Religious Characteristics of Rock Climbing

RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF ROCK CLIMBING Chelsea Mariah Probus RELS 499 November 22, 2016 1 Introduction: Religion and Rock Climbing Religion permeates many aspects of modern society; its structures dot the landscape, its art and relics fill museums, its rules dictate, both consciously and subconsciously, the behavior of millions of people. Though religion is an ever-present force in modern society, its definition is obscure. Many things that are not seen as religions in themselves may be considered religious. Something need not have a looming basilica or a book of songs to be a religious phenomenon. The sport of rock climbing has religious qualities. While it is not a religion in itself, it acts as a religious phenomenon. Rock climbing was initially a way to train for what was considered a more elegant sport, mountaineering.1 Over the years, rock climbing has developed into its own sport, separate from mountaineering, with a culture and history of its own. It is considered an alternative sport, because it eschews competitive rules and for the most part acts in a self-governed and non-institutionalized way.2 Like other sports, rock climbing is competitive in nature. This competition may be performed against others in the case of organized climbing competitions, but for many climbers, the competition is against their own climbing history and the threats of nature. Rock climbing has skyrocketed in popularity in recent history and “it is estimated that there are 400,000 climbers in the United States.”3 This has increased the presence of indoor climbing gyms, but we will focus on 1 Lisa M. Bogardus, “The Bolt Wars: A Social Worlds Perspective on Rock Climbing and Intragroup Conflict,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography XX(X), 7 2 Ibid., 2 3 Rudy M. Schuster, James G. Thompson, and William E Hammit, “Rock Climbers’ Attitudes Toward Management of Climbing and the Use of Bolts,” Environmental Management 28, No. 3 (2001): 404 2 the climbing community that consists of those who participate in conventional outdoor climbing activities such as sport climbing, bouldering, and traditional climbing. Climbing Terminology and Understanding the Climbing Community In order to accurately understand a community, it is necessary to understand its culture and language. To see how something can be seen as a religious phenomenon, an outsider perspective must be penetrated by sources and information from within the community. For ease of assessment, terms and phrases used by climbers in their media and culture will be used when discussing the elements of rock climbing that have religious characteristics. Just like other segments of society, climbing has developed many colloquialisms. Understanding the language of rock climbing can be a difficult endeavor. There are many terms that do not exist as words in the English language, but are considered proper words in the climbing community. For example, a climber who performers first ascents is called a “first ascensionist”, not a “first ascender.” A climber who climbs without a rope is said to climb “unroped.” A particular section of rock that is climbed is called a “route.” Routes are usually named and given a rating based on a scale called the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS). The YDS covers walks, hikes and climbs. For climbing, the YDS goes from 5.0 to 5.15, 5.0 being the easiest and 5.15 being the most difficult. An example of a climbing route that is named and graded is Send Me on my Way 5.9, located in the Red River Gorge.4 Climbing areas are called “crags.” Crags can be named but any climbing area may be called a crag. In addition to understanding the jargon, there are other aspects of the climbing community that need to be dissected in order to describe it as a religious phenomenon. 4 Ray Ellington, Red River Gorge South: Volume 2, (Silt: Wolverine Publishing, 2013), 144 3 There is no precise set of rules followed by every climber; however, there are many outlets for understanding the community as a whole. Books written about the community act as primary or secondary sources. These can be narratives written by climbers, non-fiction instructional books, or guidebooks. All of these provide information about and stories from the climbing community. It may also be accessed through web forums and other media, such as films and documentaries. Multiple sociological studies that contain interviews with climbers are also used, to gain insight from tangible personalities from within the community. Defining Religion To understand the religious qualities of rock climbing, a quantifiable definition of religion must be established. Ninian Smart’s theory of the seven dimensions of the sacred is used as the primary definition of religion. In his book Dimensions of the sacred: an anatomy of the world’s beliefs,5 Smart describes seven dimensions of religion: the ritual, the mythic or narrative, the experiential & emotional, the ethical & legal, the social, and the material dimension. For something to be religious, it need not fit neatly into every dimension. Most religious traditions embody certain dimensions more than others. The dimensions act as descriptions of the religious, rather than a checklist that must be strictly adhered to for something to be considered religious. Because of the immense differences in definitions of religion, it is important to consider more than one theorist in the creation of a framework for religion. Dimensions that require additional explanation make use of other religious theorists to enhance Smart’s dimension, such as Emile Durkheim, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, William James, and Mircea Eliade. 