bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Finnic holy word and its subsequent history
Authors: Koski Mauno
Published: August 2018

This article concentrates on a specific ancient holy word in Finnish and its subsequent development, hiisi. In the Finnish language region hiisi appears as an element in place names in over 230 villages established by the end of the thirteenth century, and at least a majority of these must have existed since prehistoric times. In Finland as well as in Estonia it is possible to demonstrate an earlier sacral function in places which contain hiisi as a component of their name, partly with the help of archeological discoveries, and partly with the help of oral folk tradition. It is particularly among the earliest settlement areas of Southwest Finland, Satakunta and Häme that hiisi features in the names of sacrificial sites or trees, in other words in the same areas where it features in the names of burial grounds. Names in which the hiisi element precedes a word meaning a lake, pond, or other water formation, occur particularly in the eastern Finnish dialect regions, as well as in the regions of Karelian, Olonets, Lydian, and Vepsian. In addition to its factual meaning of cult place, the Finnish word hiisi has come to denote a supernatural entity both in terms of its reference to a place and in terms of its reference to a being.
Cult sites in northern Sweden
Authors: Brink Stefan
Published: August 2018

The pagan cult in northern Sweden, i.e, Norrland, has for some decades been a neglected chapter in our history, a situation which unfortunately applies to Sweden as a whole, at least where onomastics are concerned. The aim is thus to deliver an overview of the evidence that we have of pre-Christian religious activities in these northern parts — in this aspect, onomastic material is nearly almost all we have got — and some general remarks about the conversion to the new Christian religion. The area of investigation is what in the (Swedish) medieval period was known as Norrland. In other words, the part of Sweden considered here is modern Central Norrland. With our state of knowledge of today it is not so easy to pick out the place-names that have denoted some kind of pagan cult activity. The place-name material can be divided into: 1. Theoforic place-names 2. place-names denoting the site of a pagan cult, which do not however contain theoforic elements 3. place-names with a possible pagan cultic element.
Editorial note
Authors: Ahlbäck Tore
Published: August 2018

Editorial note of papers presented at the symposium “The Saami Shaman Drum” in Åbo (Turku), Finland on August 19-20, 1988.
The drum in Shamanism: some reflections
Authors: Hultkrantz Åke
Published: August 2018

Shamanism has not been restricted to northern Eurasia and the American Arctic, although it was here that it received its most remarkable forms. It is thus central to consider whether the drum is an integrative part of shamanism and should be examined against a general, and not a regional background. It is important to distinguish Arctic shamanism from other forms of shamanism. Arctic shamanism has a stronger profile than other varieties of shamanism, partly because of its intensity, accentuated to a certain extent by the harsh climate and environment, but also explained by the remarkable position of the shaman in an otherwise unstratified social structure. In the great variety of shamanic forms which exist south of the Arctic Subarctic zone, the drum, with a few exceptions, does not have such a prominent role. The position of the drum in other areas south of the Arctic obviously depends upon the position of shamanism. It is known that the drum is an ancient shamanic symbol in hunting culture, and where horticulture and agriculture supplanted old hunting cultures, shamanism gradually retreated. Priests and cult servants replaced shamans and the way for the trance was no longer necessary. In later shamanism outside the Arctic area the drum has gradually lost its significance.
The Saami drums and the religious encounter in the 17th and 18th centuries
Authors: Rydving Håkan
Published: August 2018

From the end of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century much of the confrontation between indigenous Saami religion and Christianity was focused on the drums. The Saamis of both Denmark—Norway and Sweden—Finland had been christianized for decade. The main problem for the Church authorities turned out to be that of making the Saamis abandon their indigenous religious customs. From the end of the 17th century, an intense period of propaganda and coercion began to make the Saamis abandon these non Christian elements in their religion. For the Saamis, the drums represented their threatened culture, the resistance against the Christian claim to exclusiveness, and a striving to preserve traditional values. The drums had a twofold role to play in the religious encounter. They were both foci of the confrontation and sources documenting and structuring it. The fight between old and new beliefs is to some extent possible to follow in the records from the district and county courts. These records give us access to Saami arguments and views of the importance of the drums in Saami society. The function of the drums as instruments for a Saami description of the encounter is, however, difficult to make out. The drum figures are difficult to interpret and there are a number of alternative ways of understanding their meaning.
The snake and zig-zag motifs in Finnish rock paintings and Saami drums
Authors: Autio Eero
Published: August 2018

