H.P. Blavatsky’s (1831-1891) Theosophy has been defined as central to the history of modern Western spirituality and esotericism, yet to this date no major study has mapped and analysed the major themes of Blavatsky’s writings, how Blavatsky used the concept ‘Theosophy’ or to what extent she was engaged with the intellectual contexts of her time. Thus the purpose of this thesis is to fill this gap. The proposed theoretical framework is based on the centrality of language in the production of intellectual products, such as texts—but contrary to the dominant focus on strategies, rhetoric and power this thesis will focus on the construction of meaning coupled with a set of methodological tools based on contextual analysis, intellectual history and intertextuality. In addition to an overview of Blavatsky research this thesis will map and analyse Blavatsky’s use of the concept ‘Theosophy’ as well as Blavatsky’s primary discourses, identified as: (1) discourse for ancient knowledge, (2) discourse against Christian dogmatism, (3) discourse against the modern natural sciences and materialism, (4) discourse against modern spiritualism, (5) discourse for system and (7) discourse for universal brotherhood. In mapping and analysing Blavatsky’s discourses, it was found that her construction of meaning was significantly interconnected with broader intellectual contexts, such as ‘modern historical consciousness’, ‘critical enlightenment ideas’, studies in religion, studies in mythology, the modern sciences, spiritualism, systemic philosophy, reform movements and practical ethics. It, for example, becomes clear that Blavatsky’s search for an ancient ‘Wisdom Religion’ was actually a part of a common intellectual occupation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and that her critique of the Christian dogmas was equally a common intellectual trend. To read Blavatsky’s discourses as the idiosyncratic strategies of an esotericist, isolated from their larger contexts or only engaged with them in order to legitimise minority views would therefore largely fail to account for the result of this thesis: that in historical actuality, they were a part of the larger cultural web of meaning.

Emma Hardinge Britten’s life encompassed and reflected many of the challenges and opportunities afforded to women in the Victorian world. This dissertation explores the multi-layered Victorian landscape through the life of an individual in order not only to tell her individual story, but also to gain a more nuanced understanding of how nineteenth-century norms of gender, class, religion, science and politics combined to create opportunities and obstacles for women in Britten’s generation. Britten was an actor, a musician, a writer, a theologian, a political activist, a magazine publisher, a spirit medium, a lecturer, and a Spiritualist missionary. Taking into account her multiple subjectivities, this dissertation relies on historical biography to contextualize Britten’s life in a number of areas, including Modern Spiritualism and political and civic engagement in the second half of the nineteenth century in Britain, the U.S., and Australia. The dissertation is organized thematically in a quasi-chronological manner. Time frames overlap between chapters, as Britten travels from the realm of politics to that of science and to religion. Each chapter reflects this transformation of Britten’s multiple intellectual and spiritual engagements, including performance, religion, politics and science. Emma Hardinge Britten challenged, whether consciously or not, gendered expectations by attaining a presence in a male-dominated public. Even though her life and accomplishments pre-date the New Woman of the fin de siècle, Britten established a successful career and her life creates a foreshadowing of the larger movements to come. She was an extraordinarily politically active woman whose influence reached three continents in her lifetime and beyond.

