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- Convenors:
-
Jan Kapusta
(University of West Bohemia)
Zuzana Kosticova (Charles University)
László Koppány Csáji (Research Institute of Art Theory and Methodology)
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- Stream:
- Religion and Rituals
- Location:
- Aula 22
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 17 April, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel explores spirituality as a reflection of contemporary society. We ask how people understand spirituality as a particular kind of transformative knowledge and examine how it penetrates the shifting religious narratives, discourses and worldviews of today's transnational and glocal world.
Long Abstract:
Today, we are witnessing a vibrant transformation of both society and religiosity. The discourse of individual "spirituality" is subjugating the discourse of institutional "religion". Recently, some scholars have suggested replacing the model of the postmodern "spiritual supermarket" by a globalized "new age doxa", embedded in the tradition of Western Esotericism. In this panel, we discuss spirituality(ies) as a reflection of contemporary society. We track the ways in which people understand spirituality as a particular kind of knowledge and experience, mostly in terms of personal or global transformation, and examine how it penetrates the shifting religious narratives, discourses and worldviews of today's transnational and glocal world. Thus, we are interested in spirituality as something that is changing its practitioners' lives while its very meaning is also changing.
This panel welcomes all empirical and theoretical contributions that further our understanding of the current spirituality discourse(s). The topic can be studied on New Age or nature based communities in particular, but also on popular and vernacular culture in general, both in and outside Europe (for instance on Neo-Pagan, Neo-Nativist, Neo-Indian or other indigenous narratives). We ask how adherents of spirituality and mainstream society interact and coproduce each other; how the motives of both Christian esoteric traditions and world's indigenous cultures are picked and creatively adapted, reconstructed or invented; how intermixtures of diverse cultures produce new syncretic/hybrid vocabularies; how spirituality is imagined, lived and sensed in the everyday; how it promotes collectivity, social binding and solidarity; how it deals with uncertainty, precariousness and anxiety.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 17 April, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
According to Icelandic researches, untraditional religious ideas seem to be a part of the daily life experience of many people. Even though most of the population is registered in the National Church of Iceland, they think that these untraditional ideas can easily go together with Christian beliefs.
Paper long abstract:
My paper is built on a qualitative research I finished in 2015, including 15 people (12 women and 3 men in Iceland) on their religious ideas, focusing on their belief in afterlife and communication with deceased relatives. Most of them were chosen from a sample from "Könnun á íslenskri þjóðtrú og trúarviðhorfum", conducted in 2007-2007 by Haraldsson, prófessor emeritus in psychology, and Gunnell, professor in folkloristics, both at the University of Iceland.
According to the results, my informants are open-minded and informal regarding their religious ideas. Most of them are registered in the National Church of Iceland (Evangelical Lutheran Church) but nevertheless they think that untraditional religious ideas, like spiritualism, new age beliefs and folk belief, can go together with Christianity. Most of my informants believe in an afterlife that is more related to spiritual ideas than Christian doctrine.
They believe that communication with the dead is plausible and see it as a part of their everyday life experience. The deceased have to do with fate of men and their role is to protect, help and give advice, mainly in difficult situations but also to sort out mundane problems. Somehow, my informants can find a harmonic coexistence for possibly discordant beliefs. Connected to this subject is the secularization thesis which involves the idea that a growing materialism, modern science and technological progress will lead to religion and its institutions changing their role from being a governing force to one of influencing individualism and private belief.
Paper short abstract:
The Finnish religious landscape has changed in the 2010s. New forms of religion and new spirituality has evolved. Women incorporate traditional figures, angels, in their changing spiritual practices. Angels and angel practices provide support and enchantment to their everyday life.
Paper long abstract:
The Finnish religious landscape has changed in the 2010s. Secularization, privatization, medialization and multiculturalism have influenced on the traditional institutional religion and created new forms of religion and new spirituality. Previous research indicates that privatization, selectivity and use of spiritual services combine individualistic spirituality with modern consumerism.
In my presentation, I will discuss how women incorporate traditional figures, angels and angel practices in their changing religious and spiritual practices, and how they describe angels and their own experiences of angel.
The research material consist of data collected through questionnaires in talks given by Irish mystic Lorna Byrne in Helsinki on 2011 (N263) and 2015 (N189) and participatory observation. Lorna Byrne is internationally famous for seeing angels and talking with them. I am combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. My theoretical background is on the discussion of lived everyday religion. My claim is that women participating in spiritual events are not, as often suggested, unsound minds, but well educated, married, middle aged women working on welfare, health or education sector.
