Finding the History of Religions Museum

Essay by Karl W. Luckert, March 2001

 

Once upon a time--along a stretch of blessed road that even now still lies mostly in the future--a man six feet and two inches tall drove eastward, in a small car, along one of these four-lane thoroughfares that cross the continent of North America at two or three hundred mile intervals. He had been driving all night, and it might be an understatement to say that he felt very cramped and tired. His right hand lazily rested on the steering wheel while the fingers of his left hand tapped the rhythm of a convenient tune unto his thigh--intensely and desperately at times, as a maneuver in his overall struggle of staying awake.

The car was approaching sunrise--moving into the range of the most critical, most tiring, and most fascinating moments that intensify a driver's very visceral feelings. His present mental exercise, mobilized in his struggle of staying awake, was thereby intensified as well.  Fortunately, for every old place that is left behind a new place is being approached. And each new place offers fresh subject matter. So, for every thought abandoned in boredom, or by fatigue, a fresh idea waits for you less than a mile down the road, like a hitchhiker. You need not stop for it. As long as you remain alert, and continue driving, the new hobo will leap unto you and obtain his free ride with or without your consent.

Just now, at this very instant, a sliver of golden light, an intense ray of solar glory, pierces from behind the bluish foggy mountains that lie ahead in the distance. Soon the sunlight will be too intense for a driver to stay his course and to drive against--for the duration of an hour, perhaps. To avoid the discomfort of looking at the resolutely exploding rays, the driver defensively drops his vision onto a row of lower hills and promontories in the foreground. And then it happens. The reflection of a few sunrays, laced with the blue-frosted hue of a quartz column, suddenly reveals an unexpected manmade structure upon a nearby rise that, up until that moment, had still been subsumed in the shadows. The low hill by itself is inconspicuous by virtue of its size, but it stands out from among the others on account of its symmetry. Its slope drops off evenly along all its visible sides. The manmade structure on top presents an architectural puzzle of sorts. Its core appears like a column of quartz, with the hue of a diamond. All the while, its conical diamond shape is framed in a golden hue--momentarily at least--as it reflects the sunrise.

 

 

There was sufficient allurement emanating from this crowning structure on high, so that, combined with the discomfort added by the young sunrays, both stimulations together persuaded the driver to exit for a rest--in hope of a possible nap, perhaps. Once the sun would have risen sufficiently into the blues, the man resolved, he would resume his journey.

 He took the nearest exit and then curved southward along a nicely contoured road. It led alongside the mysteriously crowned promontory that had attracted him. Along this service road there was no convenient place to stop, nor was there an opportunity to find a more direct shortcut up that hill. So, he passively accepted the destiny contained in this traffic pattern and looped around to the back of the ridge. He drove up to its full elevation as gradually as he was routed to do. Soon it became obvious that parking a car was not going to be possible before reaching the final stretch of the road. The home stretch was a double parkway that led straight to the mysterious sunlit building. The entire place was laid out with a generous eye for space, so as to accommodate great numbers of people conveniently. All around, the place beckoned to be entered.

But this early in the morning the place was still deserted. Aside from a few cars, parked by some caretaker houses nearby, no visible traces of life could initially be detected. A chain-link fence enclosed the octagonal building with its circle of surrounding land--that is, the entire hill. The area was perfectly round. Its circle covered the entire promontory and held to the radius of a full kilometer.

The driver stopped his car by the outer gate. After a night of driving, tall as he was, he was in dire need of stretching his limbs. So he got out. A caretaker noticed the arrival of this early guest and drove up to him in his small pickup truck, to meet him by the gate. He explained that the doors to the main building of the History of Religions Museum, at the center, are scheduled to be unlocked in another three hours, but that early guests are welcome to stroll along the trails outside the building, inside the fence. He unlocked a side gate and invited the visitor to enter.

*         *         *

The paths inside the fenced area were laid out in a strictly symmetric fashion, in an arrangement of several concentric circles. The outermost path ran just along the inside of the fence that encircled the place. The number of concentric circles would become obvious as one moved closer toward the central edifice. It also became clear that together with the set of concentric circular trails there was laid out another set of paths that radiated outward from the central structure. These paths were leading straight downhill for about one kilometer. And for all that distance they remained essentially straight. Only here and there, at certain points of juncture, a slight bend or departure from the trail could be noticed. These more or less straight and sloping paths intersected with the concentric circular or "latitudinal" paths at regular intervals.