In articles about Finnish rock paintings particular attention has been paid to the significance of shamanism. The emphasis on shamanism leads in practice to the conclusion that a composition in which there is a man and a snake, or a snake like zig-zag figure, depicts a shaman and his helping animal. The explanation follows the traditional concept of arctic shamanism. However, the use of shamanism as the most significant basis for interpretation does not lead to plausible results in the study of pictographs (rock paintings) and petroglyphs (rock carvings). There are other possibilities besides shamanism for constructing an interpretation of the rock painting - ancient man did not resort only to the shaman but to magic and to the cults of fertility and ancestors.
The Saami shaman drums: some reflexions from an archaelogical perspective
Authors: Zachrisson Inger
Published: August 2018

The Saami shaman drums from northern Scandinavia can be discussed from many different points of view. For an archaeologist there are other questions of interest than those which generally occupy the historian of religions. One important question is how old the known Saami drums are. The known drums are as a rule assumed to be from the seventeenth or the eighteenth centuries, when most of them were collected. It has also been thought that, because of the materials they are made of, drums could not have been preserved any longer. Another perhaps more interesting question is how old the known types of Saami drums might be. When did they acquire their 'classical' form? What did the Viking Age Saami drums look like?
The Saami shaman's drum and the star horizons
Authors: Sommarström Bo
Published: August 2018

The aim of this contribution is to examine the possible influences of stellar constellations on the positioning of the drum figures on the drums used by the Saami people during the 17th and 18th centuries. Certain of the drum figures seem to have a similar position to corresponding figures on traditional star maps, both with respect to single star constellations and to some members of the Zodiac circle. The most general correspondences between star maps and the painted designs on drums depend on the existence of a cross for determining the four cardinal points in both cases. The star constellations compared here with the drum-figures are in fact peripheral Saami skies. It is hard to believe that they can have played any vital role in their capacity as star symbols within the frame of the Saamis' own astral cosmology. It is more probable that the earthly meanings of most of the figures were more important to the drummer.
Wilhelm Mannhardt - A Pioneer in the Study of Rituals
Authors: Tybjerg Tove
Published: August 2018

In the history of the study of religion the German folklorist Wilhelm Mannhardt (1831-1880) was the first to undertake a systematic study of rituals. This was not because of a specific interest in rituals; Mannhardt's  interests lay with mythology, and all his life he regarded himself as a mythologist. In focusing on mythology Mannhardt was in tune with the spirit of his age, but to undertake a systematic study of rituals was something new. At the time the novelty of this approach went practically unnoticed, and Mannhardt himself barely reflected on method. There are complicated relations between a scholar's ideas and the ideas of his time, between what he intends to do and what he actually does and achieves.
Ancient Ephesus: Processions as Media of Religious and Secular Propaganda
Authors: Portefaix Lilian
Published: August 2018

The significance of religious rituals often reaches beyond their strict religious intentions. Specifically a procession, performed in front of the public, is a most effective instrument of disseminating a message to the crowds. Consequently, this ritual, as is well known, has often been used not only in religious but also in secular contexts; a procession under the cloak of religion can even become a politically useful medium to avoid popular disturbances on peaceful terms. This was the case in ancient Ephesus, where Roman power conflicted with Greek culture from the middle of the first century B.C. onwards. In the beginning of the second century A.D. the public religious life in the city of Ephesus was to a great extent characterized by processions relating to the cult of Artemis Ephesia. The one traditionally performed on the birthday of the goddess called to mind the Greek origin of the city; it was strictly associated with the religious sphere bringing about a close relationship between the goddess and her adherents. The other, artificially created by a Roman, was entirely secular, and spread its message every fortnight in the streets of Ephesus. It referred to the political field of action and intended to strengthen the Roman rule over the city. The Greek origin of Ephesian culture was later included in the message of the procession, reminding the Greeks not to rebel against Roman rule.
Rituals and Religious Innovation. The Meaning of Rituals in Shan the Rising Light
Authors: Rothstein Mikael
Published: August 2018

This paper presents an example of how rituals may play an important role in the birth of a new religion, and how this religious innovation can be interpreted through the  rituals. This example concerns a religious group — Shan the Rising Light — that has managed to introduce a comprehensive body of rituals into a belief system otherwise characteristed by its general lack of rituals and ceremonies (namely the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky), thereby setting the standards for a virtually new religion. Jeanne Morashti was excommunicated from the organization she felt obliged to save, and started her own religious group. During her religious career, she had encountered numerous groups within the broader limits of the theosophical milieu, and when establishing her own group, she formed a synthesis of the various elements. The old process of syncretism and eclecticism, in the case of Shan the Rising Light, have managed to include the rituals too. The systematized mixing of strongly ritualized traditions with a non-ritualized belief system has led to a religious innovation.
Editorial Note
Authors: Ahlbäck Tore
Published: August 2018

