Notion Of Spirituality Research Articles

Greening Black Metal: The EcoGothic Aesthethics of Botanist’s Lyrics

Environmentalist Black Metal has been a liminal subject of academic ecocriticism during the last decade, but it has rarely been addressed from the perspective of ecoGothic studies. Environmental discourses in Black Metal have taken diverse ideological forms based on the time and place in which they were generated. In the United States, many bands have focused on exploring what Hunter Hunt-Hendrix calls “aesthethics,” an affirmative and nihilist sense of transcendentalism carried out through a certain sense of aesthetics, ascetics (spirituality), and ethics. US bands like Botanist have usually been analyzed through the lens of Deep Ecology, that is, as projects depicting a sacralized Nature and a sense of nihilist self-hating humanism. This view, thus, implies an essentialist understandings of Nature/humanity dynamics on their behalf. Botanist’s lyrics are characterized by the creation of a demonological/angelical Nature in sempiternal conflict with humanity and its environment-destroying activities. Observing this narrative through an ecoGothic perspective, however, uncovers a different understanding of the romanticized portrayals of Nature depicted by the band, ultimately highlighting humanity and “humanness” as a vital part of its aesthethical construction. This article, therefore, explores the ways in which ecoGothic aesthetics, Val Plumwood’s notion of material spirituality and, Donna Haraway’s sense of “chthulucenic” ethics connect with each other in Botanist’s grim lyricism. The article highlights the importance of Botanist’s representation of plant architectures, “Mother Nature’s” spirituality, and the environmental ethics involved in the performance of “The Botanist,” the protagonist of the band’s narrative. This brings to light how the band’s depiction of Nature not only drives audiences to reflect on contemporary environmental anxieties, but also to look for onto-ethical alternatives to addressing human/non-human relationships.

The Reflection of the Spiritual Tradition in Pashtu Folklore: A study of Poetic Genre “Kakarai Ghardi

Traditional societies in all over the world carry a great sum of knowledge and wisdom which is constructed in the course of cultural process which is seldom heard and least understood. Folk forms of poetics and prose expressions are sole repositories of these societies which helps researchers, ethnographers, and cultural anthropologists to reconstruct an image of these societies which primarily rely on oral tradition. The folkloric genre of Pashto accumulates unprecedented texts and contexts to be unearthed. The most pervasive folkloric genres like Tappa, Sandara, Kakarai Ghardi, Char-Baita, Sarwakai, Loba, Da Attan Narey, Balandai, Mathnavis and several others have rich contents to unpack the popular notions of spirituality and people’s sense of religion and divinity. In order to study a unit of the Pashto folklore, this paper is taking on the Kakarai Ghari, a genre specifically created by the ordinary men and women in Northern Balochsitan predominantly inhabited by Pashtuns. The paper analyzes some selective couplets of Kakarai Ghari which carries the themes of people’s faith in God, their affiliation and aspiration from the divine omens, metaphors, symbols and particularly their association and love for the Almighty Allah, his prophet Muhammd (P.B.U.H) and Sufi saints of the locale.

L’influence de la dimension spirituelle comme dynamique thérapeutique complémentaire dans les pratiques de méditation et dans le champ de la santé mentale

ObjectivesThe purpose of this article is to reinstate the framework of the notion of spirituality in the therapeutic field and to underline the potential link between meditation and spirituality, in order to question the potential hindrance to therapeutic effects caused the dissociation of meditation and spirituality. We explore the possible spiritual dimensions of meditation, and, lastly, discuss whether a spiritual dimension is relevant to meditative practice. MethodWe carried out a literature review, selecting the main research dealing with the link between spirituality and meditation. ResultsIt appears that the spiritual dimension has not been taken into account in the therapeutic applications of mindfulness meditation; it would be beneficial for spirituality to be integrated into the meditative process as a complementary tool for the adaptation and the stimulation of practice. DiscussionThe question of the link between spirituality and meditation questions the fact of meditation's having been cut off from its cultural substratum. We suggest that it would be appropriate in certain cases to reactivate this tradition, as well as the role of the psychotherapist in this dynamic. ConclusionThe dimension of spirituality could be a fecund tool in therapeutic accompaniment; integrating spirituality into therapeutic meditation could have positive impacts in terms of patients’ well being and mental health.

