tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/mysticism-63522/articlesMysticism – The Conversation2021-05-07T12:44:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1601492021-05-07T12:44:22Z2021-05-07T12:44:22ZLag BaOmer pilgrimage brings Orthodox Jews closer to eternity – I experienced this spiritual bonding in years before the tragedy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399048/original/file-20210505-15-1fgken9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C5%2C3453%2C2305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A condolence message and candles for the victims of a stampede during a Jewish ultra-Orthodox mass pilgrimage to Mount Meron, projected on a wall of Jerusalem's Old City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/may-2021-israel-jerusalem-a-condolence-message-and-candles-news-photo/1232635524?adppopup=true">Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The annual Lag BaOmer pilgrimage to Mount Meron in Israel attracts as many as half a million visitors every year. Because of COVID-19, this year’s event was less crowded, but even so, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/110-years-ago-100-people-fell-from-a-balcony-at-mt-meron-11-were-killed">over 100,000 people</a> were packed into a space with a capacity for perhaps 15,000. This <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/dozens-killed-in-stampede-at-israeli-religious-festival-11619748818">overcrowding reportedly</a> contributed to the recent tragedy, in which at least 45 people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews known as “Haredim” in Hebrew, died in a stampede. </p>
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<p>This is by far the largest pilgrimage of Jews to what is believed to be the gravesite of the second-century Talmudic sage <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520221123/defenders-of-the-faith">Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai</a>.</p>
<p>I have participated twice in the pilgrimage – once in 1994 as a newly observant Jew seeking religious meaning, and again in 2001 as a <a href="https://jewish.cofc.edu/documents/jewish-studies-faculty-and-staff-bios/joshua-shanes,-associate-director.php">scholar of Jewish history</a>. What fascinates me about this pilgrimage is the way it weaves together Jewish mysticism, folk practices and modern-day nationalism. </p>
<h2>Early history</h2>
<p>The Jewish practice of worshipping at the graves of holy men is at least a thousand years old. Many Jews – particularly those whose ancestry comes from the Arab world, called “Mizrahim” or “Sephardim” – <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/640490">believe that these saints can act as their advocates</a> in the “celestial court.” They pray at their gravesites for everything from children to good health to a livelihood. </p>
<p>The pilgrimage to Meron, in the hills of the Galilee near Safed in the northern part of Israel, <a href="https://seforimblog.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins/">initially focused on the graves of other holy figures</a> said to be buried there, particularly the early rabbinic sages Hillel and Shamai, whose debates on Jewish law helped lay the foundation for rabbinic Judaism 2,000 years ago. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Jews-of-Spain/Jane-S-Gerber/9780029115749">Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492</a>, Safed grew into an important center of Jewish mysticism, <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/kabbalah-a-very-short-introduction-9780195327052?cc=us&lang=en&">known in Hebrew as Kabbalah</a>. The most important and influential of these mystics was the 16th-century scholar Isaac Luria, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501726033-011">whose innovative teachings</a> transformed Judaism and Jewish history. Under his influence, the focus of the Meron pilgrimage shifted to Shimon, whose burial place was among the many such graves of ancient rabbis that Luria <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1174">“identified” with supernatural guidance</a>. </p>
<p>Shimon is by tradition credited with the composition of the Zohar, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=6634">the core text of all subsequent Jewish mysticism</a>, though scholars have determined it was actually composed in 13th-century Spain. </p>
<p>Sixteenth-century mystics, and the Jews who follow in their footsteps, are thus particularly interested in connecting to him. They are especially interested in doing so on the anniversary of his death, when the Zohar states he revealed the deepest secrets about God, and pilgrims expect to experience a taste of that revelation. Since at least the <a href="https://seforimblog.com/2011/05/printing-mistake-and-mysterious-origins/?fbclid=IwAR2jQqJFvOdpZl_JuiIlZia5MJR1gyvHrFqiiRkiYmgJkBMMwRKEzP4sjy8">18th century</a>, that date has been accepted as Lag BaOmer. </p>
<h2>The pilgrimage</h2>
<p>The Hebrew name of the holiday Lag BaOmer literally reflects its date in the Jewish calendar, the 33rd day of the Omer, the ritual counting of 50 days from the holiday of Passover, commemorating the exodus from Egypt, to Shavuot, commemorating God’s revelation and giving of the <a href="https://www.ou.org/judaism-101/glossary/torah/">Torah</a>, the Jewish holy canon.</p>
<p>These seven weeks are traditionally days of mourning commemorating the death of 24,000 students of the <a href="https://www.ou.org/holidays/expressions_of_mourning_in_sefirat_haomer/">great sage Rabbi Akiva</a> in the second century by plague, seen as a punishment by God. Only five people survived, including Shimon. Haircuts, music, weddings and all celebrations are prohibited during that seven-week period. </p>
<p>On Lag BaOmer, the restrictions are lifted in accordance with the tradition that on this day the plague ended. <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520221123/defenders-of-the-faith">Mystical tradition credits this to Shimon’s death</a>, which was understood as having the power to eradicate the decree of the plague. According to that tradition, Shimon instructed that the day of passing be celebrated rather than mourned, and thus was born the celebration we know today.</p>
<h2>Rituals and prayers</h2>
<p>In the 20th century, even before the founding of Israel, the Lag BaOmer pilgrimage to Meron grew into a mass event.</p>
<p>Pilgrims light bonfires symbolizing the light of Torah revealed by Shimon, or perhaps the literal fires that the Zohar states surrounded him at the moment of his death. In fact, they <a href="https://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/digitallibrary/gallery/yearly_cycle/lag_baomer/Pages/lag-baomer.aspx">are lit not only at Meron</a>, but throughout Israel and the world, although for some secular Zionists it evokes not Shimon but instead the <a href="https://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/digitallibrary/gallery/yearly_cycle/lag_baomer/Pages/lag-baomer.aspx">“Bar Kochba” military rebellion against Rome</a> that occurred around the same time. </p>
<p>Its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/640490?seq=1">earliest pilgrims were mostly Moroccan Jews</a> who arrived in Israel intent on continuing their tradition of graveside visits to saints, convinced of the possibility of magical remedies and blessings through their holy intervention.</p>
<p>Many pilgrims celebrate the kabbalistic custom of giving a boy his first haircut, leaving behind the sidelocks, at 3 years of age. In recent years, ultra-Orthodox Jews of European ancestry – especially Hasidim – have increasingly dominated the site, although all sectors of Jewish society are represented there. </p>
<p>The pilgrimage is one of the only truly widespread expressions of folk religion in Judaism today. As anthropologist <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0228.xml">Edith Turner</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501726033-011">wrote in her classic essay on Meron</a>, pilgrims come to Meron with deep faith in its power to bring blessings to them. “This is a popular celebration, with a long history that shimmers through the events at various points.”</p>
<p>The celebration is an intense, highly packed event that offers participants an ecstatic experience of communing with God in a collective of tens, even hundreds of thousands, of fellow Jews. </p>
<p>I can certainly attest to this effect. In 1994, at the start of my journey into Orthodox Judaism, I joined the Lag BaOmer pilgrimage to Meron. At that time, the festival hosted many Moroccan Jews, who camped outside the main grounds. Several among them had live animals ready to be slaughtered and eaten to celebrate their sons’ first haircuts. The Ashkenazic Hasidic Jews – <a href="https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Hasidism">sects of Jews from Eastern Europe</a> deeply influenced by Jewish mysticism and devoted to their leaders – dominated the inner spaces of the compound. </p>
<p>Everywhere I walked, people offered me free drinks, convinced of the promise that it would bring blessings to their family. Meanwhile, gender-segregated crowds <a href="https://twitter.com/kann_news/status/1387837918132195330">sang and danced in unison</a> for hours into the night, creating a palpable sense of euphoria and connection to a collective eternity. Some of us pushed inside to approach the gravesite and prayed for blessings of success, while others pushed to reach closer to the bonfires. </p>
<p>There were several fires, each representing a different Jewish community, although by custom the main fire is lit by the head of the “Boyan” Hasidim, so called because their leaders originally lived in the city of Boyan in Ukraine. It was in the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/what-is-toldot-aharon-hassidic-sect-whose-members-were-killed-at-meron-666808">area of a different Hasidic group, known as Toldos Aharon</a>, that the tragedy on April 30, 2021, occurred. This group <a href="https://twitter.com/moshe_nayes/status/1387889426412544014">can be seen dancing</a> this year, just before the tragedy. </p>
