No / The programmes follow the experiences of people living in or visiting the community. They range from a school leaver who feels she is learning more at Findhorn than she would at university to an Indian guru who offers himself as the community's new leader and wants to build a temple in the garden. A poignant backdrop to the series is the growing frailty of one of Findhorn¿s founders, 87-year-old Eileen Caddy, and the preparations, both practical and psychological, that community members are making for her death.

This PhD thesis argues that accounts are influenced by culture, are a fundamental form of social practice by which interaction is accomplished, and thus a central sociological concept. The focus of the thesis is that accounts of time and money are affected by religious belief. It examines and (re)conceptualises the concept of an account. Accounts are re-theorised as taking two forms: rational and rhetorical, with their mediation emphasised as the feature that makes them empirically different. Studies of accounting in religious institutions are critically examined and complemented using research from a neglected (in 'financial' accounting studies) branch of sociological research about accounts as ubiquitous social practices. Time and money are appropriate phenomena to research sociologically because they are relevant to sociological and financial conceptions of an account as numerically accountable phenomena that also have socially meaningful features. Ethnomethodology and institutional ethnography are deployed as two mutual methodological frameworks for researching the social accomplishment of accounts in small-scale interaction and ways in which a complex of wider ruling relations, through institutional discourses, are implicit in accounting interactions, especially in institutional settings. The thesis forwards a set of theoretically derived propositions to provide an explanation of accounts that explores their social embeddedness more closely than previous work. Briefly, these are that accounts generally, and particularly as applied to time and money, are a key means to make actions visible; are an attempt to promote a morally worthy self; are culturally relative; give information about the social norms of the social collective; always occur at moral and sometimes institutional interfaces; and are ubiquitous social practices. To provide and interrogate an applied example of these theoretically and methodologically derived propositions about accounts of time and money and how these are affected by culture and beliefs, I use observation, participant observation, analysis of community produced literature, and semi-structured interviews in a critical case study of the Findhorn Foundation. Therein time and money are rhetorically accountable; are indicative of the spiritually influenced moral code of the Findhorn Foundation; and the moral code provides for a vocabulary of motives that members use in order present morally worthy selves. The ideal moral self is culturally relative to the Findhorn Foundation and sets itself in opposition to an ideal type of capitalist production, consumption and generally dominant ways of knowing, being, and organising in industrialised western societies. Rhetorical accounts of time and money pervade rational ones at the organisational level and spiritual principles are blended with business acumen. However, although spiritual principles have epistemological and ontological differences (from dominant ways of doing business in the wider society), they need to be commensurable with the extra-locally produced discourses found within the wider society in order to remain legally viable. Furthermore, tensions around inefficient decision-making processes exist. Accounts are tied to multiple (at times competing) moral codes within Findhorn, and also operate within pragmatically set limits involving disposable resources. This thesis is argued to be a valuable contribution to sociological literature around social accounting in general, and in religious institutions in particular, and contributes to the literature concerning social actors' accounts of their social actions, regardless of the specific setting. That is, these findings are 'about social practices' in general. Succinctly, my thesis puts forward a strong case for seeing accounts as a central sociological concept.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tania Pessoa de Lima.pdf: 2676947 bytes, checksum: b1a9278774fce6fc13e279ac8cc2f601 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present research is aimed at reporting the testimonies of the participants of the Sacred Circle Dances of Findhorn regarding the experience of the sacred, and defines the role of this experience for the individual and for contemporary culture. Sacred Circle Dances of Findhorn is the name given to the practice of the dancing in round formation and other group dances, whether traditional or recently choreographed, which are held according to a movement started by Bernhard Wosien, with the spirit of the group work proposed by the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, where they started, developed, and spread to many countries. In Findhorn, such dances achieved status of ritual and were focused on the experience of the sacred, although several purposes are accepted. However, studies conducted so far have not been dedicated to the basic focus, which is the path we choose to follow. The theories of Carl G. Jung and Roy R. Rappaport were used as theoretical support in what concerns the conceptions of sacred and ritual, besides taking into account some analysis on the overview of the way of being religious in contemporary times. The method used was qualitative, and data were gathered in the work field which the researcher