Axis Mundi - Ett examensarbete som undersöker om tvärvetenskap kan användas som alternativ process i skapandet av arkitektur. I arbetet formgavs en helig struktur efter den tvärvetenskapliga undersökningen, som sedan användes som en scenografi i en dansfilm.

Finding something sacred in secular society is a relatively new field of religious studies. This thesis aims to find the secular sacred amongst Star Wars fans on the blogging platform Tumblr, in relation to Kim Knott and her theory of the secular sacred. I collected and studied 100 blog posts about Star Wars, specifically about one of its main characters, Rey. The research questions used were “How do fans of Star Wars and Rey express themselves on Tumblr?”, and “Could it be seen as sacred according to Kim Knott´s theory of secular sacred?” I analyzed the material with a hermeneutic approach, and using Kim Knott’s theory, I categorized the posts in to three categories: sacred, appreciative and sacrilegious. Even though the appreciative category was by far the largest, the results showed that a fifth of all the blog posts could be perceived as having content that could be seen as sacred to its poster. I came to the conclusion that my study supports the theory of sacredness not being exclusive to religious society, but can be found in the secular as well.

Historically, Christianity has been seen as a religion based on texts. However, many modern scholars claim that the practice of Christianity is at least as important as the holy texts. To see if this is the case, this study sought to examine whether church practice contributes to the making of the sacred, defined here from Mary Douglas's theory that the holy is something which is pure, whole and complete, unlike the impure, which is an anomaly, often separate, broken or divided. This was examined by studying the actual practices relating to the bread and the wine in one of Christianity's most central rites, the Eucharist. The empirical material is based on observations and semi-structured interviews on the handling of the bread and wine before and after communion in five different church communities. However, the focus is on the Evangelical Lutheran Swedish Church, where two different congregations were studied. The study takes as its point of departure Robert Orsis’ theory according to which holiness is created in a dynamic exchange between the practice of individuals and those of hierarchies. According to the present study this appears to be true, although the empirical material is too small to draw firm conclusions. In the churches investigated a variety of actors contribute to the creation of sacredness. Some practices seem to be the same throughout the different communities and parishes studied, for example preserving purity by covering the bread and wine, or by throwing away pieces of the already consecrated bread. Some individuals also created their own personal rituals, like not chewing the bread during the Eucharist, or covering their mouths after having received the bread to prevent the body of Christ from being spat out. It also appears that the wine is always handled with greater respect than the bread. According to Mary Douglas, this may have to do with the possibility of both sacrilising and defiling which rests in bodily fluids. This essay shows that persons in different roles act independently and in different ways to create and maintain the holiness of the bread and wine. In churches with distinct confessional texts, as in the Catholic Church, practices are more often based on dogmas, while individuals in the congregations lacking rules for handling the bread an wine, as in the parishes of the Swedish Church, act more as they themselves think is right. Also here their actions seem to follow Mary Douglas's theory of preserving the wholeness and purity of the holy. According to the study, the creation of sacredness seems to be just as possible for lay people as for specialists. This means that the Church in this way actually distributes the power to establish the sacred, which may contribute to preserving a community-promoting democratic process. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that some of the congregations studied had created practices for ensuring sacrality which put fellowship before the power of the Words of Institution.

In 19th century Sweden women preached in the popular revival movements as they did in the other Nordic countries, in Great Britain and the United States. One of the most famous preachers in Sweden was Nelly Hall (1848–1916). Internal and external evidence of her public life is the main focus of the study, and in this way it seeks to uncover the origin of her inspiration and to specify her connection to the spiritual movements of the time, at the same time that it analyses the reception and the debate of women as preachers in the period when she was active. Nelly Hall studied at the Royal School for Women’s Higher Teacher Education and worked as a teacher for ten years before she decided to enter into the ministry of preaching. She was influenced by the Anglo-American Holiness movement and had close contacts with the Salvation Army in London. From 1883 she travelled in the southern parts of Sweden. Thousands of people listened to her and as part of her ministry she practised faith healing. She went on preaching tours to Finland, Norway, Germany and the United States. When the Swedish Holiness Mission started as a small mission society in 1887 it was to some extent a result of the preaching work carried out by Nelly Hall. She was elected a member of the first board and worked as a mission secretary for ten years. Around 1900 there was a shift in her theological thinking and she became more absorbed by apocalyptic ideas. In 1901 she went for the second time to the United States and lived there until 1916 when she died in Brockton, Massachusetts. Little is known about the last fifteenth years of her life. The ministry of Nelly Hall and other women raised considerable public interest and in the Swedish context her time of ministry coincided with the emerging movement for the emancipation of women. Many were against women preaching in public and the discussions often occurred in the press. Parts of these discussions as well as several pamphlets in favour of women’s preaching are analysed in this study. / <p>Contains a summary in English</p>