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Accepted Paper:
In the Laboratory of Spiritual Transmutation: Ritual Magic as a Technology of the Self in the Initiatory Society Sodalitas Rosae Crucis
Olivia Cejvan
(Centre for Theology and Religious Studies)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how ritual magic works as a "technology of the self" in Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (S.R.C), an initiatory society in Sweden, where ritual magic is used as a means to gradually attain a spiritual transmutation of the self.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how ritual magic works as a "technology of the self," delineated by Michel Foucault as "an exercise of the self on the self by which one attempts to develop and transform oneself, and to attain to a certain mode of being" (1988), grounded in the author’s three years of fieldwork as an initiate in Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (S.R.C), an initiatory society in Sweden, where ritual magic is used as a means to gradually attain a spiritual transmutation of the self. Sustained by anthropology and in dialogue with theories of social learning, this paper develops Foucault's concept into a viable analytical framework for grasping esoteric technologies within initiatory communities of practice.