Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2022.2089186
Ana Lourdes Suárez, Juan Martín López Fidanza
ABSTRACT The article addresses Latin American poor people's religious beliefs and practices, analysing particularly three of them: devotion, promise, and miracle. We argue that these three religious features are related to people’s agency and can have impact on personal and community wellbeing. The data that support the analysis come from a case study in Buenos Aires based on two sources: 1. A questionnaire applied to a representative sample of Buenos Aires slum inhabitants. 2. In-depth interviews of women living in poor settlements. The theoretical discussions link the concept of popular religiosity as it is being addressed in Latin America, with approaches that emphasises agency. The main argument is that the bodily, emotonal, and relational aspects of religion, framed within a cosmological and holistic cultural matrix, shape poor people’s agency with positive outcomes.
{"title":"Devotions, promises and miracles: How religious beliefs and practices support poor people´s agency in Latin America","authors":"Ana Lourdes Suárez, Juan Martín López Fidanza","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2022.2089186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2022.2089186","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article addresses Latin American poor people's religious beliefs and practices, analysing particularly three of them: devotion, promise, and miracle. We argue that these three religious features are related to people’s agency and can have impact on personal and community wellbeing. The data that support the analysis come from a case study in Buenos Aires based on two sources: 1. A questionnaire applied to a representative sample of Buenos Aires slum inhabitants. 2. In-depth interviews of women living in poor settlements. The theoretical discussions link the concept of popular religiosity as it is being addressed in Latin America, with approaches that emphasises agency. The main argument is that the bodily, emotonal, and relational aspects of religion, framed within a cosmological and holistic cultural matrix, shape poor people’s agency with positive outcomes.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47726917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2020.2153436
Federico Settler, Anupama M Ranawana
the focus of Culture and Religion is on work that is largely qualitative and discursive, that explores issues of gender, sexuality, and racialisation from intersecting perspectives (i.e. ‘intersectionality’), and thus also engages with methodologies and approaches that seek to challenge the balance of power and intellectual (and material) capital within the academy. For me, that involves a ‘decolonising’ approach, one that historicises and socialises both academic theories and the structures of knowledge and society they come from and are applied to. But of course there are many ways in which this work can be done.
{"title":"Transitions in Culture and Religion I: the where, whom and what of religion, race and coloniality","authors":"Federico Settler, Anupama M Ranawana","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2020.2153436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2020.2153436","url":null,"abstract":"the focus of Culture and Religion is on work that is largely qualitative and discursive, that explores issues of gender, sexuality, and racialisation from intersecting perspectives (i.e. ‘intersectionality’), and thus also engages with methodologies and approaches that seek to challenge the balance of power and intellectual (and material) capital within the academy. For me, that involves a ‘decolonising’ approach, one that historicises and socialises both academic theories and the structures of knowledge and society they come from and are applied to. But of course there are many ways in which this work can be done.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48857623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2022.2093235
Qudsiya Contractor
ABSTRACT This article looks at how the objectification of religious imagination influences Muslim poor’s coping of their changing worldly realities in a Mumbai slum. It looks at the role of new religious intellectuals in addressing the shrinking Muslim presence in the public sphere in urban India through newer styles of religious leadership embedded in a broader understanding of the religious imagination itself. These new religious intellectuals among the Muslim poor I argue see the role of secular education coupled with a religious imagination as essential in order to protect one’s self interests as a Muslim yet be integral to a larger and diverse public. Islamic knowledge and behavioural conduct combined with secular education is hence seen as a way of fashioning the lives of the modern Muslim subject. By describing and analysing how universalistic principles of Islam have been realised in the local context of a Mumbai slum, this article illustrates how, embracing modernity emanating from Islamic values is seen as a way of refashioning the Muslim self.