My research on Victor Brauner’s work in the first two decades of his affiliation with the Surrealist group in Paris re-establishes the role played by the Romanian Jewish artist in the definition of automatic Surrealist procedures of painting and mixed-technique objects that relied upon a new and unconventional understanding of the occult. In the three chapters of this study of Victor Brauner’s work in the 1930s and early 1940s, I analyse key notions, such as the fantastic, animal magnetism, and the occult practices of art making in a Surrealist context. The fantastic is discussed in the first chapter of the thesis from a literary perspective with political connotations in Surrealism, which resulted from a debate engaged in nineteenth-century French literature on the issue of the marvellous versus the fantastic. Due to the Surrealists’ interest in the fantastic a new category emerged, the fantastic art, which is examined in this first chapter in connection with Brauner’s artworks in the 1930s. The incursion into the fantastic, with focus on the premonition of the painter’s left eye loss in his artworks of the 1930s is completed with an approach to spiritualism that had a revival at the time. The second chapter of the thesis investigates the doctrine of animal magnetism and the state of magnetic somnambulism in eighteenth-century scholarship and shows how this experimentation had influenced the development of a new branch of the science, metapsychics or psychical research at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth one. I take into account and demonstrate that these outdated and modern domains of enquiry into the unknown and beyond reality were appealing to Surrealists, in particular to Brauner, due to their research into unconscious processes of the mind. I argue that through the attainment of a condition similar to the one of the somnambulist in sessions of magnetic sleep, the Surrealists aimed to generate automatic procedures of painting and object making. In the third chapter of the thesis I discuss Victor Brauner’s technique of drawing with a candle, or le cirage, as an automatic procedure of art developed in connection with the occult. This final part of the thesis makes also manifest the association of Brauner’s artworks in the early 1940s with practices of the occult in the near and centuries before past.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:08:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 allyde_amorim_penalva_marques.pdf: 729656 bytes, checksum: 85d871719bc41773825ae4c9aca33f72 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-26 / This work has as main objective to understand the experience of treatment in spiritism and specific objectives, describing the types of treatment offered in spiritualism understand the meaning that leads people to seek this mode of treatment, understanding the experience of treatment and its possible contributions to mental health. The research is qualitative phenomenological perspective. Obviously, there are different treatment modalities in spiritism, however the choice of the participants followed the pattern of volunteering without restricting the type of treatment undergone, gender, reason as to demand treatment or age. Participants were followed up at Spiritual Hospital Patrícia Bacelar (HEPB - Camaragibe / PE). As research instruments, the narrative from Walter Benjamin and the field diary were used to get access to treatment experience in spiritualism. The theoretical framework has been constructed based on the theory Frankl, who understands spirituality as the human dimension, in line with results of this research. To analyze the results, we used the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer, who reached a final narrative constructed from the dialogue between the participants, the researcher and the theoretical framework that justified the search. Our results reveal an eminent search for other care that not only the doctor, as well as the use of religious resources as complementary to medical practice. Most of the reports demonstrated the continuity of medical treatments simultaneously spiritual treatment. In this context, the stimulus accountability of the individual for self-care while transcendence proved crucial for adherence to medical treatment as well as to overcome situations of intense suffering. / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo geral compreender a experiência de tratamento no espiritismo e, como objetivos específicos, descrever as modalidades de tratamento oferecidas pelo espiritismo, compreender o sentido que leva pessoas a buscarem esse modo de tratamento, compreender a experiência de tratamento e suas possíveis contribuições à saúde mental. A pesquisa é de natureza qualitativa na perspectiva fenomenológica. É sabido que existem diferentes modalidades de tratamento no espiritismo, no entanto a escolha dos participantes seguiu o padrão de voluntariado, não restringindo o tipo de tratamento submetido, gênero, motivo quanto à procura do tratamento ou idade. Os participantes estavam em acompanhamento no Hospital Espiritual Patrícia Bacelar (HEPB Camaragibe/PE). Como instrumentos da pesquisa, a narrativa a partir de Walter Benjamim e o diário de campo foram utilizados para se ter acesso à experiência de tratamento no espiritismo. A fundamentação teórica foi construída com base na teoria de Frankl, que compreende a espiritualidade como dimensão do humano, em consonância com resultados desta pesquisa. Para a análise dos resultados, utilizamos a hermenêutica filosófica de Gadamer, que alcançou uma narrativa final construída a partir do diálogo entre os participantes, a pesquisadora e o referencial teórico que fundamentou a pesquisa. Nossos resultados revelam uma eminente busca por outro cuidado que não apenas o médico, bem como o uso de recursos religiosos como complementares à prática médica. Em sua maioria, os relatos apontam para a continuidade dos tratamentos médicos simultaneamente ao tratamento espiritual. Nesse contexto, o estímulo à responsabilização do indivíduo por seu autocuidado enquanto autotranscendência se mostrou fundamental para adesão ao tratamento médico, bem como para a superação de situações de intenso sofrimento.

