Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis explores the nature of the socialization and commitment process in the Western Buddhist context, by investigating the experiences of practitioners affiliated with two Buddhist Centres: the Theravadin Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre and the Gelugpa Tibetan Vajrayana Institute. Commitment by participants is based on the recognition that, through the application of the beliefs and practices of the new religion, self-transformation has occurred. It follows a process of religious experimentation in which the claims of a religious reality are experientially validated against inner understandings and convictions, which themselves become clearer as a result of experimental participation in religious activity. Functionally, the adopted worldview is seen to frame personal experience in a manner that renders it more meaningful. Meditative experience and its interpretation according to doctrine must be applicable to the improvement of the quality of lived experience. It must be relevant to current living, and ethically sustainable. Substantively, commitment is conditional upon accepting and succesfully employing: the three marks of samsaric existence, duhkha, anitya and anatman (Skt) as an interpretive framework for lived reality. In this the three groups of the Eight-fold Path, sila/ethics, samadhi/concentration, and prajna/wisdom provide a strategy for negotiating lived experience in the light of meditation techniques, specific to each Buddhist orientation, by which to apply doctrinal principles in one’s own transformation. Two theoretical approaches are found to have explanatory power for understanding the stages of intensifying interaction that lead to commitment in both Western Buddhist contexts. Lofland and Skonovd’s Experimental Motif models the method of entry into and exploration of a Buddhist Centre’s shared reality. Data from participant observation and interview demonstrates this approach to be facilitated by the organizational and teaching activities of the two Western Buddhist Centres, and to be taken by the participants who eventually become adherents. Individuals take an actively experimental attitude toward the new group’s activities, withholding judgment while testing the group’s doctrinal position, practices, and expected experiential outcomes against their own values and life experience. In an environment of minimal social pressure, transformation of belief is gradual over a period of from months to years. Deeper understanding of the nature of the commitment process is provided by viewing it in terms of religious resocialization, involving the reframing of one’s understanding of reality and sense-of-self within a new worldview. The transition from seekerhood to commitment occurs through a process of socialization, the stages of which are found to be engagement and apprehension, comprehension, and commitment. Apprehension is the understanding of core Buddhist notions. Comprehension occurs through learning how various aspects of the worldview form a coherent meaning-system, and through application of the Buddhist principles to the improvement of one’s own life circumstances. It necessitates understanding of the fundamental relationships between doctrine, practice, and experience. Commitment to the group’s outlook and objectives occurs when these are adopted as one’s orientation to reality, and as one’s strategy for negotiating a lived experience that is both efficacious and ethically sustainable. It is also maintained that sustained commitment is conditional upon continuing validation of that experience.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis explores the nature of the socialization and commitment process in the Western Buddhist context, by investigating the experiences of practitioners affiliated with two Buddhist Centres: the Theravadin Blue Mountains Insight Meditation Centre and the Gelugpa Tibetan Vajrayana Institute. Commitment by participants is based on the recognition that, through the application of the beliefs and practices of the new religion, self-transformation has occurred. It follows a process of religious experimentation in which the claims of a religious reality are experientially validated against inner understandings and convictions, which themselves become clearer as a result of experimental participation in religious activity. Functionally, the adopted worldview is seen to frame personal experience in a manner that renders it more meaningful. Meditative experience and its interpretation according to doctrine must be applicable to the improvement of the quality of lived experience. It must be relevant to current living, and ethically sustainable. Substantively, commitment is conditional upon accepting and succesfully employing: the three marks of samsaric existence, duhkha, anitya and anatman (Skt) as an interpretive framework for lived reality. In this the three groups of the Eight-fold Path, sila/ethics, samadhi/concentration, and prajna/wisdom provide a strategy for negotiating lived experience in the light of meditation techniques, specific to each Buddhist orientation, by which to apply doctrinal principles in one’s own transformation. Two theoretical approaches are found to have explanatory power for understanding the stages of intensifying interaction that lead to commitment in both Western Buddhist contexts. Lofland and Skonovd’s Experimental Motif models the method of entry into and exploration of a Buddhist Centre’s shared reality. Data from participant observation and interview demonstrates this approach to be facilitated by the organizational and teaching activities of the two Western Buddhist Centres, and to be taken by the participants who eventually become adherents. Individuals take an actively experimental attitude toward the new group’s activities, withholding judgment while testing the group’s doctrinal position, practices, and expected experiential outcomes against their own values and life experience. In an environment of minimal social pressure, transformation of belief is gradual over a period of from months to years. Deeper understanding of the nature of the commitment process is provided by viewing it in terms of religious resocialization, involving the reframing of one’s understanding of reality and sense-of-self within a new worldview. The transition from seekerhood to commitment occurs through a process of socialization, the stages of which are found to be engagement and apprehension, comprehension, and commitment. Apprehension is the understanding of core Buddhist notions. Comprehension occurs through learning how various aspects of the worldview form a coherent meaning-system, and through application of the Buddhist principles to the improvement of one’s own life circumstances. It necessitates understanding of the fundamental relationships between doctrine, practice, and experience. Commitment to the group’s outlook and objectives occurs when these are adopted as one’s orientation to reality, and as one’s strategy for negotiating a lived experience that is both efficacious and ethically sustainable. It is also maintained that sustained commitment is conditional upon continuing validation of that experience.