<p>By the time I returned in 2001, I had become a full-fledged Hasid myself and was living in Betar Illit, a massive Haredi settlement south of Jerusalem. I recall far fewer Moroccan families camping in tents. But the number of Haredim, joined by Sephardim, modern Orthodox and even secular pilgrims seemed to have exploded, serving to enhance that sense of eternal community, of Jewish connection across time and space. </p>
<p>I have long since left that Hasidic world, for a variety of reasons. But I do not for a moment discount the very real experience of divinity and eternity enjoyed by Meron pilgrims, and their deep need to return to it each year. </p>
<h2>Political overtones</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ultra-Orthodox Jews attend a funeral at Segula cemetery in Petah Tikva on April 30, 2021, for one of the victims of the Meron stampede." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399050/original/file-20210505-23-1j7g7o2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ultra-Orthodox Jews attend a funeral at Segula cemetery in Petah Tikva on April 30, 2021, for one of the victims of the Meron stampede.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ultra-orthodox-jews-attend-the-funeral-of-one-of-the-news-photo/1232607694?adppopup=true">Gil Cohen Magen GIL /AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The events leading up to the deadly stampede need to be viewed in context of Haredi society in Israel – <a href="https://en.idi.org.il/haredi/2020/?chapter=34272">today about 12% of the population, but growing rapidly</a> – and the power wielded by its leaders. Israel’s first prime minister, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/">David Ben Gurion, granted Haredim extensive autonomy</a> in their education system, military deferments, welfare funding and more. Israel’s parliamentary system, which offers small political parties disproportionate power, has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/">carefully protected and expanded that autonomy</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, Haredi leaders have successfully fought enforcement of government oversight and safety regulations, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/17/world/middleeast/israel-orthodox-jews-haredim.html">from COVID-19 restrictions</a> to the Meron festival. Aryeh Deri, the interior minister and leader of the Sephardic Shas party, said on the eve of Lag BaOmer: “This is a holy day, and the largest gathering of Jews [each year].” Bad things, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/">he promised</a>, don’t happen to Jews on religious pilgrimage: “One should trust in Rabbi Shimon in times of distress.” </p>
<p>Similar sentiments were <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-leading-rabbi-thinks-not-studying-torah-is-more-dangerous-than-coronavirus-1.8677335">voiced by Haredi leaders</a> when they prematurely opened their schools last year, promising that Torah study would hold the plague at bay. <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-meron-calamity-haredim-question-the-price-of-their-own-autonomy/">Countless officials</a> had warned that Meron was a disaster waiting to happen.</p>
<p>One hopes that this tragedy will lead Haredim and other Israelis to accept government oversight and limits at the site. </p>
<p>One should not for a moment, however, discount the vital need of members of this community to bond with one another and God at this place, any more than we would discount the legitimacy of other religious and secular communities finding it elsewhere. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160149/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Shanes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Lag BaOmer pilgrimage, in which 45 people died recently, takes place each year to what is believed to be the gravesite of the second-century Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.Joshua Shanes, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1534072021-01-26T16:53:24Z2021-01-26T16:53:24ZWhy some people believe they can hear the dead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380478/original/file-20210125-19-1vae9s1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C8%2C5615%2C3724&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ghost-girl-white-dress-appears-old-231824758">Tom Tom/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a blustery October night in 1841, and though Liverpool is sleeping, Mrs Bates is very much awake. Before her, shining brightly at the foot of her bed, is an “open vision” of her friend Elizabeth Morgan, “<a href="https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/MStar/id/6537/rec/2">standing in full view before her, clothed in robes beautiful and white</a>”. The shimmering vision lingers for “some considerable length of time” before fading away. When dawn arrives, and after a fitful sleep, Mrs Bates is informed by a messenger that Elizabeth Morgan is dead.</p>
<p>People have reported spooky, spiritual and extraordinary experiences for centuries. Like Mrs Bates, those who claim to have communed with the dead have found themselves ridiculed as well as revered. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2020.1793310">Our recent research</a> has revealed that mediums, mystics and psychics are more prone to certain auditory phenomena than the general population – which may play a role in their reports of communicating with the dead.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-why-so-many-people-believe-in-psychic-powers-102088">The science of why so many people believe in psychic powers</a>
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<p>The experience of hearing voices is far more common than you might expect. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26254619/">Some studies</a> have estimated that as many as 50% of people hear the voice of their deceased loved one during periods of grieving. Elsewhere, <a href="https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2020/12/06/medhum-2020-012021">research from our team</a> has shown that some Christians occasionally hear God as a literal auditory voice with which they can commune.</p>
<p>Claiming to be able to speak with the dead is often found to coexist with the beliefs of what’s called “spiritualism” – a quasi-religious movement based on the idea that individuals continue to exist after the death of their physical bodies. Their “spirits” may appear to or communicate with living persons, often called “mediums”. </p>
<p>Spiritualism can be traced back to the <a href="https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/journal_contribution/The_medium_on_the_stage_trance_and_performance_in_nineteenth-century_spiritualism/9472577">Fox sisters</a>, Maggie and Kate, who in 1848 claimed to hear a spirit knocking on the walls of their home in New York. Mediums that “hear” the spirits, as the Fox sisters did, are said to be “clairaudient” while those who can “see” the spirits are considered “clairvoyant”.</p>
<p>From Arthur Conan Doyle to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/459ec54d68324cf6ab0e65abec81afed">Kardashians</a>, the possibility of spiritual mediumship has endured and captivated many. In fact, the Spiritualists’ National Union (SNU), one of several contemporary spiritualist organisations in Britain, boasts a membership of at least 11,000. </p>
<p>What’s more, interest in channelling spirits, psychic predictions, and life after death seems to have been growing in both the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/eabdc0ed-70c0-4af2-8295-96ebfc4dc613">UK</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/style/wellness-mediums.html?auth=login-google">US</a> in recent years. But what’s actually going on when people hear voices they take to be the spirits of the dead?</p>
<h2>‘I hear dead people’</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2020.1793310">Our new study</a> of the clairaudient experiences of contemporary mediums is beginning to clarify why some people report hearing spiritual voices. We found that people who were more likely to experience “absorption” – a tendency to get lost in mental imagery or altered states of consciousness – were also more likely to experience clairaudience.</p>
<p>This finding suggests these people actually experience unusual sounds they believe to be clairaudient. But it doesn’t explain why they identify these voices with the spirits of the dead, which is the core tenet of spiritualism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two eccentrically-dressed women in a black and white photo, one reading the palm of the other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380498/original/file-20210125-15-9q9e11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mediums and mystics are enduring figures throughout history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/you-will-meet-tall-dark-stranger-91955489">Everett Collection/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Significantly, nearly 75% of those we surveyed said they didn’t know about spiritualism or its set of beliefs prior to their earliest clairaudient experiences. This suggests that, for many, the sensation of speaking with spirits preceded knowledge of clairaudience as a phenomenon.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.religion.2008.01.005?journalCode=rrel20">Some scholars</a> argue that mediums later tag their voice-hearing to spiritualism as a way of explaining their auditory hallucinations. This “attributional theory” may explain why there are a large number of spiritualist mediums.</p>
<h2>Grave concerns</h2>