5 Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: an anatomy of the world’s beliefs, (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996) 4 The Ritual Dimension Ninian Smart’s first dimension of religion is the ritual dimension. Though manifestations of the ritual dimension vary greatly, the uniting factor of all rituals is their intentionality6. Rituals exist in the physical world, but the importance of their internal aspect cannot be ignored. To demonstrate the importance of internal emphasis in ritual, Smart says, “Taken in the right spirit any activity can become a ritual activity.”7 Communication and sacrifice are both essential elements of the ritual dimension, as well as worship and meditation.8 Rituals often consist of formal patterns of behavior along with language. Through language and action, ritual can penetrate daily life, such as the communist tradition of calling people “Comrade” or the Hitler salute in Nazi Germany.9 Rituals may be performed by an individual or a community. The ritual dimension can manifest itself in many ways, including, sacrifice, pilgrimage, rites of passage, meditation, and worship.10 To better understand the ritual dimension, it must be examined in relation to other aspects of religion.11 Ritual is related to the mythic or narrative dimension, because 6 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 71 7 Ibid., 74 8 Ibid., 78 and 111 9 Ibid., 76 10 Ibid., 89 11 Ibid., 71 5 myths and stories provide the script for ritual actions.12 The ethical and ritual dimensions also play highly into each other.13 The Ritual Dimension in Sport Bain-Selbo and Sapp describe ritual as “something someone does, and it is intended to have some effect.”14 They identify Smart’s delineation between two kinds of causation as devic and mantric. Devic causation seeks to control spirits that control the natural world, while mantric causation seeks to control the natural world, without any third party spirits.15 Sport has many manifestations of ritual. Baseball provides the richest examples of the ritual dimension in sport. One example is the two songs that are present during a baseball game, the national anthem at the beginning and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” after the seventh inning.16 The game always begins with a vocalization by the umpire (“Play ball!”) Both players and fans often attempt mantric causation to affect the outcome of the game. One example is baseball player Wade Boggs, who ritually ate chicken before every game.17 The Ritual Dimension in Climbing 12 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 82 13 Ibid., 102 14 D. Gregory Sapp and Eric Bain-Selbo, Understanding Sport as a Religious Phenomenon, (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 9 15 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 10 16 Ibid., 11 17 Ibid.,11 6 While climbers perform certain actions before and after every climb, their primary purposes for these actions are safety and necessity. A “lead climb” is when a two-person climbing team begins with both climbers on the ground. The first climber, the “leader,” brings the rope up the “route” with her, placing it into pieces of gear along the way to create new anchor points every few feet. Before attempting a “lead climb,” the leader will tie her “figure-8 follow through knot”, check her own harness, check the harness of her belayer and the following verbal exchange will occur: “Climbing” from the leader, “Climb on” from the belayer. Though this act is both linguistic and physical, it lacks personal internal meaning because its primary purpose is safety. Since the ritual dimension relies heavily on internal assignment of meaning, the ritual aspect is lost on rock climbing. Two aspects of the ritual dimension identified by Smart are pilgrimages and rites of passage.18 Rock climbing may be said to have pilgrimages (climbers flocking to Yosemite National Park or Red Rocks, Nevada) or rites of passage (first lead climb, a first ascent, first UIAA rated fall) they are not wholly applicable to the sport in general and have primary meanings that are not ritualistic. The Mythic or Narrative Dimension A more accurate title of the mythic or narrative dimension would be the mythic and narrative dimension. Though the two terms are similar in definition and use, neither one is comprehensive enough to singularly describe the dimension that most contributes 18 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 89 7 to identity. Myth may be defined as a story, though not all stories are myths.19 A myth often contains truth that describes the human condition. At least religiously speaking, that is what a myth is. What a myth does is bring order to life and help a group define their identity.20 Myths are almost always present in religious traditions and phenomena. Myths across traditions often contain similar themes: the first human, cosmic stability, possibility of immortality, overcoming evil, the importance of love, the ideal monarch, among others.21 Myths act as the authoritative stories for a collective group of people. They are often foundational to a tradition and, as such, have unquestioned authority.22 Narrative may be used to describe the style that mythic stories embrace, or a collection of mythic stories. Narrative is also part of the way a group achieves identity.23 Narrative can have many functions. It can act as a script for ritual action, it can explain origins, or even describe how things will happen in the end.24 Both myth and narrative contribute to the collective past of a group. The collective past affects a group’s present reality and is used to define identity. It is remembered through use by ritual action or through the act of storytelling.25 Ritual action causes a sort of time travel whereby past experiences become relevant to the 19 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 131 20 Ibid., 131 21 Ibid., 134 22 Ibid., 136 23 Ibid., 132 24 Ibid., 133 25 Ibid., 132 8 present by imitation.26 Smart says “a people or group becomes more significant because it discovers or even invents its collective past.”27 The distinction between, yet paralleled importance of, discovery and invention of collective past reflects the complicated place of myth in modern society. The modern period treats myths differently. This was influenced in part by critical biblical scholarship, which removed religious myths from their platform of absolute truth and placed them in a category with other historical documents that were critically examined and analyzed.28 The pluralism of modern culture gives individuals and groups the ability to pick and choose which narratives will be