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In this short article we will try to discuss a very peculiar phenomenon of the Japanese religious scene that can be identified throughout the history, showing similar characteristics in completely different religious settings. This phenomenon we should call non-institutional religious practices, non-organized individual religious practices or private religion. Due to a very specific character of Japanese religiousness, free individual religious quest have become an important part of Japanese religious life. After describing some factors that contributed to the emergence of religious tolerance and sincerity, we shall discuss instances of non-institutional individual practices of Shugendō, Komusō and the notion of non-church Christianity proposed by Kanzō Uchimura, thus building an image of Japanese religiousness not from the standpoint of historical development of religious organizations and their teachings, but from the point of view of an individual practitioner, giving the individual an opportunity and his or her intrinsic right not to depend on organized religions, but to freely follow their own religious pursuits.
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The rhetoric concerning the saints of the Hungarian Árpád dynasty involves the thought that the Hungarians are a special, chosen nation in political as well as in religious respect. The article is an attempt to establish a modern discourse on sainthood that is valid for religious people as well as in a scientific approach.
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This paper presents the way Plotinus proved God’s absolute transcendence, the One and His non-complexity and singularity. Despite his support for apophatic theology, he was forced to also use notions of cataphatic theology. He called God by the names of Good, Beauty, Truth, Life and Might. He had much to say about Him, although at the same time he declared that the One cannot be described in a human language. It is therefore impossible to practise a consistent aphophatic theology if one wishes to lead people to God. Plotinus, however, tried to do so in his works.
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There was a time when priests started cracking jokes, telling anecdotes, speaking in an obscene manner to entertain their audience and raise a laugh. Their indecent buffooneries transformed Easter celebrations into carnivals – some of which took on quite extreme shapes. Later, the Church persecuted those involved in this practice, but traces of it still remain in Eastern Orthodox traditions. We cannot find a single link to risus paschalis in the Scriptures, nor in the writings of the Apostles, nor even a clue in the religious practices of the first Christian generations. We laugh at the transgression of the dying and rising Christ in the same way as we laugh at the clown thrown on the ground and jumping up again. Still, the cultural history of the clown rituals is an even more contested issue. What does Christ have to do with this tradition? What epistemological qualities bind them together?
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In the context of the notion of mnemotopos as the memory matrix related to a place and its dynamics, the article analyses the autobiographic materials recorded by the Evangelical religious clergy. Among others, it examines the autobiography of Reverend C. Gottlieb Rehsener, of Pomeranian origin, working in the area of so-called Lithuania Minor near Klaipeda. The mnemotopic reconstruction permits revival of the forgotten cultural areas that had been present in the history of Europe till around 1945.
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This article examines the symbolism of fire in the Gadjari higher initiation ceremonies and Jardiwanpa ceremonies among the Warlpiri. Fire is used in these ceremonies in three forms: high flame torches called witi/wanbanbirri, wandabi projectiles made out of bark, and djindjimirimba sticks. The analysis of the myths connected to fire reveals that the Warlpiri associate it with the motif of cosmic catastrophe in which their ancestors, manipulating high, sacred paraphernalia, cut through the Milky Way. The result of the separation of the stars is a huge bush fire. According to the myth, the sight of a flame falling from the sky forced the ancestors to conduct initiation ceremonies. The patron of these ceremonies is associated with the Coalsack Dark Nebula in the Milky Way, and the wanigi paraphernalia used with the Southern Cross. Fire is of ambivalent significance for the Warlpiri – on the one hand it brings death and destruction, and on the other it provides cleansing and brings to life that which is dead.
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This article is based on ethnographic field research conducted in the central part of Ghana, in the Brong Ahafo region. It gives a description of two yam festivals performed in 2010 in the small town of Jema and the nearby village of Kokuma. The author depicts the meanings associated with yams in traditional indigenous cultures and vernacular religions in Ghana as well as within the broader region of the Gulf of Guinea. Contemporary yam festivals are interpreted in relation to the old symbolic and sacred meanings of the yam as “the king of crops” as well as in relation to the contemporary circumstances of African societies which are becoming modernised and less dependent on traditional agriculture. A special focus is placed on the position of chiefs, royal attributes (stools) and involvement of people from different religious backgrounds (Christians, Muslims, “traditionalists”). The concept of “sensational forms” proposed by Birgit Meyer is discussed in relation to yam festivals, which are treated here as performances generating a specific religious “style” shared by contemporary Ghanaians irrespective of their religious affiliations.