Theorizing the notion of well-being in Islam: An update of Ryff's theory of eudaimonic psychological well-being.

Prior studies suggest that knowledge about workers' psychological well-being is overly focused on materialism or biologically-based understanding, not taking into account the role of spirituality in one's well-being. Drawing on Ryff's (1989) psychological well-being framework and using an interdisciplinary approach, this paper offers a model of 'well-being in Islam' through theorizing this concept from an Islamic lens and contextually studying the implications of Islamic practices and spiritual facilities for employees' psychological well-being in workplaces. Drawing on qualitative data collected from 22 employees, our model (findings) shows that worshipping Allah, contemplative practices, and patience are key elements of one's well-being. This paper also points towards the important role of specific spiritual provisions (e.g., designated rooms for prayer, prayer time and ablution facilities) and contemplative practices (e.g., ritualistic-cyclic, creative process, generative, movement practices, stillness, activist, relational) for Ryff's six dimensions of employees' eudaimonic well-being. This study is unique as it integrates the notion of well-being in Islam into management and organization studies and offers a novel and contextual extension of Ryff's theory by integrating a spiritual notion of well-being. In the end, theoretical and practical implications are offered.

A educação da espiritualidade: coaching, cristianismo e regulação da imanência

: in a course called Emotional Intelligence, offered by an evangelical church in Porto Alegre, coaching techniques are used in order to stimulate the “maturity of spirituality” and the “management of emotions” of the participants. Based on an ethnographic research, I discuss in this article the ways in which a sui generis education of spirituality was developed in the course. I emphasize how the notion of spirituality was at the center of the articulations that concatenated coaching techniques with ritual interventions, configuring a Christian coaching. As practiced in the course, the education of spirituality reveals the importance of an immanence regulation regime for the stabilization of theological tensions involving dichotomies such as immanence/transcendence and anthropocentrism/Christocentrism.

An Exploratory Snapshot of Podcast Discourse Regarding Business Start-Ups: Where Does Psychological Capital, Sustainability, and Spirituality Fit?

This exploratory-sequential thematic analysis was undertaken to discover or connect how experts in business or entrepreneurship view, use, or adopt notions of spirituality and or psychological sustainability in start-ups. A “Start-up” is a business that is new or directly out of concept. Within this study, a thematic analysis sought to expose any themes from three separate podcast transcripts from the United States. The podcasts specialize in business start-ups and entrepreneurship. After intensive analyses of the transcripts of podcast conversations, a variety of themes were documented, categorized, then presented within a table that unfortunately reveals that these keyword subjects are neglected in this form of media, and the subjects did not arise in any level of discussion regarding the business life-cycle. In terms of study design, preliminary qualitative designs are often considerations at the outset of secondary source analyses. Thematic analysis is an accepted form of qualitative research. This exploratory thematic analysis may provoke future studies in these areas which have implications in the fields of psychology, business, and religious studies.

Феномен позднесоветского мистицизма

This article studies the phenomenon of mysticism in Soviet culture of the 1960s – 1980s. The starting point are the elements of mystical discourse in late Soviet cinematography, which captured both Soviet life and the Afghan War. This is surprising since official Soviet ideology strongly rejected mysticism. The very definition of mysticism in Soviet dictionaries was not entirely correct, since it gravitated towards theistic mysticism, focused on experiencing mystical unity with the Absolute. Meanwhile, starting from 1965, the Soviet Union saw a “mystical renaissance” due to the popularization of mystical literature (W. Messing, M. Bulgakov, D. Andreyev). Special mention must be made of A. Martynov, who outlined the paranormal phenomena of the Soviet period. One of the factors of this “mystical renaissance” was the traumatic experience of World War II, which was channelled into the Great Victory cult. This quasireligious practice included the meditative moment of silence, the eternal flame and monuments to the Motherland. Among other factors can be named a certain acceptance of religion as a form of culture and the New Age movement that came from the West. To a large extent, the revival of mysticism in the Soviet Union was facilitated by the crisis of science: the paradoxes of the vacuum theory and synergetics with its idea of generating order out of chaos. The main form of expression of late Soviet mysticism was the idea of a parallel world as a source of “paranormal phenomena”: for Messing and Martynov it is a mystical field, for Bulgakov, the fifth dimension, while for Andreyev, Shadanakar. In the Soviet Union, mass hypnosis associated with telepathy, as well as telekinesis, teleportation, levitation, and poltergeist were regarded as mystical phenomena. In addition, this article analyses the correlation between the notions of mysticism, spirituality and occultism. Their meanings overlap to a certain degree, since all three imply the existence of another world and the possibility of communicating with it. However, spirituality, which is actively used in world religions, belongs to the light side, while occultism is thought of as the dark side of mystical phenomena.