{"title":"Religious imagination in the making of public Muslims in a Mumbai slum","authors":"Qudsiya Contractor","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2022.2093235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2022.2093235","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article looks at how the objectification of religious imagination influences Muslim poor’s coping of their changing worldly realities in a Mumbai slum. It looks at the role of new religious intellectuals in addressing the shrinking Muslim presence in the public sphere in urban India through newer styles of religious leadership embedded in a broader understanding of the religious imagination itself. These new religious intellectuals among the Muslim poor I argue see the role of secular education coupled with a religious imagination as essential in order to protect one’s self interests as a Muslim yet be integral to a larger and diverse public. Islamic knowledge and behavioural conduct combined with secular education is hence seen as a way of fashioning the lives of the modern Muslim subject. By describing and analysing how universalistic principles of Islam have been realised in the local context of a Mumbai slum, this article illustrates how, embracing modernity emanating from Islamic values is seen as a way of refashioning the Muslim self.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49668524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2022.2115524
T. Lynch
ABSTRACT Academic work on the “veil”, while important in challenging commonly held ideas about Islam and gender, often falls into a familiar series of observations: veiled women are frequently excluded from these debates; women’s bodies and sexuality have become (or rather, taken on new significance as) battle grounds in arguments about national identity, religion, and culture; and the veil not only marks religious identity, but plays a role in the racialisation of religious minorities. Despite this important work, ideas about Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular seem particularly resistant to counter evidence. The essay employs work on epistemic injustice to develop an account of the persistence of negative attitudes towards Muslims. Connecting research on testimonial injustice and epistemologies of ignorance, I argue that epistemic injustice can help explain the epistemic significance of visible manifestations of Islam for white, European forms of knowing.
{"title":"Epistemic injustice and the veil: Islam, vulnerability, and the task of historical revisionism","authors":"T. Lynch","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2022.2115524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2022.2115524","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Academic work on the “veil”, while important in challenging commonly held ideas about Islam and gender, often falls into a familiar series of observations: veiled women are frequently excluded from these debates; women’s bodies and sexuality have become (or rather, taken on new significance as) battle grounds in arguments about national identity, religion, and culture; and the veil not only marks religious identity, but plays a role in the racialisation of religious minorities. Despite this important work, ideas about Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular seem particularly resistant to counter evidence. The essay employs work on epistemic injustice to develop an account of the persistence of negative attitudes towards Muslims. Connecting research on testimonial injustice and epistemologies of ignorance, I argue that epistemic injustice can help explain the epistemic significance of visible manifestations of Islam for white, European forms of knowing.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42370711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2021.1923539
M. Amini, Anwar Ouassini
ABSTRACT The concept of Islamic legal custom, or ‘urf occupies an important place within the Islamic legal system. Legal custom has been key in shaping localised Islamic interpretations towards cultural practices and activities. The indispensable role of custom is evident in the modern context where it has played a significant role in modern Islamic jurisprudence in the process of formulating law in response to new practices and norms. In an attempt to map the significance of custom in the Islamic legal framework, we will present a discussion on the divergent Islamic legal perspectives on yoga. In using yoga as a case study, this paper will first discuss the debates surrounding the status of yoga in the contemporary Islamic world. We will then look at how the legal framework around the role of custom shapes the discourse regarding yoga and its permissibility for Muslims. We argue these religious verdicts are shaped by socio-political and economic factors including whether Muslims have been introduced to yoga by Hindu citizens or through its commercialised form. Finally, we end the article by discussing the emergence of an ‘Islamic Yoga’, which is a product of utilising custom as a mediated legal tool.