given the “breathless authority” of myths.29 However, there has also been a movement that moves myths from necessarily fanciful to necessarily factual.30 Eliade believes in the illud tempus, or the dream time in which myths existed, however there is now an emphasis on historical fact, as “historicity has become authenticity.”31 There has been an emphasis by religious groups on the need for myths to be real or describe reality. This leads people to overlay transcendental properties on stories and facts that they believe are tangible.32 This is reflected in group identity when people project geographical and historical concepts backwards onto their 26 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 146 27 Ibid., 132 28 Ibid., 136 29 Ibid., 136,137 30 Ibid., 138 31 Ibid., 160 32 Ibid., 138 9 myths to contribute to their identity.33 The narrative and mythic dimension’s main function is to describe a collective past that unites a group and gives them soil in which to root their identity. An example of a uniting series of stories is the ancestral narratives present in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. These are stories of the ancestors, whether historical or mythical, where “the most elemental themes of faith are rooted and paradigmatically articulated.”34 These stories lead to different interpretations and inspire different forms of ritual action. The Mythic or Narrative Dimension in Sport The mythic and narrative dimension may be applied to sport in general. According to Eric Bain-Selbo and D. Gregory Sapp in Understanding Sport as a Religious Phenomenon, there are many mythic tales of sports teams and sports heroes.35 The stories of Greek and Roman heroes acted similarly to ancestral narratives in the biblical tradition. They create a common history that a group could identify with. Similarly to the way these heroes factored into Greco-Roman society, people who identify with a particular group look back on (sport) heroes of that group and feel united with the success of their stories.36 An example from modern sport is Babe Ruth’s “called-shot home run,” in which he pointed to a spot and hit to it, or told someone when 33 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 160 34 Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 43 35 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 16 36 Ibid., 16 10 he was going to hit a home run.37 The truth of the story, which is contested, is unimportant. The importance lies in the fact that fans repeated the story so often that to them it became fact.38 The Mythic or Narrative Dimension in Climbing The mythic and narrative dimension may be applied to rock climbing specifically. Because climbing in Yosemite Valley is relatively uncontested as an integral part of the development of rock climbing, stories from Yosemite as ancestral narratives is applicable to rock climbing as a whole. There are many accounts of Yosemite climbing history in many forms. Books such as Camp 4: Recollections of a Yosemite Climber39 and Pilgrims of the Vertical40 relay the stories of the recent past that steered the climbing world where it is today. Oral stories echo off the walls of crags and gyms. Perhaps one of the most influential, or at least widespread, accounts of Yosemite Valley climbing is the documentary Valley Uprising by Sender Films41. The documentary chronicles multiple decades of climbing development beginning with an in-depth analysis of the 1950s climbing revolution. The film was made by a climbing film production company that produces films each year about developments and achievements in the climbing world. 37 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 17 38 Ibid., 18 39 Steve Roper, Camp 4: Recollections of a Yosemite Rock climber, (Seattle: Mountaineers Book, 1998) 40 Joseph E. Taylor III, Pilgrims of the Vertical: Yosemite Rock Climbers and Nature at Risk, (Cambrige: Harvard University Press, 2010) 41 Valley Uprising, Directed by Peter Mortimer, 2014, (Boulder, CO: Sender Films, 2014), DVD. 11 In the way that online forums can be used to understand climbers, so can the media they both produce and consume.42 There are many names in the climbing community that function like the names of Greek heroes: Royal Robbins, Dean Potter, Fred Beckey, Yvon Chouinard, Lynn Hill, Warren Harding. Most of these climbers are discussed and, if still alive, interviewed in Valley Uprising. Each generation of climbers in the valley is identified by a different name and identity. The stories of these climbers act like ancestral narratives by uniting the community with a common history. An example of one of these stories is the dispute between Royal Robbins and Warren Harding. Royal Robbins was the father of clean climbing, climbing without the use of permanent gear, and a pioneer of enormous scale. He and his team were the first to climb Half Dome, a 2,000 foot rock formation in the middle of the Valley. Robbins was seen by his peers as driven, competitive, and focused. For Robbins, climbing was a contemplative experience about precision and technique.43 After Robbins conquered Half Dome, another climber in the Valley sought to attempt something even more daring. This climber was Warren Harding, the antithesis to the serene and ethical Royal Robbins. Harding was a drunk, and a proponent of drilling bolts into walls to assist the climb. He and his team were the first to climb the “nose” of El Capitan, another prominent feature of Yosemite Valley, standing 1,000 feet higher than 42 Jillian M. Rickly-Boyd, “Lifestyle climbing: toward existential authenticity,” Journal of Sport & Tourism 17, no. 2 (2012): 89 43 Valley Uprising 12 Half Dome. The competition between Harding and Robbins was friendly but longstanding and ongoing.44 The exact truth in these stories is irrelevant. Mythic stories provide a model for how to act in relation to what one is respecting. For rock climbing, this can be the sport or the rocks themselves. In the case of Harding and Robbins, the way the two men actually regarded each other has become irrelevant. The stories of Harding and Robbins help other climbers feel a historic attachment to their actions. Those who favor serene, clean climbing may look to Robbins as their inspiration, while risk-taking, wild climbers may venerate Harding. These two men and their stories unite the climbing community, and set the stage for the ethical disputes within the community. The Ethical and Legal and Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimensions The ethical and legal dimension is strongly connected to the philosophical and doctrinal dimension, so the analysis of both dimensions within rock climbing will be treated alongside one another. Smart’s ethical and legal dimension refers to law, which “contains rules that reflect the ethical values of the community.”45 Religious law is often inseparable from societal law, such as the Torah’s presence in ancient Judaism46. The themes of ethical laws often span across diverse traditions.47 Bans on adultery, murder, and stealing are often adopted by traditions that were established independently from one another. 44 Valley Uprising 45 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 28 46 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 199 47 Ibid., 200 13 Another aspect of the ethical and legal dimension is the honor and respect given to ancestors.48 This contributes to the sense of self one achieves within a tradition by being a part of a community. Ethical systems were created out of the need to stabilize society.49 Ninian Smart also proposes a doctrinal and philosophical dimension. Doctrine is a belief that is taught by authority that eschews provable evidence. Doctrine is often developed through cultural and community practices. Both philosophy and doctrine depend on belief without conclusive evidence. In religion, one manifestation of the doctrinal and philosophical dimension is religious cosmologies. Cosmologies explain the development of the universe and humans’ place within it. The purpose of religion is to order the chaos of the world and philosophies and doctrines, especially ones that help explain the universe, help to achieve this goal.50 “Belief in a certain view of the origin of the cosmos provides [religious communities] with a sense of security and order.”51 The ethical dimension consists of the rules that both reflect and govern a community’s values. The doctrinal and philosophical dimension is made up of the beliefs, without evidence, that make up a community’s way of thinking about and seeing the world. Both help bring order to society. They create ideas and rules that prescribe how a community acts and thinks. Doctrine and philosophy often develop after ethical ideas. The ethical dimension is the guiding principle that fuels the physical rules of the doctrinal 48 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 29 49 Ibid., 213 50 Ibid., 12 51 Ibid., 13 14 and philosophical dimension. While all of Smart’s dimensions are interrelated, these two are points on the same line. An ethical idea is the beginning of a process that intersects the belief systems of the ethical and doctrinal. The Ethical and Doctrinal Dimensions in Sport Within sport, the ethical and legal dimension comes into play with the rules of the game.52 While there can be some flexibility within the rules, like using a coconut as a soccer ball or using a football to achieve the goals of basketball, the rules themselves cannot fundamentally change. “There is clearly an ethical sense of fairness inherent in sport and this sense of fairness is most obvious when cheaters are caught breaking the rules.”53 Like many religions’ eternal punishment for violation of ethical laws, sport also has punishments for not following the rules. Honoring ancestors manifests in sport in Halls of Fame. For climbing, the sense of fairness can be shown by cheating or pulling on gear instead of rock, but the punishment for not following the ethical rules can often lead to more dangerous scenarios than just losing a game or getting disqualified. In sport, the doctrinal and philosophical dimension manifests itself most clearly as coaching philosophies. Coaching philosophies dictate how the game should be played. In regard to coaching philosophies, the teams that use them “must believe in the team philosophy in much the same way adherents of formal religion believe in the philosophy or doctrine of that particular organization.”54 Like their religious counterparts, sport doctrines decide how players should behave and how they should approach their craft. 52 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 29 53 Ibid., 30 54 Ibid., 14 15 Both coaching philosophies and religious philosophies may be believed without concrete evidence.55 The Ethical and Doctrinal Dimensions in Climbing A difference in the ethical and doctrinal beliefs in the climbing community created different kinds of climbing. Although the climbing community and its subgroups are very diverse, most climbers fall into one of two categories: traditional or sport.56 Traditional climbing, or “trad climbing”, has “two basic ethical precepts: to refrain from harming the rock” and to leave routes the way they were found.57 These ethical ideas manifest themselves in the doctrine that dictates how to approach the craft of trad climbing. Trad climbers ascend routes using removable pieces of protection. The first climber in the standard two-person team, also known as the “leader,” places these pieces and connects their rope to it as they climb up. The second climber, also known as the “second,” removes these pieces on their way up to the “leader.” This ethic was popularized in the 60s and 70s as clean climbing, or climbing that “eschewed bolts and other permanent protection that caused damage to the rock.”58 Though trad climbing has a set of rules, it has remained independent of formal organizations. It has “no rulebooks, no national governing body that sets policy, and no organized competition.”59 The legal 55 Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 15 56 Schuster, “Attitudes Towards Management”, 405 57 Bogardus, “The Bolt Wars”, 6 58 Ibid., 11 59 Ibid., 7 16 aspect of trad climbing comes from within the community, and must be passed on from climber to climber. Whereas trad climbing values protection of the rock, sport climbing values athletic prowess. Sport climbing’s protection consists of bolts