Existential Transformation Research Articles

The Diviner's Task: Confinement and Transformation through Myth and Ritual in Gordimer'sThe Conservationist

When read in what were perhaps South Africa's darkest decades, the 1970s and 1980s, Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist seemed to be a rather apocalyptic novel. But the fear-stricken, history-bound protagonist who walks right into his own trap shows only one side of reality. The other side is referred to by his two antagonists who are-as a dead man who has yet to be buried and a woman becoming a diviner-both in the middle of an existential transformation; a rite of passage that implies not only change, but also the temporary acceptance of phenomenological chaos, before a new order can be formulated. Gordimer seems to hold the (future) reader responsible for completing the rite of passage: identity and destiny of the characters will eventually depend on the viewpoint and intertextual input of the reader.

Le «rite de passage» chez Amin Maalouf

This study attempts to analyze the inner development of Tanios, protagonist of Amin Maalouf's novel, The Rock of Tanios, by interpreting the important symbols which punctuate the spiritual metamorphosis of the main character and associates it to an initiatory experience. What is noteworthy is that the author describes his character's “entire life”as “nothing but a succession of passages”and divides the narrative structure of the novel into nine “passages”each of which corresponds to a crucial stage in Tanios' existential initiation and physical transformation. Even the symbolic significance of the number “nine”will shed an interesting light on the protagonist's mystical quest which modifies profoundly his interiority. This quest resembles an initiation marked by trials, suffering and deprivations which purify the soul and predispose it to a renaissance, final stage of the initiation.This study will proceed by a sustained observation of Tanios' physical and mental changes in order to highlight and decipher...

“Twists and Turns”

Twists and turns are commonly felt by caregivers over the volatile trajectory of HIV disease; they report extraordinary challenges alongside existential transformations. This case study presents the complex experience of one HIV-affected mother who negotiated the psychological spaces of dying and caregiving while occupying the same physical space with a critically-ill son during an extremely stressful and sad time. Comments from the research respondent are included as end-notes. This story raises questions about the nature of the care relationship and suggests the utility of story-telling for HIV caregivers.

An Approach to Kuranko Divination

An account and analysis of divinatory practices among the Kuranko of northeast Sierra Leone is presented, using the usual methods of ethno-graphical research, and also extrapolating from and discussing the author's own experiences of consulting diviners. Apart from examining the status of beliefs associated with Kuranko divinatory practices, this paper investigates some aspects of the method of participant observation in the human sciences. A praxeological interpretation of Kuranko divination and sacrifice is given, emphasizing the psychological and existential transformations which follow from and are enabled by the ritual procedures.

Kierkegaard: The Self and Ethical Existence

The ethical question, What ought I to do> is inevitably related to more fundamental question. That is, What can I do> This question, in turn, leads to an inquiry concerning the nature of the self. For all ethical theories presuppose knowledge of the self. Indeed, how moral philosopher conceives of the self is significant determinant in the structure of his ethical theory. In his journals Kierkegaard said that what was needed was philosophical anthropology which would describe the essential characteristics of human existence. To some extent, he did try to provide an informal analysis of the various modes of being open to man and to raise what he called the primitive questions about the universally human. He believed that he could describe the fundamental features of human existence while being faithful to the dialectical, paradoxical nature of that existence. For Kierkegaard, it was Socrates who first related the problem of the ethical (ethisk) to the problem of the self, and who held that ethical selfknowledge was the most important kind of knowledge that an individual could acquire. He did not believe that Socrates, in strict sense, taught anything. Rather, Socrates showed what his ethical commitment was in his actual existence. Kierkegaard follows Socrates when he says that selfknowledge is the kind of knowledge which is required in order to become an ethical being. The ignorance which causes vice and immorality is not ignorance of moral principles or laws, but an ignorance of one's own self. Socratic virtue cannot be taught because it is not doctrine or subject matter, but it is a being-able, an exercising, an existing, an existential transformation.' Kierkegaard reiterated Socrates's view that one cannot know what one can do (from moral point of view) unless one has some implicit knowledge of himself. To act in ignorance of the self is to open oneself to injustice and immorality. For Socrates, the kind of ignorance