In Celtic religious studies, it is often difficult to find reliable textual sources if you are working with pre-Christian religion, since all text is written in a Christian context. As a result, Celtic scholars have to look outside of the pre-Christian Celtic context, to search for knowledge elsewhere. For example, one may use texts from Classical writers (such as Caesar) who wrote about Celts they encountered, or look to Christian material (in particular saints’ lives) to search for clues of pagan traditions which may have survived into Christianity. This has resulted in that certain Celtic pagan deities which we do not have a lot of information on, are compared to or even equated with other religious figures from outside of the pagan Celtic context. One such example is the pagan, Irish goddess Brigid, who is frequently equated with the Roman goddess Minerva, and also said to be the predecessor of the Christian Saint Brigid. Some also make comparisons between Minerva and the saint. This thesis aims to make an extensive textual analysis where all of these three characters are compared and discussed. Are they actually ‘the same’, and if not, how similar or different are they? Is the equating valid, or do we need to take another approach within the Celtic field? Using discourse theory and a comparative method, the research eventually shows that some of the characters’ most important traits are lost when we do equate them with each other.

In the age of mass information, globalization, and peer-to-peer social networks, the traditional markers of identity and elective affinities, particularly those of religion and nationalism, are shifting in relation to contemporary trends. The field of Religious Studies has been influenced by a series of ‘post’s: postsecular, postmodern, postcolonial, and post 9/11. The rise of revolutionary religious movements internationally is a hallmark characteristic of the postsecular age. Participants in these movements are variously characterized as religious dissidents, militant secularists, neo-fascist nationalists, and terrorists. However, according to the dialogues within these communities, participants do not think of themselves in these terms. The dualizing labels of ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ do not lend meaning to these contemporary identities. This thesis addresses the question: How do traditional and contemporary theories in the field of Religious Studies evaluate contemporary religious nationalist movements, and how do their analyses compare to how members of the groups in question perceive themselves? To answer this question, this dissertation examines and contrasts four key case studies: the Native Faith Movement and Femen in Ukraine, and the Gezi Park protesters and the Gülen Movement in Turkey. By analyzing group activities through the fora of the curated digital presences of group leaders and members, this research investigates emerging elective affinities and markers of identity which transcend the religious/secular binary. Contemporary theory from the field of Critical Religion and feminist theology transcending the religious/secular binary will be applied to these case studies in order to gain a deeper understanding of the shifting relationships between religion, protest and the nation.

This thesis elaborates the results of the research I carried out wtihin the year 2009 in a paid course of female tantric initiation. The theme of the thesis was inspired by my previous interest in the Goddess movement. As this movement is not yet concretized in the Czech republic, I have chosen participating in a closed women's group which is very close to it due to a specific combination of religion, philosophy and psychology. My goal was to find out what form the women's spirituality has in the Czech environment and what kind of women are drawn to it. While the first part of the thesis deals with the universal characteristics of the current eclectic spirituality generally described as the New Age movement, the second part is devoted to the research itself. I come to the conclusion that the symbol of the Goddess, the key idea of the thesis, is not perceived only as a religious concept but also as a medium by means of which women define their needs and problems resulting from their femininity. By this particular case, I advert to the very psychotherapeutic dimension of women's spirituality. Keywords: New Age, tantra, The Goddess, body, spirituality, femininity, self-realization, strength, motherhood

This study is about how Athena is portrayed in two of the surviving works of antiquity, the Iliad and the Hymn to Athena by Callimachus. The study further shows in comparison of the two works, how Athena can be described based on her emotions, attributes, actions and character traits. In relation to the Iliad, Athena comes to express emotions such as frustration, dissatisfaction, anger, hatred, happiness, joy and as loving. Furthermore, the analysis of the Iliad has been able to identify actions and character traits such as cunning, persuasion, incitement, courage, eager and quickness. Athena has also been able to be attributed characteristics in relation to her as a goddess of war and her father Zeus within the analysis. The characteristics that emerged during the analysis are the goddess as terrifying, angry, with destructive powers, that she never tires, terrible deity and based on her epithet Tritogeneia.   Through analysis of the Hymn to Athena by Callimachus, the goddess can be attributed to emotions such as pity and love. Unlike the Iliad, emotions of a negative nature such as frustration, dissatisfaction and anger do not appear in the hymn. Furthermore, other actions and character traits can also be attributed to Athena in the hymn, such as female beauty and personal hygiene. The majority of epithets and designations can be attributed to the goddess within the hymn, which, unlike the Iliad, is more numerous in number. The epithets and designations that are claimed are polisgoddess, queen, lady and Thebes. Like other identifications attributed to Athena within the hymn, epithets and designations can be related to context. That in the sense that worshipers want to see Athena appear in their company, which is most likely to happen if they address the goddess with respectful words.

