Sacred and Sacralisation as a Process of Construction from Phenomenological Perspective - Example of Visiting Phenomenon

Abstract

This paper phenomenologically approaches the terms World-construction and World-maintenance, uttered by Peter Berger, in terms of sacred and sacralisation. In this study, Tomb of Abdulvahhab Gazi in Sivas was taken as sample. The data of the survey were obtained during talks with 30 participants who were randomly selected during their visit to the shrine from many places of country, especially Sivas, between August-October 2015. According to a standardized interview forms half of data collection, processing and interpretation of qualitative analysis was conducted according to the stages. In this context, planned as a singular case study research data problem-centered interviews and participatory observation techniques have been obtained. During the processing of the data, the recorder was used and the data categorized in a gang were analyzed phenomenologically. In the study, it is argued that sacred and sacralisation is a human enterprise and reality which is perpetually constructed in a dialectical process. Thus the visitors of the Tomb of Abdulvahhab Gazi have externalized what are in their thoughts and beliefs through implanting them into the cultural atmosphere. With a consciousness shaped by their socio-economic and cultural accumulations, they have objectified the place, implanting meanings into it as well as other institutional structures, as a reality out there. This collectively constructed reality, in its turn, keeps the individual who created itself under control from both inside and outside and thus has a subjective reality. This is what Berger called as internalization. Assigning an ontological status to the tomb by means of fertile symbols of a given culture, the visitors constructs a sacred World in which they feel home against chaos. In addition, they make a repertory of meaning around/regarding the tomb in order to maintain its meaningfulness and reasonability. Narratives, miracles, legends, myths as well as imaginations and rituals have an important role in sacralisation of collectively constructed World of meaning.