 | Ali Kion Ahadi, Goldsmiths College
Internet Spirituality and the Reinvention of Knowledge: The case of Zeta
Talk and The Cassiopaea Experiment - Listen
now
 | My paper will demonstrate how two new Internet based
spiritualities, Zeta Talk and The Cassiopaea Experiment (both founded in
1995), have attempted to reinterpret human knowledge based on alleged
contact with more advanced beings. Nancy Lieder's telepathic contact
with the Zetas (alien beings) and Laura Knight Jadczyk channelling of
the Cassiopaeans (beings from our future) inform us that: Human life as
we know it is a lie and that malevolent forces from the beginning of
time have controlled man through his religions and politics. They
suggest imminent pole shifts after which this earthly life, as we know
it, will be altered for the better heralding a new age of peace and
love. I argue both spiritualities represent the reflexive nature of
modernity (following Giddens): They reinterpret older religious ideas,
propose an alternative human history and debunk and reformulate modern
scientific knowledge to give normative authority to justify their sham
traditions. |
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| Mike King, Centre for Postsecular Studies, London
Metropolitan University
The New Age, the Postsecular, and Critical Scholarship - Listen
now
| This paper will present the work of the Centre for
Postsecular Studies, outlining in some detail the concept of Postsecular
Studies and how it differs from New Age Studies. Postsecular Studies
implies three ages: presecular, secular, and an emerging postsecular
period, while New Age implies two ages: the age of Pisces and the age of
Aquarius. A postsecular analysis of emerging spiritualities hence poses
questions about how the secular era came into being, and how a renewed
openness to questions of the spirit is now eroding secular shibboleths
of materialism and atheism. The
New Age analysis of the historical vectors on spirituality relies rather
on esoteric knowledge, principally astrology. We suggest that the two
approaches are complementary, and that both can give rise to critical
scholarship. The New Age is open to accusations of a 'flat-land' lack of
discrimination through naivety, while Postmodernism is accused of the
same via sophistry: Postsecular Studies as a new discipline has the
chance to avoid both extremes. |
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| Kennet Granholm, Åbo Akademi University, Åbo, Finland
Feminine Symbolism and the Left Hand Path - Listen
now
| Dragon Rouge is a dark magickal order founded in
Stockholm, Sweden, in 1990. The order uses a great deal of feminine
symbolism in its teachings, including the utilization of dark female
goddesses and demons in rituals and magickal texts. Furthermore, the
order has attracted a percentage of female members uncommonly high for
spiritual organizations of this kind. Why is the feminine symbolism
preferred to masculine symbolism, in an order founded by men? What
consequences does the use of female symbolism have on the teaching and
practice of Dragon Rouge? What are the implications for female members
in an organization with such strong female symbolism? The discursive
practices favoring feminine attributes to the divine would seem have
consequences for the female members of a spiritual organization, but
what does this bode for the organizational standing of the female
members. These are questions that I will try to answer in my paper. |
|
| Justin Woodman, Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths
College
Demonic Spiritualities and the Demons of Modernity - Listen
now
| Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in London
between 1997-2001, this paper examines the significance of contemporary
'demonic' spiritualities encompassed by the magical philosophies of
Aleister Crowley and 'Chaos magic'. Drawing on recent theoretical
formulations concerning the 'modernity' of postcolonial African
witchcraft, the paper demonstrates how Western magical categories of the
demonic are constituted around an intrinsically 'modern', psychologistic,
extraterrestrialist and morally ambivalent concept of 'alien otherness':
a concept seen - paradoxically - to be disruptive of the very
rationalising ascriptions of Enlightenment modernity which birthed it.
The paper therefore claims that while the demonic both critiques and
makes transparent the occluded and alienating effects of transglobal
capitalistic modernity, its very ambivalence also gives voice to a
'Faustian' perception of commoditised modernity as alluring and
desirable. As a consequence, the paper demonstrates that contemporary
Western demonic spiritualities are not so much marginal and resistant to
the mainstream hegemonic centres of modernity, but exist in a juxtaposed
relationship with those centres.
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| Jenny Butler, University College, Cork
Neopaganism and the Domain of Alternative Healing in Contemporary Ireland - Listen
now |
| Dorota Hall, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
ASANAS goes mainstream, or mainstream goes ASANAS? New Age in the local
context (Poland) - Listen
now
| Speaking about New Age that goes mainstream (or does
not) is extremely problematic on the Polish ground. Generally, the New
Age came to Poland with the ideological pluralism of the 90s. Thus, its
emergence and growth should be seen in the broader context: as one of
the components of many changes after communism. Now, it is hard to
judge, whether one should reflect, if ASANAS goes Polish mainstream, or
on the contrary: mainstream goes ASANAS. I am going to show that setting
an example of the Polish mainstream religion (Catholicism) and its
interaction with the New Age spirituality.
Simultaneously, my paper could be handled as a postulate on the thick
description in the New Age studies (without the clichés of
globalization, secularization etc.) - I am convinced that we could say
much more about the New Age taking into consideration the local context
of its emergence.
I am going to give an anthropological outlook on the theme on the ground
of the ethnographic research, that has been realized under my direction
by students of the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of
the Warsaw University since 2000. |
|
| Ieuan Jones, University of York
The Imbolc Fire Festival in Marsden: A Case of Civic Paganism? - Listen
now |
