Label: zeitgeist

Spiritual Elitism (again)

Spiritual Elitism (again)

Today 17/2 is 100 years since the Institute of Racial Biology in Uppsala was founded, they say on TV.

What was the esoteric-neo-spiritual scene like at the time? 1922... Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Theosophists' mainstay calf, has his "enlightenment experience". (The Dane Martinus Thomsen had had his the year before.)

It will take until 1929 before Krishnamurti turns his back on Theosophy. Theosophy with its doctrine of "root races", the evolution of souls and cultures, ascent towards light and sovereignty, peaks in the years leading up to that, as I understand it. Attracts masses, thousands and thousands, of educated people. Seems to be well in time.

Hitler takes full control of the Nazi party in 1922, too, I google.

Don't know what I'm looking for really. Has the world changed more than parts of (new) spirituality have?

Kim Kardashian on reincarnation

Kim Kardashian on reincarnation

"Multiple people that had no idea that was my nanny or anything have come up to my baby to say that he's a family member reincarnated," Kardashian dished. “So my whole family, all the time, thinks it's my dad and is just so emotional and close to him.”

But it's not just comments from strangers that have the Kardashians hooked. The baby apparently shares traits similar to that of her late dad.

"He's left-handed, like my dad," she revealed.

https://www.eonline.com/news/1120194/why-kim-kardashian-knows-son-psalm-west-is-robert-kardashian-sr-reincarnated

Speaking of which, reincarnation today is a concept that is covered very many in the West.

Hammer (2004) writes that "[i]n just forty years, reincarnation has gone from being an idea spread among members of some theosophical and occultist circles to becoming one of the most widely held religious beliefs of our time".

https://www.stefanhellsten.com/intro

Ran from the truth driven by shame

Ran from the truth driven by shame

Article in Expressen (2017-06-16) about exhaustion syndrome. Karin's personal story, and reflections, which have certain points of contact with the theme of this website. The individualism, the optimism.
In the past, the condition was sometimes called “exhaustion depression”. But it becomes clear, in the meeting with the interviewee, that it is not primarily about depression at all (even though some symptoms may resemble those of actual depression, and that it would not be strange if you became depressed in the long run). It is possibly about a personal, psychological fragility or sensitivity, to some extent, which causes some to be affected but not others. But it is very much about society, the zeitgeist:

"There is a kind of norm that you should be so rational that you don't take your work home with you. But that is not reasonable. I have wrestled with it a lot. Today, each individual must be their own company manager, but that doesn't suit everyone and it's not real if you are, for example, employed by the municipality. It becomes a kind of Emperor's new clothes where all employees take responsibility as if it were their own company but in reality they have no power at all. We are sort of collectively deceived, says the sociologist, who thinks that society must start taking the burnout alarm seriously, for real."

Health is the new religion

Health is the new religion

Britta Pelters, lecturer at Halmstad University, together with a research colleague in Linköping, has started from an extensive list of functions and social processes that can characterize a religion. It turns out that health and exercise meet all the criteria. This applies to both moral values, as well as the conviction that what one believes in is the absolute truth.

http://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/halland/halsa-som-religion

When Friski & svetti's founder Johan Holmsäter talks about summer, he is proud as a rooster. With right…
But I - who really believe that there is joy in movement in everyone - feel uncomfortable with his exercise-religious and period-typical choice of words. Healthy atmosphere, motivating culture with personal responsibility, healthier lifestyle habits, healthy systems and health plans...

http://www.sydsvenskan.se/2016-07-26/motion-som-religion

New technology makes our conversations increasingly superficial (SvD)

New technology makes our conversations increasingly superficial (SvD)

In several of her books, psychology professor Sherry Turkle has described the dangers she sees with the new technology. Maria Carling presents her work and observations in an interesting article: "New technology makes our conversations more and more superficial" (SvD, 2015-12-29). Turkle's thoughts about how modern man is attracted to "the frictionless beautiful world" and "the well-ordered life" have unmistakable similarities to what, from a psychological point of view, can be cited as temptations and pitfalls of the new spirituality.

Signs of the times

Signs of the times

A reading of the TV schedule for a week in November-December 2014 shows that there are at least six different reality series with pretended experts on spirits and supernatural phenomena who are helpful to the public in solving various problems: Medium in the name of the law, Rescue mediums, The unknown, Ghost Hunters, and Onda andars hus (all on Kanal 7, which is part of TV4). To this must be added the autumn's major investment in the genre: "A night at the castle". The latter is an original series in eight episodes, where famous Swedes get to spend a night at Bogesund Castle outside Vaxholm in the company of "the Nordics' foremost and most respected medium Lena Ranehag". On TV4's website it goes on to read that "Lena will be the link between the stars and the spirit world, the stars will get a glimpse of their future, meet the past and experience the spirit world". This week, SVT 2 shows an episode of "From Sweden to Heaven", which is presented on the channel's website as a "[Swedish life view series", with the presenter Anna Lindman. This week's episode is described as follows:

Anna goes to Karlstad and meets Anna-Lena, who calls herself a medium and claims to be able to find lost things, talk to the dead and see who gets around the knot. Anna-Lena was born in Lapland and was told already when she was little that she had special gifts, but anyone can learn, she believes, and takes Anna outside to practice.

