From Esotericism to Embodied Ritual: Care for Country as Religious Experience

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 This is a serious, thoughtful  essay that should be published after a bit of revision. e authors are themselves of Indigenous background and, though that does not automatically qualify an assay for acceptance, even if the writer is Indigenous and the referee is non-indigenous, it is something ot take very seriously and certainly intensifies the distinctions and affirmations the writer wishes to make. 

 

 

 

If we need to see Indigenous spirituality as more near-at-hand, without the dramatic contrasts usually imputed to distinctions between the sacred and ordinary experience, that sits uneasily with trying to talk about the care of country as not just mundane and routine; because the overarching argument says that the mundane and routine should be valued as spiritual. This certainly has ecological implications, as the mere act of caring for the land should be said, in an eco-spiritual sense, to be significant in terms of the sacred. Even though, as the authors state, caring for Country goes far beyond material tendance, material tendance, in a hyperlocal way,  way, can be the beginning of more sustained, attentive, oriented care. “The sterilisaiton of Country as a mere locale,” is indeed reductive, but not only are specific locales important politically in terms of land rights claims after Mabo, but the authors’ own argument shows that the mundane and the place-specific cannot be severed from a larger conception of spirituality, which in turn is not just abstract and conceptual. 

 

 

A lot of the critiques of Western spirituality are critiques made within a Western tradition, as many Western thinkers, or thinkers coming out of the monotheistic tradition, critique an instrumental vision of spirituality, from Pascal to Buber to process theology. Moreover,  one only needs to look at a journal such as Material Religion to see how Christianity accumulates a wealth of material practices outside official worship spaces. Even in official Christian worship spaces, materiality matters, as it were; perhaps more obviously in Catholicism, but even largely in other traditions. The use of the word priesthood’ of Christianity applies only to certain Christian denominations, and not to others who do not speak of a priesthood or preach the priesthood of all believers, In other words, I worry a bit that this essay, in trying to refute Eurocentric interpretations of indigenous spiritualities, sets up some stereotypes of non-indigenous spiritualities, many of which, such as Christianity, have found acceptance among Indigenous peoples, as has Islam among the indigenous peoples of Borneo, see Harrisson, “The Advent of Islam to West and North Borneo (An Attempted Reconstruction of Some Possible Sequences).” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 45, no. 1 (221) (1972): 10–20. Also, to put it another way, it is one thing to say, that Indigenous spirituality has been misrepresented because Eurocentric approaches make a  very theatrical difference between the sacred and the ordinary, and to say, nonindigenous spiritualities  These are two different arguments, I find the first much more pertinent than the second but the authors are free to affirm both. It is just that they are two separate arguments.

 

That being said, I think this article makes important clarifications about Indigenous spirituality with respect to Country and how it has been misunderstood, and after  the authors consider (and amend or do not amend, that is their choice) the suggestions I have made I think it deserves publication. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper tries to expose the essence of the religious or spiritual experience of the Australian Aborigines, far from any of the categories and prejudices that many Western anthropologists have used to characterize these Aboriginal peoples. The authors demonstrate the errors that Western scholars often make, which essentially consist of transferring categories belonging to the universe of Judeo-Christian beliefs to the religious practices of the Australian aborigines. In his characterization of the spirituality of these aboriginal peoples, the fundamental element is Country, a living element in which all beings, human and non-human, that occupy the territory participe. To understand the religious experience of these people, it is not enough to be a spectator, but you have to participate firsthand. In their universe of beliefs there is practically no distance between the sacred and the mundane, since everything constitutes the same reality. In this way, what is sacred from the perspective of Aboriginal Australians is to look closely at the human and non-human patterns that constitute the Country, thanks to which man can live and thrive. Once the deep and complex meaning of Aboriginal spirituality is understood, the authors criticized the Western way of life, based on the extractive economy and a consumerist way of life, practically unsustainable for human being and the planet. As its authors conclude: "Our purpose is to [...] strive for balance and equilibrium with maturity, discernment and wisdom for ourselves and the planet."

The article is very well written. It is well structured, although sometimes the presentation of the ideas is somewhat repetitive, so that the reading becomes unclear. We recommend reviewing the wording and trying to avoid unnecessary repetitions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf