Age of Steam & Fire: Henry P. H. Bromwell's Newspaper

 

Henry P. H. Bromwell was an exhaustingly ambitious individual. He is best known for his Masonic tome Restorations of Masonic Geometry and Symbolry, published posthumously in 1905, but he also wrote an extensive amount of poetry, addresses, orations, and essays — both Masonic and political — and he even created his own Masonic rite, Free and Accepted Architect. Yet one curious byline that gets a mention on his Wikipedia page that appears to have gotten absolutely no attention is that he ran a newspaper called Age of Steam. Here I will endeavor to provide the greatest amount of information on this newspaper as is known.

According to Bromwell's daughter, Henrietta, her father purchased the Fayette Yeoman sometime after 1850.[1] This was a local newspaper in Bromwell's town of residence, Vandalia, Illinois. It appears he simply acquired their printing press to start a new newspaper, however Henrietta implies that he procured the entire entity of the Fayette Yeoman and simply changed its name, thus also implying he acquired its subscribers list and its files, et al. She explains the start of this newspaper differently in her entry on her father in her publication of the Bromwell family genealogy, namely that The Age of Steam was his father's, her grandfather's newspaper and Henry P. H. Bromwell assisted him with this newspaper.[2] The most detailed description of how this newspaper came to be is described by Henrietta in the preface to her transcription of the 1852 list of subscribers to The Age of Steam, in which she details its history based on what she knew about the paper. I will thus transcribe her preface to the subscriber list, as the only copy of this document is in the Denver Public Library, and not exactly readily available:

In the year 1852, Vandalia, the old State Capital of the twenties and thirties, always conservative, very much afraid of change, had not ceased to argue of the destruction of business to be expected from the coming of the rail roads, human life was also considered to be in jeopardy.

Engines were feared more than we now dread the air ships. A rival paper, in a nearby town, came out with a sneer at the title of "The Age of Steam", so that my father, in his next issue (to the delight of his friends) raised the name to "The Age of Steam and Fire", which title the paper bore, until in 1856 he sold it to Tevis Greathouse.

I have copies this list of subscribers to Vol. 1, from two small record books in the beautiful handwriting of my grandfather Henry Broughton Bromwell, who, in 1854 assisted in re-organizing Temperance Lodge No. 16, in Vandalia, masonry having lapsed when the Capital was removed to Springfield.

He was the first Secretary of this reorganized body of Masons, and Dr McCurdy was Worshipful Master. His handwriting can probably be seen in the old records of the Lodge. He was a Baltimorean, a Quaker by birth, and of fine education, but so quiet and unselfish, that other usually appropriated his honors.

He managed the paper a good deal, doing all the clerical work, but most of the editorials were by his son my father, who had always a brilliant wit, and with whom many persons were wise enough to avoid a tilt.

Greathouse sold the paper, and with it went the Files. At last, on the night of March 4th, one year after Lincoln took his seat as President, the office with all its contents was burned. Its patriot owners being away in the war, nothing was saved.

If any copies of "The Age of Steam" exist, they must be in the treasure chests of some of these old subscribers in the list I have copied.

I hope they may come to light, and that I may some time see them, for every move is as good as a fire, and we have moved several times, and I have none of my own.

Elizabeth Henrietta Bromwell
646 Williams Parkway, Denver Colorado.
September 25th 1927 [3]

So here we can see that the paper was originally called The Age of Steam and that it would change name to Age of Steam & Fire, because a another newspaper nearby bore a title that mocked The Age of Steam, and so Bromwell responded by adding & Fire to the title. Again, Henrietta implies that it was her grandfather's newspaper and that her father simply helped out with it. It was definitely a short-lived paper, that it must have gone inactive for a number of years, and eventually was totally destroyed by a fire, and because she and her father moved from Illinois to Colorado, even moved a couple of times to different houses in Denver, any copies her father may have kept were lost.

Henrietta, as valuable as her descriptions about the newspaper are, she clearly does not know a lot about it, so she constantly has to piece bits of information about it together years later, and none of her descriptions are consistent. We still do not know much about it. She transcribes the list of subscribers in hopes someone kept the papers, but we live in the modern age, and libraries are much more connected. Three libraries today have the 1852 volume of The Age of Steam, and two have the 1853 volume of The Age of Steam & Fire, and a few other libraries have a few copies of various issues of these in miscellaneous collections of Illinois newspapers. At this time, I have not found a full collection, and interlibrary loan has not let me view microfilms of any full collections. I will have to travel to Illinois and visit a few libraries to potentially examine any full collections. What I have been able to examine is one collection of miscellaneous Illinois newspapers on microfilm, which includes a few copies of the Fayette Yeoman, The Age of Steam, and The Age of Steam & Fire (reel no. 327 from the University of Illinois at Urbana Campaign — this reel was largely composed of newspapers from Fayette County, especially Vandalia). I was actually the first person to ever view this microfilm reel, as the seal was still on the reel, hence why I am certain almost no one has ever really explored this newspaper. This is what I can gather from the few specimens of these papers from this microfilm reel.

The Fayette Yeoman ran until at the latest May 10, 1851 (Vol. 2, No. 29), in which James Kennaday was the sole editor and proprietor. It would appear that Kennaday was the primary driver behind changing the name of the paper sometime in 1852. The only specimens I could view of The Age of Steam was April 30, 1853 (Vol. 1, No. 48), in which Kennaday and Henry P. H. Bromwell were joint editors and proprietors, and it was published weekly on Saturdays. It is possible that Henry Broughton Bromwell worked with the paper in 1852, and possibly even in 1853, but he is not mentioned in connection with this paper in either of the two issues of this paper that I was able to view. Henry Broughton appears to have only been a cleric, not an editor, as Henrietta indicates on the title page of her transcript. Sometime between May 7, 1853 (Vol. 1 No. 49) and August 16, 1853, the paper added & Fire to its name. As of the latter date (Vol. 2 No. 4), Bromwell became the sole editor and proprietor of the paper, and it changed its weekly publication day to Tuesdays. The three issues of The Age of Steam & Fire I was able to examine were the one already mentioned, along with August 23, 1853 (Vol. 2, No. 5) and September 6, 1853 (Vol. 2 No. 6). I find no records that this newspaper ran past 1853. As Henrietta indicates, the paper was sold to Tevis Greathouse in 1856, but I did not see any newspapers on the microfilm collection I viewed in which Tevis Greathouse was the editor or proprietor of. So I am not certain he did anything with the paper or press after his acquisition of it.

Note, I have not seen any specimens of The Age of Steam in 1852, so it is possible Henry Broughton was connected to the paper then, and possibly this is why he only kept records for 1852, and then he severed his connection with the paper when his son, Henry P. H., took over the paper entirely in 1853. Further, note that this paper went through an actual name change in 1853, as it maintained the same volume and issue numbers when & Fire was added to the paper's name, continuing the volume and issue numbers of its previous name. The front page title would be updated, but on subsequent pages maintained to read "The Age of Steam," indicating Bromwell did not want to pay to update this custom header.

Obviously my research on this paper is incomplete. Some day in the future I will be able to afford to travel to Illinois to view full collections in person, of whatever copies they actually have preserved.

But from what we can discern about this paper is that it was indeed originally the Fayette Yeoman, which was run by James Kennaday, but he would rebrand it as The Age of Steam sometime between mid-1851 to early 1852, with Bromwell joining the team, and by August 1853 Bromwell would acquire the entirety of the paper and added & Fire to its name as a responsive sneer at another paper. Bromwell neglected the paper in the years after 1853 and sold it in 1856.

Let's be real, this is not unusual for Bromwell. He was highly ambitious, and as a result, he neglected ambitious projects he started, and then lost interest in them, or just did not have the energy to maintain them. I write about this extensively in my article on him and the failure of his rite of Free and Accepted Architects in Philalethes (Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 144-154, 173).

The paper's contents seem to us today as archaic and insignificant; mostly news about the railroad, land deals, new companies, et cetera. The reality is that it was actually a really progressive tabloid. Somewhere I read it being described as an "abolitionist" paper. Certainly Bromwell was an abolitionist, but I don't think I would call it that. He was certainly a radical. When he served as a Representative to Illinois in the US House, he was what we would come to call a "Radical Republican." I have read his political speeches in the Congressional Globe, and he was a hard radical in Reconstruction, frequently waiving the proverbial "red shirt" (i.e. citing the Union dead from the Civil War, or invoking the death of Lincoln), and calling for harsh punishments for the rebelling States before their representatives be readmitted into Congress, and such.

