Från att ha varit en exotisk liten religion som har fört en tynande närvaro i södra Irak och Iran har mandeismen flyttat till västvärlden och däribland Sverige. När allt fler mandéer möter en ny kultur och ett nytt samhälle i Sverige påverkar det inte bara dem som individer utan även religionen mandeism. I denna uppsats har jag påbörjat att undersöka hur mandéer ser på sin identitet och religion. Jag har tagit min utgångspunkt i en bred teoretisk diskussion om identitet, religion och sekualisering. Mandeismen är en gnostisk religion som troligtvis har sina rötter i dagens Israel/Palestina och ser Johannes döparen som den sista profeten. Dopet är mandeismens viktigaste ritual och man har flera heliga skrifter, där Ginza anses vara den som har tyngst auktoritet. Prästerskapet är viktigt för utförandet av ritualer och förmedling av de religiösa kunskaperna, idag finns det bara ett trettiotal präster kvar inom mandeismen i världen och dessa är utspridda från Sverige till Australien. Bland de mandéer som har svarat på mina frågor är de flesta relativt sekulära, ett par ser sig som religiösa. Men samtliga tycker att deras mandeiska identitet är viktig, man ser dopet, högtider, familjen och den mandeiska gemenskapen som viktiga faktorer för att hålla sin mandeiska identitet levande. Flera mandéer i Sverige upplever en svårighet att utöva sin religion på ett traditionellt sätt pga ett kallt klimat som försvårar dop, avsaknad av präster och mandi (tempel där dop kan utföras). Dessa faktorer tillsammans med mötet med en sekulär västvärld och att man har gått från att vara en relativt geografiskt sammanhållen grupp till att vara utspridd över hela världen har lett till en ökad sekularisering. Detta har lett till en diskussion inom mandeismen hur man ska möta den nya situationen, tex hur man ska se på mandéer som gifter sig med ickemandéer, något som tidigare inte har varit accepterat och är mycket ovanligt. / From being an exotic small religion that has existed at a fading presence in southern Iraq and Iran mandeism has moved to the West and Sweden. As more and more Mandaeans encounter a new culture and a new society in Sweden it affects not only them as individuals but also their religion mandeism. In this essay, I have begun to examine how Mandaeans think about their identity and religion. I have taken my starting point in a broad theoretical discussion of identity, religion and secularisation. Mandeism is a gnostic religion that probably has its roots in today’s Israel / Palestine and sees John the Baptist as the last prophet. Baptism is the Mandaeans most important ritual and Mandaeans also have several sacred writings, in which the Ginza is considered the one that has most authority. The clergy is important for the performance of rituals and communication of religious knowledge, today there are only about thirty priests left in the global community and these are spread from Sweden to Australia. Among the Mandaeans who answered my questions, the most are relatively secular, only a few see themselves as religious. But they all feel that their Mandaean identity is important, baptism, ceremonies, family, and the Mandaean community is important as factors to keep their Mandaean identity alive. Several Mandaeans in Sweden is experiencing a difficulty to practice their religion in a traditional way due to the cold climate that makes it difficult to perform baptism, the lack of priests and mandi (temple there baptisms can be performed). These factors along with the meeting with a secular Western society and that it has gone from being a relatively geographically cohesive group to be scattered all over the world have led to increased secularisation. This has led to a debate within the Mandaean community how to meet the new situation, such as how to relate to the Mandaeans who marries non Mandaeans, which previously had not been accepted and is very rare even today.

This assignment is a venture into the use of the concept alchemy in the texts on analytical psychology written by Carl G. Jung. Originally the idea was to compare the blending of colours in art painting with the Jungian understanding of alchemy. In order to understand the many and it seems differentiated correlations to alchemy in the texts on analytical psychology written by C.G. Jung, I have found it necessary to investigate the history of alchemy in modern Europe and the Egyptian figure of Hermes Trismegistos. This helps shedding light on Jung’s manner of writing in his texts on analytical psychology. The assignment includes an understanding of colours as understood by Goethe as well as the aspect of alchemy in the Rosicrucian movement and the kabbalah. The Jungian aspects of world religions are in this context emphasized as well as the use of symbols and symbolic speech.