that are permanently drilled into rock, allowing climbers to attempt harder routes more safely.60 The ethical principle behind sport climbing is to protect climbers’ safety and ability to attempt increasingly more difficult climbs. It developed from the French ethic of climbing, which required climbers to initially climb routes with ropes fixed at the top rather than at the bottom.61 Unlike trad climbing, sport climbing has been organized and institutionalized. It competes in the World Cup and X-Games, and competition is an important part of sport climbing culture.62 Many of the doctrinal and legal rules of sport climbing come from organizations such as USA Climbing, such as the need for a climber to hold on to the start of a route with their feet off the ground for 3 seconds before beginning63. Climbing ethics may also be established by region. Most climbing areas have organizations that help protect the area and establish rules for the community, like the Red River Gorge Climbers Coalition64 in Kentucky, or the Clifton Climbers Alliance65 in 60 Bogardus, “The Bolt Wars,” 8 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., 9 63 http://www.usaclimbing.org/Officials/Rulebook.htm 64 http://rrgcc.org/ 65 http://www.cliftonclimbersalliance.org/ 17 Maine. These ideas may be conveyed in meetings or memberships packets, or in guidebooks for the area. Guidebooks are often seen as “forums for the sport’s moral and spatial politics,” because, in addition to giving information on the physical climbs, they espouse the rules on bolts and gear, and conservation efforts.66 In the Red River Gorge South guidebook, both the history of climbing and standards of ethic are given in the introduction: “[T]hese climbers [that pioneered the Red] were heavily influenced by the clean-climbing ethic proposed by Royal Robbins and Yvon Chouinard.”67 The Social Dimension In the social dimension, Smart makes use of important figures, among them the preacher, the rabbi, the philosopher and the martyr.68 But an examination of the social dimension would be incomplete with out also recognizing large-scale religious societies. Religious figures—monks, priests, rabbis, mystics—differ between and even within traditions, but their functions often overlap.69 The simplest manifestation of religion in society is when the religion, language, and culture of a group are the same.70 To accurately understand the social aspects of religion, more than just Smart’s brief treatment of the social dimension must be recognized. In describing the sociology of religion and sport, Bain-Selbo and Sapp recognize many scholars who further develop the idea of the social dimension. One of these scholars is Emile Durkheim, the father of 66 J. Taylor, “Mapping adventure: a historical geography of Yosemite Valley climbing landscapes”, Journal of Historical Geography 32 1, 2006 67 Ellington, Red River Gorge, 24 68 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 215 69 Ibid., 216 70 Ibid., 235 18 modern sociology. Durkheim believes that religious phenomena exist in two categories: “beliefs and rites (rituals or practices.)”71 The Social Dimension in Sport In terms of Smart’s social dimension exclusively, the primary figure in sport is the coach. Players exist in a hierarchical structure that has a leader, the coach, who gives instruction on how to succeed, like a rabbi or priest does in religious settings.72 Though coaches do exist in competitive rock climbing, hierarchical leaders are difficult to find in the climbing community. The qualities that are outlined by the expansion of the social dimension, however, are readily available. The Social Dimension in Climbing The social dimension requires that something be gained by participating alongside other people. Though climbing only requires two, or fewer, people, climbing communities exist across America and the world. These communities exist and function both within physical space and on the Internet. Studies of rock climbing often use climbing locations as well as online manifestations like forums. As noted by Jillian Rickly-Boyd in her study, “Lifestyle climbing,” analyzing online forums provides insight into the social relationships that characterize the sport of rock climbing.73 Among other things, this study showed that climbers gravitated towards one another, meeting up at different locations across the US to enrich their climbing experience. This process 71 Sapp and Eric Bain-Selbo, Understanding Sport, 75 72 Ibid., 32 73 Rickly-Boyd, “Lifestyle climbing”, 89 19 strengthened the sense of community felt by these climbers.74 When picking climbing locations for leisure, travel, or residence, climbers assess the quality of both the rock and the community.75 An unnamed female from Rickly-Boyd’s study said this is regard to picking a place to climb: “you don’t climb by yourself. You’re always at least two people, so when you travel by yourself you have to find the good community.”76 As this female stated, and Rickly-Boyd’s study showed, the experience of climbing is improved when experienced in a community. Because she gained something by experiencing climbing alongside other people, this fits into the social dimension of religion. The Experiential and Emotional Dimension Within the experiential and emotional dimension, Ninian Smart proposes a preliminary theory of religious experiences that identifies two main poles. The first pole, is the experience of the holy, or the numinous. The second pole is one of the “contemplative or mythical experiences which does not postulate an outsider Other.”77 The first is an outside experience; the second is an inner experience.78 Smart believed that that there is a universal quality in religious experience, regardless of the presence of theism. He believed that basic human experiences are universal and “not wholly determined culturally,” which alludes to the universality of diverse religious experience.79 74 Rickly-Boyd, “Lifestyle Climbing,” 99 75 Ibid.,100 76 Ibid., 91 77 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 167 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid., 169 20 Smart further developed the two poles of religious experience into three varieties: the numinous (the experience