Further note that Illinois was still viewed as the frontier of the time. Bromwell reminiscences on the days when Illinois was the frontier back when he was a boy, sometimes in political speeches or elsewhere. Henrietta is correct in that Illinois was still very conservative in those days, and with the events of Bleeding Kansas and the approaching Civil War, tensions were high in Vandalia. An intellectual like Bromwell with abolitionist sentiments, as well as women's suffrage and technological advancements, it should not surprise anyone that his old press would be burned in 1861. Such indicates that Greathouse probably continued publishing tabloids, but I am uncertain which, but they must have been of a progressive leaning nature.

I would hope that once I can view some more complete collections of this paper we may have a better idea of who Bromwell was in these years. Perhaps we may find poetry of his that were only published in this paper and were lost by time his daughter publishes all his poetry posthumously. Perhaps we'll find some interesting editorials that illustrate key aspects of his character and sentiments. But at this time, I simply wanted to layout everything I know about this newspaper, as it appears it has never received a treatment whatsoever.

Notes:
[1] Bromwell, H. P. H. "Lines," On Buena Vista's Field, introductory remark by Henrietta Bromwell. 1918. Pg. 27.
[2] Bromwell, Henrietta. The Bromwell Genealogy. 1910. Pg. 52.
[3] Bromwell, Henrietta. "Preface," The Age of Steam: Subscribers List, Vandalia, Illinois, 1852. Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, G977.3 R737h.

Necromancy in the Forest of Marly: Acéphale, Dead Gods, and Bataille

 

Necromancer conjuring Astaroth under gallows
Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.

Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.
Wellcome MS1766, c. 1776, folio 29r

Recently while researching about Acéphale, the secret society formed by Georges Bataille, I found a curious reference to an occult ritual that occurred in the 14th century. In Alastair Brotchie's The Sacred Conspiracy (Atlas Press, 2017), in discussing where Acéphale held their meetings, Brotchie mentions very briefly: "Here [Montjoie], according to the Chronicle of the Monks of Saint-Denis, the Duke of Burgundy instructed an apostate priest, a knight, a squire and valet to undertake rituals involving the invocation of the demons Herman and Astramon and the corpse of a thief strung up on a gibbet. These rites were intended to 'hasten the death of the king'..." (pg. 57). That was enough to get my attention.

Further, it does appear that Bataille was familiar with this historical occult ritual at Montjoie, as such appears to be the intended reference being made in his letter, intended as an inner circular only for the members of Acéphale, dated October 2, 1937: "It seems that for a long time a curse has afflicted this tower, and being abandoned it was used for certain necromantic practices directed against the royal person himself [King Charles VI]."

There is a lot to unpack here, so let us start with the location: Montjoie. This is an old castle, today a mere ruin buried in the Forest of Marly outside of Paris, that is believed to be the castle of Clovis I, the first king of the Franks. A brief walk away from from this ruin, almost a straight shot down one of the avenues in the forest, one will arrive at a site that is believed to be where Acéphale held many of their rituals, around the base of a dying oak tree that had been struck by lightning. This tree is located at an intersection of avenues, the intersection being called Étoile de Joyenval ("Star of Jupiter"), however Bataille would rename it on his map to Étoile Mourante ("Dying Star"). These intersections are called "stars" because they are where several avenues intersect at different angles, and therefore on a map they look like stars, however it is nonetheless quite poetic.

It is called Étoile de Joyenval because of its proximity to the Abbey de Joyenval, which in turn gets its name from the nearby ruin of Montjoie, which is believed to come from the Latin Mons Jovis ("Mount of Jupiter"). Bataille would associate the name, as many French people have done, with the old French battle cry "Montjoie [Saint Denis!]" However, the Acephalean reverence of this battle (bataille) cry was more an homage to Gilles de Rais, the infamous serial murderer of the 15th century. Gilles de Rais, like Bataille, once started out as very pious and then became incredibly wicked and dabbled in the occult.

At the Étoile de Joyenval there was once an old dying oak tree, which was decaying from a lightning strike that occurred some decades before Bataille came to the site. The oak is sacred to Jupiter (according to Agrippa in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book 1, Chapter 26). Jupiter, remember is, not only the chief god of the Greek pantheon, but also the god of lightning. That this oak tree, sacred to the god of lightning, was struck by lightning has a certain poetic irony, and thus was a perfect emblem for Acéphale to conduct their rites. It represented the dead or dying god, and formed a central focus for the secret society. It is similar to the crucifix (the dying god) or the tauroctony (the god slaughtering an animal) as a central image to a religion. And a part of me cannot help but also think of Nietzsche's example of "lightning strike" in Genealogy of Morals... for no reason... it just makes me think of this.

Jupiter, we should remember, is one of the dead gods of the ancient world. Well, his Greek counterpart is dead: Zeus. Though Euhemerus's Sacred History (3rd century BCE) is lost today, surviving only in fragments and quotes in other texts, Euhemerus does nonetheless describe Zeus as a former king of Crete, and as a mortal king, he eventually died and somewhere on Crete is his tomb. Now, Euhemerus is oftentimes regarded as a sort of rationalist philosopher, so he rationalizes that gods are really just mighty persons of long ago, such as a king, that still holds veneration today.

And this is not unfounded, or at least not unusual. The idea of the dead king and the dead god as sympathetic images is a central theme in James Frazer's The Golden Bough, which Bataille was very familiar with. In fact, the whole notion of killing kings and killing gods is central to Acéphale, ακέφαλος "Headless." Bataille apparently wanted to kickoff his new Dionysian secret society with a human sacrifice, but no one wanted to be the executioner — albeit, this is a bit of a myth about the society, as none of the internal papers or correspondences within the society ever mention an actual human sacrifice. Bataille also wanted to make January 21st a day of celebration for Acéphale, as that was the date of King Louis XVI's beheading. I have also written previously on the possible link between Bataille and the Headless Rite of the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM V.96-172), as well as the magical image of a headless entity (PGM III.170) that may have been known to Bataille, as this image was in the Bibliotheque Nationale's possession when Bataille worked there.

We could spend a lot of time on Acéphale as a secret society and its components, and all its philosophical conceptions, but in that case, I recommend Brotchie's The Sacred Conspiracy. Let us return to Montjoie and the necromancers there.

This story of necromancers at Montjoie comes to us from Michel Pintoin, the chronicler of the Valois Kings, as he chronicles the life of Charles VI, thus much of what he writes comes from official documents and reports. While the book is called Chronicle of the Monks... it really was only one monk compiling this material. It seems reasonable that Bataille had perused this text, and this could likely be where he obtained the knowledge of this occult ritual in the 14th century, especially given his predilection for reading about wars (Chronicles largely concerns the Hundred Years War).

The following is a digest of the section of Chronique du religieux de saint-Denys, Volume 3 (pg. 752-762) that describes this necromantic ritual, and is based on my rather rusty Latin skills. I am not going to provide a translation, as my Latin is not that good — it is just good enough to muddle through. The 1841 text has the Latin and French translation on alternating pages. And since my French is worse than my Latin, I am only relying on the Latin.

Pintoin tells how the Duke of Burgundy (Philip II the Bold) had sought to hasten the king's death, as the king was already ill. So the Duke solicits the assistance (likely paying for his services) of a priest to conduct a magical ritual that will quicken the king's death. This is not that bizarre, i.e. that of priests and monks engaging in occult practices. This was common in the early modern period, and actually the vast majority of magical grimoires survive to us today because they were written by priests, clerics, and monks. This is was Richard Kieckhefer calls the "clerical necromantic underground" (see Kieckhefer's Magic in the Middle Ages).

The priest solicits the help of a knight, his squire, and a servant. The priest, knight, squire, and valet are given a sword and ring, very likely provided by the Duke. They then go to Montjoie (arcem montis Gaudii) to have the privacy to conduct this ritual. This is also not unusual, as we find in numerous grimoires instructions to go to a place where there will be no prying eyes, some place hidden or private. A ruined castle in the forest is perfect. We see something similar in the autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini (sculptor, smith, renowned for his bronze sculpture Perseus with the head of Medusa), in which in 1535 he participates in a necromantic ritual in the ruins of the Roman Colosseum. When you think about it, the Colosseum is actually a great place to conduct a ritual in the 16th century, as the Roman Forum was open, ruined, and no one would be there, especially at night, and in the case of the ritual Cellini participates in, "legions" of spirits are called, and they fill up the whole amphitheater... such would be difficult in one's small apartment.

