Alternative Archaeology and New Age Traditionalism in Contemporary Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
Andrei Tiukhtiaev
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
The Public ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Southern Russia ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Krasnodar Region ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
New Age Spirituality

Abstract This article examines how esoteric traditionalism in contemporary Russia searches for legitimisation using alternative archaeology. Although New Age spirituality is often considered a private religion, some of its manifestations have a significant impact on the public sphere. The author demonstrates that the New Age in Russia contributes to redefining of categories of religion, science, and cultural heritage through the construction of sacred sites and discursive opposition to academic knowledge. The research is based on analysis of media products that present esoteric interpretations of archaeological sites in southern Russia and ethnographic data collected in a pilgrimage to the dolmens of the Krasnodar region.

In the Stars: Astrology, Psychic Powers and the Australian Media

2014 ◽  
Vol 150 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-95
Author(s):  
Kate Darian-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
New Age ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
New Age Spirituality ◽  
Ubiquitous Presence

Although astrological divinations, demonstrations of psychic powers and the teachings of non-conventional and New Age spirituality have had a ubiquitous presence in the Australian print and broadcast media for almost a century, they have attracted scant attention from media scholars. This article surveys the history of astrological and psychic content in the Australian media from the 1920s, arguing that such content generated new genres of programming and entertainment, and challenged the established authority of religion and scientific knowledge in the public sphere.

Becoming a Being of Pure Consciousness

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-59
Author(s):  
Susannah Crockford
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
New Age ◽  
Pure Consciousness ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unexplored Area ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
New Age Spirituality

Fasting is an unexplored area of New Age spirituality. Using material that is primarily ethnographic, based on long-term participant observation fieldwork in Sedona, Arizona, a small town renowned for its New Age associations, this article examines some forms of fasting that are commonly recommended and attempted in New Age spirituality. The ethnographic data are supplemented with material drawn from two New Age spiritual leaders who are connected to Sedona, both of whom recommend fasting. Fasting is analyzed as a form of managing and organizing interspecies relationality, following the work of Graham Harvey. The consequences are framed in terms of the effects fasting has on the social organization of relatedness, or kinship, and on accusations of being dangerous or exhibiting “cult-like” behavior.

The Siberian Village of Okunevo as a Place of Power and its Sacred Landscape

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Julia Senina
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
Sacred Landscape ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
Specific Interpretation ◽  
The Village

Abstract The paper deals with contemporary places of power and New Age sacred landscapes in Russia.* It focuses on the Siberian village of Okunevo, its sacred sites, and their worshippers. Formation of this place of power was a result of the activity of individuals (both academics and adherents of new religious movements), combined with the specific interpretation of archaeological sites and the natural landscape of the area. The landscape around the village of Okunevo affects the interaction of people with the sacred loci and the ways the signs, symbols and narratives about them are created.

scholarly journals The “Wretched of Europe”

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Christou
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Of Greece

This article focuses on narratives of the crisis in contemporary Greece and aims to understand the current context of austerity as a trope, symbolic signifier, and construct of inequality beyond austerity and in its manifestation as new social morphology in Europe. While the future recovery of Greece will require an extensive understanding of both economic and historical narratives which have sustained and fueled the Modern Greek state, a deeper analysis of structural and societal cultural codes mirrored in the public sphere is paramount in comprehending the cultural politics of inequalities in academic and public discourse. In a changing political and social environment, youth in Greece face the consequences of the debt crisis and, at the same time, reexamine their identity, values, and aspirations. Drawing from narrative, visual, and ethnographic data, this article explores stories of the crisis in grounding an account of inequality as narrated by those experiencing dispossession and austerity.

Agorafobia, czyli ukryte curriculum. Pole akademickie i dylematy intelektualizmu krytycznego

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
Agata Skórzyńska
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Hidden Curriculum ◽  
Public Higher Education ◽  
Critical Research ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
The Public ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Internal Properties ◽  
The Public Sphere