As the rate of domestic violence hovers around 27% of violent crimes in the U.S., and approximately three million men and women are victims of domestic violence per year, it is apparent that this epidemic is still prevalent in our homes (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007). Social scientists remain interested in risk factors and correlates of domestic violence even after more than three decades ·of research. One area of investigation is the correlation between religion and domestic violence. The factors related to religion which have been suggested to contribute to domestic violence include a patriarchal social structure and the socialization of gender-specific roles (Pagelow, 1984). This project's aim is to conduct analyses on perceptions of domestic violence held by different religions, and people of varying levels of religiosity.. Through secondary data analysis of the Perceptions of Homelessness and Domestic Violence Survey(Institute of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Central Florida, 2009), the research will evaluate the relationship between myth-based and empirically based domestic violence statements and the respondent's religious affiliation and religiosity. The project's hypotheses are that those of more conservative religions and of a higher level of religiosity will be more likely to endorse myth-based victim blaming statements. It is hoped that these conclusions will lead to a more thorough understanding of the implications of patriarchal beliefs and gender-specific roles customarily found in religious teachings.

Le Renouveau charismatique catholique met de l’avant une rencontre personnelle avec Dieu par le croyant, qui se voit habilité à exercer des dons– parmi lesquels nous retrouvons la guérison par l’imposition des mains, la glossolalie et les révélations. La participation continue à un groupe religieux organisé de la part d’individus devenus autonomes dans leur relation à Dieu n’a pas encore fait l’objet d’une attention académique soutenue. La présente étude d’un Centre de prière du Renouveau catholique charismatique de Montréal, à partir d’une méthodologie d’inspiration phénoménologique et expérientielle, vise à développer cette problématique, tout en s’éloignant d’une compréhension purement rhétorique (Csordas 1997, 2001) de l’expérience charismatique. La socialisation religieuse (Fer 2005, 2007) encadrant l’entrée d’un nouveau membre au Centre met en lumière les mécanismes d’encadrement institutionnel invisibles permettant l’intégration d’une communauté de croyants tout en laissant paradoxalement l’individu vivre une expérience religieuse personnelle. Le sujet charismatique, socialisé religieusement dans une conversion vécue dans l’unité corps-esprit, développe de nouveaux modes d’attention somatique, permettant l’expérience de différentes intersubjectivités. Il en vient à partager un monde collectif de représentations et de sensations, développant parallèlement une agentivité accrue dans son rapport avec le sacré. Toutefois, alors que l’agentivité est usuellement conçue comme un acte de résistance, celle développée par les charismatiques va dans le sens d’une reproduction de la norme (Mahmood 2001). La socialisation religieuse établissant les paramètres d’émergence de cette agentivité, elle en constitue aussi le cadre délimitant son expression. / The Catholic charimatic renewal puts forward a personal encounter wtih God on the believer’s part, who is then habilitated to exercize different charismas – among which we find healing through the imposing of the hands, glossolalia and revelations. Continued participation in an organized religious group by now autonomous believers has not yet been the subject of sustained academic attention. The present study of a Montreal Catholic charismatic renewal’s center of prayer, whose methodology is inspired by the phenomenological and experiential approaches, aims to develop this problematic, all the while marking a distance with a purely rhetorical understanding of the charismatic experience (Csordas 1997, 2001). The religious socialization (Fer 2005, 2007) framing the admission of a new member at the Center, enligthens the invisible institutionnal mecanisms enabling the integration of a religious community all the while paradoxically enabling the individual to live an individualized religious experience. The charismatic subject, religiously socialized through a conversion lived in a unification of the body-mind, develops new somatic modes of attention, and is thus enabled to experience different intersubjectivities. The subject comes to participate in a collective world of representations and sensations, developing in parallel an increased agency in his dealings with the sacred. Although agency is usually conceived as an act of resistance, the one developped by the charismatics brings about the reproduction of the norm (Mahmood 2001). Religious socialization establishing the parameter of emergence for this agency, it is also the frame circonscribing its expression.