Just before sunrise, the priest makes his preparations on a hill adjacent to the ruins. He constructs a circle of a certain size (circulum fecit de calibe), makes some invocations, and two demons appear to him in the form of men. This is compatible with many grimoires, in which if the spirits appear in hideous and monstrous forms, the magician will command that they appear in a pleasing form or in the form of human likeness. The demons that appear to the priest are called Herman and Astramon. Likely these are corruptions of Hermes and Astaroth or some other variation of their names. A pact appears to be made (ipsis honore divino), which is according to "the art [of magic]" (ut ars postulat). Then the knight, squire, and servant are to be "handed over" to the demons to be instructed in how to proceed and to be consecrated. This part is a little odd. Customarily, in nearly all magical rituals, the magician and their helpers will remain within the circle. The circle protects them from any harm the spirits may inflict upon them. Why would anyone leave the circle? Like ever? (Mind you, my Latin is rusty). Some magical rites have a complex of circles and paths between, and some only have one circle for everyone to remain in. Some have a triangle or other bounded area for the spirits to appear within, as another means of protection. However, only one circle is described here, so perhaps some variation of the Liber Juratus is being conducted, or perhaps the priest has already developed a relationship with Herman and Astramon, and thus has a very simple procedure to call them. Suffice to say, in some manner, the knight, squire, and valet were presented separately from the priest to the demons for instructions.

The knight, the squire, and the valet are interesting here, though totally appropriate. It is about this time period that we see the introduction of swords into magical rituals. This is in part because of the heightened monetary status of knights who could now afford to hire magicians or purchase a grimoire from a literate person, like clerics. And, as a result, they wanted their swords incorporated into the rituals. The squire is also appropriate, as squires were usually young, usually no more than eighteen years of age, and children have often been noted as being better able to see spirits than adults. We actually see something like this in Cellini's autobiography, wherein the second time they conduct the magical rite, they bring one of the shop boys from Cellini's studio, a lad of about twelve years and a virgin. The servant or valet is likely an assistant or pupil of the priest himself, likely being trained by him in magical arts (the clerical necromantic underground), and was there to ensure the knight and squire followed procedure and they got the results they hoped to obtain.

That the knight, squire, and valet are being "consecrated" by the demons is not that unusual. I have known magicians that will leave outside the circle an item they want the spirits to bless, so after having called the spirits and they arrive, they ask for whatever they called them for, and then ask that they touch and bless whatever item they left for the spirits. Though it is not advised that anyone ever leave the circle and physically engage with the spirits, mostly for their own safety, such is known to have been done, albeit it rare.

The knight, squire, and valet having returned from the demons with instructions, another pact is made (ad votum), possibly something like a license to depart — i.e. the demons are permitted to leave, their pact having been fulfilled, and ordered to be ready to come back when called — or it is simply that all this was done in accordance with the pact made when the demons first appeared (again, my Latin sucks). According to the demons' instructions, they obtained the body of a thief who had been executed in a gibbet. This was a common means of executing criminals, especially thieves. Basically the criminal is either hung by the neck until dead or placed in a hanging cage and left to die by exposure. A gibbet in particular is intended to leave the corpse rotting as a warning to others. Because of the stench, these executions were held far away from town, which meant these were prime targets for magicians to secretly obtain body parts or whole corpses for magical rituals. This has long been a practice in magic. Pieces of a body from one who died a horrible death are believed to possess immense power. Consider for a moment the remains of martyrs, in which their relics are believed to possess sacred powers. It is like that, except these bodies were more accessible to the public.

Necromancer with a torch and dagger in a circle, with an assistant removing hair from the corpse on the gallows
Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae...

Wellcome MS1766, c. 1776, folio 14r

Having a corpse, they placed the ring into the thief's mouth for a period of time (likely some duration of occult significance), then they cut the body open from anus to breast. Then the ring and sword were returned to the Duke, because now they are endowed with certain occult virtues. All of this tracks with traditional practices. The Duke needs some means of obtaining consecrated items to hasten the king's death. So a priest helps him. The priest cannot participate, as mutilation of a corpse would be a sin, and a violation of his own sanctity. So he solicits a knight and his squire to help, and the demons teach them how to do it. Now that they are instructed and sanctified by the demons, they consecrate the ring by placing it in the mouth of the executed thief, then they consecrate the sword by cutting open a body. Now these items have all the occult virtues they need for malefic magic. That these items have touched a corpse, an executed criminal, is reminiscent of magical procedures, such as those detailed in Necromancy in the Medici Library (translated by Brian Johnson), such as pricking a corpse with a needle, then using the same needle to prick a woman as part of an erotic binding spell. 

The ring itself is curious, as it appears to have already been used for magical purposes by the Duke of Burgundy. The Duke admits that his ring was received by a cleric for venereal purposes, and that he is a servant of Venus (velud dee Veneris obsequiosum servitorem). The ring itself, while worn, needs only to touch a woman for her to become enchanted and grow lustful for the wearer.

The priest continues by writing some "diabolical names" (likely voces magicae or untranslatable magical names of power) above the thief while still on the gibbet (likely on the cantilever supporting the body). He writes these names with a "spatula" (some kind of engraving or inscribing tool) in the thief's own blood — indicating that the corpse is still quite fresh. The Duke himself appears to have kept some part of this thief's corpse, perhaps the blood itself, in an amulet of sorts upon his person, worn under his shirt.

There is a mentioning of the King's brother stabbing him, the King, with a sword. It would be odd to do this ritual to hasten the king's death, as any regular ole sword would have done the trick. Stabbing someone to death isn't magical. Perhaps it is less magical and more practical, for if the sword had been used to cut open a rotten corpse, then the bacteria on the sword would spread to the king — perhaps similar to the needle pricking spell in MS Plut. 89 sup. 38, which would prevent the woman from desiring another man... because its difficult to lust for anyone when you're fighting an infection. Of course, this all rather silly, because if you are going to stab someone with a sword, it doesn't really matter if it could infect them, as the sword is probably just going to do that anyway. Once more, my Latin is rough and I could be missing something here. But it is worth noting that the Duke had also admitted to producing poisonous potions (pociones venenosas).

Further details of this ritual at Montjoie are absent, but there is enough here to gather that this is not some "elaborated theory of witchcraft," but appears to be a legitimate account of a ritual that occurred, even if the chronicler did not fully understand the material or details thereof. There is enough information here that allows us to conclude that this appears to be a legitimate ritual for conjuring spirits to obtain a certain objective through secret means.

These things were all of immense fascination to Bataille: secrecy, secret rituals, executions, corpses, killing the king, religious taboos, et al, and the fact that they took place at a site of immense importance to him: Mount Jupiter, near a dying oak tree... Bataille certainly absorbed all of this, likely with great excitement and enthusiasm. Who wouldn't? especially when you find a place with a history that fits so well into a mythology you have created for a new religion after the death of God.

Now, I should stress that Bataille was not that interested in magic. He addresses magic very briefly in Eroticism, and then says, "I don't really care about any of this. Go read Mauss." Acéphale was active from 1936 to 1939, while Eroticism was published in 1957. Perhaps Bataille's fascination with the occult was a fleeting preoccupation of his youth. When World War II breaks out, Bataille retreats. He produces more introspective works like Guilty, Inner Experience, and The Impossible, works focused on inner sovereignty, self-elation, et cetera. And Mauss's General Theory of Magic is more of an anthropological analysis of magic as social construct within societies, mostly by examining "primitive" cultures, much like Frazer's Golden Bough. It is not concerned with whether these practices are real or effective, but only looks at them as a social construct.

This is limiting, as someone who does have a variety of occult practices, who lives in a deeply haunted house, who has and still does engage with spirits... a sociological approach ends up being disappointing. Like the study of religious experiences, it is only focused on the social and individual values of these practices, as opposed to a certain reality that is difficult to quantify and qualify. It dismisses a huge aspect of what magic is and what it holds for those who practice it.

Bataille it appears was more interested in the taboo aspect of the occult, rather than actually practicing it. Patrick Waldberg would write about his initiation into Acéphale, which was included in the internal documents of the society. He describes having undergone a vow of silence at Bataille's apartment, and the next night being initiated in a ceremony around the dead tree. Out of the forest came robed figures with torches. Bataille himself burned sulfur as an incense (a very Saturnine incense, such as that specified in the Heptameron and Agrippa's Three Books), and Bataille would cut Waldberg's arm with a ceremonial dagger and draw blood — the dagger itself looked identical to that held by the acephalic being drawn by André Masson. This all seems more like the elaborated theory of witchcraft than any real practice. In part, it appears slightly Masonic — and it has been noted by Brotchie that Acéphale had some quasi-Masonic aspects — and in part is like something from Huysmans's Là-Bas. The rituals seem more like larping or cosplay than based on any practical existing occult tradition, being conducted symbolically as an act of transgression more than anything real or practically taboo. When I read Waldberg's description of his initiation, I am less enthused than in reading Bataille's descriptions of the tree and getting lost in the woods looking for Montjoie and his philosophical principles. The actual rituals appear to be a parody ("everything is purely parodic," The Big Toe) than a practical transgression. Such an opinion has been expressed by others, such as Justin Murphy (he specifically calls Bataille's bizarre rituals "larping"). And don't get me wrong, Bataille was transgressive. If we are to believe him (and we probably never should believe him), he masturbated in front of his mother's corpse in a room he had an orgy in years prior, jerking it while his pregnant wife was asleep in the next room... yeah. His ideas and much about his life are transgressive, but Acéphale simply is not quite that.

