Ossetian Ritual Feasts and Transpersonal Experience: Re-Description of a Religion as a Religious Practice
Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics December 1, 2021 DOI: 10.2478/jef-2021-0018 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the North Ossetian nativist religious movement's protest involves re-describing religion using New Age concepts to challenge Christian-centric understandings. |
Abstract
Abstract The protest of the North Ossetian nativist religious movement against discourses of dominant institutions in the public sphere involves as its necessary component ‘re-description’ of religion in general and ‘re-constructed’ religious systems in particular. Usually, this means revealing allegedly forgotten ancient meanings of indigenous customs, rituals and folklore texts through the use of various concepts taken from esotericism and/or practical psychology. The language for this re-description is provided by conceptual apparatus developed by New Age movements. Of particular interest in this respect is the language of ‘new science’, ‘alternative history’, ‘transpersonal psychology’, etc., employed as a tool for criticising the established system of Christian-centric understanding of what religion is and what its social functions are.