W numerze:
Dorota Hall, New Age na świecie i w Polsce. Problematyka badawcza.
Tadeusz Doktór, Pluralizm religijny: New Age i fundamentalizm.
Piotr Jordan Śliwiński OFM Cap, Hybrydyzacja jako jeden z efektów zetknięcia się New Age z katolicyzmem w Polsce.
Paweł Możdżyński; Sztuka współczesna i nowa duchowość.
Małgorzata Bilska, Kobiety jako promotorki kultury Wodnika.
Magdalena Tomczyk, Feminizm radykalny. Nurty, źródła, idee.
Piotr Gibaszewski, Astrologia w Polsce w XX wieku. Od elitaryzmu do egalitaryzmu.
Kamil Kaczmarek, Wspólnota Kundaliniego. Rys historyczno-religioznawczy.
Piotr Szarszewski, Medialna reaktywacja. Kilka uwag na temat medialnego obrazu grupy Kundaliniego/Pawlisz.
Agnieszka Kuzera, Chrześcijańska Europa a buddyzm.
Tomáš Bubik. Henryk Hoffmann, Międzynarodowa Konferencja Religioznawcza
larious Interpretations of Religiom: Methods & History (Pardubice.
9-11 października 2007).
SUMMARIES
Dorota Hall
NEW AGE IN THE WORLD AND IN POLAND:
SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
The author of the article calls for thorough research on local aspects of New Age in Poland. Although Polish academic texts on the international phenomenon have been published since at least the middle of the 1990s, the question of whether and to what extent we can speak about its presence in our country has not been undertaken. In particular little has been said about New Age as the social phenomenon locally constructed in concrete time and space. Instead it has been presented just as an objectively existing element of culture, sometimes grasped in relation to postmodern conditions. The article is divided in two parts. The first one discusses international debates on New Age and globalization. In the second section the author draws conclusions from findings hitherto elaborated by leading scholars of the subject and encourages opening to discussion the issue of New Age in Poland. Themes to be developed are suggested. They include: the history of the phenomenon in Poland (e.g. the question of a lack of strong countercultural forces constitutive for New Age in western countries), relations between new trends of spirituality and historical and sociological conditions of Polish religiosity (esp. vitality of the folk religiosity), the broader issue of heterogeneity of New Age in Judeo-Christian context.
Tadeusz Doktór
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM, NEW AGE AND FUNDAMENTALISM
In reference to Niklas Luhmann’s theory of religion an attempt has been made to measure New Age and fundamentalist orientations on a common axis of variation reflecting different levels of abstraction and inclusiveness of religious code. An operationalization of this continuum is proposed and tested on the basis of data from the Religious and Moral Pluralism Project including representative samples from 11 European countries. New Age orientation is positively correlated (and fundamentalism negatively) with better education, having more friends with different religious views and weaker religious socialization. The analysis confirms predictions based on Thomas Luckmann’s theory of religious change and (partly) based on the market theory of religion.
Piotr Jordan Śliwiński OFMCap
HYBRIDIZATION AS ONE OF THE EFFECTS OF THE MEETING BETWEEN
THE NEW AGE AND CATHOLICISM IN POLAND
(BASED ON THE SELECTED EXAMPLES)
The article discusses three cases of the New Age impact on Catholics, including hybridization. One case presents Archbishop Bolesław Pylak, engaged in promoting the usage of pendulums and natural medicine. These techniques also influence theological thinking. The second one shows the group of people propagating the messages delivered by Vassula Ryden, who claimed to receive them from „Jesus” by means of so called automatic writing. The third case concerns Zbigniew Kozłowski who organized the group „Catholic radiesthesia” promoting the magic ideas enveloped in a specifically understood, strongly anticlerical Catholicism.
Paweł Możdżyński
THE CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE NEW SPIRITUALITY
In this text, the author writes about connections between contemporary art and the „new spirituality”. In the preface the author says, that the New Age Movement does not exist any more in the form of the alternative social movement. Nowadays the New Age is the social institution, part of the cultural mainstream and the marginal life-style field. So, the term of „the new spirituality” is a better, more effective category than „the New Age Movement”. Contemporary art is connected with the new spirituality in many ways. A lot of trends of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries, (abstract art, performance, psychedelic art, video art, body art, abject art, land art, site-specific art etc.), are realizations of the esoteric vision of reality (spiritual, dynamic, non-materialistic, transpersonal, magic etc.) in the postmodern society. A contemporary artist is the postmodern „specialist in ecstasy”.