What I find so interesting here is that we have, basically, a larping group, a bunch of overzealous theorists that get carried away with trying to appear transgressive, but with some very powerful symbolism behind their choice of locale to conduct rituals — contrast this with an actual transgression, in which in the 14th century a priest was hired by a nobleman to conduct a magical rite, obtain what is needed from some demons, and use this to help hasten the death of the dying king. It is simply fascinating to look at a real transgression contrasted with an appearance of transgressing.

(A special thanks goes to Daniel Harms for helping me figure out where to find these images from the Wellcome Collection based on a really vague description I gave of them.)

Sacred Space: An Attempt at Classification and Qualification

 

Kiva at Long House, Mesa Verde, Colorado

Were I to be audacious enough to attempt to classify and qualify sacred space — and I am audacious — I would venture to posit the following terms and definitions. These are conceptions I have pondered and used for myself over many years. I initially conceived of these concepts back in 2013 when I was considering pursuing a PhD in architectural history, but opted to not accrue more student loan debt. These have largely lived in my head, but after my recent post on viewing sacred space through the eyes of Georges Bataille, I feel compelled to share the concepts under this new framework.

While this may initially appear systematic, it should be emphasized that this is neither systematic or final. I am fundamentally anti-systematic. Nor do I believe there is a system to the sacred. Systems are a human conception, a means for us to organize our experiences and understandings of those experiences, which the sublime ultimately surpasses. Certainly the numinous is sublime. We may generalize, but the sacred does not like to be categorized. Categories are little fences in which we put our ideas to inhabit, but the sacred is something that does not like fences and will quickly jump into another pen as soon as we put it in the pen we think it belongs to.

Thus, the following are generals and loose definitions as a departure point, instruments in approaching the varieties of sacred space and the manifestations for us to have more clarity in what is being experienced in the realm of the sacred.

Definitions:
Natural: those undomesticated aspects which remain original and primal as found in the wilderness outside of human society. Examples: mountains, prairies, animals, plants, the weather, seasons, oceans, forests, et al.

Profane: those elements and aspects of human life and society which have been established by taboos, laws, codes, social contracts, &c to set human society apart from the natural world. These include but are not limited to politics, economics, sexuality, personal relationships, business, drug use, et al.

Sacred: that which has been "set apart" from the profane (Eliade). Effectively, this is a means to transcend the profane, which may be viewed in two ways. Firstly, it is a "transgression" of taboos to experience primal nature as experienced prior to societal taboos (Bataille). Second, it is a secondary, substitutional means of experiencing primal nature via setting apart a time, space, persons, and objects for experiencing what Eliade calls "mythic history." This is a process of taking the sacred and setting rules around it to set it apart within the profane. This is usually what we call "religion," or more generally, it is civic-sanctioned sacred.

Divine / numinous: a non-physical objective to experience via the sacred. E.g. one seeks to commune with a saint at the location of their shrine, i.e. a sacred place associated with someone who is believed to be holy and therefore an intermediary with the divine.

Holy: a more general quality that meets certain criteria of religious prescriptions and rules, and are usually useful for accessing sacred experience / the divine.

Sacred Spaces / Places:
Sacred space: a location or area that is is believed to be sacred, i.e. that is not profane. These come into two varieties: primary and artificial sacred spaces.

Primary sacred space: a place that is inherently, a priori sacred. This is the original sacred world of prehistoric humans, which the profane was set apart from, long before human societies were formed. Primary sacred space has two varieties: natural and mythic sacred spaces.

Naturally sacred space: this is the natural world which human society has set itself apart from. This is effectively the raw wilderness, the totality of the natural world, and therefore would be viewed as inherently sacred or sacred a priori. It is already sacred, for who would are call nature anything other than sacred?

Mythic sacred space: this is the specifics in the natural world that have been designated or set apart from the rest of the natural world as particularly sacred. For instance, of all the vast wilderness in ancient Greece, Mount Ida was set apart as the birth place of Zeus and Mount Olympus set apart as the home of the gods. In many regards, mythic sacred spaces maintain their wildness, their raw naturalness, but are nonetheless naturally sacred places with a mythology set upon them and setting them apart from the rest of the wilderness. This is essentially what most religious rites are endeavoring to invoke, what Eliade calls "mythic history."

Artificial sacred space: this is sacred space that is established under profane conditions, i.e. societal taboos created this sacred space. This is a hybrid sort of sacred space, almost liminal, though "liminal" will have a different concept here (see "liminal sacred space"). It is through human interaction and taboos to set this space apart as sacred. There are two main types: historical and built sacred space.

Historical sacred space: this is a sacred space that is a step beyond mythological sacred space, but rather than belonging to mythic history, it belongs to actual history. For example, the Tempietto by Bramante is historically sacred because it serves as a shrine to St. Peter, as it is built upon the site that is believed to be where St. Peter was crucified, and thus serves as a martyrium for the saint. The site is historically sacred because a taboo had occurred, namely the killing of Peter ("thou shall not kill"). His death transgressed into the sacred, i.e. martyrdom, and thus the site of this event becomes sacred. The shrine itself is a built sacred space upon a historical sacred space. The site itself is sacred a posteriori, it is made sacred after the fact of Peter's death. Thus, historical sacred space is sacred a posteriori. There was nothing particularly sacred about the site prior to the saint's death. Further, historical sacred spaces may be an enhancement of mythic sacred spaces. For instance, the fact that Roman emperors frequently built their palaces on the Palatine Hill is an enhancement of the belief that Romulus built his house on the Palatine Hill, thus being their later contribution and engagement with mythic history. The Tempietto is another such example. Sometimes it is a sacralization of profane space, such as the Campo de' Fiori where Giordano Bruno was executed. This was once a civic plaza in the middle of Rome, but because Bruno was executed here, it may maintain a civic function, but then takes on a sacred function in the commemoration of an important person.

Constructed sacred space: this is sacred space that has been arbitrarily set apart from the profane. This is usually a temple, church, or other various religious structures. However, these are set apart within the profane, or more accurately, the profane has set this space apart for sacred functions. It is the sacred predicated upon profane authorization. Thus, the taboos are established to be violated to engage with constructed sacred space. A piece of land is set aside to construct this sacred space, and throughout much of history, civic funds were used to build such structures. King Solomon orders the Temple to be built using funds from the Israelites. Cathedrals of Europe were built using civic funds. And in many ways, built sacred spaces maintain civic functions. For instance, British royalty traditionally have their coronation at Westminster Abbey. This is a civic function occurring in a religious structure. Many churches maintain a civic function in their community, such as being a base of operation for things like food drives, soup kitchens, support groups, et al. A curious example is when crosses and steeples on churches are used to conceal cellphone towers: hiding the profane within a sacred symbol. There are three main varieties of constructed sacred spaces: permanent, temporary, and ad hoc.

Permanent sacred spaces: these are sacred spaces that are built to serve as a sacred space in perpetuity, indefinitely. For as long as the profane exists and supports this built sacred space, it will remain sacred. The church in the center of town will remain a sacred space so long as the town survives. So in the case of ghost towns, the churches that were erected fall out of their usual built sacred establishment. They may retain some perception of having once been sacred, and thus may fall into the "liminal sacred space" category. The vast majority of built religious structures belong to this category.

Temporary sacred space: this is space that is erected in perpetuity so long as the profane surrounding it survives to support it, but it is not intended to always serve a sacred function. A great example is Masonic lodges. So long as there is someone there to unlock the door, most Masonic lodges are freely accessible for the public to view. Going into a lodge room is not a sacred occurrence. It is not sacred until the members gather to officially open Lodge and non-members are kept without. The space is only sacred when the Lodge is open. When the Lodge is closed, the space goes back to being a regular profane space.

Ad hoc sacred space: these are spaces that are totally profane or natural, but is temporarily set apart to become a sacred space for whatever sacred function is needed, and then abandoned or broken down after use. Magical rituals usually fall into this category, and the magic circle is a great example. Namely, the magician will use their attic or basement or wherever is convenient and private or even out in the wilderness, and then draw a magical circle in which they will set themselves apart (profane) and conjure spirits outside the circle. This space may continue to be where where the magician will return time and time again, or it may be a one-time event. The rituals themselves usually do not require it to be the same place indefinitely. It is merely selecting a place that is convenient and private from prying eyes, and it can really be done anywhere that meets those criteria. Another instance would be a yoga group that meets in a public park, seeing as yoga has many spiritual associations, and thus the space in the park temporarily becomes sacred for its convenience for the time the yoga group is practicing.