In this thesis I explore the emergence of the Christian triad with reference to two contemporary movements: Middle Platonism and Gnosticism. The earliest Christian writer to enumerate the three constituents of what would become the Christian Trinity is Justin. In addition to his three extant works, Justin’s triadology can be diagnosed from those he directly influenced – Tatian and Athenagoras – who I have (somewhat artificially) grouped under the heading the “school of Justin”. The ontological triad adopted by these Christian thinkers is compared with the triads of Middle Platonism and Gnosticism, both in terms of their structure and in terms of the function and ontological status of the individual constituents of these triads. In this thesis I propose that a liturgical triad of primitive Christianity, the trine baptismal formula, was conflated by the “school of Justin” with the ontological triad of Middle Platonism, resulting in three referents of the baptismal formula being embued with new functions and ontological status. Whilst emerging as a hierarchical triad, the logic of Platonic ontology when combined with Christian tradition required the sharp distinction between God, as Being, and all other things resulting in a Christian triad that was also a unity. This new triad became fixed as a central tenet of Christianity. I find no plausible connection between any known Gnostic triad and the triad of the “school of Justin”. There is some interaction between Gnostic and Platonic thought during this period. It is possible that the Triple-Powered One pre-empted the Being-Mind-Life triad of Neoplatonism.

This study examines the influence of various Western mystical traditions on Leonard Cohen’s second novel, Beautiful Losers. It begins with a discussion of Cohen’s public remarks concerning religion and mysticism followed by an assessment of twentieth century Canadian criticism on Beautiful Losers. Three thematic chapters comprise the majority of the study, each concerning a different mystical tradition—Kabbalism, Gnosticism, and Christian mysticism, respectively. The author considers Beautiful Losers in relation to these systems, concluding that the novel effectively depicts the pursuit of God, or knowledge, through mystic practice and doctrine. This study will interest scholars seeking a careful exploration of Cohen’s use of religious themes in his work.

Reprendre contact avec les réalités de l’âme, rouvrir la source où l’être rejaillit éternellement : tel est l’idéal occulte, inavouable, d’où procède la poétique d’Hubert Aquin. Depuis sa jeunesse, Aquin s’emploie clandestinement à défaire les mailles de la conscience et à rebrousser chemin vers les arrière-plans ténébreux du Moi, vers le Plérôme de la vie nue. Il manœuvre pour se mettre au service de l’intentionnalité impersonnelle inscrite au plus profond de sa psyché, pour devenir l’instrument du vouloir aveugle « qui opère en lui comme une force d’inertie ». Son œuvre ne s’accomplit pas dans le texte, mais à rebours du texte, voire à rebours du langage ; elle se déploie sur le terrain d’une confrontation enivrée avec le Négatif — avec la Parole sacrée issue de l’abîme. En d’autres termes, elle prend la forme d’une Gnose, c’est-à-dire d’un exercice de dé-subjectivation, de destruction de soi, consistant à réaliser la connaissance participative de l’empreinte imaginale scellée derrière les barreaux de la finitude. Essentiellement consacrée à l’analyse de la dimension gnostique de l’œuvre d’Hubert Aquin, cette thèse vise à montrer que la connaissance du hiéroglyphe mystérieux gravé au fond de l’âme n’est pas une sinécure. Il s’agit plutôt d’un opus contra naturam qui comporte bien des risques (en tout premier lieu celui d’une inflation psychique). Pourtant, ce travail est aussi, aux yeux de l’auteur, le seul véritablement digne d’être accompli, celui qui donne à l’homme le moyen de se soustraire à l’engloutissement de la mort et la possibilité de renaître. Comme l’écrit Aquin dans un texte de jeunesse, l’ouverture inconditionnelle au Négatif (la destruction de soi) est « une façon privilégiée d’expérimenter la vie et un préalable à toute entreprise artistique » ; elle correspond à « un mode supérieur de connaissance », à un savoir « impersonnel » qui offre immédiatement le salut. / To reestablish contact with the realities of the soul, to reopen the source from which Being eternally resurges: such is the occult and unspeakable ideal from which Hubert Aquin’s poetics proceeds. From his youth onwards, Aquin secretly seeks to unravel the mesh of consciousness, in order to retrace the path leading back towards the dark nether regions of the Self, towards the Pleroma of the naked life. Thus he operates exclusively in the service of the impersonal intentionality inscribed in the depths of his psyche, as the instrument of the blind will that acts inside of him “like an inertial force”. His work does not fulfill itself in the text, but rather runs counter to the text, even counter to language itself; it deploys as an exhilarating confrontation with the Negative, with the sacred Word issuing from the abyss. In other words, Aquin’s work takes the form of a Gnosis: an exercise in de-subjectivization and self-destruction that consists in attaining participative knowledge of the imaginal seal imprinted behind the bars of finitude. This thesis, principally devoted to an analysis of the gnostic dimension of Hubert Aquin’s œuvre, aims to show that to decipher the mysterious hieroglyph engraved in the depths of the soul is no simple task: it is rather an opus contra naturam, involving great dangers (of which the first is the risk of psychic inflation); yet, to the author’s eyes, only this task is really necessary and truly worthy of being undertaken, for only by this means can the human being escape from engulfment in death – by being reborn. As Aquin writes in an early work, to open oneself unconditionally to the Negative (i.e., self-destruction) is “a special way of experiencing life and a prerequisite to any artistic enterprise”; it is equivalent to “a superior mode of knowledge” of an “impersonal” kind, promising immediate salvation.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-07-18T12:04:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Victor Nogueira Landmann.pdf: 823723 bytes, checksum: a0f26ded62f58eb723c7c0fc8caef7a5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-18T12:04:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Victor Nogueira Landmann.pdf: 823723 bytes, checksum: a0f26ded62f58eb723c7c0fc8caef7a5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Fundação São Paulo - FUNDASP / The present dissertation presents the book “A Course in Miracles”, first published in 1976 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, in the United States. An academic study on this book is justified considering its worldwide impact, two and a half million copies of this book having been sold to the present date. The hypothesis of this dissertation is that “A Course in Miracles” could be regarded as a gnostic work, when considered the fundamental similarities between the religious movement of the beginning of the Christian era and this book. Aiming at demonstrating the common points between both, Hans Jonas and Kurt Rudolph are resorted to, as theoretical reference regarding gnosticism, and Kenneth Wapnick, as reference to the analysis of “A Course in Miracles” / A presente dissertação apresenta a obra “Um Curso em Milagres”, publicada pela primeira vez em 1976 pela Foundation for Inner Peace (Fundação para a Paz Interior) nos Estados Unidos. Justifica-se um estudo sobre essa obra visto seu impacto global, tendo sido vendidos mais de 2 milhões e meio de cópias, com traduções para mais de doze línguas. A hipótese com a qual se trabalha é a de que “Um Curso em Milagres” poderia classificar-se como um livro gnóstico, considerando-se semelhanças fundamentais entre o movimento do início da Era Cristã e esta obra. Com o intuito de se demonstrar os pontos em comum entre ambos, são utilizados os autores Kurt Rudolph e Hans Jonas, como referencial teórico para o gnosticismo, e Kenneth Wapnick, como referencial para a análise da obra “Um Curso em Milagres”