A strange place this was, indeed. The Baroque gardens of Europe would seem to be more freestyle, and less artificial, compared to the contrived paths that surrounded this mysterious edifice that is said to be a History of Religions Museum. The central location of the main building, its shape and function, appear to be directly related to the strict geometric landscaping of the surroundings.

The first circular path began by the outer gate, at the visitor's right--and also across the double parkway on his left side. More starting points for circular paths could be seen ahead at very regular intervals. The trailheads bore markers inscribed with even numbers, and these numbers measured time in human history. For instance, the outermost path, one kilometer distant from the building's plaza, was marked 3000 BCE.

 
          No! After a whole night of driving, the man decided against hiking that full outer circle. Instead he walked straight toward the building for about half the distance, alongside the paved parkway, along the top of the ridge. The next trail departed at 800 meters from the central plaza, and the trailhead marker showed "2000 BCE." This means that 200 meters were allocated for each millennium, 20 meters for a century, and 2 meters for a decade. The next circular path that the visitor came to was therefore marked "1000 BCE," at 600 meters from the central plaza.

But then, the next circular path was a surprise. It began at the halfway mark between the outer gate and the central plaza, at 500 meters, and the historical marker showed "500 BCE." This exception raised the visitor's eyelids and awakened his curiosity. So he decided to walk this circle.

The first downhill radial path at which he stopped, that crossed his 500 BCE circle trail-- or, his point in history 2500 years ago--was lined with replicas of statues from Mesoamerica, and with information stations, small and larger shelters, depending on the need, containing attractively illustrated display boards with paintings and commentary. Imitations of Mesoamerican artifacts were displayed, alongside scaled architectural models of ceremonial centers and pyramids. The 500 BCE circular trail led the visitor smack into the period of the Olmec culture in Veracruz and Tabasco.

 Downhill from the 500 BCE circle, a visitor who has extra time on hand can project, and can trace, the distant prehistory of Mesoamerica as far as it is known. But turning left, in the uphill direction, one finds displays that feature the religions and histories of Teotihuacan, Maya, Toltec and other culture strata, all the way to the Aztec empire and the arrival of the Spaniards. Architectural models and patterns of culture, along with religious practices and political systems, grandiose and colorful achievements alongside some "nasty habits" of human sacrifice, all were portrayed as realistically as available information and monetary resources would afford. Historical summaries accompanied these displays. The summaries were written in a non-judgmental style, and it was readily apparent that great efforts at historical objectivity had been made. In other words, the aforementioned "nasty habits" were explained, as best as could be done, in the wider context of worldwide human evolution. The commentaries are neither carved in stone nor cast in bronze. The antiqued and printed information boards can be corrected or amended whenever new knowledge becomes available.

          Stimulated by this interplay of virtual time and historical moments, in concrete space, our morning visitor began to relish his paradox. He was walking along a path that represents a mere moment in history--was walking all the while to kill real contemporary American time, until the Museum doors up there would open. But then, who needs to see the inside of a museum when outside he can stroll around the world, frozen in time some 2500 years ago!

The man came to the radial path that displays southern European and especially Greek culture and religion. Along this trail of time, just a little ways up the hill, Socrates and his philosopher-friends debate and reason and thereby certify the death of classical Greek religion. Plato especially, as a student of the inspired Socrates, was leaning back in time for religious and cosmological inspirations in the direction of ancient Egypt.

The evolutionary timeline of Egypt was the visitor's next stop. Egypt is the ancient civilization that bequeathed to us the world's oldest religious writings, enshrined in the pyramid afterworlds of deified pharaohs. As he looked down-slope, to his right, he found himself contemplating the fading glory of the earliest cult centers of Western civilization, in reverse sequence. At the point from where he looked back in time, over a distance of about 400 meters, some of the pyramids of Egypt are already 2000 years old. The accidentally famous Akhenaton had attempted his "reform" about 900 years (180 meters) down the slope. Alexander the Great's initiation as a Son of God, at Siwa, lay still 178 years up in the future. And the baby boy Jesus who later in life parodied all his royal predecessors as another kind of Son of God--whom allegedly his parents have brought to Egypt in search of safety--is being acknowledged at the intersection with the "ZERO" circular path, approximately 100 meters (500 years) up the slope.