Liminal sacred space: this is a space that may possess some sacred qualities but is neither of the things above, and therefore is marginally sacred. In occult practices, crossroads are sacred conjunction points and therefore sacred, but in a liminal sense, being both and neither of any two or more things. Cemeteries are a great example, as they are where people live, but those people are no longer living; it is where the dead live. The sacred rituals conducted in interring the dead is one predicated on Bataille's notion of the corpse taboo and that the corpse must be put away. Thus cemeteries take on a sacred quality, but ultimately are liminal as a place of habitation for dead people. Liminal sacred space may be a deconsecrated church, in which an atmosphere of sacrality is still perceived, but it no longer serves any sacred function. Since built sacred spaces have a profane function, or at least are civically authorized sacred spaces, ghost towns take on a similar liminal sacred quality. Ghost towns were once places bustling with activity and many inhabitants, and then today some ruins remain and it's still and quiet. These places are viewed as "haunted" and therefore take on liminal sacred qualities as being set apart from the profane. There is a subcategory of liminal sacred space, and that is restored sacred space.

Restored sacred space: this is a space that was once sacred and then fell out of being sacred for some duration of time and then later is restored to a new sacred space. One such example might be a synagogue that became de-utilized as such and then is later bought by a Christian congregation and repurposed as a church. This is more nuanced, as it is no longer liminal though it no longer serves its initial sacred function, but it is restored to a new sacred function. Stonehenge is a good example, as it had a sacred function when it was built, but for a long time became a bunch of curiously placed stones, and now these days neopagans have begun to use it again for solstice and equinox celebrations. It is not the original sacred function, but it has been restored to a new one. Restored sacred spaces were at one time liminal, but become sacred once more. 

The above is very generalized. It does not take into account nuances. For instance, National Parks in the US are these curious natural sacred places, since they have a taboo imposed upon them. The taboo is that the wilderness needs to be preserved and should not be harmed or developed into profane things. However, by placing this taboo upon the wilderness and calling it a "National Park" it becomes profane. But of course, we don't perceive it that way. We may pass the sign that says "You are now entering a National Park" but we don't experience that while standing in a forest glade or on a mountain top, no matter what artificial boundary is put upon it on a map. And at the same time, the taboo still exists. We're not going to cut down a tree or shoot a deer. This is very nuanced to natural sacred space.

Another example is the Ark Experience in Kentucky. It fits the definition of both a permanent built sacred space as well as a mythic sacred space, as it is trying to recreate "mythic history" that can be experienced. Certainly the Ark Experience is sacred space, but which? Or how much is it one or the other?

And spaces may get layered and complicated, like a palimpsest. Caves are natural sacred space, and then prehistoric humans went into them to conduct rites and paint on the walls. This is a constructed enhancement of natural sacred space. But these cave paintings were so long ago that we have no memory and observable understanding of what these paintings were for, so the cave paintings become a mythic sacred space to us today, layered over a natural sacred space.

The US Capitol Building is another example. Is Americanism a religion? Is there not a painting in the Capitol called the Apotheosis of George Washington? Is Thomas Jefferson not enshrined in a Pantheon, and Lincoln enshrined in a Temple and Washington enshrined in an obelisk? Americanism is disputable as a religion, and certainly it throws the above definitions for a loop. Are these civic memorials or are they sacred shrines? Is the Capitol Building a temple on a hill?

When it comes to built sacred spaces, these are predicated upon "religion" (usually), as they are civically authorized to be set apart from the profane. But this opens up the huge problem of what is religion? In the US, civically a religion is vaguely defined by the IRS, and the IRS admits that the definition is deliberately vague. So a televangelist for-profit center preaching to give them money because God said so... is this religion? Is the stage where he preaches sacred? This would be debatable so far as anyone believes him, and many do, but also many do not. This is where Bataille's definition of the profane being set apart from the sacred by setting up taboos, and to transgress those taboos is to enter the sacred. The televangelist's stage is a sacred space, because civically it is defined as such by law and tax codes, i.e. profane taboos are established to set this civic-authorized sacred space to exist. And just as the televangelist uses the convoluted and complex tax codes and laws and definitions to continue what they do, so too is the extent to which we can classify and qualify their studio as sacred space.

And I could go on, but this suffices initially for approaching the qualities and types of sacred spaces and the experiences they would provide.

Joe Juhasz: An Interview, Part 1: His Early Life

 

Joseph Juhasz, age 19, Long Island Star Journal, 25 June 1957

I have known Joseph "Joe" B. Juhasz for just over a eleven years. Actually, the exact date I first met him was August 8, 2011. I had just moved to Denver. My friend and roommate Scott Sworts had been a student of Joe's (Joe called his long-term pupils his "children") and first introduced me to Joe's work. About a year prior to meeting Joe, Scott had sent me Joe's writings on Psychology Today, which he would later be removed from posting owing to a controversial post about "better dead than sad." Scott and I had lunch with Joe that fateful day in Boulder. The first thing Joe said to me when Scott said, "This is Patrick and he's like one of my children," Joe would shout, "Goddamn, a motherfucking grandson!" (He has many actual grandchildren, but an intellectual grandchild appears to be rare, I suppose). Over the years I have had the opportunity to get to know Joe better via his "Putty Club" group discussions, we also taught architecture at Community College of Denver together for a couple of semesters, and some off and on conversations throughout the years.

Realizing that Joe is not exactly young, I felt it was necessary to just sit down and have a talk with him. One day Joe will pass from this world — he won't die, he will just go home. Joe is one of those strange souls, someone so original, so inimitable, you don't imagine they will die. He will just move onto something else that isn't this petty mortal coil. He just came down here for a lifetime to slum-it-up. So to interview him on his life and works, it seems time is of the essence. On a cool afternoon at Joe's home in Boulder, Saturday, September 17th, 2022, Joe and I had coffee and we talked. At this time, I was mostly interested in his early life, because one could spend thousands of hours talking with Joe. There is plenty out there on his later life, but it seems more critical to know his early life first. Over the years of knowing Joe, I have gotten tidbits of info about his life in Hungary, escaping persecution, immigrating to America, but I have never really heard his early life narrated. And as is Joe's usual style, he interjects commentary, interpretations, personal perceptions, et al into the overall narrative. You don't just get the facts when you talk to Joe; you get an education in American and European culture, history, and sociology. The following is what Joe told me:

Joe was born Juhászi József Borisz Brúnó Béla Arnold Frigyes. In Eastern Europe, the last name comes first. So his Western name is Joseph Boris Juhasz. All the accents get dropped. His name is as much a part of his identity as any other characteristic about him. As I recall some years ago Joe said the spelling of the name Juhász was a kind of Hungarian shibboleth. Juhász is Hungarian for "shepherd," so the deliberate misspelling of the name called attention to one as an outsider. His father was born Haas Vilmos (Western: William Juhasz). Joe's eldest brother was born Haas Ferenc (Francis Juhasz), his second oldest brother was born Juhasz Laszlo (Lester Shepherd), and Joe was born Juhászi József. The changes in spellings were attempts by Hungarian hospitals and government to designate them as not actually being Hungarian. The reason for this was their Jewish heritage.

Joe's father was of a long line of wealthy German-Hungarian Jewish high bourgeois. His mother (Mary Christianus Juhasz, Eastern: Christiánusz Mária) was quarter-Jewish, with her maternal grandfather being Jewish, and was similarly of high bourgeois background. This is complex for Joe's Jewish identity. Jewish custom is matrilineal, so one's Jewish heritage comes from the mother. Though his father was fully Jewish, to Jewish communities this did not matter. Even his mother was not considered Jewish, as her Jewish heritage came from her grandfather, so neither her nor her mother were considered Jewish. As I remember Joe describing years ago, mother is fact, father is myth. In other words, there were people who saw you come out of your mother, so there are eyewitnesses that your mother is your mother, but there are no eyewitnesses for the father. Even DNA proof is still another "story/myth" without eyewitness account that your father is your father.

However, to gentiles this did not matter, as they collectively considered both the father and the mother in establishing the extent to which one is Jewish. Effectively, Joseph and his brothers (to crib a Thomas Mann book title) was considered five-eighths Jewish, period. The boys were "aware of [their] topsy-turvy status," and "became victims of [their] contradictory identities," Joe says.

Joe is the youngest of three boys by many years. His middle brother, Lester, was born 27 September 1929, whereas Joe was born in Budapest on 30 January 1938. The reason for the gap was that his parents were separated, but not divorced. His father had been in Belgium for "a long stay," and would return to Budapest in late 1936. He and Mary would end their separation and she would become pregnant at the age of 40. They had previously planned to immigrate to Canada, but with Joe on the way, they abandoned these plans. Joe tells me "they felt stuck in Hungary." William had already converted to Catholicism, yet in spite of this, Hungary was becoming more intensely anti-Semitic, and was beginning a process of restricting Jewish civil rights. And let's be clear, Joe Juhasz is a Holocaust survivor. They remained in Hungary throughout the Holocaust, with increasing severity of anti-Jewish legislation, culminating in genocide in 1945.