The present volume contains the papers delivered at the Donner symposium on Dance, Music, and Art in Religions held in 1994.
The Dancing Picture - The Ritual Dance of Native Australians
Authors: Engelhart Monica
Published: August 2018

What kind of message does -or did — the dance convey to the Native Australians? Several types of communication can be distinguished in ritual dance. There is the narrative aspect, i.e., the dramatization of a myth, or of certain social relations, there is an aspect of explanation, i.e., the visual performance of significant conditions, an expressive aspect of worship, and even an aspect of transmission, as when the body of the dancer is thought to mediate divine power to the audience. When a dancer is considered possessed, the boundaries between his human identity and the divine are wiped out. This last aspect leads us to the second item of interest regarding the ritual dance in Australia, an issue that has been discussed at length regarding masked dancers in other societies, i.e., the question of whether the dancer is identified with the being represented, or merely performs as an actor in a play. In this discussion, the very technique of dancing may have some explanatory faculty, at least as long as we are dealing with Native Australian ritual dance.
Like a Prophet - On Christian Interpretations of a Madonna Video
Authors: Häger Andreas
Published: August 2018

Throughout the history of Christianity, its relationship to art has been a complicated one, concerning the use of art in worship as well as the views on "secular" art. This article deals with a current example of the latter. More specifically, the article examines some examples of Christian views on popular music. The best-known reactions to pop and rock music' by Christians are likely to be negative ones, probably because these are usually the most loudly declared. But there is also another aspect to the Christian discourse on popular music. Some Christians try to emphasise what is perceived as a positive message in "secular" rock music. This part of the debate is the main concern in this paper.The examples used deal with one of the most controversial pop artists, Madonna, and one of her most discussed works, the video `Like a Prayer'. Madonna Louise Ciccone, born 1958, has been one of the most successful, most imitated and certainly most talked about popular artists of the past decade. She has — at least to a certain degree quite consciously — stirred up controversy with several of her videos. Raised a Catholic, her use of religious themes and images is one aspect that has caught special attention.
Magical Music in Old Norse Literature
Authors: Näsström Britt-Mari
Published: August 2018

No society ever existed without performing music, and most cultures display many variants of music. Music also played and still plays an important part in different religious rites. From the days of yore, music has been intimately connected with the cult, whether it is performed as epic or lyric expressions. The Old Norse society was no exception to this statement and early finds from as far back as the Bronze Age reveal that different instrument were used in daily life. The most conspicuous specimens from this time are the bronze lures, which probably are depicted on the rock-carvings. All these examples emphasise the character of music in Old Norse literature as connected with the magic aspect of religion, and particularly with divination. This does not mean that all music in the Viking Age was performed with a magic purpose, but what has survived in the sources is the conspicuous role of music as something that affected the human mind to the extent that it was experienced as a magic feeling, even able to reveal the future.
"Everything Created by God Is Pure". The Image of God in Emanuel Vigeland's Programme of Art in His Tomba Emmanuelle in Oslo
Authors: Wadell Maj-Brit
Published: August 2018

Quicquid Deus creavit purum est — Everything created by God is pure. The Norwegian artist Emanuel Vigeland (1875-1948) had these words inscribed above the entrance to his mausoleum, Tomba Emmanuelle, in Oslo. They may be interpreted as a type of creed, exemplified and illustrated by the paintings and sculptures on the theme of Vita (life) which Vigeland had completed in the mausoleum from 1927 up until his death more than 20 years later. In this article, the author attempts to explain the nature of the image of God visualized by Emanuel Vigeland when he carried out the artistic decoration of the burial chamber-to-be. The author describes and interprets the large painting on the far wall as well as the accompanying text. To start with, she offers a brief description of the artist's background, with special attention to his upbringing and childhood environment, which can be seen as crucial in the development of his view of life. This presentation is based on many years' study of original sources concerning Emanuel Vigeland's life and works.
Darsan (to See) Lord Shiva in Varanasi. Visual Processes and the Representation of God by Seven Ricksha-Drivers
Authors: Wikström Owe
Published: August 2018

In spite of its effort to be transculturally relevant, the psychology of religion is quite ethno- or rather Western-centric. This becomes very clear when one tries to "translate" Indian folk religiosity into concepts taken from mainline theories; i.e. social, cognitive or psychoanalytical psychology of religion. Not only do the norms and values differ, but the very ontological assumptions underlying the categories in which the researcher understand differs fundamentally from the internal Hindu anthropological and epistemiological apriori. For example, their words of the psyche include contextuality, from time to space, to ethics to groups. The subtle interrelatedness of the divine, spiritual and the mundane is obvious It includes the flows and exchanges of substances within and between persons with minimal outer boundaries. The author discusses the role of the visual and behavioural dimensions of the Indian religiosity.
The Medieval Concept of Music Perception. Hearing, Calculating and Contemplating
Authors: Witkowska-Zaremba Elzbieta
Published: August 2018