<p><a href="https://rerc-journal.tsd.ac.uk/index.php/religiousexp/article/view/33">Historical research</a> suggests that emotional desires play a key role in conjuring such phenomena. In the past, this research tells us, when an individual felt melancholic and desperate for a manifestation of the supernatural, they would often record a spiritual experience shortly thereafter. </p>
<p>Guidance from a faith leader also seems important for conjuring the metaphysical. <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jocc/13/1-2/article-p159_10.xml">The work</a> of Stanford University anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann, for instance, highlights how one’s desire must be met with direction, noting the importance of training and instruction for the faithful who hope to have vivid encounters with the divine through prayer.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colourful Christian chruch service with man holding arms out in prayer" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380637/original/file-20210126-21-17ax6n1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The religious regularly report supernatural experiences, including hearing the voice of God.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/church-worship-conceptsilhouette-christian-prayers-raising-1146558020">Paul shuang/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>However, <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01197.x">further research has shown</a> that spiritual practice does not necessarily make perfect – at least not without a pre-existing tendency towards immersive mental activities. For mediums, this means that “yearning and learning” is not enough. Clairaudience may require a unique proclivity for voice-hearing. </p>
<h2>Healthy hearing</h2>
<p>Researchers are increasingly interested in the similarities and differences between clairaudience and several other forms of voice-hearing, like those experienced by people living with mental illness.</p>
<p>For example, individuals with psychosis also frequently hear voices. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/43/1/84/2511864">By comparing such voices</a> to the clairaudience reported by mediums, researchers have already begun to identify important differences that distinguish clairaudience from the experiences of people living with psychosis. For example, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2011.577411">mediums tend to exert more control</a> over their voices – and they report very little distress accompanying the experience. </p>
<p>Back in Liverpool in 1841, Mrs. Bates “rejoiced in the vision” of her friend at the end of her bed, while Elizabeth Morgan’s husband is said to have received “consolation in the valley of grief” when he learned of the vision. Hearing the dead is not necessarily a sign of mental distress – or supernatural possession. For mediums, it may be a source of comfort – a quality of the way that they experience reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam J Powell receives funding from the Wellcome Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Moseley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research suggests mediums possess a proclivity for hallucinatory experiences.Adam J. Powell, Assistant Professor (Research), Religion and Medical Humanities, Durham UniversityPeter Moseley, Senior Research Fellow, Psychology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1330492020-07-16T15:35:19Z2020-07-16T15:35:19ZLouis Riel’s trial from 135 years ago continues today with competing cultural stories and icons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346958/original/file-20200711-189212-1ni23ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C613%2C326&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Front of the Regina Court House, during the trial of Louis Riel, which began 135 years ago in July 1885.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(O.B. Buell/Library and Archives Canada)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One hundred and thirty-five years ago this July 20, Canada put <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/view/17889">Louis Riel</a> on trial for <a href="https://shsb.mb.ca/en/node/1380">high treason</a> for precipitating the <a href="https://indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca/article/1885-northwest-resistance/">North West Resistance</a> (traditionally called the <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Birth_of_Western_Canada.html?id=U5NZAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">North West Rebellion</a> in mainstream settler history).</p>
<p>Today, Riel is considered one of Canada’s most popular figures, easily eclipsing the country’s founding prime minister and <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-a-macdonald-should-not-be-forgotten-nor-celebrated-101503">his nemesis, John A. Macdonald</a>. </p>
<p>The political metamorphosis of Riel illustrates one of the most paradoxical aspects of nationalism: how former enemies can be transformed into compatriots. Over time, individuals who had battled a given country are turned into icons of the very polity they opposed and that vanquished them. </p>
<p>But there are indications that a significant segment of the population has not accepted this transformation.</p>
<h2>Leadership, exile</h2>
<p><a href="https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/louis-riel?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkbXt-OuB6AIVdiCtBh3vRAtLEAAYASAAEgJXSfD_BwE">Louis Riel</a> was born in 1844 into a French-speaking, devoutly Catholic Métis family in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Red-River-Settlement">Red River Settlement</a>, <a href="https://redrivernorthheritage.com/first-nations-and-metis-people-of-red-river-settlement/">now Winnipeg</a>. Along with the rest of Rupert’s Land, Red River was then controlled by the London-based Hudson’s Bay Company. </p>
<p>When Canada <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPCONTENTSE1EP9CH1PA3LE.html">acquired Rupert’s Land</a> from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1869, without consulting the territory’s inhabitants, Riel galvanized the residents of Red River into opposition to Canada and formed a <a href="https://shsb.mb.ca/en/node/1371">provisional government in 1869-70</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347161/original/file-20200713-54-50cfdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louis Riel, seated centre, with fellow councillors of the Provisional Government of the Métis Nation, 1870. Front: Robert O'Lone, Paul Proulx. Centre: Pierre Poitras, John Bruce, (Riel), John O'Donoghue, François Dauphinais. Back: Bonnet Tromage, Pierre de Lorme, Thomas Bunn, Xavier Page, Baptiste Beauchemin, Baptiste Tournond, Joseph (Thomas?) Spence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada / PA-012854)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Partly because of his government’s controversial <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/thomas-scott">execution of a Protestant Canadian expansionist named Thomas Scott</a> early in 1870, Riel was banished from Canada for five years and went into exile in the United States.</p>
<h2>Charged with treason, executed</h2>
<p>While visiting Washington, D.C., in 1875, Riel underwent a mystical experience in which God purportedly anointed him the “<a href="https://www.uap.ualberta.ca/titles/6-9780888640918-les-collected-writings-of-louis-riel-ecrits-complet-de-louis-riel">prophet of the new world</a>.” Soon after, his behaviour became increasingly erratic and his Montréal-based uncle, <a href="http://shsb.mb.ca/node/1375">John Lee</a>, and a series of French Canadian <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/louis-david-riel-3">Catholic clergy</a> became concerned. Riel was smuggled back to Canada and against his will in 1876, he was <a href="https://uofrpress.ca/Books/9/1885-and-After-Native-Society-in-Transition">interned in two Québec mental hospitals</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347153/original/file-20200713-18-1m0a6c7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Louis Riel, whose death was called a martyrdom, in a portrait sold by ‘La Presse’ following Riel’s execution on Nov. 16, 1885. The paper reported five days after the execution that it had sold more than 50,000 copies of the portrait.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Reverend Joseph Chabert/Library and Archives Canada)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nearly two years later, Riel returned to the United States and eventually became a school teacher at a Jesuit mission <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2007627959/">in Montana Territory</a>.</p>
<p>He was still living there in 1884 when a Métis delegation from the Saskatchewan Valley invited him to help prepare their grievances against Ottawa. Riel accepted the invitation and travelled north with his wife and two young children. </p>
<p>This was a fateful journey that would lead to the North-West troubles of 1885, which once more pitted Riel against the Canadian government. Riel was charged with high treason, <a href="https://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayEcopies&lang=eng&rec_nbr=3406975&rec_nbr_list=3406975,3623729,3192595,3192596,3623730,3342251&title=The+jury+of+six+at+Louis+Riel%27s+trial.+&ecopy=a118759">found guilty by a jury</a>, sentenced to death and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1885/11/17/archives/the-rebel-chief-hanged-louis-riel-pays-the-penalty-of-treasonfelony.html">hanged in Regina on November 16, 1885</a>.</p>
<h2>Evolving image, icon</h2>
<p>For decades after his death, Riel was largely perceived by Canadians as a rebel, when he was discussed at all. But <a href="https://utorontopress.com/ca/the-false-traitor-3">his image</a> <a href="https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1952/2/1/the-riddle-of-louis-riel">started to change after the end of the Second World War</a> and by the late 1960s he had become one of the most iconic figures in Canadian culture. </p>
