Thesis (Ph.D.)--Aberdeen University, 2008. / Title from web page (viewed on Apr. 14, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis explores the sensory experiences and practices of contemporary Druids in Britain and thereby aims to develop a cultural phenomenology of perception.  As an anthropology, it is written in response to a theoretical challenge that has arisen within the anthropological literature, which separates the senses as discursively understood from perception as an embodied practice.  The thesis provides a conceptual framework which mediates between these two approaches by integrating discourse and practice into the phenomenology of lived experience. Describing Druidic conceptions of the self, the sacred, and the environment, the thesis situates sensory experiences and practices within the context of complex human-environment relationships.  It demonstrates that this spiritual ecology is both a response to contemporary cultural and environmental challenges and an improvisation on historical developments within Druidry during the last century.  By examining the life stories of three individuals it is further shown that Druids often share significant past experiences with the sacred encountered in the natural environment, which have become a dominant motivating drive for a perceptually mediated re-enchantment of their lives.  This sensory engagement with the sacred is explored in more detail through an analysis of Druidic rituals.  The focus here is on ritual practice as a set of intentional actions which affirm the Druids’ being-in-the-world and leads to a virtual mode of existence and perception.  Finally, the thesis examines the Druidic training programme and seasonal camps to explore the practices employed to educate the novices’ perception. This anthropology relies on a cultural phenomenology approach in order to account for the Druids’ preference for practice-oriented learning methods which demand the novices to discover Druidic knowledge by themselves.  For this reason, the conceptual framework developed in this thesis identifies various dimensions of the perceptual process as heuristic devices to be ethnographically elaborated.

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Au cours du vingtième siècle, le Québec a connu un bouleversement identitaire et religieux lorsqu’une majorité de Québécois a délaissé les prescriptions doctrinales catholiques, la religion identitaire du Québec, qui encadrait leur vie et s’imposait en tant que détentrice du « code exclusif du sens » (Hervieu-Léger 1993 : 155). Pour combler la perte de repères (Lemieux 2008) engendrée par les bouleversements décrits précédemment, plusieurs individus se tournèrent vers d’autres formes de spiritualité, soit en se convertissant à un nouveau système religieux ou en s’engageant dans une quête spirituelle. Certains Québécois, au cours de leur quête, ont alors découvert le druidisme, une spiritualité fondée sur le désir de retour à l’ancienne religion païenne des Celtes, et l’ont intégré en tant que composante principale ou secondaire de leur spiritualité. Le but de ce mémoire sera d’apporter quelques éléments d’explication à la présence du druidisme au Québec. Nous soulignerons l’importance du contexte moderne dans la quête de sens amorcée par l’adepte de paganisme celte, car ce contexte semble avoir servi de catalyseur dans le processus de découverte du druidisme pour ces Québécois. Puis, nous mettrons l’accent sur les raisons identitaires mises de l’avant par la CDQ pour justifier leur choix d’intégrer le druidisme à leur cheminement spirituel. Nous verrons que pour le druidisant, cette religion vient à la fois répondre à des besoins spirituels et combler un vide identitaire. / During the last century, Quebec society underwent a major transformation in identity and religion as a majority of Québécois abandoned the Catholic doctrinal prescriptions. Until then, Catholicism was fundamental to the identity the Québécois and guided their lives, imposing itself as the holder of « code exclusif du sens » (Hervieu-Léger 1993: 155). To make up for the loss of cultural markers (Lemieux, 2008) engendered by the upheaval of the Quiet Revolution, many individuals turned to other forms of spirituality, either in a process of conversion to a new religious system or as part of a spiritual quest. Some Québécois engaged in such a quest discovered Druidism, which presents itself as going back the ancient pagan religion of the Celts, and integrated it as the main or a secondary component of their spirituality. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the explanation of the presence of Druidism in Quebec. I emphasise the importance of modern context for shaping the search of a sense of self that is undertaken by those involved in Celtic Paganism because that context seems to be a catalyst in the process of discovery of Druidism for these Québécois. I will also examine the justifications on the basis of ethnic identity that are put forward by the members of the group I studied to justify their choice to integrate Druidism to their spiritual path. We will see that for the neo-Druid, this religion answers identity as well as spiritual needs.