Seeking to indicate the most salient features of the medieval perception of music, we must first of all point to the close relationship between the sensual and intellectual elements. This relationship is most conspicuous in the term "harmonica" introduced in the Latin Middle Ages by Boethius and defined as follows: "harmonica is the faculty of perceiving through senses and the intellect the differences between high and low sounds". The same definition reveals another significant feature of the perception of music, namely, that the importance is attached not to individual sounds, but to the differences or relationships between them, that is to the intervals. Since - in accordance with the Pythagorean tradition, which was a major force in medieval music theory - the relationship between sounds can be expressed numerically, it may therefore be considered in terms of the relationship of two numbers, apart from actual sound and beyond physical time. The question arises whether this concept of music could influence the perception of a medieval listener. For instance, can listening to music be understood as a process which engages both cognitive powers and concerns reducing in some unspecified manner the data perceived and processed by the senses to abstract categories which can be conceived only by the intellect?.
Editorial note
Authors: Ahlbäck Tore
Published: August 2018

Editorial note of Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, vol. 17, No 1, based on papers read at IAHR Regional Symposium in Turku/Åbo on the 4th to7th of August 1997, Finland arranged by the Donner Institute and the Finnish Society for the Study of Comparative Religion.
Ethnohermeneutics in a postmodern world
Authors: Geertz Armin
Published: August 2018

During the last three decades a growing amount of literature has accumulated that, to quote from the title of a recent collection of essays, can aptly be summed up with the words: The Empire Writes Back. This literature addresses Western literature and science and definitively rejects much of that literature and its stereotypes. It shows how power is at the center of Western literature, and it therefore addresses issues of hegemony, language, place and displacement, racism and sexism, and it attempts to address a common post-colonial theory. This critical literature, sometimes extreme but usually insightful, coincided with the postmodern crisis in ethnography and other cultural sciences that have also assimilated literary theory. Some of the greatest philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, historians, and cultural scientists are either ignorant of world history or adamantly ethnocentric. Ethnohermeneutics is an appeal to professionalism in dealing with these cultures, especially in requiring the basics of the study of any other religion, namely, historical insight, linguistic knowledge.
From cultural domains to cognitive models: inference and explanation in cognitive anthropology
Authors: Kamppinen Matti
Published: August 2018

The author examines the patterns of inference and explanation utilized in cognitive anthropology of religion. The aim is twofold: first, to explicate their complementary roles in anthropological inquiry, and second, to discuss whether religious data, or people's perception of fundamental questions, pose any specific questions that should be taken into account. These examples highlight the kinds of religious models that have been prominent in the author’s own fieldwork, carried out in the Peruvian Amazon and Western Finland. With the help of examples, the author discusses, not only the problem of inference and explanation, but also the nature of religiosity and fundamental questions, and will propose the notion of quasi-religious attitudes in order to deal with diverse phenomena. After this the author brings up some questions inherent in the search for models, namely the multitude of possible models and pertinent doubts about under-determination. Finally, the author sets for the search for religious models: what they are, where they reside, on what features they should be grounded.
Keeping religion in mind
Authors: Lawson E.
Published: August 2018

The study of religion should continue to focus on the mind rather than being relegated to the emotions. As you study the mind, do not forget to study religion. Do not be so overwhelmed by socio-cultural factors that you forget about the key role that the mind plays in the formation of religious ideas and the practices they inform. And when you study the formation of religious ideas do not become too easily sidetracked into considering only emotive processes.  A cognitive approach to the study of religious ritual demonstrates that when you examine religious ideas and the practices they inform you are looking at a religious system in operation. The relationships among such ideas are systematic and orderly. If they were not we would be looking at a random array of ideas and practices. In such a situation anything would go. But in religious systems anything does not go. The judgments that religious ritual participants make about their own systems are informed by underlying principles that are part of their implicit knowledge. Perhaps, most significantly, such implicit knowledge does not seem to be acquired by instruction. So rather than looking primarily at social and cultural facts in order to explain their acquisition we also need to start looking more closely at how the human mind works; we need to be developing a new psychology of religion as a subdiscipline of cognitive science.
Sacrality and worldmaking: new categorial perspectives
Authors: Paden William
Published: August 2018

