Talk:Prayer labyrinth

New Age question
From the article: "By the 17th and 18th centuries however, Prayer Labyrinths have lost much of their spiritual meaning, with some clergy and other believers associated them with New Age and mystical practices."

"New Age" in the 18th century? Isn't this particular use of the term a little anachronic? 190.37.173.249 15:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Labyrinth while kneeling
When I visited cathedrals in France I was told that people would do the stone-floor labyrinth on their knees to show their devotion. I'm sure it hurt quite a bit, but can't find any confirming evidence on wikipedia that people use these cathedral labyrinths in such a fashion. Anyone have any info or leads? -Teetotaler 27 November, 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.22.207 (talk) 05:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Kneeling as a devotional practice was common in Europe for most of two millennia, so this is not at all surprising. And it hurts less if you are used to it.  These days, modern churches that have kneeling congregations have padded kneelers, but those are recent inventions. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 01:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Kneeling, yes; walking on the knees, no. There's no contemporary evidence for such a practice in the labyrinths.  It looks like a story invented (and retroactively illustrated) in the 18th century. -- Elphion (talk) 04:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Problems with this article
I added some "citation needed" tags to the article. In addition, here are some other problems:

1. As with other pagan cultural practices, the prayer labyrinth was adopted by the Church across Europe during the medieval times....

(a) Was it really a pagan cultural practice to walk through a labyrinth? To be a "cultural practice", it would have to be something that many people do, not just something that once appeared in an exciting fictional Greek story. Today, we buy locked-room murder mystery novels, but murdering people in locked rooms is not really an American cultural practice. If there is any evidence that pagans actually walked labyrinths as part of their cultural practice, please cite it.

(b) There is significant evidence that in late antiquity (4th to 6th centuries CE), certain Roman pagan practices were adapted to Christianity. But that was a long time prior to the Middle Ages. By the Middle Ages, there was no paganism in France at all. If the labyrinth was really a pagan-to-Christian adaptation, then I would expect that there would be evidence of Christians walking labyrinths in late antiquity, not merely in the Middle Ages. Is there any such evidence?

2. Some clergy and other believers now associate them with New Age mystical practices or even occultism.

I'm guessing that the author of this sentence used the word "believers" to refer to Christians. If that's correct, it needs to say "Christians".

And the word "associate" is vague. Are you saying that these clergy have warned Christians against using labyrinths? Or are you just saying that these clergy believe that the labyrinth is valued by many people, including New Age and occult fans, but also including Christians?

3. With the practice of walking the prayer labyrinth becoming popular again in contemporary Christianity, particularly in the Emerging Church movement, many Christian denominations from across the theological spectrum are again adopting the practice of walking the prayer labyrinth.

Please clarify: With which Christian groups is the labyrinth "becoming popular again"? Is it with Christians from across the spectrum? Does this include those Christians who associate it with the New Age movement? Is there any evidence that its popularity in the Emerging Church movement is greater than with other Christian groups?

I'm not just nitpicking. Reading this article, I got the impression that perhaps there is a dispute in contemporary Christianity, with some churches enthusiastic about labyrinths (including, but not limited to, the Emerging churches??) and other churches seeing them as dangerous. But maybe the personal opinions of individual Wikipedia editors, rather than the stances of various churches, are being reflected in this article? &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 01:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Bias in article
It seems very clear that this article is biased. There is one sentence about how labyrinths are sometimes viewed as occult; whereas it is stated repeatedly that walking a labyrinth in prayer is a Christian practice. The problem is that if it is a Christian practice, there are no Christians cited who can attest to this. Many articles exist, however, stating just the opposite, that prayer labyrinths are of an occult nature. In order for this article to be more correct, I believe it must be set up differently, such that the "default assumption" is not that labyrinths are a Christian form of worship, and some other people claim the opposite; rather, labyrinths are inherently outside of Christian thought and worship, and some other people are trying to bring the occult practice into Christianity. For this reason, I wish to question the bias and legitimacy of the entire subsection of labyrinths in Christianity. As an aside, it appears that many who wish to advance the practice of praying labyrinths wish to say that walking labyrinths has been a practice of Christianty for centuries, yet there is no evidence to suggest this, and no Christian theologian or spiritual guide of the past has advocated using this as a devotional. Moreover, the only shred of evidence which seems to be put forth is that labyrinth designs exist on the floors of old churches. It seems quite foolish to assume that these designs were used as labyrinths when there is no evidence to support this. Many articles exist which support my analysis, but one I particularly found useful follows. The article explains where this labyrinth prayer craze originated. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3440 Afromansammy (talk) 05:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * catholicculture.org is of course pushing its own POV. There is no evidence that the labyrinths were used as "substitute pilgrimages", but there is plenty of evidence that people did walk the labyrinths (or trace them, when mounted on walls) -- though for what purpose is unclear.  There are surviving accounts of medieval French clerics using the labyrinth path as the locus for a ritual Easter "dance" on Easter Sunday.  See Kern for references.  It is clear they were more than mere decoration.  The notion that labyrinths today are used as an "occult" way of "calling up demonic powers" is sheer fantasy invented by modern conservative Christians. There is nothing occult about meditation or prayer. Yes, the original symbolism behind labyrinths was pagan, but so was much else now enshrined in Christian practice (like the very date of Christmas). The medieval church clearly co-opted the pagan labyrinth for its own purposes and gave it Christian meaning; the development of the medieval church labyrinth is clear in centuries of manuscript drawings from many monasteries. -- Elphion (talk) 20:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge with Labyrinth
This is just a fork from the main article (Labyrinth -- added by Elphion) and should be merged with it. I've cleaned up some of the claims. Dougweller (talk) 14:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree with merge. I'm adding the merge templates. All the useful content is already in Labyrinth -- this article should simply be redirected there. -- Elphion (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * (merged by Dougweller on 8 July 2011) -- Elphion (talk) 19:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)