„Hipnotism și spiritism” de Vasile Suciu. Abordări din perspectivă teologică și istoriografică
„Hypnotism and Spiritualism” by Vasile Suciu. A theological and historiographical approach

Summary/Abstract: In 1906 Vasile Suciu (future Greek-Catholic metropolitan bishop) published the work „Hypnotism and Spiritualism. A critical-theological study”. His is the first work that addresses the topic from a theological, psychological, historical and even medical perspective, in the Romanian culture. Our study approaches this book from the historiographic and theological perspective. We used the comparative method quite often: analysing the author's position and the sources he used on one hand and the analysis of other important works but not used by the author, on the other hand. An original chapter is the one in which the author does field research work and presents in detail several cases of „spiritualist molestation" believed to have been seen in some villages - information collected from some Romanian Orthodox and Greek-Catholic parishes (noted by local priests) throughout the 1903 - 1906 period. The work is also very important for the study of mentalities. Suciu has a huge field of work at hand, with many different information, starting with the complex domain of the history of religions. The study cites more documents attesting „spiritualist" or „hypnotism" manifestations practiced within the antique or even prehistoric rituals, then passing along through a long list of personalities concerned with the phenomenon and even through some contemporary studies of anthropology, ethnography or psychology. On the other hand, the concept deliberately excludes other points of view - some common in the intellectual environments of the time - for an exclusivist approach through the theological - moral prism, which is acceptable and expected if we think about the autor's clerical formation.

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