scholarly journals The body in wellbeing spirituality: self, spirit beings and the politics of difference

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 174-185
Author(s):  
Jay Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Politics Of Difference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Ethical Relations ◽  
Spirit Beings

New religious movements of the nineteenth century—notably the Theo­sophical Society and Spiritualism—endowed western culture with an energetic concept of the self: that is, with a model of the body that proposed the individual to be constituted by a ‘spiritual’ or subtle substance. This model of the body—the subtle body—was not new to western esoteric traditions, however, its presentation at this time melded with subtle body schemes from Hindu traditions (primarily Yoga traditions) and provided the groundwork for the popularisation of a concept of the body and self as being comprised of an energetic anatomy. This model of the self has continued unabated into contemporary consumer culture and underpins the vast majority of mind–body concepts in Complementary and Alternative Medical (CAM) practices. This article is concerned with the subtle body models currently found in Wellbeing Spirituality healing modalities. In particular, it considers their ontological and metaphysical propositions with regard to an ethics of difference: both energetic and cultural. Therefore, two distinct types of discourse will be examined and discussed: that of popular culture and that of Continental philosophy (especially feminist and poststructural). Both provide methods for understanding the enduring popularity of subtle body concepts of the self and the challenging ethical relations that the model presupposes.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua S. Walden
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The book’s epilogue explores the place of musical portraiture in the context of posthumous depictions of the deceased, and in relation to the so-called posthuman condition, which describes contemporary changes in the relationship of the individual with such aspects of life as technology and the body. It first examines Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo to view how Bernard Herrmann’s score relates to issues of portraiture and the depiction of the identity of the deceased. It then considers the work of cyborg composer-artist Neil Harbisson, who has aimed, through the use of new capabilities of hybridity between the body and technology, to convey something akin to visual likeness in his series of Sound Portraits. The epilogue shows how an examination of contemporary views of posthumous and posthuman identities helps to illuminate the ways music represents the self throughout the genre of musical portraiture.

Louise Bourgeois’s Melancholy Objects to be Used

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-164
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Object Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenal Experience ◽  
Mental Process ◽  
Inner World ◽  
Louise Bourgeois ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Individual

Over a decade before the French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois underwent psychoanalysis in New York (1952–1985), her work mined territories of psyche, body, home, and exile. Bourgeois’s papers from 1940 onward reveal that she shared Freud’s description of neurotics, hysterics, and artists as suffering from reminiscences. Scottish psychoanalyst W. R. D. Fairbairn identified the last of these in 1943 as “war neuroses,” just six years before Bourgeois debuted her first mature sculptures. These abstract “personages” served as melancholy surrogates for lost objects, the friends and family Bourgeois left in 1938 in Occupied France. In the 1960s, she further reduced the body to ambivalent amalgams of part-objects made from plaster and latex, suggesting swollen nodes, skin, and sex organs. Of particular interest are two papers published by Fairbairn in 1938 that extend the inner world of the individual to the field of object relations via the transposition of the symbolically “restored object.” Fairbairn conceived the radical notion of restitution, the mental process of repairing damage in the artist’s inner object world. These principles resonate with Bourgeois’s métier and a postwar sculptural aesthetic that probed the phenomenal experience of anxiety, exile, and psychoanalysis on the Self and others.

Self, Indian theories of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.S. Rukmani
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Spiritual Energy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Ultimate Principle ◽  
Ultimate Nature

Hindu thought traces its different conceptions of the self to the earliest extant Vedic sources composed in the Sanskrit language. The words commonly used in Hindu thought and religion for the self are jīva (life), ātman (breath), jīvātman (life-breath), puruṣa (the essence that lies in the body), and kṣetrajña (one who knows the body). Each of these words was the culmination of a process of inquiry with the purpose of discovering the ultimate nature of the self. By the end of the ancient period, the personal self was regarded as something eternal which becomes connected to a body in order to exhaust the good and bad karma it has accumulated in its many lives. This self was supposed to be able to regain its purity by following different spiritual paths by means of which it can escape from the circle of births and deaths forever. There is one more important development in the ancient and classical period. The conception of Brahman as both immanent and transcendent led to Brahman being identified with the personal self. The habit of thought that tried to relate every aspect of the individual with its counterpart in the universe (Ṛg Veda X. 16) had already prepared the background for this identification process. When the ultimate principle in the subjective and objective spheres had arrived at their respective ends in the discovery of the ātman and Brahman, it was easy to equate the two as being the same spiritual ‘energy’ that informs both the outer world and the inner self. This equation had important implications for later philosophical growth. The above conceptions of the self-identity question find expression in the six systems of Hindu thought. These are known as āstikadarśanas or ways of seeing the self without rejecting the authority of the Vedas. Often, one system or the other may not explicitly state their allegiance to the Vedas, but unlike Buddhism or Jainism, they did not openly repudiate Vedic authority. Thus they were āstikadarśanas as opposed to the others who were nāstikadarśanas. The word darśana for philosophy is also significant if one realizes that philosophy does not end with only an intellectual knowing of one’s self-identity but also culminates in realizing it and truly becoming it.