Public schools in Hungary would not reopen until the fall of 1945. As as result, Joe began his formal schooling a year late (age seven, rather than six). He would complete elementary school in the spring of 1948 and was subsequently admitted into the Piarist Street Gimasium — i.e. Gymnasium, which is term used in Germany, Hungary, Austria, et al to denote higher primary schools that prepare students for university. His elder brothers had attended this school. He was initially eligible to attend a Catholic school, but in the Catholic schools became nationalized in the summer of 1948, so he started secondary school at Piarist Street Gimasium.

In November 1948, Joe's father and eldest brother were smuggled out of Hungary to Vienna. Joe, his middle brother, and mother were "left behind" in Hungary, along with his eldest brother's wife and children. Joe uses the term "left behind." He describes it — in his own words as "paranoid" — as something like a hostage situation. His father and brother were permitted to leave, but someone had to be "left behind" to ensure a tie back to Hungary, and Austria had the father and eldest brother as hostages as well. On December 26th, Joe, Lester, and Mary would be smuggled out of Hungary to Vienna in the trunk of American diplomat Steven Koczak's 1947 Plymouth (this event is actually recounted in Anna Koczak's memoir, A Single Yellow Rose, 2012). Joe is now 10 years old, and he describes this time as being "literally in the Vienna of The Third Man [film, 1949], a city of spies, devastation, and double-dealings." In the spring of 1949, Francis would smuggle his wife and children out of Hungary, and they and the rest of the Juhasz family would successfully reach the American Occupation Zone of Austria. Here, Joe is briefly enrolled in the fifth grade of a Hungarian language school in Salzburg. There in Salzburg, Francis and his family would move into separate quarters, and then later immigrate to America on their own.

In 1950, William, Mary, Lester, and Joe would move to Rome, Italy. During this year in Italy, the family would spend a considerable amount of time with the family of Sándor Márai in Naples. Joe would not attend school or receive formal education during this year. Later in the year, Lester would immigrate to America and eventually receive a full scholarship to attend Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. In March 1951, William, Mary, and Joe would immigrate to the United States.

Joe and his parents would reside for a few weeks on the Upper West Side of New York City and then move to 88-11 34th Avenue, Jackson Heights, Queens. Shortly thereafter, Joe spends the spring of 1951 to the summer of 1952 in Fort Ord, California, where his eldest brother was teaching Hungarian in the Army Language School (today known as the Defense Language School) in Monterey, California. Joe recalls it being a hybrid environment at the "axis" of "Carmel, Monterey, Fort Ord." Fort Ord is a military base, and Monterey was still "a little Steinbeckian," and Carmel was "already an artist colony." Joe and his older brother would wander through this California that included The Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller, as well as the San Francisco of the Red Diaper Babies.

This is typical of Joe. Films and novels oftentimes frame his description of things. For instance, the first time I interviewed Joe about his friendship with Douglas Darden, I brought him a slow-cooked goat leg from my goat stock. I birthed, raised, slaughtered, and processed this goat myself. So Joe asked if this goat was a Pan or a Satyr (he was a Satyr). When Joe describes his memories of Darden, he described him in terms of the poem in Nabokov's Pale Fire: "I was the shadow of the waxwing slain / By the false azure in the windowpane; / I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I / Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky." The name of Joe's discussion group, Putty Club, comes from a Hungarian children's book called The Boys of St. Paul Street, from which the term "putty club" has become a Hungarian idiom for a group that exists to maintain pointless rituals. Such is Joe.

So here in California, Joe is experiencing the end of the Steinbeck era of immigration to California as an agricultural paradise, but also frequently met with hostility to outsiders. But the area is well settled and established at this point, hence the existence of Fort Ord, a military presence. The essence of "paradise" in the area is evident in Miller's book title, namely the oranges that grow in Hieronymus Bosch's Paradise of Earthly Delights. The Steinbeckian essence of the Californian paradise, the immigration of peoples from the Midwest, is indicative of one aspect Miller's book, but also the isolation and solitude felt at Big Sur, which today is still very isolated, not to mention he sent his French buddy away to Monterey. At the same time, there was an entire generation in San Francisco that grew up in households that were sympathetic to communism (red diaper babies). It is a strange mixing of peoples and cultures and politics in the area. It is this mixing and dialectics that Joe is experiencing in formative years of his life as an immigrant himself, but also one that is anti-communist.

In the fall of 1952, Joe would return to Jackson Heights and start sixth grade at St. Joan of Arc Primary School. He would not graduate there due to an intercession of a close family friend, Robert A. Graham, where he would be admitted to Xavier High School in the fall of 1954. Xavier High is a Jesuit military high school in Manhattan. While there, Joe describes himself as "an icon of the successful immigrant." He would be the New York State Debate Champion in his junior year. He letters (i.e. gets his varsity letter) in swimming all four years at Xavier. He was the editor of the school literary magazine. He was an officer in the Xavier regiment. He was a National Merit Scholar and a GM Scholar. Et cetera. His resume there is quite extensive.

Xavier was at the boundary of the Greenwich Village scene of the 1950s. He was a marginal participant in that world, as well as an active member of the Catholic Workers movements on the Lower East Side, while commuting back and forth to the conservative world of Jackson Heights. Through his father he is also closely associated with the vigorous literary and scientific Hungarian community in New York, which at that time was "committedly anti-Communist." There was also an individual of some renown in the New York Broadway scene (Joe could not remember his name), with whom Joe would be in his employment in the summer of 1956, which put Joe at the edges of the Broadway theater scene of the 1950s. Throughout the rest of that man's life, Joe would receive fourth row center tickets to the opening night of most Broadway shows. Joe it appears has kept every single playbill from these broadways, as his bookshelves, which line his entire home, is littered with numerous playbills over many decades.

Joe would become an American citizen during his senior year of high school. At the same time, in October 1956 the Hungarian Revolution would take place. Joe would make patriotic recordings for Radio Free Europe during the Revolution. In the end, in spite of the Truman Doctrine the US did not intervene on behalf of the "liberated" Hungarian government. Effectively, when Harry S. Truman was President, he pledged and Congress would later support that any nations under threat of communist control and was fighting to maintain or institute democracy, the US would provide financial and military aid. This did not happen in Hungary. The revolt would be suppressed and the Soviet Union was able to recapture Hungary. This event was formative to the entire Juhasz family who were and had been committed to Western oriented interventionists. In the spring of 1957 a flood of liberal-minded Hungarian refugees came to the US. As a response, Joe taught an English class — while still in high school — for these newly arrived refugees.

In his senior year, Joe would receive a number of scholarships to university and he makes the decision to not attend a Catholic university. In spite of his disappointment with America's response to the October-November Revolution, he remains a committed assimilated American and in preference to academic scholarships (e.g. a full-ride to Columbia University or MIT) he accepts an ROTC scholarship to Brown University, which he enters in the fall of 1957.

Brown University during the years of his attendance (1957 to 1961) still had much of that "frat boy" culture of the traditional "Ivies" (i.e. Ivy League). In fact, although he didn't hide his Jewish heritage, Joe would become a member of Delta-Tau-Delta Fraternity in his sophomore year. Joe describes Brown at the time as an equal number of "gentleman's Cs" and "overachievers" — albeit the term "gentleman's C" does not carry the same meaning today as it did in the 1950s (back then it designated someone who did not spend all their time getting straight A's, i.e. is not at university just to excel in academics; today the term designates someone who is of wealthy background and as a result gets a passing grade, a C, though they did not earn it).

At Brown, just as at Xavier, Joe was a star debater. He and his close fraternity brother Colston Chandler decided to go to a nearby high school, Hope High School, to start a debate club there. Joe and Chandler founded the Hope High School Debating Society, and it is in this club that Joe would meet his first future wife, Suzanne Hecht. Suzanne is a renowned author of dozens of books, and though she and Joe are divorced today, she still goes by Suzanne Juhasz owing to the fact she has published so many books under that name.

Joe initially entered Brown University to study engineering. Freshmen weren't required to pick a specific branch of engineering, but nonetheless at the end of his freshmen year he would switch to psychology.

At this time, Joe began to get tired. We had meticulously talked and combed through his early life over a few hours. I was wearing out and clearly Joe was as well. So we finished our coffees and decided we would pick back up and discuss his young adulthood at a later date.

