Search Results (1,252)

Asian film displays a range of perspectives on ritual and political issues of contest and contestation. Using modified snowball and purposive sampling, film and some television is selected for the presence of ritual politics, political theater, and important Asian cultural, religious, and/or political perspectives. Some perspectives identified are localized, regional, or may have resonance (not representativeness) in many parts of Asia from Kazakhstan, Nepal, India, and eastward; a few preliminary observations are offered in this regard. The current work is an effort in cultural de-coding, and perhaps cultural translation, using qualitative content analysis, coding, and comparative historical–institutional analysis at the intersection of culture and politics. The argument is methodological (qualitative), encouraging political scientists and others with interests in cross-national, comparative, and international religion and politics to delve into thick description using international, foreign-language film as a (relatively unmined) source of cultural data and cultural, values-oriented, and political messaging. Ritual politics is treated herein as formal or informal ritual involving symbolic activities occurring in a religious, semi-religious, or secular context that is used for political purposes, in a political context, or to effect a political message. The current work is preliminary and is part of a larger project; it provides a preliminary spreadsheet of 24 out of over 100 canvassed films seeking to combine conceptual variables with binary coding. Full article

This article examines an epigraphic strategy deployed by the Ming court (1368–1644) in the aftermath of the 1556 Jiajing earthquake. Focusing on two stelae from Shanxi, one dedicated to the Jiao-Long Spirit and the other to Empress Nüwa, it proposes “epigraphic layering” to describe the purposeful division of roles between a stele’s faces. Each stele’s front carries an authoritative imperial proclamation admonishing the deity, while the back envoys prayer that appeases the deity and consoles the populace. By splitting imperial command and contrition between the two faces, the Ming court could assert cosmic order while simultaneously expressing penitence during the crisis. This dual-voice inscription technique was a creative adaptation of established ritual epigraphy to extraordinary circumstances. The study sheds new light on late imperial Chinese ritual practice, epigraphic communication, and state–temple relations, demonstrating how this dual-voice strategy helped navigate tensions between imperial authority and local faith. Full article

Contemporary interpretations of psychedelic spirituality are dominated by the “mystical experience model,” which emphasizes that psychedelics can lead to well-being through bringing about ego dissolution and a unitive mystical experience. Rooted in perennialist and dualist assumptions—often derived from Christian mysticism, Vedanta, and Plotinian Neoplatonism—this framework has shaped both scientific discourse and popular understanding of psychedelic states. However, the mystical experience model is controversial: (1) secular critics consider it as too religious; (2) it is a form of mystical exceptionalism, narrowly focusing on only certain extraordinary experiences; (3) its ontological assumptions include a Cartesian separation between internal experience and external reality and a perennialist focus on ultimate reality; (4) it neglects psychedelic learning processes; (5) in the ritual and ceremonial use of psychedelics, shared intentionality and practices of sacred participation are more important than the induction of individual mystical experiences. This article proposes an alternative and complementary model grounded in theurgy, based on the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus and the participatory ontological pluralism of Bruno Latour. Unlike the mystical experience model, which privileges individual unitary experiences, theurgy affirms ritual mediation, ritual competence, and both individual and collective transformation. Theurgic ritual practice makes room for the encounter with autonomous entities (framed by Latour as “beings of religion”) that are often reported by participants in psychedelic ceremonies. By examining how the theurgic framework can expand our understanding of psychedelic spirituality in a way that is truer to psychedelic phenomenology, especially the presence of autonomous entities, imaginal realms, and the centrality of intention and ritual, this article argues that theurgy offers a nuanced and experientially congruent framework that complements the mystical experience model. Framing psychedelic spirituality through theurgic lenses opens space for a vision of the sacred that is not about escaping the world into undifferentiated unity, but about individual and collective transformation in communion with a living, differentiated cosmos. Full article

In this article, I aim to briefly examine the ontological structure of religious life from a phenomenological perspective. By this, I mean how what the subject thinks and does reveals certain principles and patterns of religious life. The first step is to identify the guiding principle. We ask ourselves what the ultimate motivation of the religious human being is. After this, the main thing is to determine how they think of themselves, what image they have of themselves as human beings with regard to the divine. This points to a greater configuration of their consciousness. Next, we look at their habits and the ritualization of their lives. And finally, we examine the relationship they have with their community. Furthermore, we inquire about the implications of being part of that community. The findings are that religious subjects can only be happy as part of their community if, paradoxically, their desire is to abandon their ego (self-interest and desires) and devote themselves to the glorification of their god. However, although we can use the term “religious” to describe the form of life where subjects maximize the glory of the divine, other historically and sociologically constituted religions are moved by a different ontological principle. Full article