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alethea Aires Pecora.pdf: 4253473 bytes, checksum: 07cc92471284be95c776bd7cb4cfb4b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This dissertation focuses on Thunder: Perfect Mind, cryptic writing found among the dozens of other titles (mostly unknown until then) that make up what is now called the Nag Hammadi Library, produced between the third and fourth centuries of our era. After a presentation of the latter, with the codex that make up (a task we set ourselves in the first chapter of this work), we propose an approach to Thunder, that offer a translation and a commentary on all the units that compose it (Chapter II). From here we review the opinions that have been issued regarding this writing, and especially question the characterization of the writing as a Gnostic (Chapter III). At the end we launched a few suggestions for a renewed approach of the writing, pointing to the possibility of a dual origin for it, sending it to both the mythical universe of Middle Eastern world as to the everyday of violence experienced particularly by women of that social-history context / A presente dissertação concentra-se em Trovão: Mente Perfeita, enigmático escrito encontrado em meio a dezenas de outros títulos (quase todos desconhecidos até então), que compõem o que hoje se chama Biblioteca de Nag Hammadi, produzida entre os séculos III e IV de nossa era. Após uma apresentação desta última, com os códices que a compõem (tarefa a que nos propusemos no primeiro capítulo deste trabalho), propomos uma aproximação a Trovão, de que oferecemos uma tradução e um comentário do conjunto das suas unidades (capítulo II). A partir daí passamos em revista as opiniões que têm sido emitidas a respeito desta obra, e especialmente questionamos a caracterização do escrito como gnóstico (capítulo III). Ao final, lançamos algumas sugestões para uma renovada abordagem do escrito, apontando para a possibilidade de uma dupla origem para ele, remetendo-o tanto ao universo mítico do mundo médio-oriental como para a experiência cotidiana de violência vivida particularmente por mulheres daquele contexto sócio-histórico.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:48:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silvio Lopes Peres.pdf: 1180074 bytes, checksum: 9602d7d599ca496f84dc369027039457 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-09-11 / This present research deals with the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, concerning the Protestantism as religion. Pronouncing himself protestant, Jung does pertinent considerations regarding the influences that the Protestantism suffered and carried out in the history of the Christianity, and the results that its followers achieve, for belonging to it, since the periods previous to the Reform of the century XVI, focusing its attention in the Enlightenment of the ends of the century XVII and the whole century XVIII, arriving at his days, in the century XX. The objective of this work is to present how Jung understood the Protestantism as " risk and religious possibility ", that is, its negative and positive aspects. For this, we report to somes cientific concepts elaborated by Jung, with the objective of understanding the basis of his observations about the Protestant faith, since his personal experiences is the main point of his scientific analyses , with regard to the Protestantism. / A presente pesquisa trata do pensamento de Carl Gustav Jung, acerca do Protestantismo como religião. Declarando-se protestante, Jung faz considerações pertinentes quanto às influências que o Protestantismo sofreu e desempenhou na história do Cristianismo, e os resultados que seus fiéis logram, por pertencer a ele, desde os períodos anteriores à Reforma do século XVI, focalizando sua atenção no Iluminismo dos finais do século XVII e todo o século XVIII, chegando aos seus dias, no século XX. O objetivo desse trabalho é apresentar como Jung entendeu o Protestantismo como risco e possibilidade religiosa, isto é, seus aspectos negativos e positivos. Para isto nos reportamos a alguns conceitos científicos elaborados por Jung, com o objetivo de compreender os fundamentos de suas observações quanto à fé protestante, visto serem suas experiências pessoais, o ponto principal de suas análises científicas, quanto ao Protestantismo.

