Wednesday – 13:00-14:30
Session 16 – Aud. Armfelt A102 – Chair: Linda Annunen
Tero Heinonen – Åbo Akademi University
Kirtans and sacred chants as sites of learning
My paper is based on my doctoral research, where I interviewed Finnish practitioners of Hindu inspired Kirtan and other “sacred chants”. Results include collective effervescence and regulation of individual emotions for therapeutic purposes within collectively created musical and ritual spaces. Practices often require the teaching and learning of beliefs, symbols, instruments, languages, artistic-somatic techniques, and social affective cues. The Hindu gods or animistic plant spirits that were prayed to with songs and mantras corresponded with learned religious roles that were emotionally analogical with the needs of the participants. According to Self-Determination Theory, I understand learning in “sacred chants” and ceremonies to be motivated by basic psychological needs: intrinsically motivated autonomy, self-efficacy, and social connectedness. According to Social Cognitive Theory, I understand kirtans as a way of building the sense of self-efficacy through vicarious affective learning, where emotional response is learned by observing affective social cues that evoke affect in others.
Laura Hellsten – Åbo Akademi University
Dance as a spiritual formation practice
In the traditions of Christianity Imitatio Christi is a classical trope for what it means with entering into and growing in the process of spiritual formation. It has been described as learning how to become Christlike in character. In modern thinking this transformation is often imagined to center on having the “right” thoughts, emotions and ideas about God and adhering to the correct formulations of faith (dogma). However, historically speaking much more attention has been focused on the embodied aspects of learning and transformation. (Coakley 2015) In this article I want to focus on the books by Olaus Magnus Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus from 1555, where he describes the educational paths and learning processes that the citizens in Sweden were to undertake in order to become good leaders in society. My particular interest is in the depictions of various forms of dances, plays and games that are described to form the character of the person practicing these. In light of previous dance research on the importance of embodiment in character formation of the Renaissance I want to compare and contrast the dance depictions described by Olaus Magnus. (Nevile 2004; 2008; Bocksberger in Gianvittorio-Ungar&Schlapbach 2021)
Jip Lensink – Utrecht University
Embodied and Emotional Practices: Learning Religious Songs among Moluccan Christians in the Netherlands
The Moluccan community is a diasporic, exiled community that arrived in the Netherlands in 1951, due to the complicated decolonization process of Indonesia. Despite the promise of the Dutch state of a quick return to a free Republic of South Maluku (RMS), the year 2021 commemorated the seventy year stay of Moluccans in The Netherlands.
The first-generation Moluccan people came with nothing other than their Reformed Protestant faith, to which they held on tight in a situation of homesickness, isolation, longing, trauma, and permanent waiting. The religious songs that the Moluccans brought with them provided the closest connection with the homeland. Singing these songs was a way of communicating emotions that could not be put in words.
This paper takes practices of learning as the starting point for understanding how religious songs play a role in the identity formation of second- and third-generation Moluccan-Dutch Christians. The paper states that the form and focus of the learning process influence the stories, memories, associations, meanings, and emotions that are generated by a growing lineage of religious repertoire.
Session 17 – Aud. Källan C201 – Chair: Ville Husgafvel
Karima Karppinen – Independent researcher
Applying Mysticism to Psychotherapy: Can Transcendent Experiences and the Expanding of Consciousness be Beneficial in a Non-Religious Therapeutic Context?
Despite our religious or spiritual standpoints, there are certain experiences before which we all stand perplexed, unable to explain their mysteriousness. In religious and spiritual context, however, there is a map of meaning and metaphor already attached to such experiences. How then, do people deal with what may be called a transcendent experience, when there is no religious or spiritual framework surrounding it? Could going deeper into these experiences in psychotherapy be beneficial for the client’s therapeutic process? To discuss this, I will first look at what is understood as the goal of psychotherapy. I will then examine whether a type of process of expanding consciousness can take place in psychotherapy and consider what role transcendent experiences could play in such process. My aim is to look at ways in which the wisdom of mysticism in various spiritual traditions could be used in a non-religious context to benefit a person’s psychotherapeutic process.
Ariane Kovac – Leipzig University, Germany
Taking Christianity to Therapy: Spiritual (Un-)Learning and Mental Health in a Global Megachurch
The Seattle-based evangelical megachurch Churchome has found its own answer to Christianity’s often postulated decline in the US and other parts of the world: They do not only address spiritual “seekers” but also cater their services toward those who, though having been raised in a conservative evangelical milieu, have been discouraged or even repelled thereof in their adult life. These “over-churched” individuals actively work on un-learning and deconstructing those aspects of their religious socialisation they perceive as “harmful” or “traumatic.” Often, they explicitly express this in terms of mental health or connect their learning to mental health practices. In my presentation, I will draw on interviews with Churchome members as well as observations at church services to analyse the intersections between individual spiritual (un-)learning processes and mental health. I argue that Churchome uses examples of these un-learnings or de-conversions to present itself as a progressive and healthy church. Further, I will use these results to reflect on broader aspects of self-presentation, identity work, and boundary maintenance of progressive evangelicals.
Andrew Thomas – Østfold University College, Norway
Self knowledge in education
elf knowledge is the preserve of both education and spirituality. Through self-knowledge pupils learn to live with and as the particularity of their brain. “Learning to learn” is an extremely powerful pedagogical tool, and part of a pupil’s journey towards lifelong learning and civic competence. Through self-knowledge we are also unsurprised by the strange or sinful turns our internal monologue takes. So how are we to negotiate the strategic and educational consequences of our growth in self-knowledge? This paper discusses common features between educational knowledge (harvested by assessments, screening, etc.) and spiritual development and their advantages and disadvantages for pupils and teachers. Is knowing oneself the gateway to emancipation or manipulation, to passivity or political virtue? And if both are possible, how is it to be deployed responsibly in the classroom? Concrete educational and spiritual practices are analysed from postcolonial perspectives and other critical theory (Achille Mbembe, Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, James Scott).