{"title":"Divergent Islamic perspectives: yoga through the lens of societal custom","authors":"M. Amini, Anwar Ouassini","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2021.1923539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2021.1923539","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The concept of Islamic legal custom, or ‘urf occupies an important place within the Islamic legal system. Legal custom has been key in shaping localised Islamic interpretations towards cultural practices and activities. The indispensable role of custom is evident in the modern context where it has played a significant role in modern Islamic jurisprudence in the process of formulating law in response to new practices and norms. In an attempt to map the significance of custom in the Islamic legal framework, we will present a discussion on the divergent Islamic legal perspectives on yoga. In using yoga as a case study, this paper will first discuss the debates surrounding the status of yoga in the contemporary Islamic world. We will then look at how the legal framework around the role of custom shapes the discourse regarding yoga and its permissibility for Muslims. We argue these religious verdicts are shaped by socio-political and economic factors including whether Muslims have been introduced to yoga by Hindu citizens or through its commercialised form. Finally, we end the article by discussing the emergence of an ‘Islamic Yoga’, which is a product of utilising custom as a mediated legal tool.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2021.1923539","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46589157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2021.1906726
Pei-Ru Liao
ABSTRACT Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2019. The call of legalising same-sex marriage began in 2013, along with the emergence of the Christian-led pro-family movement. Religious backlash came to its peak in 2013 and successfully gained politicians’ and public’s support to fight against same-sex marriages and LGBT-inclusive gender equity education. The rhetoric device of the pro-family movement in Taiwan can be connected to rhetoric devices of pro-family and anti-gender movements across the globe. By analysing the narrative of two Christian newspapers, Chinese Christian Tribune and Christian Daily, this article points out three perspectives that made up the picture of Confucian apocalypse. In this article, the concept of ‘Confucian apocalypse’ is used to illustrate the process of indigenisation of global pro-family and anti-gender movements in Taiwan where the Christian population is around 5.5%.
{"title":"‘Only filial piety can produce heirs, not homosexuals!’: an exploration of the glocalised rhetoric of the pro-family movement in Taiwan","authors":"Pei-Ru Liao","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2021.1906726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2021.1906726","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2019. The call of legalising same-sex marriage began in 2013, along with the emergence of the Christian-led pro-family movement. Religious backlash came to its peak in 2013 and successfully gained politicians’ and public’s support to fight against same-sex marriages and LGBT-inclusive gender equity education. The rhetoric device of the pro-family movement in Taiwan can be connected to rhetoric devices of pro-family and anti-gender movements across the globe. By analysing the narrative of two Christian newspapers, Chinese Christian Tribune and Christian Daily, this article points out three perspectives that made up the picture of Confucian apocalypse. In this article, the concept of ‘Confucian apocalypse’ is used to illustrate the process of indigenisation of global pro-family and anti-gender movements in Taiwan where the Christian population is around 5.5%.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2021.1906726","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48802488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2020.1862887
D. Herbert, Josh Bullock
ABSTRACT This article draws on interviews with 67 nonreligious millennials across 25 European towns and cities, part of a research programme (Understanding Unbelief) which aims to map the global diversity of nonreligion. We contribute by examining the presence of paranormal, superstitious, magical, and supernatural (PSMS) beliefs and a sense of immanent moral structure to the world among a substantial minority (34%) of our interviewees. Beliefs relating to luck, fate and a sense of cosmic interconnection are widely distributed and often use a shared New Age-influenced vocabulary. Others vary by national context, for example relating to folklore in Romania and superstition in Poland. The prevalence is higher in Eastern than in Western Europe, and we discuss possible reasons for this. Many interviewees express discomfort or tension around a sense of inconsistency in holding these beliefs alongside a rationalist-materialist cognitive framework. We investigate how they articulate this tension, and consider explanations for the persistence of these beliefs, particularly in terms of their ongoing social and psychological role in the lives of many young nonreligious Europeans.