But of course, the Jesus story begins along the path of another radial timeline, further along the latitudinal trail. Along the timeline of Judaism, in the vicinity of the 500 BCE Intersection, not much can be seen to write home about. Jerusalem lies mostly in ruins, and ten of the twelve tribes of Israel had been made to disappear in a northeasterly direction. Some 38 years (7.6 meters) downhill one finds displayed the degree of Cyrus the Great, granting the Jewish exiles in Babylonia the right to return to Jerusalem--this degree is displayed next to an image of the Cyrus Cylinder with a translation of its text. A printed text of Second Isaiah is also displayed here, because its point of origin is around here, somewhere. If we only knew the author’s name! An older scroll of this text is stored in the main building up on the hill, for security reasons.

Ezra's monument is found 62 years uphill along this timeline--but a space remains reserved for him also some 102 years up the path for the eventuality that historians will agree on the later date. Nehemiah's monument can be found some 55 years uphill. On the other hand, the beginnings of the golden age of the Israelite monarchy, under David and Solomon, must be sought 500 years (100 meters) downhill. Then looking uphill again, the timeline of Christianity begins, speedily departing from Judaism in the direction of Egypt and Greece, after about 530 years (106 meters). But before it branches off, one can see Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan River, and a little later sentenced and dying on a Roman cross.

          Crossing the evolutionary trail and timeline of Arabia one finds nothing displayed yet--at least not yet at the present state of the Museum's construction. The Prophet Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina, by which Muslims date the beginning of their religion, lies 1122 years (224.4 meters) up the slope. Muhammad, Abu Bakr and Ali are shown up there on their path to Medina, bringing up the rear of the people who were fleeing. The faces of Abu Bakr and Ali can be seen as they look back facing the wind. But Muhammad continues walking toward Medina, and the wind momentarily blows his scarf across his face. The elements have cooperated with the sculptor, and together they have conformed to the wish of Muslims, that the face of the Prophet should not be shown.

          At the place where the 500 BCE latitudinal circle intersects the timeline of Persian religion, one notices the century-old presence of Zoroastrianism, a monotheism founded by Zoroaster, an Indo-European prophet. But for the establishment of that religion as the state religion of the Persian Empire one must move uphill by a stretch of about 470 years (94 meters). On the other hand, the Iranian infiltrations into the Persian mountains, paralleled by the Aryan invasions a little ways over, lie 200 meters down the slope--thus, the distance of a thousand years.

          At the place where the 500 BCE latitudinal circle intersects with India's path of time, several varieties of religious reform are being memorialized. Mahavira, the founder of Jainism has died already, and his monument can be found about 13 meters downhill. A group of Digambara and Shvetambara followers continue to imitate his ascetic ways.

Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is still alive and active at 500 BCE. He may be seen teaching a group of mendicant followers and imitators. While for the time being that scene is being displayed along the path merely as a relief carving, the Buddha's initial experience of nirvana, a few steps down the slope, is memorialized in form of his statue--seated appropriately underneath a Bo-tree that has been especially planted for this sublime illustration.

In the company of Buddhist hippy-monks we crawl up the Khyber Pass onto the Silk Road that leads into China. Fortunately, since our visitor is moving along on a single point in time, he need not physically endure the arduous journey to the other side of the Himalayas. He merely stays on his circular path and strolls over to a point where the evolutionary trail of Chinese civilization and religion crosses his path. The 500 BCE trail leads straight into the company of Kung-fu-tzu (Confucius) as he teaches to a few students the art of ritually balanced imperial administration. The first successful employment of these Confucian students, as civil servants, lies still 280 to 300 years up the slope.

The statue of Lao-tzu is placed just a few steps downward from the "500 BCE" circular path. At the moment only a large display board summarizes the contributions of this sage and his post-human evolution into a god. Surely, more information about him will be added in the course of time.

The circular trail of frozen time, 500 BCE, curves toward the completion of its round. For readability and brevity sake, not all the intersections with the various sloping evolutionary timelines have been mentioned here. For that matter, the museum park itself is intended to remain in a perpetual unfinished state. There is plenty space for adding more radial timelines as these are being researched for display by scholars. I have not mentioned the sub-Saharan African trail that one crosses right at the beginning of the journey, and I have also not mentioned yet the Australian evolutionary path that is being crossed toward the end of the circular trails. Our historical knowledge about religions and cultural conditions at these places, along the 500 BCE latitudinal trail, is still too meager for placing historical monuments. A few circles uphill, closer toward the central building, these paths are better known and are lined with artifacts and with illustrated summaries of ceremonials that represent their specific tribal religions. The same situation exists regarding the Indian religions of North America and South America.