of the Other,) the contemplative (the internal experience of mysticism,) panenhenic (the feeling of being at one with the world).80 The tensions between the numinous and contemplative aspects led to theories, and religious traditions, with an impersonal ultimate and personal Lord.81 These poles, seen as ends of a spectrum initially, are not polar opposites.82 Smart believed that religious experiences are “intrinsic to the human psyche,” and that it is unnecessary to view religion as “an artificial or tangential creation.”83 Religion and experience work hand in hand and have no particular order in their appearance. Rituals play a large role in the experience of religion because “rituals give power to feelings.”84 The Experiential and Emotional Dimension in Sport and Climbing In sport, the numinous and the contemplative religious experiences coincide with the experience of the fans and the players, respectively. The emotional involvement in sporting events is obvious in the behavior of people from coaches to observers in the stands. Fans often become involved in the play and express their emotion with shouts of both happiness and anger.85 Because victories are recorded and celebrated, fans and 80Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 170 81Ibid., 171 82Ibid., 172 83Ibid., 177 84Ibid., 181 85Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 25 21 onlookers feel united with this eternal success when the team they support wins. Though the event is external to them, their identity connects them to the team and gives them second-hand success. The same goes for defeat. Losing places them further away from the eternal recognition of winners and therefore elicits a negative emotional response.86 The climbing community replicates this behavior not in the currency of championships or wins but in first ascents. Many climbers have written non-fiction narratives about their experiences while climbing. Some of the most prominent in recent history are Alone on the Wall by Alex Honnold and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. There have also been non-fiction books written about climbing experience in general, such as Arno Ilgner’s The Rock Warrior’s Way. Alone on the Wall chronicles the accomplishments of “free soloist” Alex Honnold. Free solo climbing is when a climber attempts a route unroped, without any gear or partners. This autobiography describes his experiences in climbing in general, but also offers insight into the specific experiences that Honnold often has while climbing. When describing his free solo ascent of Moonlight Buttress, in Zion National Park, he says “I’m totally fixated. . .It’s [climbing] the most important thing in life right now.”87 In his book The Rock Warrior’s Way, Arno Ilgner tries to help climbers cultivate the spiritual feeling of the contemplative experience. It primarily deals with the experience of fear in rock climbers, a topic which many climber-authors address. Ilgner, 86Bail-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 26 87Alex Honnold, Alone on the Wall, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015): 31 22 however, gives emotional and mental tools for reaching peak experiences, or states of “flow,” while rock climbing.88 Flow for climbers occurs most easily when one takes on a love-based motivation. This differs from the normal experiences of life, which have a “destination mentality,” and are extremely goal oriented.89 This idea forces climbers to recognize that climbing is about the journey and the experiences that happen during the journey.90 Ilgner’s work is divided into six sections that, when used together, improve the climbers ability to have positive, “flow” experiences: becoming conscious, observing subtlety, accepting responsibility, giving, listening, and appreciating the journey. Though little work has been done on rock climbing as a religious experience, one particularly pertinent piece of writing is worthy of mention. “Investigating Climbing as a Spiritual Experience” is a master’s thesis by Michael F. Pond that was written for The Patton College of Education of Ohio University. Though this piece exists only as a thesis, its relevance to rock climbing a religious phenomenon is undeniable. This study examines the “role that climbing plays in the spirituality of climbers” through interviews. Pond documents the spiritual experiences of many climbers, ranging from meditative experiences to mystical out-of-body experiences.91 Pond uses William James to define spirituality as a feeling. Because religions are so diverse, James emphasized the 88Arno Ilgner, The Rock Warrior’s Way: Mental Training for Climbers, (La Vernge: Desiderata Institute, 2006), Kindle edition, 176. 89Ibid., 1982. 90Ibid., 1991. 91Michael Pond, “Investigating Climbing as a Spiritual Experience,” (master’s thesis, The Patton College of Education of Ohio University, 2013), 1 23 experiences of the individual as the most important characteristic of the religious, and eschewed defining religion through its organizations. The contemplative, or inner, experience in sport is that of the athletes themselves, and often manifests as a “spiritual feeling.”92 The experience of an athlete is subjective and many claim spiritual awareness in their performances. Similar to ascetic religious traditions, athletes must train and gain total control of their bodies. The runner’s high, experienced by many long-distance runners, is “considered an inner, spiritual experience.”93 The runner’s high is a reduction in pain during a run that results in euphoria, peace, and even transcendence.94 This can be compared to the experience of “flow” that is felt by many climbers. “Flow” is the feeling of timelessness that occurs “when peak skill is met with peak challenge.”95 “Flow” is “among the most common description offered by climbers regarding their experience on the rock face.”96 Conquering Finitude as Part of the Religious Experience An essential part of the internal experience of religion is the relationship of the individual to infinity. Reinhold Niebuhr believes that humankind has an insatiable need to overcome their finitude. When humans recognize their finiteness “there is a note of protest