Spiritual but not religious. A survey on university students in Turin

Based on an online survey conducted in January 2018 at the University of Turin, the article examines the relationship between young people and spirituality, with particular reference to those who identify themselves as «spiritual but not religious» (SNR). The results of the research reveal that the interpretations of the notion of spirituality are based on three fundamental dimensions: «ethical-altruistic», «institutional-normative», and «inner seeking-existential». From these intersections at least four different types of spirituality emerge that show how differently the concept is interpreted - going beyond mere introspection, which is the only characteristic of SNR according to some scholars of contemporary spirituality.

The Spirituality of Kawruh Begja to Achieving the Reality of Life According to Ki Ageng Suryamentaram

This study focuses on analyzing the spirituality of Kawruh Begja for the realization of the authenticity of life based on the life and thoughts of Ki Ageng Suryamentaram. To explore the data used qualitative analysis methods and literature study. This study aims to find aspects of Kawruh Begja's spirituality in the study of cultural philosophy. Sebastian Painadath's thoughts on spirituality and its aspects were used as a framework for collecting data and analyzing it. The result of this research is the discovery of the notion of spirituality and its aspects in Kawruh Begja. In Ki Ageng Suryamentaram's meaning of life movement, Kawruh Begja is a system of philosophy and spirituality that encourages the process of living together to achieve the authenticity of life. Kawruh Begja are also values that are believed and lived which include awareness of the mysteries of life, understanding of life as a whole, personal spiritual experience, spiritual discipline, sensitivity to a harmonious environment, and compassion and concern for living together.

Cassava Spirit and the Seed of History: On Garden Cosmology in Northern Amazonia

ABSTRACT This article concerns the practice of cassava gardening among the indigenous Makushi people of Amazonian Guyana. By focusing on the cassava garden (mîî) as a primary site of multispecies engagement, I explore some of the heterogeneous modes that people–plant relationships take in everyday life and ritual practice. Plants, for the Makushi, are typically thought of as ‘persons’ (pemon), and gardening is predicated upon maintaining relationships of interspecies care via regular human–plant communication. In the idiom of human kinship, cassava plants are spoken of as being ‘children’ (more yamî’), both of human gardeners and Cassava Mama, the tutelary spirit of cultivated plants. Human–plant communication is both verbal, in the form of poetic language (taren) and songs (eremu), and embodied, in the form of tactile engagement and substance-based transfers. It is in the cultivation of communicative relationships with plants and their spirits, I argue, that Makushi gardeners create and nourish human persons and, ultimately, reproduce society through relations with alterity. I go on to address the anthropological problem of plant animism in Amazonia, arguing that a more embodied, sensorial and, following Strathern, ‘immanentist’ notion of spirit is required to better account for the complex entanglement of bodies and souls that undergirds human–plant interpenetration in indigenous Amazonia. In dialogue with literature from the multispecies turn, I suggest that an anthropology beyond the human, much like Makushi gardening, might usefully be thought of as a process of more-than-human ontogenesis.

