Accomplished accomplices

The other day I went on a day-trip to the city of Augsburg, just outside of Munich. It's well worth a visit: for centuries an autonomous city-state within the Holy Roman Empire, it's a very pleasant place to wander around, and has, besides, a number of interesting things to see. There's the cathedral (with an excellent museum attached to it), the Golden Hall (which richly deserves its name) in the Town Hall, and the Fuggerei, one of the world's earliest experiments of social housing, set up by the Fuggers, the Silicon Valley billionaires of their day. (Rent was set at one Rhenish Guilder back in the 16th century, and you can still live there for €0.88 a year - all you have to do is say a few prayers each day for the souls of the Fugger family). 

Just down the river from the Fuggerei, another extraordinary encouragement to prayer was being constructed around the same time. These are the three enormous late Gothic/early Baroque altars set up in the church of local saints Ulrich and Afra. (There are actually two churches - one Protestant and one Catholic - in what used to be an independent monastic complex. The ornate altars I'm talking about are obviously in the Catholic one.) These are the work of the Bavarian master Hans Degler, and you can get a sense of them in the picture above. Only a sense, though - I couldn't really find any photos online that succeeded in reproducing the effect of entering the church with the light falling in late winter, and seeing these enormous, shadowy structures looming at the far end of the nave. 

What's so wondrous about them isn't only their hugeness, but also the proliferation of figures crowded into them and hanging off them, like on an Indian commuter train (or, indeed, a Hindu temple). The southern altar (on the right) shows Christ rising from the dead (apparently with a Swiss flag), with Augustine on one side of him and Ambrosius on the left. The northern altar (on the left) is dedicated to the Holy Spirit possessing the Apostles at Pentecost (fifty days, as the Greek term suggests, after the resurrection). It's also dedicated to St. Afra, and shows her martyrdom, in the presence of Saints Ursula, Catherine of Alexandria, Barbara and Cecilia. 

Finally, there's the high altar, in the middle of the picture above, marked with a cross. (Of course, all of the altars are high, but this one earns its name with five stories, one more than the others have.) At the centre of this one is the familiar scene of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. One story above him, his mother is being crowned, with Peter and Paul the paid bouncers beside her. 

And that's only a pathetically quick description of some of the main figures. I've left out Gregory and Jerome (Fathers of the Church); Saints Rochus and Sebastian; and Mary as Queen of the Martyrs, among many others. And as a matter of fact, it's this super-abundance of focal points that got me thinking on the forty-minute train trip back to Munich. As a good non-theist with an interest (both senses) in meditative techniques, I've been praying the Hail Mary, you see, and one of the things that popped into my mind was the Marian motto 'to Jesus through Mary.' 

Another thing that I was reminded of after staring at those altars was the 'refuge tree' I'd encountered at Diamond Way Buddhist centres. Again the proliferation of figures, deities and semi-deities, Buddhas male and female, young and old, green and blue and white. 

One question that might occur to us when looking at such things is why a monotheistic religion needs them - not to mention a religion which, technically, isn't focused on a divinity at all. If the point is God/Jesus, what's the point of contemplating the saints? And if the point is awakening, or (at a pinch) the Buddha as a guide to awakening, why the profusion of spinning green houris? 

One idea I had is that omething like the following might be going on. As we're always being told (by science as much as religion) the human mind is weak and easily distracted. Because of that, even the simple techniques that have grown up with the idea of calming or strengthening it are quite hard to do - at least, they're hard to do with any degree of success (if by success you mean succeeding on focusing on something without your mind wandering). If you sit someone down in front of a crucifix or a Buddha, chances are their mind will wander to the closest new thing it comes across.

Why not, then, make sure the closest things it comes across guides it back to the meditation object? You could just put up more Jesus or Buddha statues (it's been tried), but the mind would probably just reject all of them in one go. But a saint or a minor Buddha that reminds you of a story involving the Anointed or Enlightened One - that's just the right amount of difference to catch the attention and draw it back. Maybe this is part of how the rosary works - by stringing us along with talk of Mary until we're subtly roped back into God through the changeable tags at the ends of the phrases (which usually tie in Jesus).

I don't know if there's been any scientific work or whether this is how these things really work in the minds of Catholics or Buddhists who dedicate themselves to the these practices. I also don't know of any very explicit passages in the writings of these religions which state that this is what's going on (or should be going on). If you know of any, please let me know in the comments below. If I've lost you at this point but you're still haunted by those altars I was describing before your mind wandered, I'd definitely recommend getting on a train from Munich and being haunted by them again up close.