The central premise of this dissertation is that a pastorally sympathetic assessment of cultural bereavement healing approaches in the light of a biblically informed understanding of death, bereavement and afterlife provide a basis for the bereaved to cope with the angst associated with bereavement through death and engenders pastoral care among the Abaluyia. It is noted that although many Abaluyia Christians consciously or otherwise lurch back to cultural approaches for consolation and healing during bereavement, there is a lack of meaningful engagement between the Abaluyia culture and the gospel. The result of this lack of engagement has not been syncretism as commonly assumed but rather parallelism whereby, on the one hand, the gospel is held as though it were alien and whimsical in contrast with traditional beliefs and practices which are perceived as practical and consequential. On the other hand, cultural approaches are dismissed as being part of ancestor worship or superstition and thus contrary to the gospel. In view of these extreme perceptions, Abaluyia Christians often feel guilty for either engaging in or shunning cultural approaches thus raising a pastoral concern in relation to caring for the bereaved. In response to the aforementioned pastoral concern, this dissertation firstly examines the role of cultural beliefs and practices in mediating healing for the bereaved among the Abaluyia. It is suggested that the persistence of cultural models is informed largely by their therapeutic value. Consequently, attention is put on the efficacious beliefs and practices employed by the Abaluyia which include community based approach to bereavement, rituals, systems of inheritance and care, conduct of the bereaved, procedures for forgiveness and reconciliation, hospitality, acts of benevolence and performances. Secondly, the identified cultural approaches are reflected upon in the light of the normative biblical teachings. The reflection is done in order to expose and isolate cultural beliefs and practices that are at odds with biblical teachings. The reflection follows a systematic analysis undertaken to establish the biblical understanding of death and the afterlife as well as a biblical hermeneutical analysis of pertinent biblical passages in order to draw paradigmatic biblical practices in bereavement. It is argued that the biblical ministry of healing in bereavement is rooted in the hope of resurrection and the conception of God as compassionate in his character. Lastly, an integrated pastoral care model, namely, Circle for Pastoral Concern, is proposed as a tool for bereavement healing among the Abaluyia. The proposed integrated model is cognisant of local cultural milieu in engaging in pastoral care for the bereaved. According to the Circle for Pastoral Concern model, the community of believers in their local setting, under the Triune God, form the context for healing. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Pastoral))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

In this fieldwork study of the 1975 Kam Tin jiao, Chapter 1 discusses the setting, showing the social system of Kam Tin, analysed in terms of genealogical and community aspects. The discussion of the genealogical aspects shows that Kam Tin does not conform to the standard model of the "lineage". The occupational structure of one of the Kam Tin villages is discussed, as well as the population of the local area. Finally, a brief introduction to the jiao, in Kam Tin a decennial ritual, is provided, showing the genealogical and community based aspects of its organisation and performance. Chapter 2 treats the history and mythology of the Kam Tin jiao, explaining the circumstances of the early Qing history which led to its foundation. Chapter 3 examines the organisation of the jiao in terms of committee membership, funding, and the ritual timetable. Chapter 4 discusses the background and organisation of the ritual practitioners. These are the Ritual Leaders (chosen through a block throwing competition in the temple associated with the jiao) and the Taoist priests. Chapter 5 discusses the preparatory rituals of the jiao, including the two rites of Memorial presentation. The relationship between the preparatory rituals and the main rites of the jiao is delineated. Chapter 6 discusses the arrangement of the ritual area before the jiao's major rites. Chapter 7 continues with a chronological description and analysis of the main rites of the jiao. Chapter 8 discusses the jiao rites taking place after the period of abstention from certain kinds of foods and sexual relations. This chapter discusses the rationale for the collection and return of divinities from specific sites during the course of the jiao. Chapter 9 concludes the discussion by analysing the Kam Tin jiao both comparatively and on its own terms. The jiao is shown to be a worship of deities and an act of salvation and/or placation for hungry ghosts, aimed at securing well-being and fortune for the community. On another level of analysis, however, the rites in Kam Tin are a re-ordering of an imperfect society.