In 1855 Parley P. Pratt, a Mormon missionary and member of the Quorum of the Twelve, published Key to the Science of Theology. It was the culmination of over twenty years of intellectual engagement with the young religious movement of Mormonism. The book was also the first attempt by any Mormon at writing a comprehensive summary of the religion's theological ideas. Pratt covered topics ranging from the origins of theology in ancient Judaism, the apostasy of early Christianity, the restoration of correct theology with nineteenth century Mormonism, dreams, polygamy, and communication with beings on other planets. For nearly fifty years after its publication, Key to the Science of Theology was one of the most widely circulated books within the Mormon community, serving as a model of doctrinal orthodoxy. This thesis aims to understand Pratt's book and his theological ideas, broadly, in their historical context. Primary sources related to Pratt and his contemporaries, including other works by Pratt, Mormon missionary tracts, newspaper clippings, and theological writings by competing religions, help place Pratt's ideas within the larger framework of American religious and intellectual thought of the early to mid-nineteenth century. Pratt drew from non-Mormon sources to help explain the Church's teachings, at times appropriating ideas and rhetoric from elsewhere to bolster his claims about the superiority and universality of the Mormon message. The first chapter of this thesis gives a biographical sketch of Pratt. It introduces key concepts in Mormon belief and how Pratt conceived them. Furthermore, the chapter offers a philosophical take on Pratt's life as one motivated by an apocalyptic worldview. Chapter two draws upon Pratt's apocalyptic conscience to examine his eschatological ideas including a strain of early Mormon thought regarding theocracy. Pratt envisioned a world-wide theocracy coming at the millennium. Mormons, Jews, and Native Americans as ancient Israelites would all share in a world-wide order built around twin centers of power in the historical Jerusalem and a New Jerusalem to be established in North America. Chapter three looks at Pratt's cosmology and argues that his views of the universe, including other planets and beings, were influenced and framed by contemporary Spiritualism as a means of combatting the threat of Mormons leaving the Church for Spiritualist practices. The epilogue looks at changes made to the text of Key to the Science of Theology in 1915 by Church leader Charles Penrose. It places the text's republication within an ongoing battle between older Church leaders like Penrose and younger leaders such as John Widtsoe over what would constitute Mormon orthodoxy during the modernizing phase of the Church in the early twentieth century. Issues like evolution and polygamy took the forefront over eschatological and cosmological concerns.

The study focuses on the influence of Christian based education on the building of the Afrikaner nation. The children settling with their parents in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) after the Great Trek all received Christian based education. The unique way in which both the country and the nation developed was the result of Christian based education. It had a direct influence on the development and functioning of the ZAR resulting in the forming of a Christian country with a Christian based constitution and Christian based laws. Christianity and Christian based education also influenced the social lives, culture and worldview of the people living in the ZAR, leaving a permanent mark on the Afrikaner nation. The stern Calvinistic religion, together with the influences of early Pietism and the worldview of the Romanticism as well as the traditional Christian based education brought from the Netherlands, all worked together to mould the Afrikaners into a unique nation. Religion was the one outstanding factor that determined all aspects of the lives of the Afrikaners, from their character and worldview to their way of speech and the standard of education given to the children. The goal of all education was to enable children to study the Bible - the Handbook to Life - and to become members of the Church. Their faith in and commitment to the Lord, was the force that kept the Afrikaners a unique nation with a strong character despite the extreme living conditions and changing circumstances through which they lived in the short years of the existence of the ZAR. The people living in the ZAR were the carriers of the influence of the Christian based education and the stories of their lives bear witness to the impact their education had on the development of the country and the nation. The legacy of Christian based education, as it was used in the ZAR, is still alive in the hearts and minds of Afrikaners today. The focus of the thesis made it necessary to use material from several different academic fields. Aspects of South African Church history, the general and political history of South Africa and the ZAR, the history regarding the development of education, as well as the social and cultural history of the Afrikaner nation were brought together to give a picture of the impact that Christian based education had on the ZAR. The historical-critical method is used, in order to establish what really happened and to show its significance, both in the historical context and in the present situation. The theoretical framework being used is didactical theological. / Chr Spirit, ChurchHist, Miss / DTH (CHURCH HISTORY)

El pensament religiós de Joan Maragall no havia estat objecte fins ara de cap estudi ampli i sistemàtic. Aquesta tesi pretén oferir una sistematització d'aquest pensament en el marc d'una biografia intel·lectual que permeti visualitzar-ne l'evolució i el desenvolupament. Expositivament, s'ha perioditzat la biografia intel·lectual en quatre etapes: 1) la religió romàntica de la bellesa (1860-1890); 2) de l'exaltació positivista dels forts a la cristianització de l'excelsior (1890-1901); 3) un neoespiritualisme modernista (1901-1906), i 4) l'últim Maragall (1906-1911). És en l'últim període quan Maragall dota el seu pensament d'una terminologia específica i li dóna una forma travada i coherent. Des d'una posició clarament antiascètica no, però, antimística , Maragall detecta l'existència en el temps de moments de suspensió de la temporalitat els «moments d'eternitat» la vivència dels quals permet superar la distinció entre vida terrenal i ultraterrenal. / Until now Joan Maragall's religious thought has not been the object of an extensive and methodical study. This thesis aims to offer a systematization of his religious thought within the framework of an intellectual biography which allows for the visualization of its evolution and development. For the purpose of this analysis, the intellectual biography has been divided in four stages: 1) the romantic period of the religion of beauty (1860-1890); 2) the positivist period, from the exaltation of the strong to the Christianization of the excelsior (1890-1901); 3) the modernist neo-spiritualist period (1901-1906), and 4) the last period (1906-1911). Maragall develops a specific terminology for his thought and gives it a coherent and unified form in the last stage. From a clearly anti-ascetic position though not anti-mystic , Maragall detects the existence of moments when temporality is suspended «moments of eternity» , the experience of which allows for the overcoming of the distinction between earthly and otherworldly.