Le Renouveau charismatique catholique met de l’avant une rencontre personnelle avec Dieu par le croyant, qui se voit habilité à exercer des dons– parmi lesquels nous retrouvons la guérison par l’imposition des mains, la glossolalie et les révélations. La participation continue à un groupe religieux organisé de la part d’individus devenus autonomes dans leur relation à Dieu n’a pas encore fait l’objet d’une attention académique soutenue. La présente étude d’un Centre de prière du Renouveau catholique charismatique de Montréal, à partir d’une méthodologie d’inspiration phénoménologique et expérientielle, vise à développer cette problématique, tout en s’éloignant d’une compréhension purement rhétorique (Csordas 1997, 2001) de l’expérience charismatique. La socialisation religieuse (Fer 2005, 2007) encadrant l’entrée d’un nouveau membre au Centre met en lumière les mécanismes d’encadrement institutionnel invisibles permettant l’intégration d’une communauté de croyants tout en laissant paradoxalement l’individu vivre une expérience religieuse personnelle. Le sujet charismatique, socialisé religieusement dans une conversion vécue dans l’unité corps-esprit, développe de nouveaux modes d’attention somatique, permettant l’expérience de différentes intersubjectivités. Il en vient à partager un monde collectif de représentations et de sensations, développant parallèlement une agentivité accrue dans son rapport avec le sacré. Toutefois, alors que l’agentivité est usuellement conçue comme un acte de résistance, celle développée par les charismatiques va dans le sens d’une reproduction de la norme (Mahmood 2001). La socialisation religieuse établissant les paramètres d’émergence de cette agentivité, elle en constitue aussi le cadre délimitant son expression. / The Catholic charimatic renewal puts forward a personal encounter wtih God on the believer’s part, who is then habilitated to exercize different charismas – among which we find healing through the imposing of the hands, glossolalia and revelations. Continued participation in an organized religious group by now autonomous believers has not yet been the subject of sustained academic attention. The present study of a Montreal Catholic charismatic renewal’s center of prayer, whose methodology is inspired by the phenomenological and experiential approaches, aims to develop this problematic, all the while marking a distance with a purely rhetorical understanding of the charismatic experience (Csordas 1997, 2001). The religious socialization (Fer 2005, 2007) framing the admission of a new member at the Center, enligthens the invisible institutionnal mecanisms enabling the integration of a religious community all the while paradoxically enabling the individual to live an individualized religious experience. The charismatic subject, religiously socialized through a conversion lived in a unification of the body-mind, develops new somatic modes of attention, and is thus enabled to experience different intersubjectivities. The subject comes to participate in a collective world of representations and sensations, developing in parallel an increased agency in his dealings with the sacred. Although agency is usually conceived as an act of resistance, the one developped by the charismatics brings about the reproduction of the norm (Mahmood 2001). Religious socialization establishing the parameter of emergence for this agency, it is also the frame circonscribing its expression.

Essa dissertação compara os processos de construção identitária das igrejas católica e presbiteriana e a socialização dos fiéis em cada uma delas para identificar a influência desses fatores nas atitudes de católicos e presbiterianos frente ao sincretismo religioso. A adesão à igreja católica é, via de regra, definida em termos da participação nos sacramentos. Nessa identidade sacramental preconiza-se o aspecto encantado e místico sobre o intelectual e a unidade dogmática tende a desempenhar um papel secundário. Contrariamente, no caso do protestantismo a identidade tende a ser definida em termos intelectuais, já que o critério para a participação é a confissão a reta doutrina tal como está definida nas confissões de fé. Além disso, as diferenças organizacionais entre as duas igrejas parecem interferir nesse processo de formação das identidades. A igreja católica, por concentrar em uma imensa unidade as diversas maneiras de se aderir a ela, pode ser classificada como uma organização de massas. Já a igreja presbiteriana mais parece uma organização de quadros, menor, mais inflexível à diversidade, ela doutrina seus quadros internamente através da Escola Bíblica Dominical. Para entender a sociabilidade e educação religiosa de cada igreja escolhi estudar dois grupos de preparação para rituais homólogos: a Crisma no caso católico e a Pública Profissão de Fé no caso presbiteriano. Ambos podem ser classificados como ritos de iniciação, pois dramatizam a passagem dos fiéis da infância para a maturidade espiritual.Uma vez adultos na fé, tanto católicos quanto presbiterianos, deveriam, segundo a visão institucional, repudiar ao sincretismo religioso, pois não se pode servir a dois senhores. Mas será que essa rejeição ao sincretismo de fato acontece? Se não, de que formas ele se manifesta entre católicos e presbiterianos? São essas as perguntas que pretendo responder. / This Masters thesis compares Catholic and Presbyterian churches identity construction processes and the socialization up each of these churches in order to identify the influence of these factors on Catholic and Presbyterian faithfulls attitudes toward religious syncretism. A person is considered as a member of Catholic church if receives Catholic sacraments. This sacramental identity values more the enchantment aspect of faith over the intellectual, also it plays down the faithfulls intellectual adherence to church dogma. In contrast, in Protestantism a church identity is defined in intellectual terms. To be a member of a church is to confess the doctrine defined as right by this church. In addition, organizational differences of the Catholic and Presbyterian churches seem to affect these distinct identity construction processes. Due to its ability to include in a same huge unity a large diversity of being religious, the Catholic Church can be classified as a igreja de massa (or church for the mass while the Prebyterian church organization can be identified as igreja de quadros (or church for leadership). Smaller, more inflexible toward diversity than Catholic Church, the Presbyterian one indoctrinates their members within the church through Bible Sunday School. In order to understand the sociability and religious education processes in each church, I choose to research two preparatory study groups for similar rites of passage: the ritual of Confirmation, for the Catholic case, and the ritual of Public Profession of Faith, for the Presbyterian. Both can be identified as iniciation rituals because both dramatize the passage of the faithful from Spiritual childhood to Spiritual maturity. Once being adult in faith, both catholics and presbyterians must, acording to their institucional views, repudiate religious syncretism, because one cannot serve two Masters. Would religious syncrestim rejections in fact occur equally in both churches? If not, what differs catholics from presbyterians? These are questions I intend to answer.

