Preparing for the Past, Packaged for the Present: The Brahma Kumaris, Meditation, and a Self-(Help) Styled Monasticism

IF 0.3 4区 哲学 0 RELIGION International Journal of Hindu Studies Pub Date : 2024-02-29 DOI:10.1007/s11407-024-09358-5
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Abstract

The Brahma Kumaris are a Hindu religious movement whose membership consists almost exclusively of women and whose devotional practices revolve around notions of purity and celibacy. They also hold a cyclical apocalyptic eschatology, believing that the world will end in utter disaster in the near future, just as it has done in countless times past. In order to achieve their religious goals with respect to the apocalypse, the Brahma Kumaris must engage in recruitment on a massive scale. This article examines the marketing of the Brahma Kumaris. It argues that, in order to usher in the end of the world and spare others a painful post-apocalyptic fate, the Brahma Kumaris host a number of retreats and programs aimed at attracting the public to their movement. These retreats and programs, however, have little to do with celibacy and apocalypticism, but instead focus on self-help, stress reduction, and increasing self-confidence. The article examines the ways that the Brahma Kumaris brand their determinedly ascetic, apocalyptic, and predestinarian movement as a meditative tradition which offers self-help tools for the frenzied modern public. It also considers how scholars should theorize about the marketing of religious groups that have a radically different set of internal theologies than those they present to the public.

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为过去做准备,为现在做包装:布拉马-库马里斯、冥想和自助式修道院
摘要 布拉马-库马里斯是一个印度教宗教运动,其成员几乎全部为女性,其虔诚的信仰围绕着纯洁和独身的观念。他们还信奉周期性的世界末日末世论,认为在不久的将来,世界将在彻底的灾难中灭亡,就像过去无数次发生的那样。为了实现他们关于世界末日的宗教目标,布拉马-库马里斯必须进行大规模的招募。本文探讨了布拉马-库马里斯的市场营销。文章认为,为了迎接世界末日的到来,避免其他人遭受末日后的痛苦命运,布拉马-库马里斯举办了一系列静修会和项目,旨在吸引公众加入他们的运动。然而,这些闭关和项目与独身主义和世界末日无关,而是侧重于自助、减压和增强自信。文章探讨了布拉马-库马里斯如何将其坚定的禁欲主义、世界末日论和天命论运动打造成一个为狂热的现代公众提供自助工具的冥想传统。文章还探讨了学者应如何对宗教团体的营销进行理论分析,因为这些团体的内部神学与其向公众展示的神学截然不同。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
20
期刊介绍: Founded in 1997, the International Journal of Hindu Studies is committed to publishing excellent scholarship on well-established topics in Hindu Studies, to fostering new work in neglected areas, and to stimulating alternative perspectives as well as exchange of information on a wide range of issues. The Journal supports critical inquiry, hermeneutical interpretive proposals, and historical investigation into all aspects of Hindu traditions.    While committed to publishing articles that will advance scholarship in any discipline relevant to Hindu Studies, the Journal is especially interested in areas of research that have cross-disciplinary relevance or new implications for this emerging field of scholarly interest. Submissions of a comparative or theoretical nature in every discipline in the humanities and social sciences will receive serious and respectful consideration. Each submission to the Journal will receive double-blind review.
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