<p>Riel has now been the subject of endless poems, <a href="https://www.fitzhenry.ca/Detail/1550413236">novels</a>, <a href="https://drawnandquarterly.com/louis-riel">graphic memoirs</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079810/">films</a> and even a world-class opera, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/louis-riel-canadian-opera-company-1.4074163">recently re-mounted and re-interpreted</a>.</p>
<p>Riel’s transformation was particularly swift in his birthplace, Manitoba, which entered <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/manitoba-and-confederation">Canada as a province in 1870</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/origin_name_manitoba.html">whose name Riel had advocated based on its existing usage grounded in the Ojibway language</a>.</p>
<p>In the mid-1960s, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/demanding-a-place-of-honour-for-louis-riel">Métis advocate Jean Allard</a>, elected to the <a href="https://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/members/mla_bio_living.html">Manitoba Legislative Assembly in 1969</a>, began lobbying the province’s leading citizens to have a <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/mq43534.pdf">memorial</a> built to Riel for Manitoba’s Centennial in 1970. </p>
<p>Thanks to Allard’s initiative, a monument to Riel by the <a href="http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/rielstatue3.shtml">architect Étienne Gaboury and the sculptor Marcien Lemay was unveiled on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature in 1973</a>.</p>
<p>Allard was successful in gaining support before and after the statue’s installation, but not, according to his account, with the Conservative cabinet minister <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sterling-rufus-lyon">Sterling Lyon</a>, who later became premier in 1977. In a letter to the <em>Winnipeg Free Press</em>, published on July 19, 1994, Allard said Lyon told him in 1968 that “Riel was a traitor who deserved to hang.” </p>
<h2>Controversial nude statue</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347163/original/file-20200713-22-x8o7ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sculpture of Louis Riel by Marcien Lemay was moved from the Manitoba Legislature to St. Boniface University campus in 1995.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Dano/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Gabouray-Lemay statue was subject to criticism from more than one perspective. The main criticism of the modernist monument was that it presented the subject not just as tormented but also naked. </p>
<p>Riel’s nudity, with its evocation of poverty and mental instability, was especially distasteful <a href="https://www.winnipegarchitecture.ca/louis-riel-statue/">and “shameful”</a> to many contemporary Métis leaders. They mounted a concerted campaign to have Riel portrayed like “a statesman,” and almost 25 years later succeeded in having the modernist statue replaced with a <a href="http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/rielstatue.shtml">traditional one by the sculptor Miguel Joyal</a>.</p>
<h2>Declared Manitoba founder</h2>
<p>Riel’s triumph would appear to be complete by 1992 when the governments of both Canada and Manitoba <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1992-ottawa-declares-louis-riel-a-founder-of-manitoba">declared Riel a founder of Manitoba</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347165/original/file-20200713-46-wo8yd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of Louis Riel by sculptor Miguel Joyal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(aa440/Flickr)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To top it off, in 2008 Manitoba declared the third Monday in February Louis Riel Day. In 2016, Manitoba declared Riel “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/louis-riel-metis-leader-honoured-as-first-leader-of-manitoba-1.3471683">first leader of the province</a>.”</p>
<p>But there is evidence that not everyone in Manitoba is enthusiastic about <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/arts/how-louis-riel-became-canada-s-first-ever-bestselling-graphic-novel-1.3406352">the newly popular Riel</a>. To begin with, <a href="http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/42/rielstatue.shtml">the Gaboury-Lemay monument was often the target of violent vandalism</a>, usually aimed at the subject’s private parts.</p>
<p>Even more troubling, during the so-called <a href="https://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/digital/built_heritage/ed_site/1-riel_statue.html">war of the Riel statues</a>, a series of Manitoba premiers discovered that some of the province’s non-Indigenous citizens did not at all approve of their government’s sanction of a memorial to Riel, feelings that they had no qualms expressing in rather <a href="http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/42/rielstatue.shtml">vitriolic language</a>.</p>
<h2>History of celebrating Riel’s enemies</h2>
<p>In retrospect, the backlash against Riel’s rehabilitation should not have come as a surprise. The fact is that Winnipeg has a history of celebrating, not Riel, but his enemies, from Thomas Scott,
to the <a href="https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/in-conversation-with-matt-mcrae-291943901.html">Winnipeg Rifles</a>. The Winnipeg Rifles is the Canadian military regiment <a href="https://www.theroyalwinnipegrifles.com/">whose forerunner, the 90th Battalion</a>, fought the 1885 war against the Métis. </p>
<p><a href="https://rwrmuseum.com/why-is-the-regiment-called-the-little-black-devils">According to the regiment, during the 1885 war, “the captured enemy”</a> (the Métis) called the regiment the “Little Black Devils” because of their almost-black, dark rifle green uniforms. Today the regiment formally preserves this legend in their iconography, and also uses as its motto “Hosti Acie Nominati,” meaning “named by the enemy force.” </p>
<p>The city’s very cultural landscape is a reminder that it once venerated <a href="https://winnipegsun.com/opinion/columnists/bowler-why-honour-those-who-fought-against-canada">different icons</a>, not all of whom have yet been rejected. No wonder that some of its residents are reluctant to embrace other heroes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Albert Braz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The political metamorphosis of Louis Riel illustrates one of the most paradoxical aspects of nationalism: how former enemies can be transformed into compatriots.Albert Braz, Professor of English, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1380452020-07-06T19:05:29Z2020-07-06T19:05:29ZAs a Sufi singer, I believe the sounds of world religions can cultivate compassion during COVID-19<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344348/original/file-20200626-104529-fwypeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C38%2C4307%2C2739&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A muezzin calling Muslims to prayer stands on the minaret of the Gazi Husrev-beg mosque in Sarajevo. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The global <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2020/06/statement-from-the-chief-public-health-officer-of-canada-on-saturday-june-20-2020.html">COVID-19 pandemic has taken us into an era of social distancing</a>. By relying on online digital media, we may be isolating ourselves from more local and diverse communities.</p>
<p>As an ethnomusicologist at the University of Alberta, <a href="https://www.shumailahemani.com/">my research and musical practices</a> lead me to reflect on how what I think of as a “socially isolated ear” is more prone to resist and be intimidated by cultural and religious diversity. As a Sufi vocalist, through my music I share the message of love and interfaith harmony <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism">taught by Sufi mystics</a> — and I explore the crevices of Muslim belief and expression from a feminist standpoint. </p>
<p>Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam that is based on introspection and spiritual practices for cleansing the heart to receive closeness with Allah. Sufis have <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/204935/sufism-by-carl-w-ernst/">used the power of art, music, poetry and dance to show human soul’s relationship with the Divine</a>. </p>
<p>How intercultural listening transforms us as humans became ever clearer to me this past spring as I watched students grow in understanding in courses I taught. </p>
<p>I contrasted this with the racism and intolerance demonstrated by some to the public sounding of the Muslim call to prayer (<em>azan</em>) <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/z3ebmw/mosques-face-backlash-broadcasting-evening-prayers-ramadan-mississauga">in Mississauga, Ont.</a> <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/canada-muslim-call-prayer-ramadan-once-daily-tensions-far-right">and in Edmonton</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yeZahmD866s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Shumaila Hemani performs ‘Living with Purpose.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Communities of sound’</h2>
<p>Ritual is a powerful gift that brings a sense of a collective and been a source for social cohesion within societies, instilling support and resiliency or creating new social bonds, as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-durkheim/9BC3DA0191F214A2ABF3970989701966">the French sociologist Emile Durkheim points out</a>. For those in religious communities, ritual is about human interaction with the Divine. </p>