Ottoman poerty comprised different genres, each reflecting an attitude towards Ottoman social order, gave rise to ritualized practices. Gazel poetry, performed in gardens, was an expression of Ottoman Orthodox society. Sehrengiz, performed in city spaces, was an expression of heterodox groups following after the ideals of the 13th c. philosopher Ibn al&#039 / Arabi who proposed a theory of &quot / creative imagination&quot / and a three tiered definition of space: the ideal, the real, and the intermediary. In gazel rituals, Ottoman orthodox society reasserted the primacy of group over the individual in ideal and real garden spaces. In Sehrengiz rituals, on the contrary, marginal groups from the early 16th c. to the early 18th c. emphasized the auonomy of individal self and aimed at reconciling orthodox and heterodox worlds, and thus their spaces and inhabitants in ideal spaces of sufi imagination and real spaces of the city. In the early 18th c. liminal expressions of these marginal groups gave rise to new urban rituals adopted by the Ottoman court society and expressed in the poetry of Nedim. owever, this cultural revolution of the Otoman court came to an end with theevents of 1730, marking a turning point in the modernization of Ottoman culture that had its roots in the early 16th c. as a marginal protest movement and pursued itself afterwards until the early 18th c. as a movement of urban space reform.

My interest in criminology was inspired by Dennis Challinger who tolerated a student taking ten years to finish the Diploma in Criminology, and Stan Johnson who encouraged broad-mindedness to which I was unaccustomed. Stan challenged my attitudes, beliefs and conclusions. My interest in cults was inspired by Anne Hamilton-Byrne whose "children'" especially Sarah, taught me a great deal. They introduced me to their personal experience of growing up in strange isolation from the world. I received assistance and constructive criticism from the police Task Force investigating the Hamilton-Byrne “Family” especially Detective Sergeant DeMan. I began this task searching to understand “The Family”, its origins and its meaning. The path towards an understanding of cults took me in unexpected directions. I learned about the Satanic allegations and began accumulating material. Initially, some therapists with an interest in this area saw me as a potential ally, but as I began to question there assumptions I was rejected as a disbeliever, on the basis that “anyone who is not with us, must be against us”.

This thesis examines the music of the Subanen people of the Zamboanga Peninsula in western Mindanao, the Philippines through an investigation of their most important ceremony, the Buklog. Esteemed as the most elaborate and expensive socio-religious festival of the Subanen, the Buklog derives its name from a wooden structure holding the dancing platform called buklog. The Buklog is generally celebrated to propitiate the gods in some specific event in which the entire Subanen community participates. The occasion may be a thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest, for healing, or for prestige for a new leader or a home comer. A Buklog may also be held as a memorial for the recent dead to reinstate their souls to heaven or as a fulfilment of a ritual vow or debt to restore order and salvation to creation after natural disasters, calamities and epidemics. (For complete abstract open the document)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta tese busca compreender o que os rituais funerários contemporâneos revelam sobre as maneiras com as quais as pessoas têm lidado com a morte e o morrer na atualidade. Desse eixo central se ramificam reflexões sobre a relação dos homens com o tempo, com o envelhecimento e com a finitude. Evidenciando que os modos atuais de lidar com a morte e o morrer envolvem flagrantes processos de mercantilização, patologização, medicalização e espetacularização. O crescente uso de serviços funerários de tanatoestética apontam não somente técnicas de maquiagem dos mortos, mas também estratégias de maquiagem da morte. O investimento financeiro, antes direcionado às preocupações transcendentes com o futuro da alma do morto, se reverte em intervenções físicas no corpo morto, de maneira que ele não emita sinal algum da morte que o tomou e proteja os sobreviventes do contato com a finitude. Essa dissimulação é sinalizada pela redução progressiva do espaço que a sociedade contemporânea tem destinado ao luto e ao sofrimento, categorias com cada vez mais frequência equiparadas a condições patológicas. Utilizando metodologia qualitativa, com pesquisa de campo realizada tanto no Brasil como em Portugal, durante período de doutorado sanduíche no exterior, observou-se