Sacred Architecture as the Body of Memory
Material Religion and the Holy City of Mandarom Shambhasalem
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24239166 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Giovanna Rech (0000-0001-9171-4276, Pegaso University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 1227 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-19 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel17101227 |
| OpenAlex | W7222948598 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 54 |
This contribution analyzes the Holy City of Mandarom Shambhasalem in France as the material expression of the spiritual beliefs, memories, and narratives of a new religion, Aumism, a new syncretic religion labeled a sect by French authorities. Built since the end of the 1960s, this controversial place of worship has become a custodian of intangible heritage and the group’s collective memory, contributing to cultural diversity and the debate on society’s heritage. Religious architectures demonstrate that the symbolic use of materials and sacred buildings both reveal and conceal spiritual messages, giving material form to the immaterial. The study is based on a qualitative ethnographic approach, including media and audiovisual materials, natural documents, participant observation, and non-directive interviews. The study draws theoretically on the classical notion of collective memory, new studies of spatiality and religion, material religion, and studies on sacred spaces. The results show that the Holy City functions as a body of collective memory through three mechanisms: the collective construction by first-generation members; the incorporation of absence as active mnemonic sites; and the guided tour as a performative act of memory transmission. The discussion highlights how the unmaking of sacred space has paradoxically intensified its mnemonic power, and how the architecture of a contested new religion participates in broader social debates on heritage and cultural diversity.
Collective memory · contested heritage · Cultural diversity · France · guided tours · Intangible cultural heritage · material culture of religion · memory transmission · new religious movements · religious architecture · Sacred space · syncretic religion · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Religious Tourism and Spaces
Sacred Sites and Sacred Stories Across Cultures
Religion Between Governance and Freedoms
Memory in Culture
Things
Memorylands
Introduction
The Oxford Handbook of Religious Space
Un ethnologue enquête au Mandarom
The Spatial Turn
Heritage and Religious Change in Contemporary Europe
Itinerari dell’oblio e della memoria. Tra ricostruzione del passato e prospettive per il futuro
Perspective
Perspective New Religions and Alternative Religions
Anticultism in France
The Insider/Outsider Debate
Religious Studies
Misunderstanding Cults
The Pragmatics of Defining Religion
New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion
A companion to cultural memory studies
Charisma and Space
Place and Memory
Enacting Experimental Alternative Spaces
Religion and Cultural Memory
Mémoire collective, représentations sociales et pratiques sociales
Religion as Mediation
Abductive Ethnography of Practice in Highly Uncertain Conditions
From Exotics to Brainwashers
Using Law to Limit Religious Freedom
Aesthetic and Educational Aspects of Contact with Contemporary Religious Architecture
Performativity of the Memory of Religious Places through Sound and Image
Sacred Architecture and Public Space under the Conditions of a New Visibility of Religion
Seeing syncretism as visual blasphemy
Reconsidering the Value of Multi-Religious Spaces Based on the Notion of Religious Cultural Heritage
Ethnographic toolkit
Laïcité is What Laïcité Does
Holy Mountains and Anti-Cult Ecology
| Highly cited | No |
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