The Experience of the Sacred Translated Through Human Memory Patterns

 

"The sacred has a dynamic aspect in that it has a tendency to manifest itself of its own accord.  It tends to come into the world and make itself known.  Further, each incarnate form, each object of matter, has a tendency to realize its archetypal, universal, sacred meaning.  These two tendencies-- that of the sacred to manifest itself and that of each incarnate form to realize its deeper archetype--come together in such a way that any object at any time can incorporate within itself all the power of the holy.  When the sacred manifests itself in the world, something in the human allows it to be immediately recognized.  A part of the human, most often a subconscious part, experiences the sacred and says to the conscious mind, "that is the REAL."  The conscious mind is then made aware of that which is beyond it and that from which it comes, the sacred.

The intrusion of the sacred into human experience represents a direct transmission of the REAL, a transmission of God, Creator, Allah, Great Spirit.  The human who experiences this is made aware of a reality that transcends the human and thus predates the human linguistic and cultural contstructs.  This presents difficulties.  How does one retain the memory and experience of something that predates all things human?  To explain the experience and to retain memory of it, human beings automatically structure the direct experience of the sacred into internalized symbolic constructs.  Thus the sacred comes to be expressed in visions, wondrous feelings, thoughts and sometimes smells and tastes.  This is due to the nature of memory patterning. 

Human memory patterns are constructed of aspects of the five senses; that is, memories are encoded bits of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings.  Thus the experience of the sacred is translated into visions, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings even though the sacred is both all and none of these things.  Examinations of  the written and oral records of those who encountered the sacred show that their experiences were very rich and generally included all of the five senses."
-Stephen Harrod Buhner from "Sacred Plant Medicine"