The study focuses on the influence of Christian based education on the building of the Afrikaner nation. The children settling with their parents in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) after the Great Trek all received Christian based education. The unique way in which both the country and the nation developed was the result of Christian based education. It had a direct influence on the development and functioning of the ZAR resulting in the forming of a Christian country with a Christian based constitution and Christian based laws. Christianity and Christian based education also influenced the social lives, culture and worldview of the people living in the ZAR, leaving a permanent mark on the Afrikaner nation. The stern Calvinistic religion, together with the influences of early Pietism and the worldview of the Romanticism as well as the traditional Christian based education brought from the Netherlands, all worked together to mould the Afrikaners into a unique nation. Religion was the one outstanding factor that determined all aspects of the lives of the Afrikaners, from their character and worldview to their way of speech and the standard of education given to the children. The goal of all education was to enable children to study the Bible - the Handbook to Life - and to become members of the Church. Their faith in and commitment to the Lord, was the force that kept the Afrikaners a unique nation with a strong character despite the extreme living conditions and changing circumstances through which they lived in the short years of the existence of the ZAR. The people living in the ZAR were the carriers of the influence of the Christian based education and the stories of their lives bear witness to the impact their education had on the development of the country and the nation. The legacy of Christian based education, as it was used in the ZAR, is still alive in the hearts and minds of Afrikaners today. The focus of the thesis made it necessary to use material from several different academic fields. Aspects of South African Church history, the general and political history of South Africa and the ZAR, the history regarding the development of education, as well as the social and cultural history of the Afrikaner nation were brought together to give a picture of the impact that Christian based education had on the ZAR. The historical-critical method is used, in order to establish what really happened and to show its significance, both in the historical context and in the present situation. The theoretical framework being used is didactical theological. / Chr Spirit, ChurchHist, Miss / DTH (CHURCH HISTORY)

Au XVIe siècle en Europe, les divisions religieuses au sein de la Chrétienté se répercutent au niveau littéraire dans des débats polémiques extrêmement vifs où les thèmes du blasphème, de l'hérésie, de l'hétérodoxie et de la déviance occupent une place majeure. Dans ce climat d'intolérance, se construit, difficilement, sous des plumes isolées comme celle du calviniste dissident Castellion (1515-1563), exilé à Genève, puis réfugié à Bâle, une tolérance pré-moderne qui n'est pas celle des Lumières. Les ouvrages polémiques de Sébastien Castellion ont eu tendance à être occultés par ses traductions de la Bible qui le firent reconnaître comme l'un des pionniers de la critique biblique (traduction intégrale de la Bible du grec en latin, 1551, puis du grec en français, 1555). Or dans ces mêmes années, Castellion a subi les attaquesdes calvinistes pour avoir pris la défense de Michel Servet (1553), ce qui se traduisit par la rédaction de l'Historia de morte Serveti, du De Haereticis / Traité des Hérétiques (1554) et d'autres traités publiés à titre posthume (Contra libellum Calvini). Ces textes publiés parfois sous d'autres noms (Martin Bellie / Georges Kleinberg / Basile Montfort) sont plus que des réponses circonstancielles à des opuscules de Calvin ou à des conceptions portées par Bèze. La conception de latolérance qu'ils expriment (sur fond de scepticisme doctrinal, aux dires de ses adversaires) est représentative d'un courant de pensée particulier. La recherche récente a montré que la structure argumentative, grammaticale et lexicale des écritsfrançais et latins de Sébastien Castellion révèle des propriétés originales dont l'analyse aide à mieux comprendre l'outillage mental des contemporains face aux enjeux théologiques et éthiques que posait le pluralisme