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All right, so – disclaimer first: Pretty much all of the science of religions basics are made by a known fascist: Mircea Eliade, much to my chagrin.

I’ll do my best to summarize and maybe it’s going to be a wall of text, but writing it down makes me remember my eternal hate/love with my academic studies – also English is not my first language, so some wordings may be off – feel free to ask to clarify some stuff or point some “errors” so that I may learn more.

Basics

To begin, as with all occidental cosmologies, religion is subscribed in a binary system. There is the Cosmos aka “Secular World” (reality) and Chaos aka “Sacred World” (metaphysic). Since life is chaos, we seek to make order into it – to organize it so that we may feel more secure against all ailments that life throws at us. Since we don’t know the source of the chaos, chaos may be a lot of things – mysterious, immaterial, odd, but at the very least – it is very powerful. Because it can make life or death, it can destroy us as easily – it’s beyond what we can understand and it commands respect. Everything is binary, according to that Romanian fascist, so the Sacred world is fascinating and terrifying, light and darkness, life and death, etc. It gives “colors” to the Secular world, or else everything lose substance and dies by boredom, so to speak. Society need the Sacred to spice things up, to reach for its glory, to master its powers.

Spiritual organization is born in response to it, it beckons precise movements, or speech, that mimics the very first time chaos was “touched” without destroying the folks seeking it. Rites mimics the myths – and it makes a great glue for social order. By making the rites, you make the same as your ancestors did and the same that your children will do.

But, back to the core:

Rite of passage

So, as we know, rite of passage is to make a transition from a before state to an after state. In a religious analysis, initiates are all individuals with their own social characteristics (class, gender, clan, age, etc.) that must do some kind of ceremony to get to another level – being transformed along the way. To make the transformation, you have to go to the sacred world and do the ritual to absorb in a “safe way” the all mighty energy of chaos, while in that transition zone every initiatives is stripped from differentiations. In a nutshell, from the secular to the sacred back to the secular with a new status, from the cosmos to the chaos back to the cosmos.

I really hope that it’s okay to read until now.

Let’s get to your story. I'll say you and we, and I'm kind of assuming what was your experience, but it's easier for me to do so - feel free to point out some errors on it. I don't want to strip you of your agentivité.

First of all, you’re on a trip to a land that is not your regular/secular world – there is a certain kind of awe, but mostly you are in regular terrain, the world is “organized” – or Cosmos, but at the same time this trip is giving quite a lot of energy, or at least some kind of renewal, or maybe not but I’ll not get into the meta of “the trip is on itself a rite of passage” (dear god I can get soooo dispersed). I guess that your choice of destination, the Mt. Inari, makes you a little more fecund to feeling a religious/spiritual experience. A mountain is, on itself, an already powerful symbol and you choose to get to it, in a fashioned way – with the official path which is paved and illuminated. The path is the secular: the shapes are clear, nothing morphs right before your eyes, everything is set, other people are on it – this is a known world. But then, there is the off-path, which is overgrown, dark, unknown. You have to use a tool (your cellphone light) to try and see where you’re going; to try and organize what is chaos, and even then it is limited – what this beyond the reach of the light? What’s that noise next to me? You have entered the sacred world. It is fascinating, but at the same time dangerous. You thread carefully, doing your own rituals to try and control it by paying your respects before venturing forth. The exploration of the ruin if kind of the apex of the rite. Everything is more chaos, labyrinth, now even the human construction loose consistency – it is covered with vines, plants, which moves with the wind, kind of amorphous. The sacred corrupts the secular, you are in its vicinity. As I’ve said earlier, sacred is kind of scary and fascinating, it may bring power, or can destroy – as it tried making you trip.

On a side note, there is also a concept of Hierophany – the manifestation of the sacred in a tangible secular event, or object, etc. I think the black cat is that kind of symbol.

You came back, make some kind of rituals to try and bind the sacred to the sacred world, because it is dangerous the merge the sacred and the secular. You came back with something more, a belief – at the very least an experience, which “changed” you before the event. It leaves some kind of stain; I guess it left you more connected with the folklore of japan/its people. So the rite of passage did what it had to do.

Okay, I really hope it was clear. Bear in mind that this analysis is really based in occidental cosmology, with a binary thought. And also, really don’t hesitate to ask questions or clarification. Pretty much was grabbed from my notebook with some wordreference for translation of specific terms. I read a lot in English, but don’t get to write or speak in it very often.

Once again, thanks for the share and also I’m glad to share that info with you, I’ve canceled a plan with university this fall and that kind of exercise makes me reconnect with something I liked to do.