Ossetian Ritual Feasts and Transpersonal Experience: Re-description of a Religion as a Religious Practice
Ossetian Ritual Feasts and Transpersonal Experience: Re-description of a Religion as a Religious Practice
Author(s): Sergey ShtyrkovSubject(s): Cultural history, Customs / Folklore, Regional Geography, Islam studies, Comparative Studies of Religion, Eastern Orthodoxy, Inter-Ethnic Relations
Published by: Tartu Ülikool, Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum
Keywords: North Ossetia; New Age; religious nationalism; nativism; transpersonal psychology;
Summary/Abstract: The protest of the North Ossetian nativist religious movement against discourses of dominant institutions in the public sphere involves as its necessary component ‘re-description’ of religion in general and ‘re-constructed’ religious systems in particular. Usually, this means revealing allegedly forgotten ancient meanings of indigenous customs, rituals and folklore texts through the use of various concepts taken from esotericism and/or practical psychology. The language for this re-description is provided by conceptual apparatus developed by New Age movements. Of particular interest in this respect is the language of ‘new science’, ‘alternative history’, ‘transpersonal psychology’, etc., employed as a tool for criticising the established system of Christian-centric understanding of what religion is and what its social functions are.
Journal: Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics
- Issue Year: XV/2021
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 74-88
- Page Count: 15
- Language: English