Citation2014, 97–101).
16. See Honnold and Roberts (Citation2015, 204): the report on the announcement of one of his principal sponsors ‘that it was cancelling support for five of its stars’, because chief executives of the company apparently ‘were not pleased’ with the presentation of extreme climbing activities in Yosemite.