Goddess-based civilisations worshipped the divine as a parthenogentic primordial creative force. Parthenogensis a Greek word that derives from parthenos “virgin” and genesis “from the beginning” was the path of liberation or rebirth into one’s divine nature. Thus, the supreme deity was worshipped as the Virgin Goddess who alone, without male intervention created the Universe by entering liminal states or otherwise altered states of consciousness. Ontologically these states in goddess worshipping cultures were entered during rites of passage through dance, repetitive action, song and descending into underground grottoes. It is the intention of this thesis to explore two rites of passage, pre-menarche and menarche to establish if spiritualising these two events in our lives can lead to women having a vision of the divine, which is the intention of parthenogenesis – our own self-realisation.            Using the kaleidoscope theory as the primary methodology - a method which incorporates a consideration of linguistics, mythology, history, and folklore as well as archaeology - this thesis follows several lines of approach. First, by reviewing the belief systems around parthenogenesis through a matriarchal cosmogony myth and other ancient religious interpretations, it shows that in the pre-patriarchal western world a Virgin Mother Goddess was worshipped due to her parthenogenesis.        Second, it argues that the prepubescent initiation for Artemis of Brauron known as the arkteia, where young girls up to the age of 10 would play the She bear for Artemis was pre-menarchial rite of passage that set the stage for the divine experience during menarche, by retaining our instincts and intuition through our wild nature. To illustrate this, archaeological data as well as historical and mythological clues provide substantive evidence for this. Thirdly, it argues that the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary could have actually been her own menarche or first blood, whereby her spiritual conception of Christ-consciousness is announced by Gabriel and begins her journey to liberation through parthenogenesis. This will be illustrated through early century iconography and theological interpretations of Mary as she weaves the red thread to create the veil of the temple of Jerusalem. Additionally, through the Gospel of Mary Magdalene who was the first Apostle to see a vision of the resurrected Christ and is today considered the keeper of women’s blood mysteries, I argue that the spiritualising of menarche can also lead women to eventually have a vision of the divine, which culminates the path and intention of parthenogenesis – our own self-realisation.            Lastly it explores through existential health how these two rites of passage are reclaimed in the modern world and how they provide an embodied relationship for women with the divine.      This study pulls together fragmented elements of pre-history to make a compelling case for menarche as being the foundation for self-realisation and contemporary understanding of mythological and biblical narratives, rites of passage and their liminal spaces. The lost matriarchal path of parthenogenesis is determined to be applicable ontologically in the modern world.

This essay contains a comparative study between the works of the two archeologists Arthur Evans and Nanno Marinatos. The comparison focuses on academic publishments concerning minoan religion in bronze age Crete, Greece. The theoretical framework of this study is historical awareness, and whether or not the works of these two archeologists is compatible with the different principles which has been established for a historian to work correctly within the academic sphere. The study shows that there are both differences and similarities between the works written by Evans and Marinatos concerning minoan religion. The similarities is mainly explained by the archeological artifacts and remains found from bronze age Crete that undeniably exists, but the differences appears when the archeologists analyze said artifacts. This study shows that Evans archeological and analytical works was not in line with the theoretical framework of historical awareness. Marinatos on the other hand provides writings that are in line with historical awareness and her analysis is compatible with the different principles which has been established within the theory.

Den här studien är gjord i anslutning till projektet ReCoVirA: Religious communities in the Virtual Age, med syftet att undersöka religiösa gruppers eventuella digitala anpassning under Covid-19. Denna kvalitativa etnografiska studie undersöker hur representanter för tre svenska gudinnetempel resonerar om anpassningar som gjorts för att ersätta aktiviteter som tidigare gjorts i person, vilka konsekvenser dessa anpassningar genererade i relation till community, deltagande och auktoritet, samt i vilken utsträckning templen kommer fortsätta använda digitala verktyg efter restriktioner och rekommendationer har släppts. Materialet skapades genom tre intervjuer med fyra prästinnor och digital etnografi. Resultaten analyseras utifrån Heidi Campbells teoretiska ramverk Religious-Shaping of Technology, samt tidigare forskning inom fältet Digital Religion. Resultatet visar på en delvis anpassning, inomgruppsliga konflikter gällande religiös auktoritet samt en intention för framtida användande av digitala verktyg, men där en återgång till aktiviteter i person indikerar ett trendbrott från ny forskning om Digital Religion gällande gränsdragningar mellan online- och offline-platser. En teoriutvecklande diskussion förs angående RSST-teorins applicerbarhet på materialet. / ReCoVirA

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Mumbai is currently one of the most prolific and lucrative film centers in the world. Its production of the "Bollywood" popular film has attracted billions in audience members outside the nation of India, many of whom do not belong to Indian culture in the Diaspora. The significance of this influence draws from the cross-cultural borrowings increasingly present in Bollywood cinema. The advent of Western investment in the production center has coincided with the diversification of the standard Bollywood film from "masala" musical to more genre specific action, horror and even romantic comedy musical. Within this genre expansion, a nod to a classic—and specifically Western—cinema form has occurred. By borrowing the Femme Fatale from Film Noir and recreating her as the City Siren, Bollywood has achieved liberation for the heroine and from cultural emasculation in one. In this liberation, Bollywood has taken the Western implication of Eastern femininity and used a Western film form to turn that implication on its head. They have declared that the East may be masculine or feminine, easily utilizing either trait, as it is now fluent in both.

The Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) created the Silueta Series during the 1970s and ‘80s. It consists of earth-body works in situ featuring the silhouette of the artist's body fashioned from mud, plants, rocks, gunpowder and other materials. Underlying the creation of the Silueta Series is Mendieta's belief that the elements are sentient and powerful beings. This perception is particularly strong in the Afro-Cuban religion Santeria, a creolized form of the Òrìsà tradition of the Yoruba of West Africa introduced to the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. While scholars have noted Mendieta's incorporation of Santeria in her art, a thorough analysis of the iconographical references to the deities have yet to be explored. This thesis aims to provide such an analysis of Mendieta's works; thus enriching the current discourse on the Silueta Series.