This article examines how a Daoist sacred mountain community in east China historically intertwined its religious life with the rhythms of the natural world, thereby challenging the conventional divide between “nature” and “culture.” Centering on the sacred mountain Maoshan—renowned for its cult of transcendents and its symbolic association with migrating cranes—the study shows how annual pilgrimage cycles were deliberately synchronized with avian migration patterns. Drawing on classical texts, religious scriptures, gazetteers, steles and imperial edicts, we reveal that the timing of rituals and imperial edicts at Maoshan aligned with the cranes’ arrival and departure, regulating human activities like logging, hunting and farming in this holy landscape. Such evidence demonstrates that Chinese religious practice not only reflected cosmological beliefs but also actively modeled human lifeworlds on non-human cycles, blurring the boundary between the social and the ecological. Over two millennia, Maoshan’s integrated ritual–ecological system helped conserve biodiversity (by protecting habitat during key seasons) and reinforced a worldview in which humans and auspicious animals were partners in a shared cosmic order. As environmental conditions shifted in later eras—through deforestation, climate change, and social upheaval—this nature-attuned tradition was forced to adapt, illuminating both the potency and precarity of a cosmology grounded in predictable natural rhythms. By highlighting a case where religious institutions and animal agency co-produced a sustainable temporal regime, the study contributes to broader anthropological debates on relational ontology in East Asia. It suggests that classical Daoist cosmology, often classified as “analogist,” in fact operated as a form of relational monism: an enduring conviction that human society and the living environment are co-constitutive and continuous. Through the lens of Maoshan’s history, we reconsider how premodern models of “unity of Heaven and humanity” were pragmatically applied, and we explore their implications for reimagining nature–culture relationships amid the uncertainties of the Anthropocene. Full article

This paper examines postsecularism, magic and disenchantment in the West with an emphasis on Wicca. Following a discussion of postsecularism, it provides a critical overview of the Weberian notion of disenchantment which describes the decline in magic in modernity. Magic, far from disappearing in the postsecular, has been transformed through a process of psychologization. While there is substantial evidence for the persistence of magic in modernity, the question is how it persists. The notion of participatory consciousness is deployed to account for its persistence. Participatory consciousness allows us to understand the ways that everyday life blends secular, spiritual, and religious aspects—a central theme of the postsecular condition. This paper deploys secondary ethnographic data pertaining to phenomenological studies of Wiccan rituals. Wiccans demonstrate an interest in spirituality that aligns with nature. There is a complex relationship between secular and religious ideas with a blending of spiritual practices with modern technology and individualized spiritual paths. Through the performance of rituals, practitioners transition from an ‘ordinary’ to a ‘magical’ worldview—a form of participatory consciousness involving analogical thinking, imagination, meaning and affect associated with an holistic and enchanted worldview where there are meaningful connections between people, events, and objects. Full article

Focusing on Jingju Temple (淨居寺) in Jinan, Shandong Province, from 1920 to 1948, this paper examines the complex interactions among Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, and governmental authorities. As one of the key religious sites in Jinan during the Republican era, Jingju Temple traces its origins back to the Song dynasty. Although it was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, the temple was restored in the 1920s by Pan Shoulian 潘守廉 (1845–1939) of Jining, becoming a “public monastery” (shifangcongli 十方叢林). Beginning in the 1930s, the Japanese government and its puppet regimes integrated Japanese rituals into Chinese Buddhism and established the Buddhist Tongyuan Association (Fojiao tongyuanhui 佛教同願會). By examining inscriptions, gazetteers, newspapers, and other historical records—focusing on negotiations between Jingju Temple, the association, and the Japanese Buddhist community—this study sheds light on the distinctive and multifaceted religious–political dynamics that arose as the temple was situated amid conflicting forces: the Japanese government, the puppet regimes, and the Republic of China. These findings provide a new perspective for understanding Buddhist interactions across East Asia and open avenues for further inquiry into this complex historical period. Full article