Significance and Purpose of the “Anti-Cult Movement” in Facilitating Disaffiliation From a New Religious Movement

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-244
Author(s):  
Dominiek Coates
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Identity Function ◽  
Study Report ◽  
The Way

The current study investigates the experiences of 23 former members of New Religious Movements (NRMs) or cults with anti-cult practices and discourses in Australia. All the participants in this study report some involvement with anti-cult practices and/or engagement with brainwashing explanations of NRM affiliations; however, they describe the significance of these anti-cult resources for their sense of self in different ways. The findings suggests that for some former members anti-cult resources, in particular the brainwashing discourses, merely served as a convenient account through which to explain or justify their former NRM affiliation and manage embarrassment or possible stigmatisation, while for others these resources served an important identity function at a time of loss and uncertainty. These participants describe their involvement with anti-cult practices as a much needed identity resource in which they could anchor their sense of self following the dramatic loss of identity associated with NRM disaffiliation. To make sense of the variations in the way in which anti-cult practices and discourses informed the participants” sense of self Symbolic Interactionist understandings of the self are applied.

Renewing Philosophy of Religion

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
The Status ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religious Evolution

This book presents the sometimes unique, occasionally overlapping, and often mutually reinforcing views of fourteen contemporary philosophers of religion on what is wrong with the status quo in philosophy of religion and, most importantly, how the field could be improved. The book falls into two parts. The chapters in Part 1 are about desirable changes to the focus of the field; those in Part 2 are about the standpoint from which philosophers of religion should approach their field. More specifically, the chapters in Part 1 consider how an emphasis on faith distorts attempts to engage non-Western religious ideas; how philosophers from different traditions might collaborate on common interests; why the common presupposition of ultimacy leads to error; how new religious movements feed a naturalistic philosophy of religion; why a focus on belief and a focus on practice are both mistaken; why philosophy’s deep axiological concern should set much of the field’s agenda; and how the field might contribute to religious evolution. Part 2 includes a qualitative analysis of the standpoint of fifty-one philosophers of religion and also addresses issues about the need for humility in continental philosophy of religion; the implausibility of claiming that one’s own worldview is uniquely rational; the Moorean approach to religious epistemology; a Spinozan middle way between “insider” and “outsider” perspectives; and the unorthodox lessons we could learn from scriptures like the Book of Job if we could get past the confessional turn in recent philosophy of religion.

Floating Prayer

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 177-197
Author(s):  
Victoria Rose Montrose
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
Local Culture ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Buddhist Ritual

With over forty thousand attendees every year, the Shinnyo-en Hawaii Lantern Floating—an adapted version of the traditional Japanese Buddhist obon ritual, tōrō nagashi—is among the largest annually held Buddhist rituals undertaken outside of Asia. One way to approach understanding of this rite is as an example of a ‘glocal’ Buddhist ritual. Drawing from Roland Robertson’s framework of glocalization, this study examines the steps Shinnyo-en took to adapt its global message to a new local culture. While other examples of the tōrō nagashi are found in Hawaii, none have developed on the rite to the extent that Shinnyo-en has. Some innovations include: moving the date of the rite to Memorial Day, the inclusion of local cultural elements and other religious groups, and allowing the public to personalize the individual lanterns. Through examples of the ritual’s various Hawaiian and global elements, I explain why the Shinnyo-en version of the lantern floating rite, over other versions of the same rite, came to reach its status as the Hawaiian Lantern Floating Ceremony. Finally this study argues for the important, often overlooked role of both ritual and new religious movements in globalization.

Discipline and Excel: Techniques of the Self and Body and the Logic of Competing

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Heikkala
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Core ◽  
Independent Locus ◽  
The Individual

In the practical discourse of sport the focus is on the individual athlete as the autonomous and independent locus of action. This discourse is deconstructed from a, poststructuralist perspective. It is argued that in sport the disciplinary techniques of the body and self, as depicted by Michel Foucault, are both an instrument and an effect of competing. Disciplinary and normalizing practices such as bodily exercises or filling in a training diary are instruments for athletes to transcend their current performance, which is the core of the logic of competing. Furthermore, disciplining is the outcome of this “rationale” to excel. Giddens’s notion of structure is used to explicate the structure of competing. Yet his Cartesian conception of agents as knowledgeable is qualified, that is, within the practices of training and the structure of competing, some consequences of these practices escape athletes’ intention. The constitution of athletes’ subjectivity and even the consequences of the process of competing may be beyond their control.