The category of the sacred in particular and the role of transcultural concept-formation in general have undergone an obvious crisis. For the most part, "the sacred," if not an empty label, has been linked with theologism, and transcultural concepts have been condemned for their general non-comparability and colonialist intent. The author approaches the matter of transcultural templates through an analysis of certain concepts of sacrality. With some exceptions, the discourse of sacrality has indeed been dominated by a single model, where "the sacred" became a reified noun—a substantive term for a supernatural reality, a label for the transcendent, or even an epithet for divinity, mystery, the wholly other. As such, the expression has functioned to bestow a sense of unity to the diversity of cultures, link that unity with a transcendent reality, and offer a simple way of making sense of otherwise foreign beliefs and practices by giving them a familiar, generic referent.
‘Bringing it all back home’: mentalities, models and the historical study of religions
Authors: Sjöblom Tom
Published: August 2018

If historians of mentalities are studying cultural models of the past, the cognitive historians of religions are in their turn studying religious model.  A more useful definition for religious mentalities would be those cultural models which involves representations based on counterintuitive claims. The history of religions would methodologically be something like a specialized branch of the history of mentalities, and it would be necessary for them to work in close relationship, as applying cognitive approaches to cultural materials always relies on the principle of holism, that is, that all cultural representations should be viewed as parts of the cognitive network system they are found in.
Discovering the two faces of religious charismatic action – traditional and modern: a model
Authors: Williams-Hogan Jane
Published: August 2018

In this paper, the author examines the issue of charisma and prophecy in secularized societies. In traditional society the charismatic personality or the prophet brought a universalizing and rationalizing message which simultaneously expanded and penetrated the sphere of external order in the world, giving people the ability to manipulate and control the natural world. The disenchanted world is the end product of this process, when no more mysterious forces come into play, and when one can in principle master all things through rational calculation. The gift of rationality almost randomly bestowed in the ancient world becomes, for Weber, the rightful inheritance of the modern individual. Clarity brought by charisma in a dark and foreboding world loses its brilliance and its ability to beckon when the world is filled with light. In investigating charisma in only traditional societies, Weber saw charisma as one dimensional, solely as the force of rationality. So envisioned, charisma dissipates in the very act of realizing itself through the transformation of the world. Given Weber's analysis, therefore, one would not expect to find genuinely new religions emerging within our transformed and rational modern society. In the examination of the founding something that is best identified by the sociological term charisma, though obviously in modern guise, is clearly evident. This points to the possibility that charisma is not static but has the dynamic capacity to be responsive to the structural characteristics of the society in which it operates.
Re-envisioning the sites and sights of the late twentieth century study of religion
Authors: Hackett Rosalind
Published: August 2018

In this paper the author shares some of the findings, observations, and stimulating insights from colleagues and students gathered during visits to various parts of the world.The academic study of religion must now encompass more than it has done until now the effects of modern media and communications technologies, global consumption patterns, cultural mobility, and changing geo-political configurations. Scholars of religion are are being outpaced by these developments, whether because of the limitations of vision, or the shortsightedness of theoretical lenses.' The argument is that sites such as art, the media, Internet, outer space, diasporas, global culture, nature, and the public space deserve critical attention - not just for reasons of content, but because these new or neglected sites offer a potential challenge to our categories and concepts. Focus has to be shifted increasingly from bounded local cultures to transnational cultural flows and the significance of place has to be reexamined. This paper has suggests a number of pathways that are deserving of more exploration by scholars of religion. What we choose to include or exclude from our gaze affects the nature of our discourse(s) through and through. The whole business of "seeing" is integral to both the academic enterprise as well as the political economy of the academic study of religion. This paper highlights some of the exciting new areas that face us as students of religious ideas and phenomena, and point to their methodological implications.
The semiosis of prayer and the creation of plausible fictional worlds
Authors: Södergård J.
Published: August 2018

Prayer and incantation can perhaps be said to be 'mechanisms' that promise that lack will be liquidated and that there is an unlimited signator, a father, or some other metaphysical creature, standing behind and legitimizing the discourse. A way of communicating with the Unlimited that is privileged by an interpretive community that read the prayers aloud and enacted the magical stage-scripts. These highly overlapping categories function as one of the most common subforms of religious discourse for the creation, actualization and maintenance of plausible fictional worlds. They are liminal and transitional mechanisms that manipulate an empirical reader to phase-shift from an actual world to a plausible, by being inscribed in a possible and fictional world, thus creating a model reader, that perceives and acts according to the plausible world outlined by a given interpretive community, and that hears god talking in voces magicae and in god-speaking silence.
Sacrifice as action and actions as sacrifices: the role of breath in the internalisation of sacrificial action in the Vedic Brahmanas
Authors: Cavallin Clemens
Published: August 2018

