The Library of Esoterica - Sacred Sites (English)

Spaces of Worship

A Journey Through Spiritual Landscapes

Taking us on a journey through the history of sacred art and architecture, Sacred Sites explores the myriad ways in which we imbue our environments with profound and enduring meaning. From our early designation of nature and the body as temple to our futuristic embrace of imaginary realms, this volume travels the vast and mystical landscapes of myth, religion, and imagination.

Through gathering, we ignite our spaces with spirit: we circle the bonfire, bow down at the forest altar, and give praise at the temple to our chosen divinities. Through pilgrimage, we carve indelible pathways, making our meditative way across continents as generations of footsteps tread again and again upon sacred grounds. Through creative offerings to spirit, we envision new worlds and wildly imaginative odes to what we deem holy: golden temples hewn from rock, enormous spirals sculpted from sand and soil, and silent sanctuaries hidden among wooded groves. We paint ancient cave walls, carve petroglyphs to mark the way, and place roses in veneration at the candlelit shrine.

Slowly, stone by stone, we build monuments to our gods, a cosmic geometry held within the sacred architecture of worship. These hidden patterns can be found in the mysterious, towering pyramids built across the globe and throughout an astonishing diversity of cultures, in the marble sanctuaries built to house Greek and Roman goddesses, in the windblown mountain monasteries of ancient Asia, and in the indigenous cliff dwellings of the American Southwest.

Nature, art, and beauty are common elements found both within the places made sacred by our ancestors and in the many environments where we strive to connect to source and to ourselves. Tracing a hallowed route from rugged stone temples to transcendent works of modern architecture, the fifth volume in The Library of Esoterica celebrates the collective history of spaces made sacrosanct through human worship.

The editor and author

Jessica Hundley is an author, filmmaker, and journalist who has written for Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. She has authored books on artists including Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, and Gram Parsons. Hundley often explores counterculture in her work, with a focus on metaphysics, psychedelia, and magic.

About the series

The Library of Esoterica explores how centuries of artists have given form to mysticism, translating the arcane and the obscure into enduring, visionary works of art. Each subject is showcased through modern and archival imagery drawn from private collectors, libraries, and museums around the globe. The result is an inclusive visual history, a study of our primal pull toward dream and nightmare, and the creative ways we strive to connect to the divine.

Series: The Library of Esoterica, Vol. 5

Format: Hardcover, quarter-bound

Edition: English

Dimensions: 6.7 × 9.4 in.

Weight: 3.43 lb

Page count: 520 pages

ISBN: 978-3-8365-9060-0