Nearly 80% of the respondents had own angel experiences. They described relationship with angels as active, positive and very commonplace. Angels delivered information, messages and responses, supported in making difficult decisions and helped in daily situations. The results indicate that persons participating in such events feel the need to add a new perspective to their religiousness or spirituality. Angels and angel practices provide support and enchantment to their everyday life.
Paper short abstract:
A discourse analysis and cognitive semantic study how the visionary-based angel-image was changed by the later introduced notion of energy - in a Charismatic Christian group that re-enacts the Age of Apostles. I analyse the meaning-layers in this syncretic form of Christian and New Age spirituality.
Paper long abstract:
I conduct anthropological fieldwork in a Charismatic Christian movement since 2010. It re-enacts the Age of Apostles. This fundamentalist group (the Lights) was established by a folk prophet in 2008. It has members from Romania, Serbia, Hungary, and Slovakia. The vocabulary meaning of 'angel' cannot cover the particular (vernacular) meanings and its changes. I analyse the transformation of the angel notion with the method of discourse analysis and cognitive semantics.
It is a long process to become a Light (a core member, filled with the Holy Spirit). Newcomers encounter "threshold-narratives" (gradually dosed elements of the group's special common knowledge) that filter the outsiders and edify those who enter the inner sphere. The angel-image is one of these threshold-narratives. The prophet had many visionary journeys to Heaven and Hell, so he has a sturdy concept of the "real shape" of the angels: a rectangular form. Those who acquire these narratives change their cognition of transcendent reality.
The concept of energy was introduced by some members who were also engaged with esoteric spirituality: Reiki, yoga and energy healing, in 2010-2011. This caused a definite modification in the group's angel-image. It was not a simple meaning-exchange, but an over-structuring of the semantic frame. Some of the former meanings became passive knowledge, others remained as secondary meaning levels which could be called forth in a given situation. Cognitive reality is not consistent: cognition of concrete / abstract / metaphoric or metonymic meanings do not form a coherent doctrinal system, but a semi-systematized structure of separate meaning-layers.
Paper short abstract:
Eddy dedicated her book to "honest seekers for Truth," privileging a relationship that she claimed had characterized her own life. How has audience for this text developed since its 1875 publication, why is it still in print, and what does this indicate about the contemporary spiritual marketplace?
Paper long abstract:
Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy's (1821-1910) primary work, was written in the US by a New England seeker who said that she had discovered the Principle of Christ Jesus' healing. She claimed that these healings were not miracles but were demonstrations of divine law. Eddy's career as author, teacher, healer, and organizer is controversial. Less attention has been paid to her book's continuing readership and how it has contributed to contemporary spirituality discourse. Eddy's self-described intent was not esoteric. Scholars have tended to overlook the influence of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures in her writings. This pervasive biblical influence may help to explain, somewhat paradoxically, the continuing market for her work. The intersection of her search for health and well-being with her religious experience continues to resonate with some seekers. Eddy also founded an organized religion, The Church of Christ, Scientist. The church has no ordained clergy, practices equality of the sexes in its administration, operates democratically at the local level, and claims the Bible and Science and Health as "pastor." This reimagining of ecclesiastical structure is also related to Eddy's experience as a marginalized seeker. Eddy's intent was that Science and Health be used as a textbook, and testimony to the truth of its claims began almost immediately after publication in 1875 and continues today. The emphasis on individual experience exists within the context of a church created to both protect and promote Eddy's book. Its authenticity continues to be contested by advocates and critics.
Paper short abstract:
This is an exploratory paper in which a brief analysis of ritual practices taking place in Northwest France is used to delve into the somatic and physical knowing, in which the participants' experiences rely.
Paper long abstract:
This paper on embodied spiritual experiences in the new age practices held in Brittany's megaliths explores the "felt-sense" that participants turn to in order to engage in a meaningful relationship with some aspects of the megalithic landscape. Special consideration will be given to the different processes of connection operating in the rituals, and helping establish an embodied conversation between the participants and the organic and non-organic environment.
The notion of "embodiment" invites us to consider the body not as an object to be studied in relation to culture, but as the existential ground of culture. As several scholars have suggested, the individual interactions taking place in new age ritual contexts can derive from an embodied-situated-cognition, which depends on an affective and sensual mode of being-in-the-world. Furthermore, the embodied knowing, as the "intuition" or the "gut feelings", has priority over intellectual approaches for participants who search to communicate with a landscape. Essentially, what emerges is an embodied perception of nature, fundamental if we are to establish a meaningful engagement with the place, the flora, the fauna and the nature's spirits.