Eventually another circle trail might be inserted for 1500 C.E., but that decision will be left to another generation of scholars to ponder. This History of Religions Museum, with its surrounding museum park, is not intended to be a nice cemetery by which to remember bygone religions or dead people. Of the religions displayed here, many still are alive in the world today in some recognizable form. And even from among the religions that appear to have died out, significant elements and sentiments continue to linger or affect the souls of their modern heirs and/or reactionaries. All the religions displayed in this museum, and even some religious elements that have not been satisfactorily updated by the heirs, can erupt without notice and reassert themselves as living solutions to contemporary problems. This museum displays the history of a universal human experience, that is, religious gospels together with the problems that these were meant to resolve. No globally oriented modern society can hope to balance itself without having an overview on that kind of knowledge. Old as well as new religions continue to influence our lives and continue to redefine our chances for co-existence and survival. Mistakes made in the past, if they are not properly recognized and displayed for rational scrutiny, will in the future be repeated in one form or another.

This museum is intended to be, and to remain, a living establishment--one that re-arranges and modifies its historical displays at the same speed as new dimensions in human history are being brought to light.

 

*         *         *

The layout and purpose of the History of Religions Museum has become quite clear to the early visitor who unsuspectingly has walked into its environs. Three hours have passed since he began strolling in the museum park. The doors to the central building are now open and he proceeds to move in that direction. He has a fairly good idea of what one can expect inside. Inasmuch as the building stands beyond the recent terminals of all the timelines, there ought to be some updates and some opportunity for comparison offered inside. A quick tour through the building confirms his anticipations. So, before he commits himself to a more detailed round, he wants to meet the director of this unique establishment. The visitor is shown into the director's office and welcomed.

 

 

In the director's office more information is forthcoming: "In the beginning a considerable amount of uncertainty prevailed about how this museum should be arranged. Should it be a simple museum park, or should it merely be an architectural edifice into which as many artifacts as possible, and all available records, are compressed. But then, the museum park was considered important for concretizing the experience of moving through time and to enable comparison of religious phenomena at relevant moments in history. As far as possible, a measure of abstract spatial relationships should also be maintained.

"Because learning about the history of the world's civilizations traditionally has relied heavily on the use of books, a central library was called for. Moreover, to the extent that the printed page nowadays is being supplemented with electronic media, an environment congenial to such technology was desirable as well. All of these things have been brought together in the central four-storied section of the Museum. Moreover, the display area that surrounds this central unit has an outer ring of computer stations, where visitors can access anything within the confines of the establishment without having to walk a step. What is accessible by way of our computerized network is already several thousand times more than the amount of what is, and still could be, physically displayed.

"The display cases along the main floor exhibit memorabilia from one religion after another, in the same order as the trails of these religions are arranged outside in the park. As a rule, these display cases contain materials that require more protection than can be guaranteed outside. At certain intervals one also finds a statue or display board that is destined for a new timeline, the path for which has not yet been built outside. As a general policy, as many display materials as possible are being pushed outside and are increasingly housed there in satellite shelters, along the time-trails where historically they belong. Accordingly, the main building is dedicated as much as possible to preserving trails of paper and other valuables. The Museum's primary function is research and education in the total history of religions field, by utilizing a variety of technologies, but trending increasingly in the direction of electronic media."

The Museum's supervisor expressed the hope that someday the umbrella of cyber-space, and of playable media in cyber-time, will be a million times greater than what can be shown here physically.

This vision obviously begged a question: "If cyber-space and cyber-time are the primary focus for developing this institution, then why bother with all these extra expenses for artwork and landscaping?"

The director smiled at this all-too familiar and not unexpected question. He began to explain: "Every egg has a yolk, and every solar system a sun. Without these concentrations of material the cyber-additions will lack form and sometimes even purpose. The Internet is wonderful, but its very greatness is also its vulnerability. Everyone who has a computer has learned--or else still has to learn--that every program and every unit of content should be stored and backed up outside the dynamic machine. Knowledge of the immensity that has been collected here at this museum must be protected at several levels.