Essa dissertação compara os processos de construção identitária das igrejas católica e presbiteriana e a socialização dos fiéis em cada uma delas para identificar a influência desses fatores nas atitudes de católicos e presbiterianos frente ao sincretismo religioso. A adesão à igreja católica é, via de regra, definida em termos da participação nos sacramentos. Nessa identidade sacramental preconiza-se o aspecto encantado e místico sobre o intelectual e a unidade dogmática tende a desempenhar um papel secundário. Contrariamente, no caso do protestantismo a identidade tende a ser definida em termos intelectuais, já que o critério para a participação é a confissão a reta doutrina tal como está definida nas confissões de fé. Além disso, as diferenças organizacionais entre as duas igrejas parecem interferir nesse processo de formação das identidades. A igreja católica, por concentrar em uma imensa unidade as diversas maneiras de se aderir a ela, pode ser classificada como uma organização de massas. Já a igreja presbiteriana mais parece uma organização de quadros, menor, mais inflexível à diversidade, ela doutrina seus quadros internamente através da Escola Bíblica Dominical. Para entender a sociabilidade e educação religiosa de cada igreja escolhi estudar dois grupos de preparação para rituais homólogos: a Crisma no caso católico e a Pública Profissão de Fé no caso presbiteriano. Ambos podem ser classificados como ritos de iniciação, pois dramatizam a passagem dos fiéis da infância para a maturidade espiritual.Uma vez adultos na fé, tanto católicos quanto presbiterianos, deveriam, segundo a visão institucional, repudiar ao sincretismo religioso, pois não se pode servir a dois senhores. Mas será que essa rejeição ao sincretismo de fato acontece? Se não, de que formas ele se manifesta entre católicos e presbiterianos? São essas as perguntas que pretendo responder. / This Masters thesis compares Catholic and Presbyterian churches identity construction processes and the socialization up each of these churches in order to identify the influence of these factors on Catholic and Presbyterian faithfulls attitudes toward religious syncretism. A person is considered as a member of Catholic church if receives Catholic sacraments. This sacramental identity values more the enchantment aspect of faith over the intellectual, also it plays down the faithfulls intellectual adherence to church dogma. In contrast, in Protestantism a church identity is defined in intellectual terms. To be a member of a church is to confess the doctrine defined as right by this church. In addition, organizational differences of the Catholic and Presbyterian churches seem to affect these distinct identity construction processes. Due to its ability to include in a same huge unity a large diversity of being religious, the Catholic Church can be classified as a igreja de massa (or church for the mass while the Prebyterian church organization can be identified as igreja de quadros (or church for leadership). Smaller, more inflexible toward diversity than Catholic Church, the Presbyterian one indoctrinates their members within the church through Bible Sunday School. In order to understand the sociability and religious education processes in each church, I choose to research two preparatory study groups for similar rites of passage: the ritual of Confirmation, for the Catholic case, and the ritual of Public Profession of Faith, for the Presbyterian. Both can be identified as iniciation rituals because both dramatize the passage of the faithful from Spiritual childhood to Spiritual maturity. Once being adult in faith, both catholics and presbyterians must, acording to their institucional views, repudiate religious syncretism, because one cannot serve two Masters. Would religious syncrestim rejections in fact occur equally in both churches? If not, what differs catholics from presbyterians? These are questions I intend to answer.