Sacred Space though the Lens of Georges Bataille

 

Remus jumping the wall of Rome

from Beckett's Comic History of Rome

I have for some time contemplated doing a PhD in architectural history with my dissertation to be focused on sacred space. The sacred is something that has long preoccupied me, and in particular sacred space. What makes it sacred? And how might we define sacred space? What are the different manifestations of sacred space? The spatial aspect of the sacred is something particularly unique, and regardless of whether or not I do a PhD, it still remains an item of serious study for me. Recently I was reading Bataille's Eroticism and a different perspective unveiled itself to me. It really is the implementation of taboo that really distinguishes where the sacred and the profane are divided.

Firstly, the usual working definition of the sacred might be what Eliade expresses: the sacred is that which is "set apart" from the profane. This definition usually works in its simplicity for most aspects of the sacred. When Eliade gives examples and discusses the sacred, it seems implied that the sacred is being gathered into one place, partitioned off, set apart from the profane. Thus, we might usually view the sacred as something "within," something that we "go into," with the profane outside and surrounding the sacred.

And this might very well be our usual view of the sacred, particular sacred space. It is enclosed and set apart, keeping the profane without. We may think of this in the example of the church in a city. The profane is the city and all things occurring within the city: business, politics, economics, family life, drinking with friends, sex, defecating, etc. Then we set apart of place in the city and build an enclosure we say is "God's house" and call it sacred. Here the church is an encasement containing the numinous and divine, with the profane outside surrounding it. Usually this perception of sacred space works for us, but its simplicity is deceiving. Is not the city an encasement of the profane? We build walls around the city to contain the profane things we have generated as a society. Outside the city is the wilderness. Would one ever dare to call nature profane? Would one dare to call nature anything other than sacred?

Certainly Georges Bataille saw it this way. The profane is something we as humans developed. We established taboos, social contracts, laws, codes, et al to set apart ourselves from nature. It is when one transgresses society's taboos and laws that one moves out of the profane, and thus moves out into the sacred. The sacred is a transgression. 

The myth of Romulus and Remus comes to mind. The myth is usually presented as Remus violated the sacred function (contradiction? does the sacred have a utility?) of the wall and leapt over it, and thus Romulus had to kill his twin. According to Bataille, this would not be a sacrilege but rather a violation of taboo. The wall protects the city (profane), and to cross it outside of the gates is a violent gesture of infiltration, laying siege to the wall that so preciously protects the city. This is a profane taboo, a violence against the city; not a sacrilege. The city in this case, Rome, is enclosed, partitioned off by its taboos, and beyond it lays the sacred wilderness. This is what Remus did: he transgressed into the sacred.

Magic circles also come to mind. Ceremonial magicians tend to the think of the magic circle as a sacred space. But the circle sets the magician apart from the spirits outside the circle, and the magician dares not cross the circle or suffer injury by the spirits the magician has called. For the magician, to cross the magic circle is taboo, and like Remus they forfeit their safety if they do. I am thinking of something like Liber Juratus or the Sworn Book of Honorius. The magician will go into the wilderness and construct the circle. Then venture away from the circle, further into the wilderness and call forth the spirits. As the spirits begin to come forward, the magician will continue to call and pray as they proceed back to the circle, and close the circle behind them. The sacred is without the circle, out in the wilderness where the spirits reside. Who would dare call these spirits anything other than sacred? No matter the spirits, be they angels, demons, sprites, etc. Who, indeed, would dare call them profane?

Indeed, to engage in magic in any manner is usually considered taboo, hence the secrecy of conducting magical rituals. Throughout history magic and various magical practices have been taboo. To engage the spirits is taboo. Thus, to call them is already a transgression, and engagement with the sacred. I will confess my own engagements with spirits has been a means to engage the sacred, to commune with the divine, to touch the ethereal plane. And certainly I get weird looks and dismissive remarks from those I discuss these things with (which is rare), because they view magic as a transgression. And really, it is a transgression.

Even under the conception of the sacred being enclosed and partitioned off from and within the profane, one still transgresses the city when one goes into the church to partake in Mass or whatever. They have crossed the boundary of the city to enter sacred space. However, if we are to accept Bataille's conception spatially, the church is not an enclosure of the sacred, but a portal within the city that transgresses the profane and carries (portare, to carry) beyond the the profane into the sacred. The church is a gate in the same way a city has a gate in its walls.

But is the church within the city really a sacred space? Yes... well, kind of. It might be better to call the church "holy," because the sacredness of a church is still predicated on rules and taboos (profane). One should not be having sex on the altar or smoking pot in the nave/sanctuary/&c. There are codes of what one should do and not do. There are obviously rules, and rules are profane. Furthermore, many churches have civil functions, and some are integral to civil life, such as the Church of England at its founding.

Similarly, the magic circle is sacred, kind of. But again, it might be better to call it "holy" or as is more common in grimoires "exorcised" (sworn). There is a process of separation the magician will partake in, namely things like abstinence from sex and masturbation, abstaining from alcohol, limiting one's diet to vegetables and then fasting, secluding from the world (so far as possible for the magician), &c. The film A Dark Song, for all its inaccuracies of the Abramelin rite, is a good illustration of the isolation the magician may endure. So there is a setting apart for the magician and their rituals, but they nonetheless have rules.

In reality, these may be more thought of as liminally sacred. They are sacred, kind of. They are not raw nature and wilderness. But they are also not profane politics, economics, sexuality, &c. The church, the magician, &c are liminal in their sacredness.

Masonic lodges are an interesting example. The members purge the Lodge of non-members, close the door, do things in secured secrecy, &c. Having opened the Lodge, the members proceed to do degree work and conduct business. I remember once talking to a former Mason who went on to join the OTO and Golden Dawn, and he said of all the ritual openings he has ever seen in these esoteric secret societies, the Masonic opening ritual is the most sacred and powerful, and then it is immediately ruined by conducting business (voting on bills, election of officers, et al). And that is true. Masons go through great ritual lengths to create a sacred space, only to smash it all by conducting profane business. The ritual to set the Lodge apart from the outside profane world is then made profane once more. So, what is this? Is it liminal? Kind of sacred?

Well, there are still rules within the Lodge, taboos that cannot be transgressed. So something in the Lodge is still being set apart, something is still sacred: the Bible upon the altar. In Colorado and other jurisdictions, no one is allowed to cross between the Worshipful Master and the altar when the Bible is opened. No one is allowed to touch or mess with the altar except the Senior Deacon. All the taboos and restrictions in the Lodge concern the Bible — all other "taboos" are just codes of conduct, courtesy, and manners. The true taboos of the Lodge are around the Bible on the altar. The altar is the sacred space set apart from even the Masons in the Lodge. Square and Compasses upon the Bible upon the altar surrounded by the three lesser lights is the fetish object, narrowly around which is the space that is set apart from the profane dealings of the Masons in the room, though the Lodge itself is liminal in its sacrality.

All this is more of a modification, or at least a clarification of my old classifications of sacred space. Previously I had considered things like forest glades, mountains, &c to be "found" or "naturally" sacred spaces. They were already sacred. Things like shrines and churches are "constructed" sacred spaces with some nuances to that overall classification. However, now that I have this perspective from Bataille, I view these as just "sacred" (nature, wilderness), with those sacred spaces we construct as "liminal" sacred spaces. This, at the very least, is a better step forward for me in distinguishing the types and qualities of sacred spaces.

Disputing Douglas Darden: A Retort

 

"When are you going to do real projects?" note from project files

I recently was rereading the dialogue between Darden and Keith Loftin III (whom I casually knew while doing my Masters at CU Denver), which was published in Installations Two (Fall 1993), a student run journal of architecture, of which only 500 copies were printed, and the only one I can find is in the special collections at the Auraria Library. This was a three "track" piece, in which the first "track" was Darden talking to himself, the second track a dialogue between Darden and his student James Trewitt on Laughing Girls, and the third a dialogue between Darden and Loftin about the reality of architect (more or less). These three tracks are presented interlinearly (kind of), so we have to read chunks of each track along side the others.

I really appreciate the Darden-Loftin conversation, especially their discussion of the client and the architect. Too often, when it comes to Darden, we are looking at a man who views architecture as a high ideal, something that works far abstractly than is really practical, and that the client is some byproduct — or worse, some Randian subservient entity that finances the architect's ambitions. And really, Darden's clients are all fictions. He invents clients, they are fictions, and strangely subservient to his whims. In reality, the client in Darden's allegories (designs) are afterthoughts, something invented to add substance to his work, and aren't necessarily an agent that was driving the design at any one time. It is literature, ideas, other things that drive his designs, and a client is later invented to corroborate the work. Darden has specifically stated: "literature has thus been my inspiration and, effectively, my sponsor," and again, "a novel could be the veritable client for a building design."