Over the last hundred years different attempts have been made to explain why sacrifices have had such a prominent place within many religious traditions. Such theories of sacrifice are sometimes part of a more general theory of (religious) rituals, or a theory of religion in general. In most cases, actual sacrifices are thus explained through recourse to their position within a more general category. The opposite is, however, sometimes the case, i.e. a theory of one sacrificial tradition is extended to cover all sacrifices, or even ritual in general. The aim of the following discussion is to delineate some central issues that are important for the analysis of the references to breath in the Vedic correspondences. First of all, a working definition of ritual correspondence will be given and then a short discussion of the nature of the correspondences will follow. Thereafter, a general presentation of the different notions of breath and three different sorts of ritual internalisation will be made. The last section of the paper will concentrate on the relation between the breaths and the self (ātman), as this is expressed in a few tex-tual passages. These discussions will provide a basis for a more comprehensive study of the role of the breaths in the internalisation of sacrifice in Vedic ritual theology.
Christian rock concerts as a meeting between religion and popular culture
Authors: Häger Andreas
Published: August 2018

Different forms of artistic expression play a vital role in religious practices of the most diverse traditions. One very important such expression is music. This paper deals with a contemporary form of religious music, Christian rock. Rock or popular music has been used within Christianity as a means for evangelization and worship since the end of the 1960s. The genre of "contemporary Christian music", or Christian rock, stands by definition with one foot in established institutional (in practicality often evangelical) Christianity, and the other in the commercial rock musicindustry. The subject of this paper is to study how this intermediate position is manifested and negotiated in Christian rock concerts. Such a performance of Christian rock music is here assumed to be both a rock concert and a religious service. The paper will examine how this duality is expressed in practices at Christian rock concerts.
Religious ritual contested: anti-religious activities and women’s ritual practice in rural Soviet Karelia
Authors: Keinänen Marja-Liisa
Published: August 2018

After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks sought to establish a new atheistic order which would eradicate from the public consciousness all vestiges of "religious prejudices", which were regarded as a residue from the imperial era and an instrument used to exploit the masses. Even though it was generally held that religion would automatically disappear from socialist society when its material precondition, the class society, was abolished, the regime made concentrated efforts to speed up the process by means of virulent anti-religious propaganda. The ultimate goal was to wipe out the persistent remains of the bourgeois system of values. No force was to be used since it was feared this would merely offend the religious sentiments of the people and strengthen their adherence to religion. Theoretically, the ultimate goal was to be achieved through education and information, but in practice, anti-religious activities were at times quite brutal. These attacks were successful in curtailing the activities of religious institutions in Karelia, but did not bring to an end the religious practices of lay people, which were continued, in one form or another, throughout the entire Soviet period. One fundamental reason for the survival of religious rituals, both Christian and indigenous, was the fact that they were so deeply embedded in people's consciousness and intimately integrated with their everyday lives. Every important phase and turn in human life was sanctified by rituals. The goal of the present paper is to examine what forms anti-religious attacks took in Soviet Karelia and how people reacted to them. The focus is on the attacks against the very fundaments of the ritual complex of the church and, by extension, on the effects of these attacks on the indigenous ritual complex, which co-existed in parallel with that of the "official" religious institutions.
The rites in the mysteries of Dionysus: the birth of the drama
Authors: Näsström Britt-Mari
Published: August 2018

The Greek drama can be apprehended as an extended ritual, originating in the ceremonies of the Dionysus cult. In particular, tragedy derived its origin from the sacrifice of goats and the hymns which were sung on that occasion. Tragedia means "song of the male goat" and these hymns later developed into choruses and eventually into tragedy, in the sense of a solemn and purifying drama. The presence of the god Dionysus is evident in the history and development of the Greek drama at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and its sudden decline 150 years later. Its rise seems to correspond with the Greek polis, where questions of justice and divine law in conflict with the individual were obviously a matter of discussion and where the drama had individual and collective catharsis (purifying) in mind.
The rhetoric of ritual
Authors: Podemann Sørensen Jørgen
Published: August 2018

Ritual is an activity formally situated at that point zero where every move and every word become efficacious because they deal with things in their "state of not yet being". The role of religious representations in ritual is to dramatize the countdown to that turning point and sometimes also to express and secure the order of things the priest wishes to see when he re-emerges from the primeval darkness of the sanctuary. There are multiple ways in which rites thus rhetorically situate themselves at the turning point, from which things may be produced, renewed, or controlled.
Ritual works and practices: a case study from a Muslim community in Cambodia
Authors: Trankell Ing-Britt
Published: August 2018