This article offers a comparative study of T. S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday and İsmet Özel’s “Amentü” to examine how modernist poetry refunctions ritual language as an aesthetic and spiritual response to different modernities. Drawing on world-systems theory and the sociology of secularization, the study argues that Eliot and Özel exemplify two structurally distinct but related modern experiences: Eliot writes from within the West’s internal fragmentation, while Özel speaks from the periphery of an imposed, Westernizing modernity. These divergent contexts produce contrasting religious modernisms—Eliot’s introspective Anglo-Catholic poetics of inward renewal versus Özel’s populist Islamic poetics of collective dissent. Both poets employ modernist form—fragment, refrain, montage—to reassert the sacred within secular conditions, yet with opposing cultural motivations. The comparison demonstrates that religious modernism is a transnational phenomenon, not a Western anomaly, and that literary modernism itself adapts to the asymmetries of global modernity. The article concludes by proposing “religious modernist poetics” as a comparative framework for studying faith and form across literary traditions. Full article

Background/Objectives: Public health emergencies disrupt school routines and child development, elevating psychosocial risk. The long-term influence of school-based participatory arts, particularly drama pedagogy, has not been sufficiently explored. This study examined teachers’ retrospective perceptions of the four-year effects of a large-scale, remotely delivered drama-based intervention on children’s psychosocial well-being and school community resilience. Methods: We conducted a retrospective interpretative phenomenological study with 23 primary-school teachers who implemented a seven-week, drama-based program with children aged 10–12 during a public health emergency. Semi-structured interviews were conducted four years post-implementation and analyzed following the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, using the Community Resilience Framework as a sensitizing theoretical lens. Results: According to teachers’ retrospective accounts, participatory arts were perceived to function as a complementary public-health-oriented practice, helping maintain children’s connection to school, and were associated with strengthening trust, creativity, and solidarity, as well as supporting communication, emotional expression, adaptability, and collaborative skills. Teachers reported that stable rituals and drama-based practices appeared to foster a sense of safety amid disruption; over time, some of these practices were reported as becoming part of everyday school routines, which teachers associated with continuity and collective resilience. Conclusions: Integrating drama-based interventions into school health and psychosocial crisis-readiness may strengthen pediatric public health strategies and may help education systems to respond to future emergencies. These findings reflect teachers’ perceptions of sustained influence and suggest the perceived value of arts-based methods in developmental/behavioral support and school community resilience. By addressing emotional regulation, peer connection, and psychosocial adaptation within school settings, the intervention reflects the preventive and promotive dimensions of pediatric public health, emphasizing the school’s role as an environment that supports children’s overall mental and developmental health. Full article

This study reports the discovery, contextualization, and archaeometric analysis of a unique metal pilgrim flask recovered from the sacred well of Santa Cristina (Paulilatino, Sardinia, Italy), a major sanctuary complex of the Nuragic period. Misidentified for several decades following its 20th-century excavation, the object has now been reinterpreted as a nearly intact, full-scale pilgrim flask manufactured from pewter—a material previously unrecorded in Sardinian protohistoric contexts. Typological comparison with related artefacts from the Levant, Cyprus, and Etruria reveals close formal and morphological affinities with Sardinian ceramic flasks and, in particular, with miniature bronze flasks documented in Nuragic and Villanovan assemblages. The morphological congruence suggests that the Santa Cristina vessel may have functioned as a prototype or symbolic referent for these miniature exemplars. The associated presence of eastern Mediterranean-style figurines and other imported materials further underscores the sanctuary’s involvement in elite ritual practices and participation in long-distance exchange networks. From a technological perspective, selected areas of the vessel were investigated using non-destructive Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis, supported by Monte Carlo simulation of the in situ measurements, and External Reflectance Fourier-Transform Infrared (ER-FTIR) spectroscopy. The combined results indicate a pewter alloy characterized by elevated tin and lead contents, confirming the object’s exceptional technological status within the Sardinian protohistoric metallurgical repertoire. Full article

As the teachings continued to expand within Daoism, Thunder Rituals (Leifa 雷法) inevitably faced the crucial question of how to integrate the newly emphasized thunder element within the traditional Five-Phase system upon its emergence. To address this, Wang Wenqing (王文卿), the founding master of Shenxiao(神霄 Daoism school) Daoism who held a pivotal position in the realm of Thunder Rituals, creatively proposed the theory of “Five Zi Returning to Geng” (五子歸庚). On the one hand, drawing upon the Najia (納音 Stem–Branch Correspondence) theory from the Zhou Yi Can Tong Qi, this theory posits that thunder corresponds to the number five, occupies the central position, and belongs to the earth element, thereby reinforcing the core thesis of Leifa’s internal alchemy that thunder is generated through the interaction of water and fire. On the other hand, by ingeniously adapting the Nayin method of the Sixty JiaZi (六十甲子), it offers a creative interpretation of the abstract relationship between thunder and the Five Phases, asserting that all phases ultimately converge toward the central Geng/thunder. Together, these two aspects demonstrate that thunder in fact occupies a central position alongside earth within the Five-Phase system. This theory not only provides a sophisticated resolution to the question of thunder’s relationship with the Five Phases but also furnishes solid theoretical support for the elevated status of Thunder Rituals. Full article