Au cours du vingtième siècle, le Québec a connu un bouleversement identitaire et religieux lorsqu’une majorité de Québécois a délaissé les prescriptions doctrinales catholiques, la religion identitaire du Québec, qui encadrait leur vie et s’imposait en tant que détentrice du « code exclusif du sens » (Hervieu-Léger 1993 : 155). Pour combler la perte de repères (Lemieux 2008) engendrée par les bouleversements décrits précédemment, plusieurs individus se tournèrent vers d’autres formes de spiritualité, soit en se convertissant à un nouveau système religieux ou en s’engageant dans une quête spirituelle. Certains Québécois, au cours de leur quête, ont alors découvert le druidisme, une spiritualité fondée sur le désir de retour à l’ancienne religion païenne des Celtes, et l’ont intégré en tant que composante principale ou secondaire de leur spiritualité. Le but de ce mémoire sera d’apporter quelques éléments d’explication à la présence du druidisme au Québec. Nous soulignerons l’importance du contexte moderne dans la quête de sens amorcée par l’adepte de paganisme celte, car ce contexte semble avoir servi de catalyseur dans le processus de découverte du druidisme pour ces Québécois. Puis, nous mettrons l’accent sur les raisons identitaires mises de l’avant par la CDQ pour justifier leur choix d’intégrer le druidisme à leur cheminement spirituel. Nous verrons que pour le druidisant, cette religion vient à la fois répondre à des besoins spirituels et combler un vide identitaire. / During the last century, Quebec society underwent a major transformation in identity and religion as a majority of Québécois abandoned the Catholic doctrinal prescriptions. Until then, Catholicism was fundamental to the identity the Québécois and guided their lives, imposing itself as the holder of « code exclusif du sens » (Hervieu-Léger 1993: 155). To make up for the loss of cultural markers (Lemieux, 2008) engendered by the upheaval of the Quiet Revolution, many individuals turned to other forms of spirituality, either in a process of conversion to a new religious system or as part of a spiritual quest. Some Québécois engaged in such a quest discovered Druidism, which presents itself as going back the ancient pagan religion of the Celts, and integrated it as the main or a secondary component of their spirituality. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the explanation of the presence of Druidism in Quebec. I emphasise the importance of modern context for shaping the search of a sense of self that is undertaken by those involved in Celtic Paganism because that context seems to be a catalyst in the process of discovery of Druidism for these Québécois. I will also examine the justifications on the basis of ethnic identity that are put forward by the members of the group I studied to justify their choice to integrate Druidism to their spiritual path. We will see that for the neo-Druid, this religion answers identity as well as spiritual needs.

Descended from Celtic goddesses and the fairies of folklore, the literary character of Morgan le Fay has been most commonly perceived as a witch and a one-dimensional villainess who plagues King Arthur and his court, rather than recognized as the legendary King’s enchanted healer and otherworldly guardian. Too often the complexity of Morgan le Fay and her supernatural abilities are lost, her character neglected as peripheral. As a literary figure of imaginative design this thesis explores Morgan le Fay as a unique “window” into the medieval mindset, whereby one can recover both medieval understandings of magic and female magicians. By analyzing her role in key sources from the twelfth to fifteenth century, this thesis uses Morgan le Fay to recover nuanced perceptions of the supernatural in medieval England that embraced the ambiguity of a pagan past and remained insulated from continental constructions of demonic witchcraft. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marina Silveira Lopes.pdf: 17524643 bytes, checksum: 60aedf6181d9bbe73eba660cf6e4355d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-05-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The New Age movement, primarily an urban phenomenon accepted by groups with an effervescent intellectual stance, made possible the reinvention of paganism. The cosmopolitan and globalized city of SãoPaulo is home to a variety of neo-pagan practices. The objective of this study is to verify how one group of contemporary druids, members of the BDO/Druidnetwork, experience their daily lives and spacialize a religiosity that is informed by the imaginary of the ancient Celts. An initial hypothesis was that practitioners initially became acquainted with Neo-druidism due to the massive spread, since the 1980s in Brazil, of literary and cinematic works about the Arthurian period. Fieldwork and analysis of interviews showed that this religious path is not directly related to such products but rather to an imminent need for a spirituality that comprehends human being/human nature and that breaks with the institutional character of traditional religions. Anxious for this reconnection, contemporary druids sacralize the landscape by adapting it to their immediate needs and expressing their concern with the natural world daily and discretely. They exchange experiences and lessons, in physical, mental and virtual spaces, confident in the emergence of a more just and harmonious society in the future / A Nova Era, movimento característico dos centros urbanos e aceito por grupos com uma intelectualidade efervescente, permitiu a reinvenção do Paganismo. A metrópole paulistana, cosmopolita e globalizada é palco das mais variadas vivências neopagãs. O intuito desse trabalho é verificar como os druidas contemporâneos da BDO/Druidnetwork vivenciam o seu cotidiano e espacializam, na cidade de São Paulo, uma religiosidade fomentada pelo imaginário dos antigos celtas. A idéia foi centrada na premissa de que seus adeptos chegaram ao Neodruidismo via uma farta e intensa produção literária e cinematográfica do período arturiano que se alastrou no Brasil a partir da década de 1980. O trabalho de campo e a análise das entrevistas mostraram que a procura por essa religiosidade não está centrada em tais produções, mas sim numa necessidade iminente de uma espiritualidade que contemple o ser humano/natureza e rompa com um caráter institucional das religiões tradicionais. Na ansiedade por essa reconexão, os druidas contemporâneos sacralizam a paisagem geográfica adaptando-a às suas necessidades imediatas e expressando seus desejos em prol do planeta de maneira discreta e diária. Em espaços físicos, mentais ou virtuais trocam vivências e aprendizados, com a certeza do porvir de uma sociedade mais justa e harmoniosa