Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to interpret the usage of symbols in popular religion based on contemporary symbolic interactionism using the reference framework of the symbolic community. The strength of the chosen symbolic interactionist approach is primarily in the research of the role of different dimensions of the religious in understanding the meaning of popular religion in the symbolic community. The qualitative approach and the method of in-depth semi-structured interviews were employed in the research, which responded to the main goal of the research on the meanings the participants of the popular religion attach to the symbolic interactions. A deliberate sample was used for the selection of participants in the popular forms of celebrating the days of Our Lady of Vrpolje, Our Lady of Sinj, and Our Lady of Karavaj as well as the Guardians of Christ’s grave in Vodice, Croatia. According to the results, popular religion, transmitted through visible signs, places believers in a position of physical contact with the supernatural world within a symbolic environment. To achieve this, popular religion displays a need for sacred images, words, sounds, signs, movements, smells. Believers in popular religion seek to establish as simple, intimate, and direct relationship with a deity as possible. The respondents’ answers confirm that the experiential dimension of religiosity is lived primarily on a personal level that precedes the social dimension. For the participants, the religious community has a symbolic character in terms of creating strong bonds between members of society or a social group, especially within the symbolic meaning of a feast day.
Highlights
Visual symbols [1] are a very important element of religions throughout the world
In the research of the symbolic interaction of the sacred in Croatian popular religion as a symbolic community, we focused on certain selected dimensions of religiosity of the participants of folk festivities, which rely on verified opinion [46]
A kind of attempt to recognize symbolic interactions in folk or popular religiosity, and religiosity, which is in its simplest form communitas before the society in which individuals participate in traditional feasts, old rituals and pilgrimages
Summary
Visual symbols [1] are a very important element of religions throughout the world. How do they affect the psychological and social functioning of an individual? Religious symbols have been explored in different theories including psychological [2] and sociological [3,4,5,6,7,8,9] perspectives.A sign points to something we already know whereas a symbol points to something unknown, mysterious, and transcendent. Visual symbols [1] are a very important element of religions throughout the world. How do they affect the psychological and social functioning of an individual? Symbols are very important to religion and spirituality. It is always chosen on the basis of the fact that its nature or its properties contain elements that represent a certain analogy (conclusion based on similarity) or correspondence with what is to be symbolized. An atheist will often view the cross as a sign that, when it appears on a wall, represents a particular type of a building like a church but for Christians with the lens of faith, the cross is symbolic and pointing to the transcendent and the mystery that is God
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