Małgorzata Bilska
WOMEN AS PROMOTERS OF THE CULTURE OF AQUARIUS
The article is devoted to the role that women play in creating and promoting the culture of Aquarius which is on course to become a key notion for the analysis of the New Age movement. Many scholars limit their interest in New Age to the issue of spirituality, concentrating on the question of religiosity transformation. They draw on the achievements of such sociologists of religion as Thomas Luckmann, the author of the notion of the invisible religion. In such a context, New Age appears as an indefinable set of subjective „small narratives” that have the following features in common: the individualistic attitude, emphasis put on authentic experience of an individual, tolerance, pluralism and the desire for self-realization. The article refers to the theoretical concepts of Paul Heelas and Alain Touraine, and shows New Age as a specific metanarrative in which women play the decisive role in creating culture. It describes the aims of one of the currents in the feministic movement – cultural feminism (raising the status of femininity, creating feminine culture, forming female subject, giving a new meaning to motherhood, reinterpreting the myth of matriarchal prehistory, introducing into discourse the symbol of Goddess and witch). The article also deals with untypical action strategies (such as predualistic language of women) which are very popular among contemporary feminists. The author claims that at this stage it is impossible to understand New Age without reference to feminism, as it is impossible to comprehend feminism outside the context of the culture of Aquarius.
Magdalena Tomczyk
RADICAL FEMINISM. TRENDS, ROOTS, IDEAS
Feminism is a very general term, which nowadays is used to describe a women’s social movement working towards achieving an equal status of both sexes. It aspires to women’s liberation and recognition of equal value of what is understood as femininity and masculinity. Contemporary feminism is not a homogeneous phenomenon; it is subject to continuous changes, both cultural and commercial. In the 1960s, feminism became the predominant moral system looked to by most ambitious young women. It also absorbed many female attitudes, as was shown by discussions within feminist theory on such key female problems as discrimination, oppression, ideas of individual freedom as well as women’s community values.
It was in the 1960s in large communities of women related to Women’s Liberation Movement that a thorough analysis of sex discrimination began. The ideas of Women’s Liberation Movement were later continued by radical feminism. It was instrumental in changing social reality as it brought about an ideological, mental and cultural revolution in it. For the first time in history, the woman gained the right to decide about herself. Contemporary radical feminism is aware of the long and difficult process of abolishing all forms of discrimination and oppression of women. The key priority is to transform the mentality of both men and women.
Piotr Gibaszewski
ASTROLOGY IN POLAND IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Astrology in Poland has metamorphosed remarkably over the last 100 years. A mode of seeing the world has completely changed, and the new place of human beings in relation to the universe has been specified. In connection with these facts, three stages of the history of Polish astrology may be distinguished.
I. Astrology in the period between the world wars.
II. Astrology in the period of People’s Republic of Poland.
III. Development of New Age idea and astrology after 1990.
In the pre-war environment the people who were interested in astrology formed a narrow, hermetic group, consisting of intellectual and scientific elite who were the inheritors of Polish Romantic myth’s. Artists, and well known pre-war occultists and esotericists were also part of this circle. In the second half of the 20th century astrology has seriously transformed, especially in the Anglo-Saxon culture area. This stream of astrology was popularized by Leszek Weres in Poland, a graduate in Law – Univeristy in Poznań. The third stage of Polish astrology has been established by humanistic streams of the Weres astrology school, and free-market reality. Schools of psychotronics and astrology also started then.
Kamil Kaczmarek
KUNDALINIS’ COMMUNITY: AN OUTLINE IN HISTORIC AND COMPARATIVE
RELIGION PERSPECTIVE
The paper presents a little known esoteric Polish group, founded in early 1980 by its leader called „Kundalini”. The paper is based on the research carried out among ex-members and witnesses of Kundalini’s activity. It is an introductory part of sociological investigation concerning phenomenon of charisma in alternative religious movements. The Community of Kundalini became famous after a journalist’s investigation which revealed some abuses in this organization and some connection to important Polish politicians. In the first part the leader’s biography, in parts, mostly legendary, concerning earliest period is presented. The history of the Community he established is based on more differentiated sources. In the second part the article discusses the ideology of the Community. Kundalini, on the strength of its founder’s private enlightenment, created a new, relatively original socio-spiritual concept. It is based on three main sources, i.e. books of German spiritual writer Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken (Bô Yin Râ), Polish social and esoteric messianic tradition of Eleusis Movement (established by W. Lutoslawski) and Sufi-inspired spiritual practices of G. I. Gudijeff.
Piotr Szarszewski
REACTIVATATED BY THE MEDIA.