The function of the ritual is to assert a transcendental power over everyday experience and rituals therefore tend to be formalized, repetitive and conservative events. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance for ritual studies of ritualised strategies for the negotiation of power and influence. Here, research on a spirit possession cult among the Muslim Cham in Cambodia will serve as an empirical basis for a discussion of the open-ended and unbounded features of ritual in contemporary society, since the performances of this cult may be seen both as a kind of "state ritual" and as exorcism. Through the cult, the Cham tend to take refuge in their memories of the distant past rather than in their more immediate memories of terror and political violence, during the civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime. Rephrased as songs of the spirits, the present and the past intermingle in narrating the difficulties, the conflicts and the struggle in the world of the spirits who live next to, and mingle in, the world of ordinary human beings.
Bhaktivedanta Swami’s rhetoric of violence
Authors: Broo Måns
Published: August 2018

This article puts a part of Bhaktivedanta Swami’s rhetoric of violence into a larger context that has previously been neglected: that of early- to mid-twentieth century Bengali politics. The author also pinpoints some other factors behind them, such as his literal reading of the Gaudiya Vaishnava scriptures and his flair for drama. In this, the author has not tried to exonerate Bhaktivedanta Swami for his more radically politically incorrect opinions. There is no reason why in the 1970s even an Indian could believe, for example, that Hitler killed Jews because they financed his enemies. Rather, the author tries to begin broadening the picture of Bhaktivedanta Swami by looking at him as a product both of his spiritual predecessors and of his more worldly background. Seeing Bhaktivedanta Swami not only as the great ‘transcendental’ founder-acharya of ISKCON, but also as an elderly gentle­ man, at times erring on relative, human issues, is a viewpoint shared by many ISKCON intellectuals today. For some apologists within the movement, however, taking this path is seen as exceedingly risky, and they fight it vehemently, claiming that the entire future of the movement hinges on being faithful to all the words of its founder.
Love, responsibility, otherness: Finnish church leaders and interreligious dialogue
Authors: Illman Ruth
Published: August 2018

In this article, the author will focus on the subject matter addressed in this appeal, i.e. peace and dialogue. The aim is to analyse how these Christian leaders view the role of religions, and especially interreligious dialogue, in creating and promoting peace. The author will begin by presenting the Peace Appeal and the interviews which form the empirical material upon which the research is based. The author will then concentrate on five issues which emerge from the analysis of this material as being especially important: the question of peace, love and reconciliation in a religious perspective; the question of otherness in interfaith dialogue; the relationship between dialogue and mission; the question of God’s presence in other religions; and personal responsibility and action. Emphasis is placed on presenting and analysing the empirical material, but the topics are also tied to a theoretical framework based on current thoughts within moral philosophy and the dialogue philosophy of Martin Buber. The discussion is, in conclusion, summarised with the help of the three notions which form the topic of this article: love, responsibility and otherness.
Conflicts and violence in structuring metaphors of the Santo Daime, a religious and environmental movement in the Brazilian Amazon
Authors: Schmidt Titti
Published: August 2018

In this article it is shown how conflicts and violence have influenced the development of Santo Daime, a religious and environmental movement in the Brazilian Amazon. By discussing three interrelated aspects (1) Violence and conflict in Santo Daime history; (2) Ideas about good and bad spirits; and (3) Santo Daime environmentalism, the author shows the relatedness between the members’ experiences of conflicts and violence in their history as rubber tappers and conflicts and violence as structuring metaphors in their daily ritual practices. The kind of moral practice that once began as a way to deal with the threat of conflict and violence has today turned into an enduring strategy that permeates members’ undertakings in matters related to environmentalism. Not only has it been crucial in shaping a new lifestyle among members, centring as it does on environmental concerns, but it has also moved the Santo Daime movement closer to more ‘worldly’ actors concerned with the future of the natural world. Although by sharing a common cause with such interest groups, Santo Daime members have been able to do so without loosing their distinct identity as members of a religious healing movement.
Defining religion, defying tradition? Concord and conflict about the role of religion in a Costa Rican indigenous community
Authors: Tafjord Bjørn
Published: August 2018

When approaching the issue of power, some fundamental questions always arise: Who is in a position to define? When, where, for whom, and why? These are also underlying questions in the particular case that is discussed in this article: Discourses about the role of religion among Bribris in Talamanca, the indigenously dominated area in south-eastern Costa Rica. The author looks at how ‘religion’ is defined by different actors, and into how the same actors understand religion in relation to what they see as other aspects of society and culture – in particular what the Bribris refer to as siwá, a concept they often translate into Spanish as tradición. In doing so, the it is highlighted how different actors discuss and negotiate the role of ‘religion’ in a particular cultural and historical context. For analytical purposes, it is proposed that defining should be seen as a practice that delimits something and gives it a certain place or space in relation to something else. To define is then to exercise power. As a consequence, discourses about the definition and role of religion in Talamanca are seen as both practices of, and contests about power.
The Fourth Way in Finland
Authors: Iitti Vesa
Published: August 2018