As demographic shifts toward aging populations intensify globally, death-related care emerges as a critical frontier in contemporary healthcare systems. This paper examines the potential for combining classical Confucian ethics for living with modern death care practices, thereby establishing a paradigm of palliative care based on Confucian ethics. Through synthesizing classical Confucian ethics for living with palliative care, this paper establishes four foundational pillars: First, applying Confucian life philosophy to alleviate anxiety surrounding death. Second, transforming Confucian death rituals into a structured palliative care plan. Third, establishing Confucian humaneness as the ethical core of palliative caregivers. Fourth, eliminating the obstacles posed by traditional filial piety to palliative care at the theoretical and practical levels. The findings affirm both the practical viability and cultural imperative of embedding classical Confucian ethics for living into death care systems, offering novel contributions to cross-cultural dialogs on Confucian ethics and palliative care. Full article

Holy Week, the most significant period of the Christian liturgical year, was marked by solemn and complex rituals enacted within the sacred spaces of medieval religious communities. In the case of Cistercian female monasteries, scholarly attention has largely centered on Easter dramatic representations such as the Depositio or the Visitatio Sepulchri, while the official liturgy—Hours, Masses, processions, and the official rituals of the Easter Triduum—has remained comparatively understudied. This article addresses that gap by examining the Holy Week liturgy as performed by the Cistercian nuns of Lichtenthal (Baden-Baden, Germany), on the basis of an exceptional and understudied source: the original Ecclesiastica Officia (mid-13th century, Karlsruhe, Badisches Generallandesarchiv, 65/323). Containing comprehensive normative prescriptions for the Easter liturgy adapted for the Lichtenthal community, this manuscript enables a detailed reconstruction of the nuns’ primary collective experiences during these days. The study brings together evidence from architecture, works of art, and liturgical books, while integrating insights from sensory studies, in order to underscore the bodily and multi-sensory dimensions of the rituals. In doing so, it highlights the implications of the nuns’ active participation in Holy Week ceremonies and contributes to a deeper understanding of medieval female religious ritual experience, challenging conventional notions of enclosure and liturgical practice. Full article

The proliferation of smartphones and social media has intensified debates about authenticity in contemporary pilgrimage, with critics arguing that digital connectivity undermines the spiritual depth of sacred journeys. This article explores how pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago negotiate this tension, asking whether digital mediation necessarily diminishes authentic experience. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Santiago de Compostela, semi-structured interviews with 20 pilgrims, and digital ethnography of online forums and social media platforms, the study identifies four interconnected ‘digital authentication strategies’: temporal regulations (when to connect/disconnect), spatial restrictions (where technology is appropriate), social negotiations (group norms), and narrative curation (selective digital storytelling). Rather than abandoning technology or experiencing diminished authenticity, pilgrims develop reflexive practices that integrate physical and digital dimensions while maintaining subjective experiences of spiritual legitimacy. These findings challenge classical anthropological models positioning pilgrimage as total separation from everyday life. Instead, contemporary pilgrims inhabit ‘connected liminality’—a digitally mediated liminal state where transformation occurs amid continuous connectivity, and where authenticity emerges through attentional discipline rather than technological absence. Digital mediation thus operates not as contamination but as transformation, creating hybrid ritual forms that reflect broader shifts in late modern religiosity. Full article

The longevity of popular religions in China is primarily attributed to their strong adaptability. This study uses online ethnography to examine the Pageant on Immortals event in Changle, which became a popular topic on the Chinese Internet in February 2024, to explore the identity transformation of popular religious inheritors and innovations in religious rituals. This study contributes to the research on the diversity of Chinese religious cultures by addressing the question of what emotions young people in an atheistic society hold toward deities like “Prince Zhao,” and how are these emotions generated? Here the Pageant on Immortals event, the “Deities,” who traditionally held a subsidiary position to the main god, due to changes in statue-making styles and gaps in mythological narratives, resonates with the “daily superstition” practices of contemporary Chinese youth. This shift has led participants to treat the deities as idols, and the organizers have transitioned from traditional roles of religious merchants or ritual specialists to seeing themselves as the “dolls’ masters.” However, these changes and innovations present challenges for the transmission of faith. Full article