SOME REMARKS ON THE MEDIA’S DESCRIPTION OF THE KUNDALINI/
PAWLISZ GROUP
In June 2005 reporters of „Rzeczpospolita” daily and TVN TV station revealed the results of their investigation concerning the criminal activity of the Kundalini sect (the name is derived from the name of its founder). According to the reporters the sect has been secretly operating in Poland for over twenty years, exploiting its members and using unethical methods of exerting influence and control over them; moreover, through the activity of its related organizations a considerable number of well-known politicians have been unwittingly involved in the activity of the group. The problem is that the detailed analysis of the material provided shows that the report lacks conclusive evidence that would finally prove the accusations imputed against the group. The fact that the information regarding the activity of the sect comes from only one source – the ex-members (apostates), whose goal is revenge on their former leaders – calls into question the very reliability of the investigation and its results.
Dorota Hall
NEW AGE IN THE WORLD AND IN POLAND:
SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
The author of the article calls for thorough research on local aspects of New Age in Poland. Although Polish academic texts on the international phenomenon have been published since at least the middle of the 1990s, the question of whether and to what extent we can speak about its presence in our country has not been undertaken. In particular little has been said about New Age as the social phenomenon locally constructed in concrete time and space. Instead it has been presented just as an objectively existing element of culture, sometimes grasped in relation to postmodern conditions. The article is divided in two parts. The first one discusses international debates on New Age and globalization. In the second section the author draws conclusions from findings hitherto elaborated by leading scholars of the subject and encourages opening to discussion the issue of New Age in Poland. Themes to be developed are suggested. They include: the history of the phenomenon in Poland (e.g. the question of a lack of strong countercultural forces constitutive for New Age in western countries), relations between new trends of spirituality and historical and sociological conditions of Polish religiosity (esp. vitality of the folk religiosity), the broader issue of heterogeneity of New Age in Judeo-Christian context.
Tadeusz Doktór
RELIGIOUS PLURALISM, NEW AGE AND FUNDAMENTALISM
In reference to Niklas Luhmann’s theory of religion an attempt has been made to measure New Age and fundamentalist orientations on a common axis of variation reflecting different levels of abstraction and inclusiveness of religious code. An operationalization of this continuum is proposed and tested on the basis of data from the Religious and Moral Pluralism Project including representative samples from 11 European countries. New Age orientation is positively correlated (and fundamentalism negatively) with better education, having more friends with different religious views and weaker religious socialization. The analysis confirms predictions based on Thomas Luckmann’s theory of religious change and (partly) based on the market theory of religion.
Piotr Jordan Śliwiński OFMCap
HYBRIDIZATION AS ONE OF THE EFFECTS OF THE MEETING BETWEEN
THE NEW AGE AND CATHOLICISM IN POLAND
(BASED ON THE SELECTED EXAMPLES)
The article discusses three cases of the New Age impact on Catholics, including hybridization. One case presents Archbishop Bolesław Pylak, engaged in promoting the usage of pendulums and natural medicine. These techniques also influence theological thinking. The second one shows the group of people propagating the messages delivered by Vassula Ryden, who claimed to receive them from „Jesus” by means of so called automatic writing. The third case concerns Zbigniew Kozłowski who organized the group „Catholic radiesthesia” promoting the magic ideas enveloped in a specifically understood, strongly anticlerical Catholicism.
Paweł Możdżyński
THE CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE NEW SPIRITUALITY
In this text, the author writes about connections between contemporary art and the „new spirituality”. In the preface the author says, that the New Age Movement does not exist any more in the form of the alternative social movement. Nowadays the New Age is the social institution, part of the cultural mainstream and the marginal life-style field. So, the term of „the new spirituality” is a better, more effective category than „the New Age Movement”. Contemporary art is connected with the new spirituality in many ways. A lot of trends of the art of the 20th and 21st centuries, (abstract art, performance, psychedelic art, video art, body art, abject art, land art, site-specific art etc.), are realizations of the esoteric vision of reality (spiritual, dynamic, non-materialistic, transpersonal, magic etc.) in the postmodern society. A contemporary artist is the postmodern „specialist in ecstasy”.
Małgorzata Bilska
WOMEN AS PROMOTERS OF THE CULTURE OF AQUARIUS
The article is devoted to the role that women play in creating and promoting the culture of Aquarius which is on course to become a key notion for the analysis of the New Age movement. Many scholars limit their interest in New Age to the issue of spirituality, concentrating on the question of religiosity transformation. They draw on the achievements of such sociologists of religion as Thomas Luckmann, the author of the notion of the invisible religion. In such a context, New Age appears as an indefinable set of subjective „small narratives” that have the following features in common: the individualistic attitude, emphasis put on authentic experience of an individual, tolerance, pluralism and the desire for self-realization. The article refers to the theoretical concepts of Paul Heelas and Alain Touraine, and shows New Age as a specific metanarrative in which women play the decisive role in creating culture. It describes the aims of one of the currents in the feministic movement – cultural feminism (raising the status of femininity, creating feminine culture, forming female subject, giving a new meaning to motherhood, reinterpreting the myth of matriarchal prehistory, introducing into discourse the symbol of Goddess and witch). The article also deals with untypical action strategies (such as predualistic language of women) which are very popular among contemporary feminists. The author claims that at this stage it is impossible to understand New Age without reference to feminism, as it is impossible to comprehend feminism outside the context of the culture of Aquarius.