<p>The idea of ethnomusicology as <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/content/anthropology-music">the anthropology of music</a> was first proposed in the 1960s by anthropologist Alan Merriam. He emphasized the need to study not just sound, but also the cultures that shape and are constituted by how people listen and make music. What has become increasingly important in the ethnographic study of music is to engage with “communities of sounds” and voices of people within cultural and faith communities.</p>
<h2>A semester at sea</h2>
<p>Earlier this year, I taught ethnomusicology courses during a <a href="https://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/soundscaping-covid-19-experiential-learning-floating-and-then-quarantined-classroom">Semester at Sea</a>, a study-abroad program that takes place on a cruise ship and in the global ports visited. My students and I discussed the sounds of rituals of the ports that we travelled to as well as soundscapes of political and sacred rituals in people’s everyday lives. </p>
<p>My students wrote about interacting with hula dancers in Honolulu; Buddhist and folk rituals in Vietnam; Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Daoist worship in St. Port Louis, Mauritius; and the sounds of Buddhist chants and Shinto worship in Kobe, Japan. </p>
<p>Some of these students gained deeper appreciation into the diversity and beauty of aural faith practices. They were learning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444314908.ch10">intercultural listening</a> — to listen not just to the sound of music of another culture and understand how it is rhythmically and melodically arranged, but also what makes it meaningful for the people within their respective history and context. As I watched my students, I saw that the classroom was enhancing their cultural immersion and giving them tools to understand the sounds of ritual practices they encountered. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344354/original/file-20200626-104480-19j6wj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ikuta Shrine, Kobe city, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the Japan tour, one student said that when she went with her friend to a Shinto temple, her friend wondered why the attendees clapped their hands as part of their worship. Within our class discussions prior to reaching the Kobe port, the student had learned that Shinto believers <a href="https://www.isejingu.or.jp/en/pray/index.html">clap twice to invoke <em>kami</em></a> (the spirits) for healing. When she could explain that to her friend, it was an “aha” moment for her that this course contributed to her learning. </p>
<p>Such student insights suggested to me that people can learn to appreciate the sounds of ritual as poetic for the human ear if one begins to understand the meanings that practitioners are invoking.</p>
<h2>Diversity of Islam</h2>
<p>On our voyage, I disrupted existing stereotypes about Muslim belief and practice by challenging the understanding that there is a singular “true” or homogeneous expression of Islam — an idea amplified <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Myth-of-the-Muslim-World/240069">by western myth and Islamophobia</a>.</p>
<p>As part of the field program about historical and spiritual sites in Mauritius, I informed the participants about <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1859">the five pillars of Islam</a>, while sharing the diversity in its interpretation across Muslim communities. </p>
<p>We examined practices such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_umJcGodNb0"><em>Mevlevi ayin</em></a>, the ritual of dervishes within the Mevlevi Sufi brotherhood that consists of whirling to the poetry of Rumi in Turkey and Sufi <em>qawwali</em> in South Asia. <em>Qawwali</em> is one of the foremost styles of singing Sufi poetry in South Asia, made world-famous by Pakistan’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12201563">Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344355/original/file-20200626-104499-tqys1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A qawwali performance at Nizamuddin Dargah, a complex of tombs, mosques and stalls centred on the burial site of revered Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, in New Delhi, India, September 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I drew on research about the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298712/sounding-islam">sounds of Islam</a>, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000002816">lived realities of Muslims through exploration of the Sufi music</a> and my own research about Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, <a href="https://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/risalo-by-shah-abdul-latif-edited-and-translated-by-christopher-shackle/">an 18th-century Sufi mystic and poet in the Sindh region of pre-colonial India</a>. Bhitai’s poetry reflects the distinct character of Sufi poetry in South Asia, and centres around romantic folk tales. These relate messages about cultivating Divine love, with the protagonists of the tale being mainly women.</p>
<h2>Learning to listen in new ways</h2>
<p>Since the 1990s, there has been a movement within anthropology to emphasize the senses to gain a deeper appreciation of “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474214865">hearing cultures</a>.” I contribute to these discussions by introducing the concept of an “intercultural ear” as an important tool for <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7091118/coronavirus-racism-chinese-canadians/">countering rising racism and xenophobia in the pandemic</a>. In order to save humanity through this global pandemic and to build our social resiliency, we need a greater intercultural awakening through listening. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/anti-hate-group-calls-on-mississauga-to-not-reverse-decision-allowing-mosques-to-broadcast-call-to-prayer-1.4926969">recent pushback</a> over the bylaw accommodations to allow Muslims to sound their call to prayer during Ramadan are a case in point.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/allowing-the-call-to-prayer-in-canada-spurred-complaints-but-not-about-noise-138882">Allowing the call to prayer in Canada spurred complaints — but not about noise</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This was after in-person religious gatherings, as all public gatherings, were temporarily suspended as a result of COVID-19. In some cases, <a href="https://www.insauga.com/peel-district-school-board-terminates-school-council-chair-for-islamophobic-tweet">Islamophobic</a> and hate commentary erupted.</p>
<p>In this context, paying more attention to and preserving sonic markers of diverse faith groups is necessary so that people are exposed to intercultural sounds from their homes. </p>
<p>When the ear has access to lived sounds of ritual, including the call to prayer, and when vision is supported by engaged listening, it is likely to expand one’s horizon of understanding. Intercultural listening cultivates our compassion and humanity during a crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shumaila Hemani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Listening more deeply to what makes sounds meaningful for people within their respective contexts matters in an era of rising expressions of racism in the pandemic.Shumaila Hemani, Instructor, Faculty of Extension's Department of Communications and Design, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1394482020-06-01T13:43:26Z2020-06-01T13:43:26ZTarot resurgence is less about occult than fun and self-help – just like throughout history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338851/original/file-20200601-95065-lfiag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C67%2C5550%2C3708&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tarot readers have been cast as swindlers and diviners of the future. The history of the cards suggests they are much more. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/set-old-tarot-cards-lying-scattered-181452113">Photology1971/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Faced with the uncertainties of life under lockdown, is it any surprise that <a href="https://www.yelpeconomicaverage.com/yelp-coronavirus-economic-impact-report">many people</a> are turning to methods of fortune telling <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/18/people-turning-tarot-readers-shamans-wellness-gurus-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-12575923/">such as tarot cards</a>? Journalists are often tempted to ask whether this is a resurgence of “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-life-coronavirus-virtual-astrology-tarot-card-readings-tt-0410-20200410-po2x6yw5tncvvnpevstsmdlxca-story.html">pseudoscience</a>”. The history of tarot suggests not.</p>
<p>Tarot cards are decks that include four suits, much like standard playing cards, but with an additional set of trump cards, known as the Major Arcana, which depict mythological figures or archetypes such as Death or The Magician. Different tarot decks, such as the Tarot de Marseille or the Eteilla Tarot, contain different numbers of cards, Major Arcana and different illustrations.</p>
<p>These different forms of tarot have been many things for many people: a system of occult meaning or a dangerous fraud, but also a form of therapy, a source of practical advice and even of entertainment.</p>
<h2>Twin myths</h2>
<p>The history of tarot is overshadowed by two mythologies. The first, and more positive, was popularised by occultists in the 18th and 19th centuries in France. Men such as the pastor Antoine Court de Gébelin and the occultists Jean-Baptiste Alliette and Éliphas Lévi believed the cards were of <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1087220/f464.image.texteImage">ancient Egyptian</a> or <a href="https://archive.org/details/tarotofbohemians00papu/page/n11/mode/2up">Jewish magical traditions</a>. </p>
