Paper Short Abstract:

This presentation wishes to draw some broad lines of reflection upon two seemingly antithetical, but ultimately complementary, currents of contemporary religiosity. One instantiates an effort to fill in gaps in identity and another that actively strives for a gap of identity.

Paper Abstract:

Drawing from research on contemporary religiosity in Spain and Greece, which seeks to bypass religious institutions and others, such as biomedical, this presentation shall be engaging with two seemingly antithetical currents. A wealth of religio-spiritual practices seeks to reveal “hidden” knowledge about one’s biography, instantiating an effort to fill in gaps in one’s identity. At the same time and often, the same practices or the same religio-spiritual subjects also deal with techniques in which the Self is sought to be deconstructed, de-personalized, emptied from the contingency of biographical or social contextualization. The presentation shall be reflecting upon the complementarity of such seemingly antithetical currents and arguing that are both part of an existential quest of contemporary religio-spiritual subjects.