{"title":"Reaching for a new sense of connection: soft atheism and ‘patch and make do’ spirituality amongst nonreligious European millennials","authors":"D. Herbert, Josh Bullock","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2020.1862887","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2020.1862887","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article draws on interviews with 67 nonreligious millennials across 25 European towns and cities, part of a research programme (Understanding Unbelief) which aims to map the global diversity of nonreligion. We contribute by examining the presence of paranormal, superstitious, magical, and supernatural (PSMS) beliefs and a sense of immanent moral structure to the world among a substantial minority (34%) of our interviewees. Beliefs relating to luck, fate and a sense of cosmic interconnection are widely distributed and often use a shared New Age-influenced vocabulary. Others vary by national context, for example relating to folklore in Romania and superstition in Poland. The prevalence is higher in Eastern than in Western Europe, and we discuss possible reasons for this. Many interviewees express discomfort or tension around a sense of inconsistency in holding these beliefs alongside a rationalist-materialist cognitive framework. We investigate how they articulate this tension, and consider explanations for the persistence of these beliefs, particularly in terms of their ongoing social and psychological role in the lives of many young nonreligious Europeans.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2020.1862887","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49149388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2021.1903956
David A B Murray
ABSTRACT At an historical juncture where HIV/AIDS is rapidly disappearing as a public health issue throughout the Caribbean region, alongside stagnant or reduced funding for HIV-related support services, spirituality and membership in Christian communities of faith occupy a central role for older, working-class women from Barbados living with HIV. However, many of these Christian religious organisations are historically responsible for discriminatory discourses about people living with HIV, creating practical and moral challenges for HIV positive members. Through interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores how and why a group of Barbadian women living with HIV develop a strong personal commitment to a spiritual life, and why membership in communities of faith, where HIV infection is often associated with sin and immorality, continues to be important for many of them. I argue that these women’s HIV status transforms and/or intensifies their personal spiritual commitments but also contributes to a critical reflexivity of the wider institutionalised religious communities to which they belong.
{"title":"Redemption songs: women, religion, and the moral politics of HIV in Barbados","authors":"David A B Murray","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2021.1903956","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2021.1903956","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT At an historical juncture where HIV/AIDS is rapidly disappearing as a public health issue throughout the Caribbean region, alongside stagnant or reduced funding for HIV-related support services, spirituality and membership in Christian communities of faith occupy a central role for older, working-class women from Barbados living with HIV. However, many of these Christian religious organisations are historically responsible for discriminatory discourses about people living with HIV, creating practical and moral challenges for HIV positive members. Through interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper explores how and why a group of Barbadian women living with HIV develop a strong personal commitment to a spiritual life, and why membership in communities of faith, where HIV infection is often associated with sin and immorality, continues to be important for many of them. I argue that these women’s HIV status transforms and/or intensifies their personal spiritual commitments but also contributes to a critical reflexivity of the wider institutionalised religious communities to which they belong.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2021.1903956","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46413869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2021.1906394
Adam Dunstan
ABSTRACT In 2018, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the end of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a seemingly minor policy decision which, I argue, reflects major changes in how a faith which has earnestly sought to present itself as mainstream American in the twenty-first century is attempting to reconfigure itself in the twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research, I argue that the Hill Cumorah Pageant (an outdoor production on the hill) utilises discursive and spatial practices which connect a specific version of the Book of Mormon ‘Promised Land’ narrative to the US via a process of spatially anchoring the Book of Mormon landscape and establishing continuity between Nephites and the modern US. In so doing, the narrative establishes a moral geography wherein inhabitancy in the land implicitly places people under covenant to follow God’s laws. In this regard, we can think of the Hill Cumorah as space both sacred and sacralising – as sacralising space which ‘sets apart’ the US in a way which may now seem overly local for an internationalising faith.