<p>Such theories are groundless. The <a href="https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/visconti-tarot">earliest Tarot decks</a> date from 15th-century Italy. Yet these myths inspired occultists to argue the cards encoded <a href="https://archive.org/details/transcendentalma00leviuoft/page/164/mode/2up">hidden ancient mysteries</a>, and that understanding these complex meanings would give cartomancers – card readers – powers to tell the future. </p>
<p>At the same time, a negative myth of tarot was developed by the authorities in countries such as France. After the revolution of 1789, <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/french-historical-studies/article-abstract/28/1/131/9479/Fortune-Tellers-in-the-French-Courts">new provisions against fortune telling</a> were introduced. The press, police and politicians agreed that the very use of tarot cards was evidence that an individual was defrauding people.</p>
<p>These twin myths of ancient wisdom and modern fraud still play a large role in how people respond to the cards. But they are not the only stories we can tell about the history of tarot.</p>
<h2>The other sides</h2>
<p>Rather than the writings of occultists or the judgements of the authorities, historians can turn to what cartomancers and their customers said. As part of my research into <a href="https://creativewitchcraft.wordpress.com/about/introducing-creative-histories-of-witchcraft/">witchcraft in France from 1790-1940</a>, I have come across several hundred cases of cartomancy that reveal different sides to the cards.</p>
<p>For a start, tarot never dominated cartomancy. Fortune tellers were as likely to use standard decks of cards that lacked the Major Arcana. Clients often preferred these plainer methods of fortune telling, not least since they were cheaper. </p>
<p>Even when they did use full tarot decks, fortune tellers were unlikely to embrace the complex systems of symbolic meaning proposed by occultists. Instead, they stuck to simpler schemes. Two of the four suits were normally positive, and two were negative. </p>
<p>Fortune tellers might write quick reminders on the cards about their significance. The cards pictured below are from a set <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10537348r?rk=364808;4">said to have been</a> annotated by the famous cartomancer Mademoiselle Lenormand. The Wheel of Fortune signified “a marriage will bring wealth”, while the Tower of Destruction symbolised “too much generosity”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338009/original/file-20200527-20233-1cf90he.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two images from a Tarot de Marseilles deck allegedly annotated by the fortune teller Mademoiselle Lenormand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10537348r?rk=364808;4">Bibliothèque Nationale de France</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fortune tellers also developed their own interpretations of the images from the cards. In a case from Fougères, north-west France from 1889, for instance, the fortune teller pointed to two cards she had drawn and declared to her client: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well now, the Queen of Spades is your wife, and the Ace of Clubs is money… so your wife is stealing from you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other interpretations are harder to make sense of. In Besançon, eastern France in 1834, a fortune teller interpreted a card that looked like a monkey as evidence that the client was bewitched. Was it the monstrous, almost-human associations of the monkey image that connected it to sorcery? Some forms of historic symbolism are impossible to fully recover. </p>
<h2>Entertainment and therapy</h2>
<p>Although most of these examples are drawn from cases where the authorities actively tried to suppress scams, the fraud cases did not always go as the police hoped. Many clients proved reluctant witnesses in court. While the authorities saw them as naive victims, many demonstrated a more flexible understanding of what they were paying for. For instance, a young woman in Rouen in 1888 told a court: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t believe in all that nonsense. I went to the fortune teller just to please my friend. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Above all, clients thought of fortune telling less as a method of predicting the future and more as a way to address problems in their present. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338852/original/file-20200601-95042-h5mv9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People have always looked to the cards to help them with problems in the present rather than the future.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/trivandrum-kerala-india-july-31-2017-688370518">AjayTvm/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In some ways, tarot could work as a form of psychoanalysis. In 1990, <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/terrain/2968">the writer Josée Contreras and the ethnologist Jeanne Favret-Saada</a> drew on experiences with a cartomancer to argue that these methods of divining worked in the same way as modern therapy.</p>
<p>Many of the problems that tarot was used to address remain familiar today. Clients sought stolen and lost objects, the causes of mystery illnesses, news on employment prospects, and reassurances on romantic relationships. </p>
<p>There has been no shortage of scammers in tarot’s history who have used fortune telling to dupe clients. However, the cartomancers’ customers are not as naive as the critics of fortune telling have sometimes assumed, and the act of reading the cards has been more practical than mystical.</p>
<p>For the great majority, the cards have never been a misguided attempt to predict the future. They are a creative means of re-interpreting and coming to terms with an uncertain present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William G. Pooley receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>People are turning to tarot while in lockdown as they search for clarity about love, work and life in such uncertain times.William G Pooley, Lecturer in Modern European History, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1327302020-04-29T18:29:11Z2020-04-29T18:29:11ZBrazilian mystics say they’re sent by aliens to ‘jump-start human evolution’ – but their vision for a more just society is not totally crazy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330819/original/file-20200427-145536-1namrs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C6%2C4077%2C2669&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Valley of the Dawn members celebrate 'Day of the Indoctrinator' at their temple complex in Brazil on May 1. This year's event is postponed due to coronavirus.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Márcia Alves</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every May 1, before sunrise, several thousand members of the religion known as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2019/may/03/the-vale-do-amanhecer-religious-community-in-brazil-in-pictures">Valley of the Dawn</a> gather in silence at a temple outside the Brazilian capital of Brasília. They come from around the world to “synchronize their spiritual energies.”</p>
<p>As the Sun’s first rays appear over the horizon, the members, in fairy-tale-like <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2r3nwe6evirgjl/ElaborateRitualAttire_PhotoCredit_M%C3%A1rciaAlves.JPG?dl=0">garments</a>, chant their personal “emissions” – a ritual invocation of cosmic forces that fills the air with a collective drone. </p>
<p>Valley of the Dawn adherents “manipulate” cosmic energies to heal themselves and others. They describe themselves as members of a spiritual tribe called the Jaguars, who are the reincarnated descendants of highly advanced extraterrestrials sent by God some 32,000 years ago to jump-start human evolution.</p>
<p>Normally, the May 1 <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/05/photos-worshipers-valley-of-the-dawn/588475/">Day of the Indoctrinator</a> ceremony attracts Jaguars from across the globe, as well as spectators and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2019/may/03/the-vale-do-amanhecer-religious-community-in-brazil-in-pictures">journalists</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3543%2C2354&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330817/original/file-20200427-145525-1rgw7ce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Day of the Indoctrinator, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Márcia Alves</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2020, the ceremony was postponed because of the coronavirus – dismaying Valley of the Dawn members, who believe their spiritual force field could really help in this global crisis.</p>
<p>The Valley of the Dawn’s beliefs are <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/brazils-sunrise-valley-honors-mediums-labor-day-170448626--spt.html">fantastical</a>, but their practices may be less otherworldly <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2018/09/religion-psychic-medium-extraterrestrial-sunrise-dawn-valley-brasilia-brazil/">than bemused journalists have often suggested</a>. My <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=z1eWiyoAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F5SXVosCqNZCg1L7c89uUF1gz96jLMiJbO_QEvNqTs_VWbYXm2nXRtb1cko2iUVzEJv7ByI6GjeLp9JJooKJmYh6mhAe-nSndcCor_UuPHzXxAJHPc">scholarship on Brazilian religions and research at the Valley of the Dawn</a> finds that some of the group’s rituals speak directly to the harsh realities of the modern world. </p>
<h2>Jaguars past and present</h2>