<p>Already in the second century, the Church Father Irenaeus warned against reading the Gospel of Truth that was used among the so-called Valentinians. For more than one and a half millennium GospTruth was lost until in the 1950s a Coptic text was discovered that could be a translation of that work both loved and hated.</p><p>Since the discovery scholars have tried to determine whether the Coptic text represents the one mentioned by Irenaeus, and whether its author might even be the famous Gnostic teacher Valentinus of Alexandria.</p><p>The text is very complex and the present study the first attempt to use text linguistic tools for analysing GospTruth. A new and sometimes radically different translation is presented, and an hypothesis of date of redaction and authorship is put forward. Previously Gnostic texts have usually been read in light of the reports of the Church Fathers. In this study an attempt is made to detect topics that were interesting for the Valentinians and that have so far been neglected. The analysis presents a new ethical debate among early Christians regarding the Biblical law, and a hypothesis of how the author of GospTruth wanted his or her community to act towards the neighbouring communities is elaborated. In addition my investigation draws attention to an interpretation of the crucifixion that seems to have distinguished Valentinians from others.</p><p>For a long time scholars depicted the Gnostics as evil opponents to the church. During the last decades this view has been criticized, and today many scholars abandon the term Gnostic altogether, and instead only use the term Christian. In my opinion such an approach risks to conceal the unique features of Valentinianism, and the results of the present study will hopefully shed new light on a branch of Christianity which still is relatively unexplored.</p>

Already in the second century, the Church Father Irenaeus warned against reading the Gospel of Truth that was used among the so-called Valentinians. For more than one and a half millennium GospTruth was lost until in the 1950s a Coptic text was discovered that could be a translation of that work both loved and hated. Since the discovery scholars have tried to determine whether the Coptic text represents the one mentioned by Irenaeus, and whether its author might even be the famous Gnostic teacher Valentinus of Alexandria. The text is very complex and the present study the first attempt to use text linguistic tools for analysing GospTruth. A new and sometimes radically different translation is presented, and an hypothesis of date of redaction and authorship is put forward. Previously Gnostic texts have usually been read in light of the reports of the Church Fathers. In this study an attempt is made to detect topics that were interesting for the Valentinians and that have so far been neglected. The analysis presents a new ethical debate among early Christians regarding the Biblical law, and a hypothesis of how the author of GospTruth wanted his or her community to act towards the neighbouring communities is elaborated. In addition my investigation draws attention to an interpretation of the crucifixion that seems to have distinguished Valentinians from others. For a long time scholars depicted the Gnostics as evil opponents to the church. During the last decades this view has been criticized, and today many scholars abandon the term Gnostic altogether, and instead only use the term Christian. In my opinion such an approach risks to conceal the unique features of Valentinianism, and the results of the present study will hopefully shed new light on a branch of Christianity which still is relatively unexplored.