Agoraphobia, or hidden curriculum: Academic field and dilemmas of critical intellectualismThe key topic of this volume is the critical attitude in cultural studies. In the article, this topic is understood in a specific way. The ability to conduct critical cultural studies depends on the recog­nition of the attitude that we can call “public intelectualism” and its opportunities and limitations. According to a well-known concept of Jürgen Habermas, the position of public intellectuals is con­ditioned by the forms of human interests related to knowledge. However, today the forms of knowl­edge work, practical and emancipatory need to be rethought, as Pierre Bordieu has shown. Dif­ferent forms of human interests can be combined in one scientific venture. Futhermore, there is no way to achive the full autonomy of the academic field from the metafield of power and other social fields because of the internal conditions of the academic world. The recognition of these internal properties is the prerequisite of “public intellectualism.” According to the conceptual view of cur­riculum studies, some of these conditions belong to the so-called explicit curriculum, but the others create a hidden curriculum — the uconscious components of habitus or unarticulated circumstances of the academic form of life. The argument presented in this article is inspired by two sources: firstly by the very important biographical episode in the academic life of Bourdieu who at the end of his career became strongly involved in public criticism of neoliberalism. Secondly, I refer to several public statements of Polish intellectuals who criticised the neoliberalisation of the academy in the context of the present reforms of the public higher education and science. As I try to show, ignor­ing the hidden curriculum may lead to a specific and risky attitude — agoraphobia — which means the fear of involvement in the public sphere and helplesness in the defence of critical research and emancipatory forms of academic knowledge.

scholarly journals NEW SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT: Menelisik Visi Transformatif Komunitas Lia Eden sebagai Embrio Lahirnya New Age di Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mohammad Takdir
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
New Age ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Age Movement ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spiritual Movement

<p class="Iabstrak"><strong>Abstract:</strong> <em>This research aims to explain the phenomenon of Lia Eden community which is a new spiritual movement in the dynamics of religious life in Indonesia. Some points to be described in this research are related with a background of the birth and development of the Lia Eden community, teaching, and transformative vision in the public sphere. This research is a case study of the Lia Eden community that became of the New Age movement in the wake of belief in formal religions that considered failure in overcoming the modern human crisis. This research shows that Lia Eden community is a new spiritual movement </em><em>who tried to awaken a spirit of all religions so that able to overcome of a social problem in society. This movement is not ambitions to establish a new religious institution with a strict and doctrinal organization, but effort to transmit spiritual power at the individual level to become a reflection of the mystical movement that brought changes to human life.</em></p><strong>Abstrak:</strong> Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan fenomena komunitas Lia Eden yang merupakan gerakan spiritualitas baru dalam dinamika kehidupan beragama di Indonesia. Beberapa poin yang ingin dijabarkan dalam penelitian ini adalah berkaitan dengan latar belakang kelahiran dan perkembangan komunitas Lia Eden, ajaran, dan visi transformatifnya dalam ruang publik. Penelitian ini merupakan studi kasus dari komunitas Lia Eden yang menjadi bagian dari Gerakan Zaman Baru (<em>New Age Movement</em>) di tengah memudarnya kepercayaan terhadap agama formal yang dianggap gagal dalam mengatasi krisis kemanusian modern. Penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa komunitas Lia Eden merupakan gerakan spiritualitas baru yang berupaya membangkitkan roh dari semua agama agar berperan dalam mengatasi masalah sosial di masyarakat. Gerakan ini tidak berambisi untuk mendirikan institusi baru yang bersifat keagamaan dengan organisasi yang ketat dan bersifat doktrinal, melainkan berupaya untuk men­transmisikan kekuatan spiritual pada level individu hingga menjadi cerminan dari gerakan mistik yang membawa perubahan bagi kehidupan manusia.

scholarly journals The Global Dialogics of the New Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carey Snyder
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
New Age ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
White Settlers

The London-based weekly the New Age, edited by A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922, was known for promoting spirited debates on politics, literature, and the arts. Scholars have been attentive to what Ann Ardis terms the magazine’s ‘unusual commitment to […] Bakhtinian dialogics in the public sphere’, but less so to the role that the letters column played in facilitating these often contentious, often transnational debates. This essay argues that the letters column functioned as a forum for linking not only individual readers and contributors from around the world, but also wider discursive and periodical communities. A case study of global dialogics, the essay focuses on an eleven-month debate that unfolded in New Age correspondence concerning the so-called black peril — the purported epidemic of black men attempting to rape white women in South Africa, which historians today regard as a moral panic fuelled by a desire to reinforce white supremacy. The flames of the panic were stoked by the Umtali case of 1910, in which Lord Gladstone commuted the death sentence of an Umtali native convicted of attempted rape to life imprisonment. This decision sparked mass protests and petitions among the white community in South Africa and a heated discussion about race and racism that reverberated throughout the empire, including in the columns of the New Age. The letters column served as an international forum, drawing in white settlers from Johannesburg, Crisis editor and NAACP founder W. E. B. Du Bois, Sudanese-Egyptian writer Dusé Mohamed Ali, and British suffragette Emily Wilding Davison, among others. This essay examines the gendered and racial politics of this debate and how it was shaped by its specific periodical context and by the national and ideological contexts of its interlocutors.

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