And this all tracks with Darden, namely that the reality of the profession does not entirely concern him, or at least he had no actual experience in the professional field of architecture to full appreciate the reality of making buildings. He even wrote late in his life while travelling in Japan giving lectures, on a little piece of writing paper: "When are you going to do real projects?" And this is something he struggled with near the end. In an interview I had with Peter Schneider in 2015, Darden regretted near the end of his life that he had never done a real building. According to Schneider, Darden actually tried to work for David Tryba, but his illness had so far progressed that it became difficult to meet the demands of professional architectural practice, and nothing became of it.

Darden only ever had one real client. I know next to nothing about this project or the client, except having seen the final presentation drawings and that it was for the "Fords." The Ford House is... amateur. I remember Schneider calling it "pedantic." It looks like a postmodern house par excellent. But there is nothing "real" about this house. As usual, Darden does not provide scale, north, site... just plans and a couple of elevations and sections. Nothing tells us how it is to be built, and there aren't even labels that tell us what the rooms are for, or any data or anything meaningful to the architectural profession. And it certainly was never built. One might as well count the Ford House as another theoretical design.

The only other "real" project Darden had was called "The Construction of Demolition" in collaboration with Bob Curtis. This was an installation project for Nature Morte Gallery in New York City (204 East Tenth Street), of which the only drawing is dated 15 January 1987. The only other "real" project was also an installation project for I-Club in Fuku-oku, Japan, of which some Polaroids of the model and a single drawing dated 19 January 1991 survive. That is about as "real" as Darden ever got.

Too often, Darden's view on the client and the reality of the architecture profession as a whole is restricted to his time in academia. I think his dialogue with Loftin is worth quoting at length:

DD: ... As the architect, if you bring to the table a higher sense of what is possible through engaging the Work, you might begin to have the client yield, in turn, to a deeper substratum of feelings which would engender a more satisfying architecture.

K3: Why yield? Why not compassion? Why not empathy?

DD: Why yield? Because the client must yield to a whole different level of understanding, of existence, than square footages or profit margins suggest. I believe it was e.e. cummings [sic] who said that to be fully human within our society is the most difficult vocation we face.

 K3: Of course, but I think of building as an event. As you well know, ‘building’ is actually a verb used as a noun. So, it is fundamentally an action, a play whose curtain never comes down. I remember reading that Christo [and Jeanne-Claude] spoke of his “running Fence” project, during one of the many hearings before it was constructed, as if the work of art was right then and there, in the process of negotiation, that everybody was part of the art. For him the political, social, legal process was part of the work. From this perspective, a building is merely the physical product of a complex and never ending conversation, one with many speakers. The (seldom used) adjectival cliché for this interchange is civility.

I think that helps illustrate Darden's perception, and I appreciate Loftin's counterpoints, in many ways challenging Darden to consider the reality of the profession. And Darden does seem to be... not ambivalent... but definitely less sympathetic to the demands of the profession. I don't believe there is a conclusion to their dialogue. Darden and Loftin make a resolution, but it feels soft... maybe contrived. It is as if they were cognizant of the fact they were running out of page space and needed to wrap it up. That said, both make valid points, but as a professional, I do side more with Loftin than Darden on the reality of the architectural profession.

As Loftin points out, sometimes things like the client's restrictions and the building department and neighborhood meetings can be excellent driving factors to good design. I have seen these things degrade my lovely designs, but I've also see these things become challenges that created some clever resolutions and elegant design decisions. The Pullman in Denver is a project I worked on that we came up with some clever and elegant decisions that were actually driven by the client, the building department, etc, and I think it came out nicely. But I do recognize Darden's point that the profession can really destroy an architect's love of the profession. Here is a quote by Darden from Looking After the Underbelly:

I got into architecture because of my dreams. And from friends of mine, as architects, that would not design so much as a doorknob for themselves, now that have been so extraverted in their concerns had to be of the building department, the client, the budget, dealing with the contractor; they don’t even have any dreams anymore. And what I mean by having dreams as an architect is making something from your dreams or making a dream out of architecture. And, you know, again, dreams — when I mean dreams, I don’t mean aspirations, like Martin Luther King saying, “I have a dream.” I mean what happens to us when we go to sleep.

Darden iterates this same idea about dreams in his conversation with Loftin. But I will agree, the reality and demands of the profession can be a dream-killer. I remember recently I was sketching some details on my notepad, because sometimes it's easier and quicker to work things out by hand than to spend forever trying to do it in the computer. One of the senior architects saw what I was doing and told me that I need to get with the times and do that stuff in the computer, no one does that stuff by hand anymore, and I told her: "I'm sorry architecture is dead to you." And really, doing things by hand sometimes helps maintain my dreams in the professional field, and for this coworker, architecture was dead, and only the reality of construction and bureaucracy of building departments remain. When at a party or something and I tell people I work in architecture, they tend to ask if I get to do "creative stuff." I tell them that the "creative" is a very small part of the job, and most of my time is spent trying to ensure we keep the creative stuff, not lose the valuable parts of the design to "value engineering" or letting the reality of construction destroy its aesthetics. Hand sketching details is a part of that effort to keep the "archi" (chief, principal, high) in architecture.

And I've used Darden's words before in the office. There was a time when our office was split. We were in an old brick warehouse building, which had thick brick demising walls and one opening between the sides. One side of the wall was the planning and conceptual personnel, and on the other was the construction documents and production personnel. If you were me going over to the CD side of the wall, they would start shouting, "Hey! Stay over there in imagination land! Over here is the real world! Over here you can't take 7 and 7 and get 13." And when they would come over to the planning side, I would say, "Do you have a passport? Because this isn't the real world anymore. Over here I expect you to design a doorknob for yourself without first checking with fucking building department and the code book!"

On the one hand, I agree with Darden: maintain your dreams; never stop dreaming architecture. My studies on Darden, as well as Lequeu are one means to not stop dreaming architecture. I also like to do reconstructions of the architectural descriptions from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. And there is my side project of designing the Tomb for God. I understand that the demands of the architectural profession can be a dream-killer, and I have to find ways of maintaining those dreams. However, I also agree with Loftin. I recognize the fact that architecture is meant to be built; it is meant to become real, to be inhabited, to be used, to be personalized by its inhabitants. Architecture must also be safe and accessible: you can't design a tinderbox with no means of escape, nor can you design something that a person in a wheelchair can't use. There is a consequence of architecture becoming real: it must follow the rules.

I think Darden understood that architecture should become real. I'm thinking of Ken Burns's documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright, the part where (Vincent Scully?) says that a painter can sit in their attic producing paintings and convince themselves that the outside world doesn't understand, but an architect needs a client, needs a commission; it is just the reality of being an architect. I believe Darden understood this deficit in his portfolio, and there was a desire to produce a real project, so see something he drew become real.

I recently was on the construction site of the Academy on Mapleton Hill. I have been on this project for almost eight years, and the first four years were spent getting the project approved by the City of Boulder. There was much heartache, late nights, rushing to meet deadlines, a lot of compromises, but also a lot of clever arguments to get the City and neighborhood to buy-into the design... it has been a journey. But the other day, standing on site, the gloomy autumn clouds erasing the tops of the mountains, watching the earthmovers dance around each other, seeing the concrete poured onto the rocks, hearing the hammers banging, witnessing the guts being piped and wired into the buildings... I understood what that yearning for one's architecture to become real. There is nothing like seeing one's designs come alive. It is almost like watching an autopsy in reverse. To see the world you designed become inhabitable, walkable... too walk through the spaces that you already know in your head, to see the rough forms the workers are building and knowing what the final product will be. For years I have longed to see this project become real. I even have swallowed my pride and sucked some stuff up that I might have quit over, but I really wanted to see this project built with me on the team. I sympathize with Darden's desire to build something real. I really do.

At the same time, I'm not sure Darden would bend to the professional world of architecture. I'm sure he could handle it, and if he were programmed differently he may have thrived, as he was a very intense individual. But what the profession expects of an architect is very different from his general nature. Perhaps he could have succeeded as Thom Mayne or Frank Gehry did, but there would have been a period where he would have needed to bend to the demands of the profession before he could do what he really wanted. Or maybe he would have been more like Lebbeus Woods, who worked for some notable starchitects and did a few built works, but mostly remained theoretical.

One wonders if Darden would have done any built works had he not developed cancer. Perhaps he only began to desire to do a built project because he knew his time was short, but if he had another few decades to keep working, he would keep doing theoretical work. At the same time, one wonders what he may have done if he were given the opportunity to a real project.

All this is to say, I am uncertain how Darden would have been as a practicing architect, but from his academic background, he does not express anything that would have made him compatible with the profession as it functions, except maybe as a strange rebel figure doing very little real built works. Still, his desire to do a real project is a little heartbreaking when one reads his note to himself so late in his short life. Yet, the value Darden brings to the profession is a stern and harsh reminder to never let the profession destroy your dreams of architecture.