This article focuses on the general history of the Fourth Way in Finland. The Fourth Way, or simply ‘the Work’, began as a Greco-Armenian man named Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866?–1949) gathered groups of pupils in St Petersburg and Moscow in 1912. To these groups, Gurdjieff started to teach what he had learned and synthesized between ca 1896 and 1912 during his travels on spiritual search of Egypt, Crete, Sumeria, Assyria, the Holy Land, Mecca, Ethiopia, Sudan, India, Afghanistan, the northern valleys of Siberia, and Tibet. Neither Gurdjieff nor any of his disciples called themselves a church, a sect, or anything alike, but referred to themselves simply as ‘the Work’, or as ‘the Fourth Way’. The name ‘the Fourth Way’ originates in a Gurdjieffian view that there are essentially three traditional ways of spiritual work: those of a monk, a fakir, and a yogi. These ways do not literally refer to the activities of a monk, a fakir, and a yogi, but to similar types of spiritual work emphasizing exercise of emotion, body, or mind. Gurdjieff’s teaching is a blend of various influences that include Suf­ism, orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Kabbalah, and general elem­ents of various occult teachings of both the East and the West. Gurdjieff’s teaching is a blend of various influences that include Suf­ism, orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Kabbalah, and general elem­ents of various occult teachings of both the East and the West. It is a unique combination of cosmology, psychology, theory of evolution, and overall theory and practise aiming to help individ­uals in their efforts towards what is called ‘self-remembering’.
The esoteric milieu in Finland today
Authors: Sohlberg Jussi
Published: August 2018

As in the other Scandinavian countries, so in Finland an exceptionally high percentage of the population belongs to a religious community. Today, about 82 per cent of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. However, the picture of the Finnish religious and spiritual landscape is more complex than it may at first appear. The project ‘Religions in Finland’ was started in 2003. The project is a joint-effort of the Church Research Institute and the Research Network for the Study of New Religious Movements. The aim is to create an electronic database for describing, mapping and analysing religious associations and communities in Finland (active ones and also those that no longer exist). In August 2007 there were 777 communities and organizations listed in the database. They are classified into ten categories representing religious traditions according to their historical and cultural background. There are 29 organizations classified under the category Western esotericism. This article presents a general overview of the major and recently founded esoteric groups in Finland, most of which are registered associations.
Magic hat economics: counter-cultural ideals and practices of the Nordic Ting community
Authors: Rantala Janne
Published: August 2018

The author's anthropological study concerns one of today’s communities with no shared belief system, but with a clear spiritualist orientation. The Nordic Ting Community does not have any defined or committing roles, specialized distribution of tasks, entrance fee to their two annual gatherings, membership or any formal hierarchy. This exiguity of structural differentiation could well be understood to represent ‘subjective spirituality’. This thesis refers to the decline of institutional forms of religion with, instead, an increase in subjective experience in spirituality. This presentation shows that at least in the author's field of study, there hardly exists any increase in emphasis on individualism in spirituality. Instead the material indicates a relatively long continuum of a self-organized type of communality which could be understood as neither individualistic nor collectivistic. The type of agency observed in the social action of the studied network-like field is intersubjective. This article focuses on the use of the magic hat and the combination of ideals and practices characteristic to the Ting Community, which the author calls the magic hat economics. It is argued that by looking at these kinds of intermediating objects, the problem of individualization can be seen much more clearly.
Spirituality in education
Authors: Tirri Kirsi
Published: August 2018

In this article the concept of spirituality in the educational framework is discussed. The concepts of religion and spirituality are compared. The psychological view of spirituality is presented with a new suggested intelligence type: spiritual intelligence. The educational view emphasizes spiritual sensitivity as a universal human ability that needs to be developed through education. The sociological view of spirituality explores it as an expression of postsecular religiosity. Empirical studies indicate that an increasing number of people­ now prefer to call themselves ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘religious’. This trend seems to be more present in some European countries, for example, in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Finland. Empirical studies on spirituality are reviewed and discussed. A special emphasis is given to the Finnish research findings related to the spirituality of a new generation or young adults. It is argued that understanding spirituality as an expression of postsecular religiosity gives more room for young adults to participate in communicative action concerning religion. This would promote a discursive religiousness in the spirit of Jürgen Habermas, in which a plurality of religious beliefs and practices are acknowledged and a dialogical and inter-religious approach is advocated.