confessionnel et doctrinal. Une étude lexicologique et sémantique de ces textes de combat réalisée avec l'aide d'outils nouveaux comme un logiciel de textométrie permet de renouveler nos connaissances sur une histoire de la tolérance qui reste très instructivepour l'époque contemporaine. / In the 16th century in Europe, religious divisions of christianity erupt in vigorous polemic debates which are fought in literature. The themes of blasphemy, heresy, heterodoxy and deviance become paradigmatic for the political and social changes of the century. In this very special context, a pre-modern idea of tolerance arises in the writings of a few thinkers, like Sebastian Castellio, a former calvinist who veered away from the orthodoxy in Geneva and who took refuge in Basle.The polemical writings of Castellio vanish behind his tranlations of the Bible in latin (1551) and in french (1555), who made of him one of the first critics of the holy scripture. But in the same years, Castellio is violently attacked by the calvinists party for having defended Michael Servetus (1553): a polemic debate on the impunity of heretics breaks out between John Calvinand Sebastian Castellio, who writes his Historia de Morte Serveti and De haereticis / Traité des hérétiques (1554), and other texts which are edited after his death (Contra libellum Calvini) in order to defend his conviction of freedom of conscience. These writings, partly published under pseudonym (Martin Bellius / Georges Kleinberg / Basile Montford) are more then simple answers of circumstance to the texts of Calvin and Théodore de Bèze. They express an idea oftolerance (based on a doctrinal scepticism, as say his adverseries) which is representative for a particular thinking. Recent research has shown that the grammatical, linguistical and logical structure of Castellio's french and latin writings presents a number of original properties. Their analysis can contribute to understand the contemporary mental tools for dealingwith ethical and theological challanges of confesional and doctrinal pluralism. A semantical and lexicological study with a recent texometrical software tool (TXM) allows us to discover new aspects of the history of tolerance, which are revealing for our own century. / Im 16. Jahrhundert zeigen sich die religiösen Spaltungen des Christentums in lebhaften polemischen Debatten in der Literatur. Die Themen der Abweichung, der Blasphemie, der Ketzerei und der Heterodoxie werden paradigmatisch für die politischen und sozialen Spannungen der Epoche. In diesem Klima der Unversöhnlichkeit entsteht allmählich der Gedanke vormoderner Toleranz. Die polemischen Schriften des calvinistischen Abweichlers Sebastian Castellio, der in Basel im Exil lebt, werden von seinen beiden Bibelübersetzungen (1551 lateinisch, 1555 französisch) überschattet, die den Nonkonformisten zu einem der ersten kritischen Bibelübersetzer gemacht haben. Nichtsdestoweniger ist Castellio 1553 heftigsten Angriffen der Calvinisten ausgesetzt, da er in seinen Schriften Michael Servetus verteidigt, der kurz zuvor in Genf als Ketzer verbrannt worden ist. Die heftige Polemik zwischen Johannes Calvin und Sebastian Castellio äussert sich in seinen Schriften Historia de Morte Serveti und De haereticis / Traité des hérétiques (1554), sowie in anderen Texten, die posthum veröffentlicht werden (Contra libellum Calvini). Diese Texte, die teilweise unter einem Pseudonym erscheinen (Martinus Bellius / Georges Kleinberg / Basilius Montfort), sind mehr als nur anlassbezogene Antworten auf die doktrinären Schriften Calvins und Theodor Bezas. Die Konzeption der Toleranz, die Castellio darin entwickelt, und die sich laut seinenGegnern auf einen Skeptizismus gegenüber den konfessionellen Lehren gründet, ist repräsentativ für ein besonderes Menschen- und Weltbild. Die jüngste Forschung hat aufgezeigt, dass die grammatikalische, argumentative und lexikalische Struktur des Texte Sebastian Castellios einzigartige Eigenheiten besitzt, deren Analyse zu einem besseren Verständnis der „geistigen Werkzeuge“ der Zeitgenossen angesichts der theologischen und ethischen Umwälzungen der konfessionellen Epoche beitragen kann. Die semantische und lexikologische Untersuchung der Kampfschriften Castellios anhand einer neuen Software für Textometrie (TXM) wirft ein neues Licht auf die Geschichte der Toleranz, die für unsere Epoche wegweisend ist.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished