According to anthropologists, when our human ancestors first emerged from the animal world and made their first tentative steps toward humanity, one of the first things they did to distinguish themselves from a primal existence was to make things 'beautiful' - an instinct to regain an art, as Charles Darwin himself says. Certainly, among the breakthrough objects made by early humans was used to adorn themselves: the first attractive and religious jewelry.
Ever since these first steps, the form and function of jewelry changed a lot. The materials and the techniques for manufacture them are unrecognizable and very much separate from the primordial techniques. Yet the primal instinct that guided the prehistoric caveman is still the same instinct that guides every one of us in the present - a deep desire to make things beautiful, a longing perhaps to make our surroundings more 'livable' and to make ourselves more presentable to the world.
Religious Jewelry
This is no way separate even in our choice of religious artifacts. When intended for religious purposes though, jewelry is regularly more ornate than those for personal use. perhaps this is one way of respecting the spiritual world, as embodied by religious jewelry. There is no way to glorify God and the spiritual than to make and offer only the best jewelry and art pieces for them.
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Aside from this mystique, an early form and function of religious jewelry was the amulet or talisman, which is a trinket used as a magical protection against evil or disease. If jewelry can embody the power of the gods, as a matter of fact it can also ward off evil beings. Although most of us nowadays do not believe in the magical nature of amulets, this convention nevertheless persists.
For example, there are still bracelets that promise to ward off the evil eye. There are also trinkets that are marketed as 'lucky charms.' There are also bracelets, metal bands, and other body ornaments that promise the wearer relief from certain illnesses. Strictly speaking, this mystical use of objects could still qualify as 'religious jewelry' - the defining factor, it seems, is what we accept as 'religious' convention or not.
Religious jewelry today
There are of course as many ideas on the use of jewelry in religion as there are religions on earth. Each of the major faiths today has widely various ideas on the use of jewelry. In Jewish and Islamic traditions, for example, symbolizing God or the Divine in the form of jewelry or any art may be determined sacrilegious or idolatrous, while many (but not all) Christian churches use religious imagery in their rituals.
Also, many spiritual traditions emphasize simplicity and frown on vanity, including the use or overuse of jewelry. But one attractive contemporary trend is to wear what used to be religious jewelry for non-religious purposes - that is, solely for attractive purposes.
Traditionalists may be appalled by such use of their sacred symbols, but mostly the consequent is unifying rather than alienating people. After all, whether consciously or not, we are still driven by the same forces that impelled our ancestors to forge religious jewelry - the instinct to regain an art.
Religious Jewelry: Prehistoric But Persistent fastener of Spirituality