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The text concerns the Tantric traditions of India, especially the South Indian Vaiṣṇava Pāñcarātra. It addresses some issues connected with the relationship between canonical literature and actual religious practice as well as the reasons for doctrinal and ritualistic changes. Among these reasons were the activity of the great religious teachers and philosophers, but also the changing historical, social and economic situation of the community of followers and of the region in which the tradition was developing. Other reasons for these changes were the controversies as well as the rivalry of the groups representing different sects and priests’ families active in the temples
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The objective of the paper is to draw attention to the possible relevance of the categories of cognitive linguistics for the structural analysis of ritual. Taking the Iyengar Yoga āsana practice as an example, the author proposes to treat it as a quasi-linguistic phenomenon and analyses the symbolic structure of its elements (single āsanāni). The tools applied in this pursuit are the basic categories of Langacker’s cognitive grammar. By pointing to the key tenets of cognitive linguistics, including the claim concerning the symbolic (and, thus, semantic) nature of grammar, the author attempts to rephrase Staal’s thesis concerning the meaninglessness of ritual to accommodate it to the cognitive (or, more precisely, enactive) paradigm. She suggests a possible relationship between the schematic symbolic nature of ritual and the specific symbolic nature of doctrine. After some of the most salient linguistic phenomena within Iyengar Yoga āsana practice are described, their coherence with certain doctrinal interpretations is briefly discussed.
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The article addresses the problem of the Christian discourse, and more specifically conceptual blends with “shepherd”, “sheep” and related concepts in an input space in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, St Augustine, Cyprian of Carthage and others. The analysis of selected blends shows their importance in Christian discourse and their role in the creation of the doctrine and practice of the early Church. The article shows that conceptual blends are a flexible tool for conceptualising different notions in accordance with the aims of their authors. The overall objective of this article is to show the role of language in the formation of the Christian identity and doctrine, and the usefulness of the blending theory in the description of these phenomena.
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The paper concerns the problem of the mythological origins of narrative and narrative identity. Referring to works of such narrative researchers as D. Carr, B. Williams and K. Atkins and to F.W.J. Schelling’s conception of a mythological consciousness, I prove that 1. ina narration – personal as well as collective (in a tale which constitutes given culture) – the type of necessity is similar to that which occurs in nature as well as in mythology (its higher potential) and which is responsible for a perfect story coherence that is unavailable in normal life and characteristic rather of art than of a usual experience; 2. although our personal narratives are shaped on the basis of a collective myth, they assume a first-person, reflective perspective, and this is the reason why an individual may in spite of such to some extent “untrue” origins keep personal freedom and autonomy.
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Sam Harris, one of the new atheists, believes that science is an authority in moral issues. Science can help us understand what our moral duties are, and what is right and wrong in a moral sense. However, the cultural and historical diversity of human behaviors, especially history of wars and conflicts, suggests that it is difficult to show one, common and universal kind of morality. Here we show that Harris’s moral theory is a particular project which could not be “scientifically” justifiable.
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The movement of siddhas selectively drawing upon Buddhist tradition was a very important component of early Vajrayāna. One of the vital features of siddhas’ religion was violation of social standards in the course of rituals. Ritual transgression was a means to enter the amorphous and anormative state of being that was understood as the source of all things and the potential to transform a novice. The learnings of siddhas expressed cultural trends, so they captured the attention of Buddhist monks. The adaptation of siddhas’ learning to monastic circles consisted in serious reduction of transgressive activities, interpretation of ritual transgression in accordance with traditional Buddhist soteriology, and rationalising of transgressive behaviour. The synthesis of siddhas’ learnings and monastic tradition achieved a dominant position among Indian Buddhists.
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The goal of this paper is to introduce Japanese demonology. The paper focuses on the spirits known as yōkai, providing answers from the incredibly scarce publications in Polish covering issues related to Japanese demonology. The article examines the origin of the term yōkai and thedifferences in meaning between yōkai, mononoke and ayakashi. It goes on to explain the difference between yōkai and kami, as well as introducing a categorisation of spirits to explain how new yōkai are generated
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The article summarises 50 in-depth interviews with Polish physicists and biologists, focusing on the relationship between science and religion. The conflict paradigm is rejected by the majority of respondents. The author makes an attempt to reconstruct the argumentation strategies they use to justify their worldview.
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