um acentuado estreitamento entre as realidades morte e consumo. Indicando uma transposição da lógica comercial de mercado às práticas funerárias tradicionais. Assim, funções simbólicas dos rituais fúnebres vem sendo modificadas e regidas pela lógica do consumo, apresentado na atualidade como alternativa unidimensional para a imperativa vivência initerrupta do prazer e da felicidade. Constatou-se que - apesar da crescente popularização de discussões sobre o tema morte no meio acadêmico, na área da saúde e na mídia - não há aceno de ruptura no seu enquadramento como tabu. Apenas é permitido socialmente que ela ocupe locais determinados: o lugar de espetáculo, de produto, da técnica, da banalização ou mesmo do humor publicitário. As observações e as reflexões realizadas em todo o processo de construção desta tese nos inclinam a considerar que continua vedado o aprofundamento de questões ligadas à expressão de sentimentos de dor e de pesar diante das perdas. Assim como se acentuam os processos de patologização do luto e de distanciamento das demandas existênciais promovidas pela consciência da própria finitude e da passagem do tempo; do tempo de vida de cada um / This thesis aims to understand what the contemporary funeral rituals reveal about the ways used by people to deal with death and dying nowadays. From that central concept, new reflections ramify about the relation-ship between men and time, related to growing old and being finite. Its made evident that the modern ways of dealing with death and dying involve flagrant marketing, pathological, medical and speculative processes. The fast growing presence of tanatoaesthetics in funerary services points out not only some make-up techniques of the dead, but also the existence of make-up strategies of death. The financial investment, directed in the past to transcendental worries such as the future of the deceaseds soul, is reverted into physical interventions in the deceaseds body, so it wont show any signal of the death that took it and, in that way, protect the living from the contact with the finite. That conceal is marked by the progressive reduction of the space that our modern society assign to the mourning and the suffering, categories that each day are more often compared to pathologies. Using a qualitative methodology ̶ sustained by a field study developed both in Brazil and Portugal during a doctorate exchange period ̶, we observed an emphasized narrowing between the realities of death and consumerism. It indicated a transposition of the market commercial logic to the traditional funerary practices. Therefore, the symbolic functions of funerary rituals have been modified and regulated by the consumerism logic, present nowadays as a one-dimensional alternative to the imperative experience of the never-ending placer and happiness. We have confirmed that ̶ although the growing popularization of arguments about death as a topic in the Academic, health and media environment ̶ there isnt a breaking point from its definition as a taboo. Society only allows it to occupy specific places such as: a show, a product, a technic, a triviality and even a humorous topic in publicity. The observations and reflections developed while writing this thesis incline us to consider the existence of a banned deepening in subjects connected to expressing feelings of pain and sadness when facing the loses. Also, the process of considering as pathologic the mourning as well as the distance from the existential demands promoted by the consciousness of the finite and the passing of time; each of us lifetime

Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Esta tese tem como objetivo analisar as formas a partir das quais os evangélicos vivenciam a morte. Tendo em vista uma revisão da bibliografia, a autora aponta para o fato de que a ortodoxia pentecostal apresenta a morte como um evento irreversível diante do qual não existem possibilidades de negociação com o sagrado em favor dos que partiram nem mecanismos de interação entre vivos e mortos. Esse modelo contrasta com o que foi convencionalizado pela tradição católica e que é reconhecido como sendo indicativo da riqueza dos ritos de morte no Brasil. Nesta tese, a autora desenvolve um trabalho etnográfico no distrito da Praia de Mauá, em Magé, no Rio de Janeiro, procurando compreender como os evangélicos experimentam o enlutamento e o ritualizam para além do que rege a sua ortodoxia. Ao observar os contextos da cidade, do cemitério, das igrejas e das casas dos evangélicos durante processos de enterro e luto, a autora argumenta que o enfrentamento da morte e a avaliação do destino dos mortos levam em consideração negociações que têm como referência a cosmologia do catolicismo, que é re-interpretada a