Sacred Sites. the Library of Esoterica - by Jessica Hundley (Hardcover)

About the Book

A visual pilgrimage through holy mountains, great pyramids, and golden shrines, Sacred Sites celebrates the ways we transform the world around us through ritual, creativity, and worship. Essays, interviews and more than 400 images explore spaces ranging from ancient temples to modern works of spatial art.

Book Synopsis

Taking us on a journey through the history of sacred art and architecture, Sacred Sites explores the myriads of 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, we travel 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, give praise at the temple to our chosen divinities. Through pilgrimage, we carve indelible pathways, making our meditative way across continents, generations of footsteps treading, again and again, upon sacred grounds. And through our creative offerings to spirit - we envision new worlds, wildly imaginative odes to what we deem as holy; golden temples hewn of rock, enormous spirals sculpted from sand and soil, silent sanctuaries hidden among wooded groves. We paint the ancient cave walls, carve petroglyphs to mark the way, place roses in veneration at the candlelit shrine.

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

Nature, art, beauty, these are the common elements found both within the places made sacred by our ancestors and in the multitude of 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.

Review Quotes

"The 'Library of Esoterica' acts as a bridge between the dark halls of history and the vast data at our fingertips."-- "Los Angeles Times"

"Jessica Hundley's new book unveils many sites across the globe."-- "Corriere della Sera"

"Sacred Sites celebrates how we traverse and transform the world around us through ritual and art. Compiled by Jessica Hundley, [the book] surveys a remarkable array of places and artworks through more than 400 images centered around pilgrimage, performance, and devotion."-- "This is Colossal"

"From Machu Picchu to the Louvre--the book journeys through sacred sites in art and ancient history."-- "Artnet News"

"A decadent feast for the eyes, laced with belladonna."-- "The New York Times"