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- Fitger, Malin, 1978-
(författare)
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Själens arkitektur : Subtil anatomi som upplevelse, förkroppsligande och självförståelse, 1875–2020
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Contemporary forms of yoga and meditation, New Age-inspired practices, and alternative medicine share a conception of the body and mind as composed of “energy.” It depicts the soul, spirit, or consciousness as a form that adepts of spiritual practices can learn to “see” and “feel.” Further, the subtle body (or bodies) is viewed as permeated by subtle energy – usually referred to by Indian terms such as prana or kundalini, alternatively by the Chinese term ch’i or the Japanese ki. Sometimes theosophical concepts such as “aura” and “astral body” are used, and sometimes practitioners just refer to “the energy.” This dissertation is a study of essential influences behind the contemporary (Swedish) interpretations of such concepts (commonly referred to as “subtle-corporeal”) as well as experiences related to them.Through an online survey with 811 Swedish yoga and meditation practitioners (conducted 2017–2019), the prevalence of subtle-corporeal concepts (i.e., prana, kundalini, ki, chakras, nadis, and aura) was examined. It showed that 99.5% of the respondents were familiar with at least one of the concepts and that 61.7% thought they had had a personal experience of subtle energy or subtle anatomy.Furthermore, 20 interviews were conducted with practitioners recruited through the survey. Integrating the History of Religion, Cognitive Science of Religion, Embodied Cognition, and Metaphor Analysis, the interview analysis shows how subtle-corporeal concepts (and related cognitive schemas) are linked to “special personal experiences” in connection with yoga/meditation practices. It also examines which role metaphors and image schemas play in embodied cognition of subtle energy and subtle anatomy.It is concluded that subtle-corporeal schemas have three crucial functions for yoga and meditation practicing Swedes: 1) it constitutes a “diagnostic instrument” or “language” through which practitioners can decipher, understand and mediate personal experiences; 2) it functions as “an embodied tool” through which experiences can be generated to deepen one’s knowledge of the world and the self – or in a search for new types of experiences, and 3) it is used as a “conceptual anchor” through which embodied experiences are given a broader meaning in a life-narrative.
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| 4. |
- Faxneld, Per, Docent, 1978-
(författare)
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An Occult Soothsayer and Prophet
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sasha Chaitow: Son of Prometheus. - Munich : Theion Publishing. ; , s. 19-22
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 5. |
- Faxneld, Per, 1978-
(författare)
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Andliga krigare och sakraliserad träning
- 2019
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Ingår i: Tidskriften Folkuniveristetet. - : Folkuniversitetet. - 1400-190X. ; :1, s. 6-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 7. |
- Faxneld, Per, 1978-
(författare)
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Assuming the Role of the Demon Woman : Sarah Bernhardt, Luisa Casati, Theda Bara, Rebellious Roleplay and Satanic Feminism
- 2013
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The paper treats three individuals (Sarah Bernhardt, the Italian marchioness Luisa Casati and silent film actress Theda Bara) during the years 1880–193. Both onstage and offstage they actively assumed the role of the demon woman, an endavour which to a varying extent also incorporated satanic motifs. They chose—or, in one case, were chosen—to embody the (more or less supernatural) femme fatale, constructed by male authors and artists, and seemingly felt this was enjoyable, empowering or useful for commercial purposes. My analysis attempts to tease out some of the implications this enacting of a sinister stereotype had on an individual level as well as in a broader cultural context.Bernhardt wore a bat hat and serpent jewelry, at times derided Christianity and even sculpted a self-portrait of herself as Satan or a demon. Casati practiced magic and threw curses, dressed up as Satan in the Garden of Eden, commissioned a mural of herself as Eve consorting with Lucifer, and organized parties with staff in devil costumes. Bara was presented by the Fox publicity department as a real-life demon woman, and in her films played vampiric femme fatales who punished and tormented males. Many of the films had titles where Satan was mentioned, and in one of them she even turned out to literally be the Devil in disguise.The choice of demonic imagery for these identity games tells us something about exactly what the taboos and limits these women consciously transgressed and mocked were tied up with: conservative Christian values. Embracing demons, satanic serpent motifs, and the macabre thus functioned as a critique of such values, and was one of the registers of symbolic resistance available for rebellious women to draw on at the time. In Bara’s case, the demonic persona was not devised by herself, but is an example which is of more interest because of the audience response to it and what it says about shifts in use of Satan as a marker of female rebellion. Satanism, or flirting with the satanic, is always a language of resistance to conventions, which may be more or less articulate when it comes to specific cultural criticism. The use of Gothic and Satanic symbolism by fiercly independent women would accordingly have resonated with notions in the wider culture, and, with figures as highly public as these using it, must have created echoes far beyond their intimate sphere. It thus strengthened the ties between such symbolism and female emancipation. Taking all this into account, it is reasonable to see these women as participants in the amorphous fin-de-siècle discourse of satanic feminism.
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- Faxneld, Per, Docent, 1978-
(författare)
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Belials säd : F.W. Murnaus Nosferatu
- 2022
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Ingår i: Aiolos: Tidskrift för litteratur, teori och estetik. - : Aiolos tidskrift & förlag. - 1400-7770. ; :74-75, s. 54-63
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 10. |
- Faxneld, Per, 1978-
(författare)
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Blavatsky the Satanist : Luciferianism in Theosophy, and its Feminist Implications
- 2012
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Ingår i: Temenos. - : Temenos. - 0497-1817 .- 2342-7256. ; 48:2, s. 203-230
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- H. P. Blavatsky’s influential The Secret Doctrine (1888), one of the foundation texts of Theosophy, contains chapters propagating an unembarrassed Satanism. Theosophical sympathy for the Devil also extended to the name of their journal Lucifer, and discussions conducted in it. To Blavatsky, Satan is a cultural hero akin to Prometheus. According to her reinterpretation of the Christian myth of the Fall in Genesis 3, Satan in the shape of the serpent brings gnosis and liberates mankind. The present article situates these ideas in a wider nineteenth-century context, where some poets and Socialist thinkers held similar ideas and a counter-hegemonic reading of the Fall had far-reaching feminist implications. Additionally, influences on Blavatsky from French occultism and research on Gnosticism are discussed, and the instrumental value of Satanist shock tactics is considered. The article concludes that esoteric ideas cannot be viewed in isolation from politics and the world at large. Rather, they should be analyzed both as part of a religious cosmology and as having strategic polemical and didactic functions related to political debates, or, at the very least, carrying potential entailments for the latter.
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