Cultural-anthropological origins of the mask of initiation physicality

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study the cultural-anthropological origins of the mask, which make it possible to interpret the initiation of physicality, which in the process of initiation acquired the signs of psychosomatic modification. The research methodology is based on the use of psychoanalytic, structural-functional, semiotic, and cultural-anthropological methods. Scientific novelty. In the study of cultural-anthropological origins of the mask of initiation physicality, used ideas of the «collective unconscious» of K. Jung, the theory of social character by E. Fromm, the methods of structural anthropology by K. Levi-Strauss, and analysis of ritual functions by K. Lorenz were used. The given examples of initiation in youth associations, male unions, subcultures, countercultures allow us to determine the cultural-anthropological origins of the mask in rituals and initiation rituals as an appeal to a perfect image, which symbolically possessed an advantage in natural-biological and psychological aspects. Conclusions. In the interpretation of the initiation physicality, which in the process of initiation acquired signs of psychosomatic modification, the cultural-anthropological origins of the mask are considered, represented by the ideas of the «collective unconscious» of K. Jung (Persona – Anima), the theory of social character by E. Fromm («to have» – «to be»). The study of experience, the relationship between biological and social in human behavior is represented by the methods of structural anthropology by K. Levi-Strauss, by the analysis of ritual functions from the standpoint of natural-biological existence – according to K. Lorentz. The given examples of initiation in youth associations, male unions, subcultures, countercultures allow us to determine that most often in rituals and initiation rituals, a perfect image was chosen, which symbolically possessed an advantage in natural-biological and psychological aspects.