participated. The research was performed in a group formed especially for this purpose and conducted by the researcher, in fifteen weekly meetings of two hours each. The reports were audio-recorded and transcribed. Data were organized and handled by building the technique of Lefèvre s Discourse of the Collective Subject. It was revealed that the sacred was experienced in the group studied as a process consisting of three elements. The first refers to the experience of two states of existence, that is, one that connects to the everyday life and the other to a wider order. The second deals with the experience of meeting a large body which the participants feel they are part of, as if attached to a greater being configured as an experience of comprehensive unit. The third element was present through the arrangement awareness of learning the meanings posed by living, and elaborations on their own life can be extracted from it, thus guaranteeing greater awareness. For the individual, the experience of the sacred can enable the perception of another personality, different from consciousness, with glimpses of the experience of wholeness and unity, and some relationship with the self, which are important aspects for the process of individuation. As for contemporary times, and with no necessity of joining some religion, this kind of experience can mean the removal of the sanctification or projection of the non-flexible context sacred, the replacement of the sacred in what is central and unifies humanity in the sense eternity and truth. This scenario favors the ecosystem adaptation that is essential for the continuity of human life. The Sacred Circle Dance Findhorn is related to the round formation dances from communities far from urban centers, probably born of sacred and religious elements. The operation is in connection to the characteristics of the religious way of being in contemporary times and in large cities. Practices of circle dances aimed only at numinous states, mistakenly interpreted as if sacred, would lead to the understanding that the sacred is something trivial and does not require some work of consciousness. In this manner, and packed by late modernity trends, the sacred term may be used imprecisely / O objetivo principal da presente pesquisa é revelar nos depoimentos dos participantes das Danças Circulares Sagradas de Findhorn a vivência do sagrado e situar o papel dessa vivência para o indivíduo e para a cultura contemporânea. Danças Circulares Sagradas de Findhorn é o nome dado à prática das danças de roda e outras formações de danças em grupo, sejam elas tradicionais ou coreografadas na atualidade, e que acontecem conforme o movimento iniciado por Bernhard Wosien, tendo como espírito a proposta de trabalho em grupo da Fundação Findhorn, na Escócia, onde foram lançadas e obtiveram crescimento, e a partir de onde foram difundidas para diversos países. Em Findhorn, tais danças ganharam formato ritual e foco último na vivência do sagrado, embora acolham propósitos diversos. Contudo, as pesquisas realizadas até então não se ativeram ao foco principal, caminho esse escolhido nesta pesquisa. As teorias de Carl G. Jung e de Roy R. Rappaport serviram de suporte teórico no que se refere às concepções sobre o sagrado e o ritual, além de se levar em conta algumas análises sobre o panorama relativo ao modo de ser religioso na contemporaneidade. O método utilizado foi o qualitativo, e os dados foram obtidos por meio do trabalho de campo do qual a pesquisadora participou. A pesquisa foi feita em um grupo formado para esta finalidade e conduzido pela pesquisadora, em quinze encontros semanais, de duas horas cada. Os relatos foram gravados em áudio e transcritos. Os dados foram organizados e tratados pela técnica de construção de discursos do sujeito coletivo de Lefèvre e revelaram que o sagrado foi vivido no grupo pesquisado como um processo composto por três elementos. O primeiro se refere à vivência de dois estados de existência, ou seja, um que se liga à vida cotidiana e outro a uma ordem mais ampla. O segundo trata da vivência de reunião num grande organismo do qual o participante se sente fazendo parte, como se unido a um ser maior, configurando-se como uma vivência de unidade abrangente. O terceiro elemento se fez presente pela disposição da consciência de apreender os sentidos suscitados pela vivencia, podendo extrair dela elaborações relativas à própria vida, portanto com ampliação da consciência. Para o indivíduo, essa vivência do sagrado pode possibilitar a percepção de outro centro da personalidade distinto da consciência, com vislumbres da vivência de totalidade e unidade e algum relacionamento com o self, aspectos importantes para o processo de individuação. Para a contemporaneidade e sem que seja preciso se filiar a uma religião, esse tipo de experiência pode significar a retirada da santificação ou projeção do sagrado de contextos não flexíveis, a recolocação do sagrado no que é central e que unifica a humanidade, no sentido de eternidade e de verdade. Isso favorece a adaptação ecossistêmica, fundamental para a continuidade da vida humana. A Dança Circular Sagrada de Findhorn está relacionada às danças circulares das comunidades afastadas dos centros urbanos, provavelmente carregadas de elementos sagrados e religiosos. Seu funcionamento está afinado com características do modo de ser religioso na contemporaneidade e nas grandes cidades. Quando o consumo de práticas de danças circulares tem como objetivo apenas os estados numinosos, interpretados equivocadamente como se fossem o sagrado, poder levar à compreensão de que o sagrado é algo trivial que não necessita do trabalho da consciência. Nessa situação, e embalados por tendências da modernidade tardia, o termo sagrado pode ser utilizado de modo impreciso