partir de diversos termos, tais como os modelos de pessoa socialmente aceitos e a possibilidade de conforto emocional dos enlutados. Neste sentido, na relação entre as religiões, a tese coloca em destaque antes dinâmicas de encapsulamento e compartilhamento do que de colapso e contraste. / This thesis is focused on the ways the evangelical people experience the death. The literature review evidenced that the Pentecostal orthodoxy presents the death as an irreversible event, so there are no possibilities to deal with the sacred in order to favor the ones who had already gone and no ways to interact them with the living ones. This point of view contrasts with the one that has been conventionalized by the Catholic tradition, recognized as indicating the richness of Brazilian deaths rites. Our research shows an ethnographic work in the district of Praia de Maua, in Magé, Rio de Janeiro, intending to contribute to the comprehension of how evangelicals experience the funeral patterns and ritualize them, exceeding their orthodoxy. Observing evangelicals city, cemetery, churches and homes during burial and mourning processes, it was possible to argue in this thesis that to face the death and to evaluate the deads fate take into account negotiations which refers to the Catholicism cosmology. The Catholicism cosmology is re-interpreted from a variety of terms, such as models of socially acceptable person and the possibility of emotional comfort among the bereaved ones. Therefore, in the relationship between religions, this work emphasizes the encapsulation and sharing dynamics rather than the collapse and contrast. .

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-17T15:01:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1058912 bytes, checksum: 3447c892ba56606a80a42dfc05641c22 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Freemasonry is a closed social system, comprised of free men, morality, which are started in order regardless of colour, creed and nationality. The art of Free Masons (Freemasons), relates mystically the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem, where the symbols and rituals relate to the art of building, called real art. The present study objective was to analyze the Masonic symbology and its manifestations of order sociological, philosophical and scientific. Used ethnography as methodology, which consisted in collecting right and thorough of certain symbols and language changes that speaks to him who starts, Objectifying the description of the phenomena observed in "Free Masons" and Masonic Knights of Solomon, situated in the city of João Pessoa-PB, affiliated to the Grand Orient of Paraíba. The questions were formulated with participants and compiled on the basis of a rational reflection of symbols and languages. We found that there is an Operative Masonry in Franco-contemporary Freemasonry, fuelled by symbols originating transcendental, which lay down the secrets of initiation, which in turn are linked to certain objects. Possessing a unique profile, a scientific basis which emerges from a secular thought, love and truth are focal points, followed by good and beauty, and that was created from sedimentations of knowledge that past centuries and relies on the transcendentalidade of creation. / A Maçonaria é um sistema social fechado, composta por homens livres, de bons costumes, que são iniciados na ordem não importando a sua cor, credo e nacionalidade. A arte dos pedreiros livres (maçons), se relaciona misticamente à construção do templo de Jerusalém, onde os símbolos e rituais se referem à arte de construir, chamada arte real. O presente estudo teve por objetivo analisar a simbologia maçônica e suas manifestações de ordem sociológica, filosófica e cientifica. Utilizou-se como metodologia a etnografia, que consistiu na coleta direita e minuciosa de determinados símbolos e uma linguagem muda que fala àquele que é iniciado, objetivando a descrição dos fenômenos observados nos Pedreiros Livres e na Loja Maçônica Cavaleiros de Salomão, situada na cidade de João Pessoa-PB, filiada ao Grande oriente da Paraíba. As questões foram formuladas com os participantes e elaboradas com base em uma reflexão racional desses símbolos e linguagens. Concluímos que existe uma Maçonaria Operativa na Franco-Maçonaria contemporânea, alimentada por símbolos, com origem transcendental, que estabelecem os segredos da iniciação, que por sua vez estão ligados a determinados objetos. Possuindo, assim, um perfil exclusivo, uma base cientifica que emerge de um pensamento laico, nela o amor e a verdade são pontos focais, seguidos do bem e da beleza e que foi criada a partir de sedimentações de conhecimentos que ultrapassaram séculos e se apóia na transcendentalidade da criação.