2018年，耶稣基督后期圣徒教会(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)宣布结束Hill Cumorah Pageant，我认为这是一个看似微不足道的政策决定，但它反映了一个在21世纪认真寻求将自己呈现为美国主流的信仰如何在21世纪重新配置自己的重大变化。根据人种学的研究，我认为Hill Cumorah Pageant(山上的户外演出)利用了话语和空间实践，通过在空间上锚定《摩门经》的景观，并在尼腓人和现代美国之间建立连续性，将《摩门经》的一个特定版本的“应许之地”叙事与美国联系起来。这样，叙事建立了一种道德地理，在这片土地上的居民隐含地将人们置于遵守上帝律法的契约之下。在这方面，我们可以把克莫拉山看作是既神圣又神圣化的空间——作为一个神圣化的空间，它以一种现在看来对国际化信仰来说过于本地化的方式“区分”了美国。
{"title":"‘Every nation who dwells in the land’: Latter-day Saint Internationalisation, sacralising spaces, and the Hill Cumorah Pageant","authors":"Adam Dunstan","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2021.1906394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2021.1906394","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 2018, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the end of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a seemingly minor policy decision which, I argue, reflects major changes in how a faith which has earnestly sought to present itself as mainstream American in the twenty-first century is attempting to reconfigure itself in the twenty-first century. Drawing on ethnographic research, I argue that the Hill Cumorah Pageant (an outdoor production on the hill) utilises discursive and spatial practices which connect a specific version of the Book of Mormon ‘Promised Land’ narrative to the US via a process of spatially anchoring the Book of Mormon landscape and establishing continuity between Nephites and the modern US. In so doing, the narrative establishes a moral geography wherein inhabitancy in the land implicitly places people under covenant to follow God’s laws. In this regard, we can think of the Hill Cumorah as space both sacred and sacralising – as sacralising space which ‘sets apart’ the US in a way which may now seem overly local for an internationalising faith.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2021.1906394","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48524765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2020.1858551
Linda C. Ceriello
ABSTRACT The literature on ‘mountain mysticism’ includes a wide array of interpretations: Reductively, mystical states experienced on mountains may be viewed as neurological or psychological epiphenomena. Anthropomorphised as mystical agents themselves, the mountain is seen as capable of engendering non-ordinary awareness. This article makes space for interpretations falling outside of or combining such constructivist and universalised interpretations by first examining what ontological interpolations may be available after ‘the peak has been reached.’ I track the mystic’s descent ‘back’ to ordinary consciousness as a pivotal determinative moment in the narrative construction of mystical noesis. I consider three examples of 19th and 20th century nature mysticisms (naturalist John Muir, Vedantic sage Ramana Maharshi, journalist Rob Schultheis) to illustrate my assertion that it is the mystic’s grappling with the paradox inherent in the ontological trauma of descent which performs the pivotal negotiation between the collapsed boundaries of subject/object or self/Other that characterizes mystical experience. I suggest further that we look to this narrative grappling as inevitably determining the content of the experience of noesis itself. Rather than reasserting a radical constructivism, I point more specifically to ‘descent’ as one juncture in which a remarkable ontological agency directly engages with the mystic’s moment of self-construal.
{"title":"Descent from the peak: mystical navigations of paradox and trauma on the down-climb","authors":"Linda C. Ceriello","doi":"10.1080/14755610.2020.1858551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2020.1858551","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The literature on ‘mountain mysticism’ includes a wide array of interpretations: Reductively, mystical states experienced on mountains may be viewed as neurological or psychological epiphenomena. Anthropomorphised as mystical agents themselves, the mountain is seen as capable of engendering non-ordinary awareness. This article makes space for interpretations falling outside of or combining such constructivist and universalised interpretations by first examining what ontological interpolations may be available after ‘the peak has been reached.’ I track the mystic’s descent ‘back’ to ordinary consciousness as a pivotal determinative moment in the narrative construction of mystical noesis. I consider three examples of 19th and 20th century nature mysticisms (naturalist John Muir, Vedantic sage Ramana Maharshi, journalist Rob Schultheis) to illustrate my assertion that it is the mystic’s grappling with the paradox inherent in the ontological trauma of descent which performs the pivotal negotiation between the collapsed boundaries of subject/object or self/Other that characterizes mystical experience. I suggest further that we look to this narrative grappling as inevitably determining the content of the experience of noesis itself. Rather than reasserting a radical constructivism, I point more specifically to ‘descent’ as one juncture in which a remarkable ontological agency directly engages with the mystic’s moment of self-construal.","PeriodicalId":45190,"journal":{"name":"Culture and Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/14755610.2020.1858551","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43235798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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