The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among the members of a group who hold regular meetings in Carnac's megaliths. These individuals visit Carnac every year in order to develop their spiritual and physical welfare; executed rituals blend science, indigenous beliefs and local folklore. Brittany, the region where Carnac is settled, has a strong Celtic heritage and maintains a fierce local identity.
Paper short abstract:
In the paper, the concepts of Oriental origin, which are used among Vissarionites and Anastasians, appear as an example of how such concepts arrived through Western cultural influences, transformed and took root in the post-Soviet cultural context of New Age spirituality.
Paper long abstract:
The paper introduces a research on alternative religiosities related to individuality and subcultural features, influenced by the processes of social change and religious diversification in the post-communist region. It focuses on two nature-based spirituality movements, which emerged in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and have since spread to Eastern and Central Europe and beyond: the Vissarion and the Anastasia movements.
The paper discusses typical for Vissarionites and Anastasians individual and communal (orientated to esoteric, magic, ecology) thinking, which is expressed through the concepts of New Age spirituality of Oriental origin. These concepts of Oriental origin (energy, aura, reincarnation, karma, non-violence, vegetarianism, yoga), which are used in both movements, appear as an example of how such concepts arrived through Western cultural influences, transformed and took root in the post-Soviet cultural context of New Age spirituality.
The findings are based on data obtained from the fieldwork in 2004-2018, including participant observation and interviews with respondents in the Baltic states and Russia.
Paper short abstract:
This paper is based on interviews that I made during the process of writing a book about hundred various forms of spirituality in Estonia, thus being a reflection of trends of spirituality in a country that has been repeatedly called the least religious country in Europe or even the whole world.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based on interviews that I made during the process of writing a book about hundred various forms of spirituality in Estonia, thus being a reflection of trends and transformations of spirituality in a country that has been repeatedly called the least religious country in Europe or even the whole world. Offering some case analyses (e.g. parody rituals, sauna rituals, MMS-users) the paper will touch upon some characteristic features of Estonian contemporary spirituality (e.g. the individualized quest for ritualized and re-mystified life on the one hand, and pragmatic problem-solving on the other, accompanied by the use of narrative meaning making as a mechanism of self help). The paper will also highlight the phenomenon of multiple or fluctuating religious identities in the light of increased liquidity of spiritual thought, e.g. "free-floating" global elements that are easily building hybrid forms with local beliefs (combining, for example, Wicca, American and Siberian shamanism and Estonian ancient nature religion), or public conflicts and private symbioses of scientific and religious worldview.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the approach of the contemporary Czech pagans towards the so-called sacred nudity. It presents qualitative analysis of the phenomenon of pagan naturism through deep interviews with practitioners and opponents of the practice of ritual nudity.
Paper long abstract:
A quite large community of neopagans is very active in the Czech Republic. The ritual nudity was traditionally practiced by Wiccans, but in some cases also by priests and priestesses of other contemporary pagan paths. Actually the phenomenon seems to assume new and enlarged forms, thanks to the use of the social networks like youtube, facebook or rajce.net, a Czech platform for sharing photos. This paper will present a short introduction to the so-called sacred nudity and it will trace a map of the use of the social networks for spreading the idea of naturism. The central parts of the study are the narratives of the interviewees, the reason for their choices and the way how they see the relationship between spirituality and nudism. Using the emic approach, the aim of the paper is to show an insider view of the ways in which Czech contemporary pagans relate themselves to the so-called pagan naturism and sacred nudity.
Paper short abstract:
The paper analyzes the ways how the post-modern alternative spirituality discourses actively influence the academia. The situation is illustrated on the ancient Maya studies of the last two decades and their interpretation of ancient Maya "religion" and "spirituality".
Paper long abstract:
The paper explores the discourse of spirituality and its impact on the realm of the study of religion and culture at large. The usual intents to define "spirituality" try to comprise together the original Christian theological use with the concept of spiritual experience mostly applied in psychology of religion and combine those two layers of meaning with its post-modern interpretation largely synonymous with the outdated term of "New Age Movement". However, the essentialist attitude towards the term largely obscures its discursive nature and helps to spread an unreflected influence of post-modern alternative spiritualities in the social sciences and humanities. The situation is illustrated by the ancient Maya studies in the 1990-2000s and their core concept of Maya religion / Maya spirituality as presented in Schele and Freidel's influential book Maya Cosmos.