Tradition(s) in Making : Pasts and Presents among Czech Spiritual Seekers
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| Year of publication | 2011 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This conference contribution discussed the ambiguous meanings of "tradition" and "traditional" within the Czech culture of spiritual seeking. On the one hand, such references might be used as a tool for rejection of some practices and lifestyles, on the other hand as a device to support the legitimacy of certain techniques, rituals, beliefs, services. Even though there is on the one hand an ideal of the individual liberated from (some of) established social institutions, obligations and expectations, on the other hand there is a need to establish or reconstruct traditions as a part of individual or collective search for one's “roots”. In this sense the references to a tradition (including also negative self-differentiations from established institutions and traditions connected to them) might be a part of what Jon P. Bloch (1998) identified as a creation of new models of community within “alternative spirituality”, arising from the paradox between the stress on self-autonomy and the need for community. This conference paper was based on analysis of a role/roles the references to a “tradition” played in relation to the ideal of spiritual seeking, proclaimed individual autonomy within the field of contemporary religiosity/spirituality, the intensified emphasis upon personal and social transformation (in connection to the symbol of the year 2012) and the models of collective, social life enacted within the spiritual milieu of contemporary seekers. For the analysis data from selected popular periodicals available in Czech local "esoteric" shops as well as notes from my ethnographic research were used. |