against this finiteness. It may express itself in religion by the desire to be absorbed into infinitude. On the secular level it expresses itself in man’s effort to universalize 92Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 26 93Ibid., 27 94Ibid., 27 95Rickly-Boyd, “Lifestyle climbing”, 94 96Ibid., 94 24 himself and give his life a significance beyond himself.”97 Humans recognize that they are finite beings, but this illumination is intimidating. They try to counter this by making their existence infinite. Niebuhr believes that religious people do this by uniting with the infinite qualities of their tradition. This could mean worshipping an eternal deity, or being absorbed into the eternal cycle of reincarnation. The need for infinity is not relegated to only religious individuals, however. Non-religious people also attempt this by uniting with something nonreligious and eternal and attempting to achieve a level of significance that will outlast their physical lives. The need to escape finitude is a quality essential to humanity. Conquering Finitude through Climbing In rock climbing, there are many manifestations of the attempt at infinity. They include gaining credibility through certifications, climbing difficult routes or peaks, and winning organized climbing competitions. The two most important attempts by climbers to conquer finitude are through boldness and first ascents. Boldness is a term used to describe both routes and climbers. Bold routes are high risk and may be synonymous with dangerous routes.98 Bold climbers are ones who climb bold routes, take excessive risks in climbing, and push the limits of what is achievable. Boldness is a highly valued quality. Bold climbing shows a paradoxical attempt to achieve infinitude while sparring with finitude. Bold routes are often risky and the chance of completely embracing finitude through death is a present reality. If the climber is successful, however, both the route and their own finitude is conquered. 97Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Policy, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, 42 98Bogardus, “The Bolt Wars”, 8 25 A first ascent or FA is when a “route” is climbed for the first time, First ascents are another way climbers identify their level of accomplishment and attempt to become eternal. Being a “first ascensionist” is a “major source of status in traditional climbing.”99 When someone puts up a first ascent, his or her name is immortalized in climbing history. This usually occurs in guidebooks, which in addition to providing climbers with information about a climbing area also convey local ethics, local climbing lore, politics, and climbing history.100 First ascensionists carry both power and respect. Most of the climbing community agrees that the first ascensionist should be consulted if a route is going to be altered.101 Though they do not own the rock, their name is forever attached to it. This escape from finitude present in the experiential and emotional dimension may also be described by Paul Tillich’s idea of anxiety. Anxiety is rooted in the possibility of non-being, and for Tillich, “anxiety is finitude.”102 He believed that though fear had to have an object that could be faced, anxiety’s object was the possibility of non-being.103 Tillich had three “macrodistinctions” of anxiety that are based on three threats of nonbeing. These three unique threats cause three distinct types of anxiety, all of which are experienced and embodied by rock climbers. The three threats of nonbeing are 99Bogardus, “The Bolt Wars,” 18 100J. Taylor, “Mapping adventure” 101Bogardus, “The Bolt Wars,” 18 102Tillich, Courage, 34 103Ibid., 35 26 inspired by ontic affirmation, spiritual affirmation, and moral affirmation.104 Ontic affirmation is threatened by death and fate, which causes an anxiety of death.105 This is the most prominent type of anxiety experienced by climbers. This is present because of the threat of injury and death present in any climbing experience. Spiritual affirmation is threatened by emptiness and a loss of meaning, which causes an anxiety of meaninglessness.106 Though this type of anxiety is less concrete in rock climbing, the desire to give meaning to the sport is what influences climbers to create systems of rating. These systems may be verbal, non-organized systems, like the idea of bold climbing, or they may be organized, like the Yosemite Decimal System that gives universal meaning to an accomplishment. The success of these attempts is difficult to examine, but their attempt at spiritual affirmation is present. Moral affirmation is threatened by guilt, which causes an anxiety of condemnation.107 While this type of anxiety is only marginally present in the experience of rock climbing, adhering to an ethical system like trad climbing or sport climbing is an attempt to gain moral affirmation from both society and posterity. The Material Dimension The material dimension of religion consists of buildings for worships, paintings, ceremonial dress, graves, sacrificial animals, books, and anything else that exists physically in the world. While most are created by humans, such as churches, temples or 104Tillich, Courage, 47 105Ibid., 40 106Ibid., 44 107Ibid., 47 27 synagogues, aspects of the natural environment can also be seen as divine, and therefore act as contributing factors to the material dimension. Seas, rivers, and mountains as well as “nature and its parts are portions of the material dimension of religion.”108 Especially beautiful or sacred areas often have buildings or shrines put on them, combing the natural and artificial material manifestations of religion.109 The presence of these manifestations is the “reinforcement of ritual” through the visual and physical presence of religious ideas or cosmologies.110 The Material Dimension in Sport “Sport also has a material dimension to it, including statues of heroes, buildings, clothing, and, of course, stadia.”111 Baseball, as remarked by Joseph Price, has both temples and shrines—stadiums and Halls of Fame, respectively. The material dimension in sport exists not only in physical areas of play like stadiums but also in gear or memorabilia. Items increase in their