Contemporary Turkish Mevlevi Mysticism. Organisation, spirituality and relations with secular sphere

SOMMARIO: 1. Introduction - 2. The organisational structure of Mevlevi Islamic mysticism - 3. Mevlevi spirituality and religiosity - 4. The secular sphere and the laws of the market - 5. Conclusions.
 Abstract: This article aims to provide as comprehensive a reading as possible of the organisation of socio-religious aggregation of contemporary Islamic mevlevism in Turkey. Starting from some classical notions of religion and spirituality (Simmel, Weber, Troeltsch) we examine the type of organisational structure of the Mevlevi order, the modus operandi, the internal relations between the followers, the role of the master taking into consideration the criterion of compromise, inclusiveness/exclusiveness and the transmission of charisma. Furthermore, the nature of Mevlevi spirituality, its organisational and moral principles, and the ecstatic practice of the sema is analysed. Finally, we analyse the relations of the Mevlevi orders with the population, some kinds of financing mechanisms, some forms of mediatisation and the marketing of some Mevlevi products. Finally, the order's interest and need to become part of religious tourism is analysed, encountering, however, conflicts, internal divisions and the non-legitimation needs of specific groups of believers.

Recent Developments in Understanding Spirituality as Exemplified by the Concept of Self-Transcendence

The recent history of science has witnessed many shifts of paradigms. One of the major changes has been observed in the shift of spirituality, transforming from a traditional faith-based notion to a more secular or postmodern one. These changes are confusing for many modern people as they are not able to follow these rapid developments. This article is an attempt at providing a conceptual framework to understand the changes that the notion of spirituality has undergone using the concept of self-transcendence and its two major dimensions: vertical and horizontal. This model will serve to evaluate different ways of defining spirituality in both theology and the social sciences and to indicate the provenience of their roots in both disciplines. In conclusion, self-transcendence will be compared with the concept of self-actualization.

Nature, Spirit, and Spirituality in Husserl’s Phenomenology

This article deals with the relationship between Spirit (Geist) and Nature (Natur) in Husserl’s phenomenology and the potentially religious motifs involved in its treatment. I begin by outlining two different approaches that can be found in Husserl’s work regarding the dyad Nature-Spirit: firstly, a schematic opposition between the two, and secondly, the recognition of their fundamental intertwinement. I claim that, even in this second approach, there remains a sense of subordination of Nature to Spirit that is due to the transcendental character of Husserl’s phenomenology. I analyze this primacy in the context of Husserl’s monadological theory, bringing forward certain religious elements of his account in order to connect this notion of spirit to a more contemporary idea of spirituality.

Technology and spirituality in Etsuko Ichihara's ludic media art

ABSTRACT Etsuko Ichihara is a media artist who utilises digital media and robotic technologies, exploring Japanese traditional beliefs of the spirit and the supernatural in her recent works. Ichihara repurposes paranormal and folk religious ideas concerning the figure of the shaman, an ogre-like demon that features in some Japanese festivals, and ritual offerings, but reinvents these traditional elements through technological mediation. I discuss Ichihara's distinctive engagement with a contemporised notion of spirituality in Japan. In particular, this essay argues that Ichihara's media art aims to connect Japanese people in order to create sociality and community. Ichihara appropriates Japanese animistic beliefs and tailors them for a mediated and technologised Japan, utilising what might be called a ‘techno-spiritual Japanese-ness’, that is, self-orientalising tropes that paradoxically generate the means for social relations.

Of Prophecy and Piety: Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus between al-Farabî and Erasmus

In this contribution, I discuss some less well-known premodern and early modern antecedents of Spinoza’s concepts and claims in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. On the one hand, I will argue, Spinoza’s notion of prophecy owes more to Moses Maimonides than to any Christian author; and through Maimonides, Spinoza may be linked to the discussion of prophecy in The Virtuous City by the tenth-century Islamic philosopher al-Farabî. Spinoza’s concern with prophecy as a popular formulation of the Divine Law may be fruitfully seen in the light of these two authors. On the other hand, Spinoza’s notion of pietas has arguably been shaped by a number of early modern authors from the Low Countries, including Thomas a Kempis and Erasmus: it does not consist in merely obeying the law, but also has a clear devotional and theist dimension of love for God and for one’s neighbors. As such, it may be associated with recent ideas on philosophy and spiritual exercises. These findings have a number of non-trivial implications for Spinoza’s place in the rise of modern, academic Western philosophy. I will discuss these implications in the context of Pierre Hadot’s influential views on philosophy as a way of life and Michel Foucault’s notion of spirituality.