<p>Valley of the Dawn, called Vale do Amanhecer in Portuguese, is a <a href="https://www.agenciabrasilia.df.gov.br/2013/12/06/vale-do-amanhecer-simbolo-do-sincretismo-religioso-atrai-milhares-de-visitantes/">recognized religion in Brazil</a>. It has over 700 affiliated temples worldwide and nearly <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PieriniJaguars">139,000 registered members</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328787/original/file-20200417-152607-49v3rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1112&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aunt Neiva.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vale Do Amanhecer Archive</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Valley of the Dawn <a href="https://nr.ucpress.edu/content/16/4/63">doctrine</a>, the Jaguars inspired some of humanity’s greatest achievements, including the great pyramids of ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica, before eventually straying from their mission. </p>
<p>Their spiritual tribe was reunited in Brazil in 1964 by a woman called Aunt Neiva, who foresaw the world as we know it ending within decades. </p>
<p>My research indicates that Valley of the Dawn members are mostly middle- and working-class Brazilians, of all races. Many live in the town that has grown up around the Mother Temple; others travel there for ceremonies. </p>
<p>To redeem the bad karma they believe they have accrued over the millennia, Valley of the Dawn members perform spirit-healing rituals called “trabalhos,” or works. These are offered to the public at the Mother Temple nearly <a href="https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/valley-of-the-dawn/">24 hours a day, 365 days a year</a>.</p>
<p>In Brazil, which has hundreds of spirit-based religions, such <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315419855">healing is widely accepted</a>. </p>
<p>According to anthropologist Emily Pierini, who has studied <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PieriniJaguars">spirit healing at the Valley of the Dawn</a>, thousands of Brazilians suffering from health problems, mental illness, grief or addiction visit the Valley of the Dawn each month to <a href="https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/valley-of-the-dawn/">remove negative spiritual influences and channel healing forces</a>. Most patients have had unsuccessful experiences with both Western medicine and other religions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330795/original/file-20200427-145513-iib51e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A healing ritual at the Valley of the Dawn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Márcia Alves</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Meaningful work and education</h2>
<p>The Valley of the Dawn has grown steadily since the founder’s death in 1985, spreading from Brazil to Portugal, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004246034_014">United States</a> and England. </p>
<p>Outsiders often dismiss the Valley as a cult. A BBC journalist who visited the community in 2012 called it a “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9762166.stm">refuge for lost souls</a>.”</p>
<p>But <a href="https://iupui.academia.edu/kellyhayes">my research</a> offers an alternative explanation of why some people might find the Valley of the Dawn appealing: It offers a more progressive, egalitarian version of modernity. </p>
<p>Brazil, with its <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35810578">corruption scandals</a> and savage <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35810578">social inequalities</a>, has not always lived up to the motto “order and progress” as inscribed on its national flag. It is not alone. Across much of the West, the promise that modernity would bring <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/modernity-understanding-the-present/oclc/754168298">higher living standards, greater personal freedoms and a more just society</a> remains largely unfulfilled. </p>
<p>Instead, the 21st century has created <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/almost-half-of-americans-work-in-low-wage-jobs/ar-BBXF7sF">low-wage</a> jobs with little security and <a href="https://espas.secure.europarl.europa.eu/orbis/sites/default/files/generated/document/en/0115391e.pdf">government institutions</a> that too frequently benefit the richest and most powerful. Individualism has supplanted community, leaving people increasingly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/materialism-system-eats-us-from-inside-out">isolated and lonely</a> – and that was before coronavirus and social distancing. </p>
<p>The Valley of the Dawn, in contrast, offers a collective life that members find gratifying.</p>
<p>“By living out the doctrine, you see what you can improve in your life and how you can repair the errors of the past,” a member named Ilza told me. “You see the results of your dedication.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330815/original/file-20200427-145499-1u7t5va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prayer at Mother Temple.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Márcia Alves</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rejecting capitalist values, Valley of the Dawn members refuse to work for money. Healing “trabalhos” are offered freely as an expression of unconditional love. </p>
<p>In Brazil, where <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/503611468769540767/Higher-education-in-Brazil-challenges-and-options">poverty prevents many from completing their education</a>, the Valley of the Dawn has its own education system premised on merit, not privilege. </p>
<p>It offers free “courses” on personal development, moral conduct and mediumship taught by trained instructors. Educational advancement earns members a title, like “Master” or “Commander,” and the right to wear specific clothing, participate in new rituals and take on leadership duties. </p>
<h2>Restorative justice</h2>
<p>Justice in the Valley of the Dawn likewise offers a progressive alternative to contemporary <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-war-on-drugs-fuels-deadly-prison-riots-in-brazil-67337">criminal justice systems</a> that emphasize <a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-mass-incarceration-problem-in-5-charts-or-why-sessions-shouldnt-bring-back-mandatory-minimums-78019">punishment and incarceration</a>. In the Valley of the Dawn, justice means reconciliation for past harms – not retribution.</p>
<p>According to Valley of the Dawn doctrine, much human suffering and wrongdoing is the work of spirits called “cobradores,” or debt collectors. A cobrador is the spirit of a person – usually a family member or friend – who was harmed by a Jaguar in a past life. </p>
<p>When the spirit attaches itself to its living “debtor” – causing depression, for example, or aggression – the afflicted Jaguar spend a week gathering signatures from fellow Valley members who wish them positive energy to pay off their spiritual debt. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330812/original/file-20200427-145536-1ud1a4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A prisoner collecting signatures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Márcia Alves</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The week-long prison ritual – conducted in a colorful dress or, for men, black shirt with a leather sash – culminates in a courtroom “trial.” There the cobrador, channeled by a fellow Jaguar, explains the wrongdoing that caused the karmic debt. After the prisoner expresses regret, balance is restored.</p>
<p>“He forgives me, I forgive him, he leaves and I am released,” as a Jaguar named Master Itamir explained. </p>
<h2>Fantastical solutions to real problems</h2>
<p>I find no evidence, by the way, that this New Age group has an unsavory underbelly, or that its leaders are exploiting members. People are free to join or leave the Valley of the Dawn at any time. For Jaguars who cannot afford training, the community provides food and housing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328788/original/file-20200417-152602-7ik2bq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jaguars celebrate the Day of the Indoctrinator, May 1, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcia Alves</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My research indicates members find real meaning in the Valley of the Dawn’s egalitarian work, education and legal systems, all structured on the principles of equality and justice. </p>
<p>In that sense, despite their mystical nature, the social practices of the Valley of the Dawn aren’t alien at all: They are a reaction to the very real deficiencies of modern secular society – with some flamboyant costuming on the side. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly E Hayes received funding from the Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program in 2012. </span></em></p>Brazil’s Valley of the Dawn faith is often dismissed as a cult. But many of the group’s fantastical rituals are a recognizable reaction to this harsh world of inequality, loneliness and pandemics.Kelly E. Hayes, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1016562018-12-06T11:47:38Z2018-12-06T11:47:38ZWhy a 14th-century mystic appeals to today’s ‘spiritual but not religious’ Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249069/original/file-20181205-186061-10a77fv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sculpture of Meister Eckhart in Germany.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bad_W%C3%B6rishofen_Meister_Eckhart_(Skulptur)_2012.JPG">Lothar Spurzem </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religious tradition <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/">continues to rise annually</a>. Not all of them, however, are atheists or agnostics. Many of these people believe in a higher power, if not organized religion, and their numbers too are <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/">steadily increasing</a>.</p>