sacredness depending on their closeness to the sport. A ball used in a game has more value than one simply bought from a store.112 The Material Dimension in Climbing Rock climbing’s relation to the material world incorporates more of Mircea Eliade’s ideas of the sacred and the profane than Smart’s brief description of the material dimension. Nature on its own is often seen as religious, and has intrinsic religious 108Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, 276 109Ibid., 276 110Ibid., 288 111Eric Bain-Selbo and Sapp, Understanding Sport, 35 112Ibid., 35-36 28 value.113 Eliade established that things, especially places, fall into one of two categories: sacred or profane. Sacred spaces transcend the profanity of mundane existence.114 Profane spaces, though the term’s connotation suggests something more sinister, are neutral and exist in homogeny with regular life.115 Holy places are often connected to the idea of a pole that connects heaven and earth, an axis mundi.116 Though the cliffs and peaks that climbers tackle may appear to act as an axis mundi, climbers do not see these places as literal stairways to heaven. They do, however, often attribute sacred qualities to them. Sacred places for climbers and sacred places for religious others can, and often do, overlap. Meru, a mountain in the Himalayas, is both axis-mundi for the indigenous people who live near the mountain, and a climbing mecca for adventurers like Conrad Anker and Jimmy Chin.117 Although Anker and Chin saw the peak as something to be conquered, the respect they paid to both the mountain and the culture of its people before attempting to climb it suggests that the peak may represent more to them than merely an adventure. Another example of the intersection of climbing and sacred land is Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. There is an ongoing controversy between climbers, who flock to Devil’s Tower for the high quality rock, and the 20 tribes that claim Devil’s Tower as sacred land. Both parties ask the other to refrain from using it, citing their own spiritual 113Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: the nature of religion, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959),116 114Ibid., 25 115Ibid., 22 116Ibid., 33 117Meru. Directed by Jimmy Chin. 2015. Meru Films LLC, 2015. DVD. 29 need for the land.118 Though indigenous tribes claim the land as singularly sacred to them, the rock climbing community often treats its land with the same amount of respect as many religious groups that claim land. The climbing community protects the land from development through organizations like the Access Fund, and encourages preservation of the natural habitats through collaboration with organizations like Leave No Trace. Conclusion Rock climbing is a robust sport, with a rich history and a plethora of traditions and factions. Like many other sports, the overarching characteristics of climbing are religious. While rock climbing is not a religion in itself, the actions and qualities possessed by its community act in religious ways. Ninian Smart’s dimensions of religion present a simple way of understanding these religious qualities. The ritual dimension is not overtly present in rock climbing. Its rituals are too involved with the safety of the climbers to have intrinsic value if the safety element were removed. However, like other things with religious tendencies, Smart’s dimensions are not a checklist and the exclusion of the ritual dimension does not rule out climbing as having religious characteristics. The mythic or narrative dimension is present with climbing attempt to unify through stories about climbers. The collective history created by tales like the ones from the Yosemite Valley climbing scene help climbers to establish a collective identity. The ethical and legal dimension, which consists of an ethical principle, and the doctrinal and philosophical dimension, which lays out rules based on this principle, can be seen in the 118“Devil’s Tower—Climbing on Sacred Land” http://sites.coloradocollege.edu/indigenoustraditions/sacred-lands/devils-tower-climbing-on-sacred-land/ 30 climbing communities division of how to treat the rock. The ethical principles that separate traditional climbers and sport climbers helped to create the two schools that divide climbers most. The social dimension may seem less pertinent because of climbing solitary nature and lack of a team structure. However, climbing communities exist because climbers surround themselves with one another, and gain something from climbing with other people. The experiential and emotional dimension may be the most prominent in climbing. Climbers experience flow, a sense of meditative calmness that it present in both religion and other sports. They also seek to escape their finitude, a concept theorized by both Niebuhr and Tillich, by conquering climbing routes that threaten their finitude. The material dimension is shown by how climbers treat and respect their sacred spaces, which often coincide with the sacred spaces of others. Using Smart’s dimensions as a quantifiable measure of religiosity, rock climbing certainly has religious characteristics. This provides insight into both religion and society. Though it is not a religious tradition, the fact that rock climbing is religious contributes to the fluid definition and perception of what religion constitutes. It also shows the necessity for religious activity in society. Sports in general, and rock climbing specifically, fill needs that may also be filled by religion. 31 Bibliography Bogardus, Lisa M.. “The Bolt Wars: A Social Worlds Perspective on Rock Climbing and Intragroup Conflict,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography XX(X): 85-104 Brueggemann, Walter. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Clifton Climbers Alliance. Accessed November 5, 2016. http://www.cliftonclimbersalliance.org/ “Devil’s Tower—Climbing on Sacred Land” Accessed on November 6, 2016. http://sites.coloradocollege.edu/indigenoustraditions/sacred-lands/devils-. tower-climbing-on-sacred-land/ Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labor in Society. 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