Instead of Introduction: How Old Is Sacredness?

Abstract

It is customary that references to history are used to legitimise one’s ideological and religious statements. This method is particularly visible in contemporary pagan and spiritual movements, in which history has a crucial position not only in justifications of religious claims but also in searching inspiration for contemporary beliefs and for providing a structural framework for (re)constructing past religions. The commonest explanation for using history in arguments and rhetoric in religion is to add credibility to one’s claims. Examples can be found in traditional institutional religious organisations, in contemporary spiritual movements, but also in the rhetoric of individual charismatic leaders. Such rhetorical manner is not common to contemporary religions only but can also be followed in historical folk religion (see, e.g., Johanson 2018). For instance, in a record of a heavily worn eighteenth-century copper coin, used for healing magic in the early twentieth century, the old age of the coin is specifically valued (Fig. 1). According to a legend, copper was filed from a coin to help people and animals to recover from bone fractures. The same can also be observed in magical customs, including, for instance, preference for older prints of the Bible for magical rituals (see, e.g., Kõiva 2017: 144). These examples demonstrate how references to history add somewhat stronger and more serious attributes to an object or a claim. The role of history is also apparent in the rhetoric – either in that of a religious group or in the wording of academic studies. It is probably often unconscious, but the mapping of the usage of adverbs of time, such as ‘yet’ or ‘still’, provides a good example. These words create a suitable context for leaving an