"The switches of the Internet are sometimes fickle--and they are subject to development and change. There are moments when switches are being tripped by people who themselves do not understand the content that they place at risk. This is why we need massive backup systems at all possible levels. Dynamic disks are backed up on CD's, and older CD's are updated onto newer ones. All CD's are being backed up in the library on acid-free paper.

"A museum that embraces the entire stretches of human civilization must also collect images. Just because a long time ago a couple of reactionary religions have outlawed the making of images, and have placed all authority into the hands of scribes--according to the records of those same scribes, of course--does not mean that the ancient evolutionary stratum that relied heavily on images should be obliterated. While images are our "backup system" in the early strata of human evolution, and later were replaced by the written word, so the written and printed word is our backup system for electronically stored data. We need them all.

"Yes, people who can visualize well everything that they read, do not need to come to this museum to access what we have to offer. They can visit our web site from their homes. But then, our Internet offerings would not be as good as they are if we, back here, were not forced to visualize everything we publish in concrete space and time. Moreover, the people who have come here in person, who have walked our time trails in the museum park, have returned home with a clearer perspective on time and on process, and with a clearer view on the entire subject matter of religion in world history."

"Did I hear 'world history'? Why was this establishment not called the Museum of World History?"

Here follows the director's answer: "The field of history is what historians do and, as a rule, people in the general field of history are interested in who conquered whom, when, and where. They are less interested in who backed off, or who surrendered to which greater-than-human reality or deity, when and where. The history of religions is world history as well, but it emphasizes a dimension that is generally neglected by historians in their field. If we were to turn over the study of religions completely to those scholars who foremost believe in the efficacy of aggression and in methods of smart control, it would not take much time at all before nothing intrinsically religious would be remembered or mentioned anymore. The choice is a matter of temperament.

"The study of the history of religions is the choice of those people who know, among other things, that aggression, progress, and winning are not everything. For instance, it can be argued that Jesus the Christ, Gautama the Buddha, or Muhammad the Prophet, have changed the road of human destiny as much, and probably more, than such mighty figures as Constantine, Aśoka, or Genghis Khan. There are other museums that memorialize the world history of power applications. There is only one institution, so far, that aspires also to memorialize, historically as well as systematically, the religious surrenders and common-sense retreats of humankind."

After these words, the director's explanations trailed off in a direction of his own choosing: "The 'temperament' to which I have referred earlier does manifest itself even in the very process by which this museum is being built and managed. We do not let money determine the historical data of religions that are to be shown. Wherever a religious tradition has generated its own scholars of history, we seek to engage these people in the display of their tradition to the fullest. All of this happens, of course, while other historians are looking over their shoulders to scrutinize and to participate actively in the deliberations. We also try to indicate, as clearly as we can, the historical sources on which our displays are being based. Any scholar who has published in a given field is invited to add a summary of his or her opinion regarding the historicity of this or that exhibit. These opinions can be accessed at our web site by anyone who wishes.

"This Museum of History of Religions is evolving into something greater than just being an American educational facility. It is quickly becoming a world institute for intercultural and inter-religious cooperative research. The people who gather here are engaged in an honest quest of creating a unified body of knowledge that could be titled "World History of Religions." We have no illusions that this task will be finished in our lifetime or during a single century, or that somehow all the dangers of ethnic dogmatism can be completely avoided. But with our established procedure of allowing updates, amendments, and placing minority statements on an open record, I believe we are on the right track of reaching an historical consensus over the longer run. The resulting world picture might appear fuzzy at first, more so than if only one school of scholars was doing it. But forced dogmatic clarity, imposed by a minority, would certainly be worse than living with ambiguities."

The director feels encouraged by the fact that the seminar rooms, located in the central building, are increasingly being used by scholars who are visiting here from all over the world.

Then he added: "Our programs do not include social or political activism, so as to effect social or religious reforms somewhere out there, in the world, right now. This does not mean we do not care. We do. But we cannot pursue these short-term responsibilities and handle these extra pressures, while we are still trying to clean up our long-range academic act. Most of us have not given up hope that, somehow, humankind may be able to help itself. We believe that the wheels of human rationality, if given enough time to grind and polish one another, will eventually contribute their share to the prospect of improving the human destiny. Ours will not be a quick political contribution. We hope to unravel the historical structure, the rational background grid in time and space, upon which humankind has survived and learned until now and upon which, probably, it can find ways of getting along together in the future. Fully engaged in historical studies, we trust that eventually the fruits of our labor will ripen, contribute, and endure."

 

 

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