Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review

ONLINE FIRST

published on June 22, 2016

Martha Bradley

Adidam and the Sacralization of Space

The devotees of Avatar Adi Da Samraj gather in sacred community spaces for “systematic, open esoteric school and global community of spiritual practice,” with principal sites in Fiji and in Northern California. Adidam constructs new sacred architecture embodying spiritual concepts and constructed the landscape for ritual and practice, as well as making sacred space out of buildings and landscape that was historically used for a different purpose. This process of sacralization was made meaningful through religious devotion, communion with Him, Avatar Adi Da, and a range of spiritual disciplines such as the practice of meditation and study, the creation of sacred art or architecture, and the embodied expression of devotion through diet, exercise, or physical work, practices which support the devotional Way of Adidam in the context of sacred sites “empowered” as “Agents of His Spiritual Transmission.” This article looks at the process of sacralization of the Mountain of Attention Sanctuary site and the process of constructing memory—or the way space contributes to remembering Adi Da.