The essay is an interdisciplinary work linking History of Religion and Archaeology. The work is based on the study of the finds from a unique archaeological Italian Bronze Age site. The evidence in question has been recently excavated on the outskirts of the modern town of Noceto, Parma province, in northern Italy. It is dated to the end of the local Middle Bronze Age, which corresponds roughly to the 14th century BCE, and belongs to the local so called Terramare culture.   The site consist of a large wooden basin, which once stood in a relatively dominant position within a local Bronze Age village. The basin has been always completely filled with water. Thanks to the particular environmental conditions in the pool, organic material of cellulosic nature, such as wood, preserved very well. We therefore have very precise data about the structure itself and about an astonishing number of finds that have been retrieved from the basin. The basin was apparently used for a limited period of time, which has been estimated of a few generations or a maximum of 100 years. It was apparently used as a sort of “offer place” and hundreds of finds have been sunk in its water. Although depositions in wet areas are very common all over Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the Bronze Age, no other built structures such as the Noceto’s basin are known so far. Noceto provides strong indications of religious nature, since no productive activities or every day practices could be detected in connection to it.   With an eye to the debate on the materiality of religion, the aim of the essays is in the first place to investigate and discuss how the religious nature of the place can be understood, when working solely on the results of the religious activities that once have taken place around its margins. Secondly, the aim is also to attempt using the evidence from Noceto to discuss more broadly issues of Bronze Age religion.   The analysis of the material is carried out considering deposition rituals from the point of view of performance and agency theories. It is argued that the finds from the pool acted as indexes of agency and were part of performative event that linked together the people carrying out and/or watching the ritual, the place and the divine expressed by the place.   Considering that the significance of ritual performance has been seen, among other things, in the transformative power that is contextually assigned to rituals, it is believed that the finds from Noceto’s basin likely embodied an attempt to establish or secure positive transformations possibly in people life and in fundamental productive activities such as for instance agriculture. The sacred role of water during the Bronze Age has been addressed by several scholars, but it is generally connected to the ritual “usage” of particular places such as wetlands, caves, rivers and so on. Noceto’s basin provides the possibility for the first time to analyse an attempt to artificially and magnificently bring the sacred into a settlement area and thus possibly create the premises for more controlled or regular/regulated religious activities. / Uppsatsen är ett tvärvetenskapligt arbete som länkar samman religionshistoria och arkeologi. Arbetets fokus ligger på de arkeologiska fynden som grävdes fram från en unik rituell anläggning från Norra Italien. Anläggningen i frågan befinner sig i utkanten av staden Noceto, i Parma-provinsen. Den är daterad till slutet av den lokala mellersta bronsåldern, vilket ungefär motsvarar 1400-talet f. Kr.   Anläggningen är en stor träbassäng, som en gång stod i en relativt dominerande position innanför ett boplatsområde. Bassängen har från början varit helt fyllt med vatten. Tack vare de speciella miljöförhållandena i poolen, organiskt material, såsom trä, har bevarats mycket bra. Vi har därför precisa uppgifter om själva strukturen och om ett förvånande antal fynd som fanns i bassängen. Anläggningen användes tydligen under en begränsad tidsperiod, som uppskattats av några få generationer eller maximalt c:a 100 år. Det arkeologiska materialet från poolen tyder på att det har haft en funktion som offer-plats och att hundratals objekt har sänkts i sitt vatten. Fastän deponeringar i våta områden är vanliga över hela Europa och Medelhavsområde under bronsåldern, liknande byggnader till Nocetos bassängen är än så länge inte kända. Nocetos pool ger starka bevis av religiös karaktär, eftersom tecken på produktiva verksamheter eller vardagsaktiviteter inte kunde upptäckas i den.   