Loughnane on Merleau-Ponty and Nishida: Artists Expressing Faith Intrinsic to Embodiment

ABSTRACT Nishida’s and Merleau-Ponty’s “perceptual ontologies” lead to other notions of self, spirituality, and faith, bringing out the distinctive and comparable religious paths of Buddhism and embodied phenomenology entered by deepening the prereflective openness to the world’s “voices of silence.” Loughnane’s study highlights how Nishida’s and Merleau-Ponty’s turn towards a series of artists in their respective cultural contexts brings out the particular groundedness in the materiality of the beings of the world in this “mutual interexpressivity” or “reversibility.” Faith is revisioned as the dropping of egoistic control to allow perception to be carried into the depths of the world of spiritual hearkening.

A Phenomenological Study: Exploring the Meaning of Spirituality in Long-term Recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous

ABSTRACT Recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) is framed within a broad notion of spirituality, in which members are encouraged to nurture personal concepts of spirituality. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), semi-structured interview study was conducted, to explore the role of spirituality for five members of A.A. with long-term recovery (LTR) from alcohol use disorder (AUD). Three higher-order themes, conceptualizing spirituality as a secular and existential phenomenon were identified. The study highlights the role of secular spirituality as a coping mechanism in LTR, demonstrating that A.A. can be an effective treatment for individuals wishing to recover from AUD, regardless of their belief systems.

The Mystery of Cicada 3301: Constructing Gnosis in Cyberspace

Abstract This article examines the ways in which gnostic ideas of spiritual growth, enlightenment, and transcendence resonate with the “cyber-gnostic” ideology presented through the viral “Cicada 3301” internet mystery. The content of the mystery situates traditionally spiritual enlightenment in the libertarian concerns of freedom of information and privacy, and in the tiered cosmology of the “surface/deep/dark” web. Additionally, this article evaluates the potential for classifying the Cicada 3301 mystery and its surrounding community as an online form of religious expression. Ultimately, it is argued that the mystery offers an insight into how philosophical notions of identity and communication interface with spiritual notions of enlightenment and transcendence through the experience of cybertechnology.

What Is Futurism? Russia and Japan Exchange Answers

Russian Futurist David Burliuk (1882–1967) and Japanese Futurist Kinoshita Shūichirō (1896–1991) were major agents in shaping Futurism in the early 1920s in Japan. The two artists organized exhibitions of the Futurist Art Association and delivered lectures on new art; furthermore, Kinoshita published the Futurist statement “Awaken! Friends! To Fellows of the Futurist Art Association” (1922), and they collaborated on the book What Is Futurism? We Answer (1923). Infused with Japanese and Russian indigenous themes, their “incomprehensible paintings” synthesized the theoretical and stylistic modes of Italian Futurism with anachronistic notions of progress and spirituality as a path out of Western modernity.

“Vai viņa daļa dzīvo manī?” Smokija Mo dziesmas “Kas ir radītājs” interpretācija popkultūras un reliģijas studiju kontekstā

The Russian hip hop artist Smoki Mo has frequently referenced religious and spiritual topics in his lyrics. The composition “Who is the creator” discusses the positive and negative replies to this question. The lyrics are interpreted as a popular culture text with the aim to discover how popular culture texts can function as religious ones and how popular culture can function as religion. The article employs a functional definition of religion to explore how the studied text discusses existential questions and struggle with identity that religion also is concerned with. The popular culture itself is understood in the article as the meaning and value that people ascribe to mass culture products, such as popular music, in their everyday lives. The article also summarizes the possible issues with reading popular culture texts as religious ones to avoid misinterpretation due to researcher’s indebtedness to traditional religious definitions or to scholarly traditions of interpretation. The article also employs the notion of spirituality to connect the ideas expressed in Smoki Mo’s lyrics to a relevant ideological framework. The understanding of the “creator”, “God” and other theological notions in the lyrics is closely related to the broad features of modern spirituality that include the focus on the individual self and universal statements rather than particular religious traditions. In this way, the studied composition in itself is an expression of modern spirituality dealing with existential questions.