<p>The history of organized religion is full of schisms, heresies and other breakaways. What is different at this time is a seemingly indiscriminate mixing of diverse religious traditions to form a personalized spirituality, often referred to as <a href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/7514-cafeteria-religion">“cafeteria spirituality</a>.” This involves picking and choosing the religious ideas one likes best. </p>
<p>At the heart of this trend is the general conviction that all world religions share a fundamental, common basis, a belief known as “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zBzzv977CLgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=perennialism+history&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihotPF54bfAhWEdd8KHasdCBk4KBDoAQhKMAY#v=onepage&q&f=false">perennialism</a>.” And this is where the unlikely figure of Meister Eckhart, a 14th-century Dominican friar famous for his popular sermons on the direct experience of God, is finding popular appeal.</p>
<h2>Who was Meister Eckhart?</h2>
<p>I have <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534483/dangerous-mystic-by-joel-f-harrington/9781101981566/">studied Meister Eckhart</a> and his ideas of mysticism. The creative power that people address as “God,” he explained, is already present within each individual and is best understood as the very force that infuses all living things. </p>
<p>He believed this divinity to be genderless and completely “other” from humans, accessible not through images or words but through a direct encounter within each person. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249073/original/file-20181205-186058-z7yvsd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sculpture of Meister Eckhart in Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2012-07-12_(5082)_BW_Meister_Eckhart_(Skulptur).JPG">Lothar Spurzem</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The method of direct access to the divine, according to Eckhart, depended on an individual letting go of all desires and images of God and becoming aware of the “divine spark” present within.</p>
<p>Seven centuries ago, Eckhart embraced meditation and what is now called mindfulness. Although he never questioned any of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, Eckhart’s preaching eventually resulted in an official investigation and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LvQYpn5OlvkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=meister+eckhart&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAnJ_R6IbfAhUKnlkKHdwKCSU4ChDoAQhJMAY#v=onepage&q=meister%20eckhart&f=false">papal condemnation</a>. </p>
<p>Significantly, it was not Eckhart’s overall approach to experiencing God that his superiors criticized, but rather his decision to teach his wisdom. His inquisitors believed the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534483/dangerous-mystic-by-joel-f-harrington/9781101981566/">“unlearned and simple people”</a> were likely to misunderstand him. Eckhart, on the other hand, insisted that the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5-rrMAAACAAJ&dq=meister+eckhart&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAnJ_R6IbfAhUKnlkKHdwKCSU4ChDoAQhAMAQ">proper role of a preacher</a> was to preach. </p>
<p>He died before his trial was complete, but his writings were subsequently censured by a papal decree. </p>
<h2>The modern rediscovery of Eckhart</h2>
<p>Meister Eckhart thereafter remained relatively little known until his rediscovery by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=YyoJAQAAIAAJ&q=meister+eckhart+degenhardt+studium&dq=meister+eckhart+degenhardt+studium&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2vKDE6obfAhXGwVkKHVVADEQQ6AEIazAJ">German romantics in the 19th century</a>.</p>
<p>Since then, he has attracted many religious and non-religious admirers. Among the latter were the 20th-century philosophers <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=i3ZwPgAACAAJ&dq=meister+eckhart+heidegger&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKxaGu64bfAhVGuVkKHTJMDwIQ6AEIKjAA">Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre</a>, who were inspired by Eckhart’s beliefs about the self as the sole basis for action. More recently, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=V0sqAQAAMAAJ&q=meister+eckhart+dalai+lama&dq=meister+eckhart+dalai+lama&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz55vL7IbfAhXIY98KHTAdBOYQ6AEIMDAB">Pope John Paul II and the current Dalai Lama</a> have expressed admiration for Eckhart’s portrayal of the intimate relationship between God and the individual soul.</p>
<p>During the second half of the 20th century, the overlap of his teachings to many Asian practices played an important role in making him popular with <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534483/dangerous-mystic-by-joel-f-harrington/9781101981566/">Western spiritual seekers</a>. <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/01/07/merton-still-matters-how-trappist-monk-and-author-speaks-millennials">Thomas Merton</a>, a monk from the Trappist monastic order, for example, who began an exploration of Zen Buddhism later in his life, discovered much of the same wisdom in his own Catholic tradition embodied in Eckhart. He called Eckhart <a href="http://merton.org/ITMS/Annual/5/Paguio247-262.pdf">“my life raft</a>,” for opening up the wisdom about developing one’s inner life.</p>
<p><a href="https://cac.org/richard-rohr/richard-rohr-ofm/">Richard Rohr</a>, a friar from the Franciscan order and a contemporary spirituality writer, <a href="http://actapublications.com/what-the-mystics-know/">views Eckhart’s teachings</a> as part of a long and ancient Christian contemplative tradition. Many in the past, not just monks and nuns have sought the internal experience of the divine through contemplation. </p>
<p>Among them, as Rohr notes were the apostle Paul, the fifth-century theologian Augustine, and the 12th-century Benedictine abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen.</p>
<p>In the tradition of Eckhart, Rohr has popularized the teaching that Jesus’ death and resurrection represents an individual’s movement from a “false self” to a “true self.” In other words, after stripping away all of the constructed ego, Eckhart guides individuals in finding the divine spark, which is their <a href="http://actapublications.com/what-the-mystics-know/">true identity</a>. </p>
<h2>Eckhart and contemporary perennials</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249076/original/file-20181205-186073-1i688hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Novelist Aldous Huxley frequently cited Eckhart, in his book, ‘The Perennialist Philosophy.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/summer1978/20669844383">RV1864/Flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This subjective approach to experiencing the divine was also embraced by Aldous Huxley, best known for his 1932 dystopia, “Brave New World,” and for his later embrace of LSD as a path to self-awareness. Meister Eckhart is frequently cited in Huxley’s best-selling 1945 spiritual compendium, “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061724947/the-perennial-philosophy/">The Perennialist Philosophy</a>.” </p>
<p>More recently, the mega-best-selling New Age celebrity Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Tolle in 1948 in Germany and now based in Vancouver, has taken the perennial movement to a much larger audience. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Power_of_Now.html?id=sQYqRCIhFAMC">Tolle’s books</a>, drawing from an eclectic mix of Western and Eastern philosophical and religious traditions, have <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/20/eckhart-tolle-tops-winfrey-sales-list/">sold millions</a>. His teachings encapsulate the insights of his adopted namesake Meister Eckhart. </p>
<p>While many Christian evangelicals are wary of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=w2jOBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=meister+eckhart+catholic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjKkPXD7obfAhUMT98KHQBfCIYQ6AEITDAG#v=onepage&q=meister%20eckhart%20catholic&f=false">Eckhart Tolle’s non-religious and unchurched approach</a>, the teachings of the medieval mystic Eckhart have nonetheless <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/culture/eckhart-tolle-vs-god/">found support</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=n0xiQgAACAAJ&dq=drury+new+age&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzqZPVrYnfAhWt11kKHYAwBKYQ6AEIKjAA">among many</a> contemporary Catholics and Protestants, both in North America and Europe. </p>
<h2>Fully understanding a new spiritual icon</h2>
<p>The cautionary note, however, is in too simplistic an understanding of Eckhart’s message.</p>
<p>Eckhart, for instance, did not preach an individualistic, isolated kind of personal enlightenment, nor did he reject as much of his own faith tradition as many modern spiritual but not religious are wont to do. </p>
<p>The truly enlightened person, Eckhart argued, naturally lives an active life of neighborly love, not isolation – an important social dimension sometimes lost today.</p>
<p>Meister Eckhart has some important lessons for those of us trapped amid today’s materialism and selfishness, but understanding any spiritual guide – especially one as obscure as Eckhart – requires a deeper understanding of the context.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101656/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Harrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Meister Eckhart was a 14th-century Dominican friar, who gave sermons on the direct experience of God. His words are finding resonance among today’s spiritual seekers.Joel Harrington, Centennial Professor of History, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.