In my readings in Landscapes of the Sacred, I found that there are three different approaches to understand sacred places. Belden C. Lane states that, "these are the ways we interpret the intimately personal experience of place as chora." Chora is what makes a place more than an ordinary place, "an energizing force, suggestive to the imagination, drawing intimate connections to everything else in our lives." The first approach is the ontological approach, which is a way of recognizing the sacred aspect of a location as manifesting its own inherent, chthonic power and numinosity. It is a place of hierophany, where supernatural forces have invaded the ordinary. Its what makes a sacred location sacred, due to supernatural powers, such as a place that has powers due to a certain diety.
As the social chair of my fraternity, I have taken four round trips the the Virginia Beach oceanfront this semester to plan our formal. Every trip I drive past the Cavalier hotel, that has been around since 1927. Come to find out, this hotel is notoriously haunted, due to many mysterious deaths that have occurred here. Apparently, the piano plays by it's self sometimes, the toilets flush by themselves, towels change color. Sounds of a man hitting the floor that fell to his death occur often, and ghosts have been reported to have appeared to guests. This hotel is a sacred location due to the shady history it has. It could be viewed in the ontological approach, due to the supernatural aspect that surrounds this location. Maybe we should plan our next formal here for a real interesting time?
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