Magdalena Tomczyk
RADICAL FEMINISM. TRENDS, ROOTS, IDEAS
Feminism is a very general term, which nowadays is used to describe a women’s social movement working towards achieving an equal status of both sexes. It aspires to women’s liberation and recognition of equal value of what is understood as femininity and masculinity. Contemporary feminism is not a homogeneous phenomenon; it is subject to continuous changes, both cultural and commercial. In the 1960s, feminism became the predominant moral system looked to by most ambitious young women. It also absorbed many female attitudes, as was shown by discussions within feminist theory on such key female problems as discrimination, oppression, ideas of individual freedom as well as women’s community values.
It was in the 1960s in large communities of women related to Women’s Liberation Movement that a thorough analysis of sex discrimination began. The ideas of Women’s Liberation Movement were later continued by radical feminism. It was instrumental in changing social reality as it brought about an ideological, mental and cultural revolution in it. For the first time in history, the woman gained the right to decide about herself. Contemporary radical feminism is aware of the long and difficult process of abolishing all forms of discrimination and oppression of women. The key priority is to transform the mentality of both men and women.
Piotr Gibaszewski
ASTROLOGY IN POLAND IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Astrology in Poland has metamorphosed remarkably over the last 100 years. A mode of seeing the world has completely changed, and the new place of human beings in relation to the universe has been specified. In connection with these facts, three stages of the history of Polish astrology may be distinguished.
I. Astrology in the period between the world wars.
II. Astrology in the period of People’s Republic of Poland.
III. Development of New Age idea and astrology after 1990.
In the pre-war environment the people who were interested in astrology formed a narrow, hermetic group, consisting of intellectual and scientific elite who were the inheritors of Polish Romantic myth’s. Artists, and well known pre-war occultists and esotericists were also part of this circle. In the second half of the 20th century astrology has seriously transformed, especially in the Anglo-Saxon culture area. This stream of astrology was popularized by Leszek Weres in Poland, a graduate in Law – Univeristy in Poznań. The third stage of Polish astrology has been established by humanistic streams of the Weres astrology school, and free-market reality. Schools of psychotronics and astrology also started then.
Kamil Kaczmarek
KUNDALINIS’ COMMUNITY: AN OUTLINE IN HISTORIC AND COMPARATIVE
RELIGION PERSPECTIVE
The paper presents a little known esoteric Polish group, founded in early 1980 by its leader called „Kundalini”. The paper is based on the research carried out among ex-members and witnesses of Kundalini’s activity. It is an introductory part of sociological investigation concerning phenomenon of charisma in alternative religious movements. The Community of Kundalini became famous after a journalist’s investigation which revealed some abuses in this organization and some connection to important Polish politicians. In the first part the leader’s biography, in parts, mostly legendary, concerning earliest period is presented. The history of the Community he established is based on more differentiated sources. In the second part the article discusses the ideology of the Community. Kundalini, on the strength of its founder’s private enlightenment, created a new, relatively original socio-spiritual concept. It is based on three main sources, i.e. books of German spiritual writer Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken (Bô Yin Râ), Polish social and esoteric messianic tradition of Eleusis Movement (established by W. Lutoslawski) and Sufi-inspired spiritual practices of G. I. Gudijeff.
Piotr Szarszewski
REACTIVATATED BY THE MEDIA.
SOME REMARKS ON THE MEDIA’S DESCRIPTION OF THE KUNDALINI/
PAWLISZ GROUP
In June 2005 reporters of „Rzeczpospolita” daily and TVN TV station revealed the results of their investigation concerning the criminal activity of the Kundalini sect (the name is derived from the name of its founder). According to the reporters the sect has been secretly operating in Poland for over twenty years, exploiting its members and using unethical methods of exerting influence and control over them; moreover, through the activity of its related organizations a considerable number of well-known politicians have been unwittingly involved in the activity of the group. The problem is that the detailed analysis of the material provided shows that the report lacks conclusive evidence that would finally prove the accusations imputed against the group. The fact that the information regarding the activity of the sect comes from only one source – the ex-members (apostates), whose goal is revenge on their former leaders – calls into question the very reliability of the investigation and its results.
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