ESSENTIALISM
Essentialism from a religious aspect is this: to believe that sacred and evil essences can exist in the material world around us.
In an essentialist way, religious folk view the world of matter with an additional dimension (i.e. a dimension where material objects can hold sacred and evil properties). The following examples are drawn below of this phenomenon of the mind.
Material Objects Viewed Through the Eyes of Essentialism
A holy book, an evil widget board, a holy house (church), an evil symbol (six pointed star), a holy symbol (the Cross), an evil color (black), holy water or holy land and etc.
Those who view the world through essentialism will act in accordance with what seems to be evil and what seems to be sacred to them.
Through the dimension of essentialism, the book you are holding and reading can acquire properties of being evil or sacred.
But it is because of the fact that one person can look at a book and call it holy while another can look at the same book and call it evil; we conclude that essentialism is nothing more than an allusion. The book is neither holy nor evil. It is only a book until the conscious viewer gives it these properties. Thus, one can believe it is holy today then believe it is evil tomorrow.
EXPERIMENT DONE BY BRUCE HOOD
ON THE ROYAL INTITUTION
The person who looks at the Bible and deems it holy or evil allows a new dimension of reality to open up to him. It is a reality where material objects (books, symbols, and places) possess sacred or evil properties.
I call this place the essentialist viewer dwells, a “newly opened reality” because;
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the viewer once existed at a time where he did not view material objects as possessing these qualities (e.g. when the viewer was a child.) Partaking in this allusion makes it real because, as I mentioned earlier in so many words; real is just construct of the mind. Essentialism is the foundation from whence every religion is built. Religion provides the frame work and narrative, which allows people to try to put these so called evil and sacred forces found in material objects together in a meaningful way.
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