scholarly journals Rilkean Memories and the Self of a Robot

Philosophies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Chella
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
Behavioral Style ◽  
Operational Life ◽  
Long Life ◽  
The Individual

This paper discusses the concept of Rilkean memories, recently introduced by Mark Rowlands, to analyze the complex intermix of hardware and software related to the self of a robot. The Rilkean memory of an event is related to the trace of that episode left in the body of the individual. It transforms the act of remembering into behavioral and bodily dispositions, thus generating the peculiar behavioral style of the individual, which is at the basis of her autobiographical self. In the case of long-life operating robots, a similar process occurs: the software of the robot has to cope with the changes that happened in the body of the robot because of damaging events in its operational life. Thus, the robot, in compensating the damages of its body, acquires a particular behavioral style. The concept of Rilkean memory is essential in self-adapting robotics technologies where human intervention on a robot is not possible, and the robot must cope with its faults, and also in applications concerning green robotics.

World and Self in Ageing and Psychosis

1984 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Erling Eng
Keyword(s):  
Life Span ◽  
Depth Psychology ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Vanishing Point ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Body

AbstractThrough the twofold meaning of nature for man-rhythmically-of which he is a part and from which he is apart, the situations of psychosis and of ageing "cross over." In both are manifested the imperious sway of that nature of which we are a part: in the earlier half of life-largely-as psychosis, in the latter half of life through ageing. It is in the midst of the life-span, with the transition from predominant instinctuality to awareness of its recession, that psychosis and ageing are disclosed as complementary perspectives, the vanishing point of the former toward the bodily birth of the individual, that of the latter toward the death of the individual body. Together they intimate the possibility of an individuality which can encompass the human meanings of both. In psychosis and ageing alike, the sway of that nature of which we are a part is coupled with a heightened awareness of our own nature as apart, in the former instance passively, with an accent on one's helplessness as mechanical mind, in the latter with the realization of one's own active part over and apart from the body. In psychosis the self is overwhelmed by that nature of which its body is a part as the latter's complexion is mediated by the world. In ageing the presence of the self stands out more clearly from the ebbing instinctuality with which it was earlier alloyed. To the negative defusion of instinctuality and individuality in psychosis corresponds the possibility of a positive separation in ageing. If in psychosis, "uprightness" (Straus), "eccentricity" (Plessner), "being in the world over and beyond the world" (Binswanger), has been early flawed, ageing enables individuality to emerge in relief from the detritus of imperfect projects. "When gods die they become men, when men die they become gods." (Heraclitus). While bodily membership in nature pervades emerging individuality in the first half of life, self-assumption of responsibility emerges with the discovery of ebbing instinctuality in the middle of life. The body as a hinge between nature of which we are a part and nature from which we are apart, and whose ambiguity (Merleau-Ponty) is rhythmically reflective of the world and of self, now becomes apparent. With this the possibility of a "depth psychology" is reached, that is, a reopening of the archives of one's history for a commemorative rereading (Freud, Jung). This moment of discovery, traditionally conveyed in the analogical imagery of late summer and the Mediterranean experience of noon and afternoon, recurs throughout the opus of Freud, from his "Gradiva" essay ( 1906), through "The Uncanny" ( 1919) to his "A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis" (1936), with undertones both of psychotic derealization and of the purifying ordeal of ageing.

scholarly journals Embodied time and the out-of-body experience of the self

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8565
Author(s):  
Sylvie Droit-Volet ◽  
Sophie Monceau ◽  
Michaël Dambrun ◽  
Natalia Martinelli
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Interval Duration ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Out Of Body Experience ◽  
Time Distortion ◽  
Body Self ◽  
The Individual

Using an out-of-body paradigm, the present study provided further empirical evidence for the theory of embodied time by suggesting that the body-self plays a key role in time judgments. Looking through virtual reality glasses, the participants saw the arm of a mannequin instead of their own arm. They had to judge the duration of the interval between two (perceived) touches applied to the mannequin’s body after a series of strokes had been viewed being made to the mannequin and tactile strokes had been administered to the participants themselves. These strokes were administered either synchronously or asynchronously. During the interval, a pleasant (touch with a soft paintbrush) or an unpleasant stimulation (touch with a pointed knife) was applied to the mannequin. The results showed that the participants felt the perceived tactile stimulations in their own bodies more strongly after the synchronous than the asynchronous stroking condition, a finding which is consistent with the out-of-body illusion. In addition, the interval duration was judged longer in the synchronous than in the asynchronous condition. This time distortion increased the greater the individual out-of-body experience was. Our results therefore highlight the importance of the awareness of the body-self in the processing of time, i.e., the significance of embodied time.

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