Landscapes of the Sacred 1: Puritan thought

The concept of sacred place is heavily dependent on the interpretations of the current era. As decades go by, ideas about sacred place shift and evolve. The 21st century has provided more advanced ways to expand research in almost any field, however back then this was not the case. People of earlier centuries had limited information on topics that were more convoluted. Belden C. Lane uses Puritan though on sacred place as an example of the drastic shift in understanding spirituality in landscapes. As the puritans had an infatuation with finding a "promised land," that was a perfect representation of their beliefs, they began to develop their culture on the basis that anything outside of their settlements was forbidden land (145). Lane describes this as a "dangerous allure of unrestricted space" (145). Even though the Puritans had come to America for the opportunity of practicing religion freely, the terrors of the unknown quickly turned their society into the strict and ruthless cult that we know today. With "the loss of place" being an outcome "too frightening to envision," Puritans remained isolated for many years to come (146). As the thrill of the unknown is often too hard to resist, especially with the passage of time, puritan thought has endured merely in writings and literature.