Med hänsyn till debatterna om religions materialitet är syftet med uppsatsen i första hand att undersöka och diskutera hur platsens religiösa natur kan förstås, om man bara arbetar med resultaten av de religiösa aktiviteterna som ägde rum kring den under bronsåldern. För det andra är målet också att försöka använda bevis från Noceto för att diskutera mer allmänna frågor kring bronsålderns religion och religiositet.   Materialet har analyserat med utgångspunkt i performance och angecy teorier. Det hävdas att fynd från poolen fungerade som indexes of agency och var ett grundläggande element av de rituella performansen som genomfördes vid bassängen.   Med tanke på att en grundläggande funktion i rituella performansen anses ligga bland annat i den transformativa kraften som tillskrivs ritualer, är förslaget att fynden från Nocetos bassäng uttrycker ett försök att åstadkomma positiva omvandlingar möjligen i människolivet och/eller i grundläggande produktiva aktiviteter såsom till exempel jordbruk. Den heliga rollen av vatten under bronsåldern har tagits upp extensivt. Särskilda platser, som våtmark, grottor, floder, källor och så vidare, har används för att deponera offer. Nocetos bassäng ger möjlighet för första gången att analysera ett försök att skapa en helgedom i ett bosättningsområde och därigenom att även skapa förutsättningar för möjligtvis kontrollerade eller regelbundna religiösa aktiviteter.

Cette thèse porte sur l’évolution des cérémonies publiques impériales dans le monde romain tardif, thème qui nous a semblé fondamental pour la compréhension des institutions politiques de l’Empire Romain des IVe-VIIe s. Ces évolutions comptent sans doute parmi les plus importantes mutations qu'a connues le monde romain de l'Antiquité Tardive, puisqu'elles touchent le pouvoir suprême et son aura à l'intérieur de la société. L’objectif majeur du cérémonial est d’exalter l’empereur, de manifester sa gloire triomphale et sa sacralité – voire sa sainteté après l’adoption du christianisme – ainsi que de magnifier et célébrer le pouvoir d’origine divine qu’il détenait. Notre propos sera de montrer comment on passe d’un Empereur, princeps senatus, qui cherche à maintenir une fiction républicaine pour masquer le caractère monarchique de son pouvoir et qui est l’incarnation du passé romain ; à un empereur qui est l’élu de Dieu, affirmant un pouvoir monarchique avec le soutien de l’Eglise. Trois axes ont guidé notre recherche : La centralité du rôle de l’empereur dans l’évolution des cérémonies publiques. L’importance de l’intégration de l’empereur dans le système cérémoniel de l’Eglise et celle de l’intégration du clergé et principalement de l’évêque dans le système cérémoniel de l’empire. L’importance du fait barbare sur le phénomène cérémoniel. Dans l’Antiquité tardive on voit clairement des influences et des acculturations réciproques au niveau des cérémonies, mais aussi des formes de rejet de ces changements caractéristique des évolutions culturelles de la période. / This thesis focuses on the evolution of imperial public ceremonies in the late Roman world, a theme that seemed fundamental to the understanding of the political institutions of the Roman Empire of the fourth to seventh centuries. These developments are without doubt among the most important changes that have taken the world of Late Roman Antiquity, as they reach the supreme power and aura within society. The main objective of the ceremonies is to exalt the emperor, to manifest his triumphal rulership and his sacrality - even his holiness after the adoption of christianism - and to magnify and celebrate the divine power he held. Our purpose is to show how we shift from an emperor, princeps senatus, which seeks to maintain a republican fiction to hide the monarchical nature of his power, and is the epitome of Roman history ; to an emperor who is elected by God. Three axes have guided our research: The centrality of the role of the emperor in the evolution of public ceremonies. The importance of the integration of the emperor in the ceremonial system of the Church and the integration of the clergy and especially the bishop in the ceremonial system of the empire. The importance of the barbars on the ceremonial phenomenon. In Late antiquity we can clearly seen influences and mutual acculturation in the ceremonies, but also forms of rejection of these paradigmatic changes of the cultural evolutions of the period.