Hammer (2004) comments on an IKEA catalog where customers are asked to decorate in a certain way so that "the energy will flow freely". A color is favored for its healing qualities. The author writes that "what just ten years ago had been perceived as a fairly controversial and exotic interest is today almost a part of average Swedish culture". A reporter from Dagens Nyheter (Utterström, 2014, April 13) describes in the report "Spiritual buffet or cultural Prozac - the new times are here" how surprised he is to find representatives from the Church of the Cross at a Body and Soul fair in Solnahallen, surrounded of a variety of activities and services of a new age character. “Do you want to get well? We pray for back and joint problems, headaches, allergies, vision or hearing problems, pain or injuries in the body, etc.,'' the church's banner reads. The reporter thinks back to his upbringing in a free church home: "Those who meditated with crystals or engaged in reiki healing were lost souls. Even the psychologist Lars-Eric Uneståhl, who helped elite athletes with mental training, was considered suspicious and possibly in connection with evil powers". The Church of Sweden has also been influenced by these new currents. In the Engelbrekt church in Stockholm, services were arranged for a period with "Oneness blessing", also called "deeksha". The church's newspaper was present during the premiere and reported on an unusually large number of active visitors, as well as a relatively low average age:

Last Wednesday, approximately four hundred people made their way through rain and wind to the Engelbrekt church in Stockholm to attend Europe's first service with a Oneness blessing. It was undeniably an unusual evening, it is not normal for the church to be full on a weekday evening. It is also not normal that so many actively participate in the fair, nor that the average age of the visitors is between 35 and 40 years.

The Christian-oriented website BibelFokus comments on the arrangement: "The Church of Sweden offers the occult 'spirit baptism' in the Mass!"

Overview Text fragment

Signs of the times

Signs of the times

A reading of the TV schedule for a week in November-December 2014 shows that there are at least six different reality series with pretended experts on spirits and supernatural phenomena who are helpful to the public in solving various problems: Medium in the name of the law, Rescue mediums, The unknown, Ghost Hunters, and Onda andars hus (all on Kanal 7, which is part of TV4). To this must be added the autumn's major investment in the genre: "A night at the castle". The latter is an original series in eight episodes, where famous Swedes get to spend a night at Bogesund Castle outside Vaxholm in the company of "the Nordics' foremost and most respected medium Lena Ranehag". On TV4's website it goes on to read that "Lena will be the link between the stars and the spirit world, the stars will get a glimpse of their future, meet the past and experience the spirit world". This week, SVT 2 shows an episode of "From Sweden to Heaven", which is presented on the channel's website as a "[Swedish life view series", with the presenter Anna Lindman. This week's episode is described as follows:

Anna goes to Karlstad and meets Anna-Lena, who calls herself a medium and claims to be able to find lost things, talk to the dead and see who gets around the knot. Anna-Lena was born in Lapland and was told already when she was little that she had special gifts, but anyone can learn, she believes, and takes Anna outside to practice.

Hammer (2004) comments on an IKEA catalog where customers are asked to decorate in a certain way so that "the energy will flow freely". A color is favored for its healing qualities. The author writes that "what just ten years ago had been perceived as a fairly controversial and exotic interest is today almost a part of average Swedish culture". A reporter from Dagens Nyheter (Utterström, 2014, April 13) describes in the report "Spiritual buffet or cultural Prozac - the new times are here" how surprised he is to find representatives from the Church of the Cross at a Body and Soul fair in Solnahallen, surrounded of a variety of activities and services of a new age character. “Do you want to get well? We pray for back and joint problems, headaches, allergies, vision or hearing problems, pain or injuries in the body, etc.,'' the church's banner reads. The reporter thinks back to his upbringing in a free church home: "Those who meditated with crystals or engaged in reiki healing were lost souls. Even the psychologist Lars-Eric Uneståhl, who helped elite athletes with mental training, was considered suspicious and possibly in connection with evil powers". The Church of Sweden has also been influenced by these new currents. In the Engelbrekt church in Stockholm, services were arranged for a period with "Oneness blessing", also called "deeksha". The church's newspaper was present during the premiere and reported on an unusually large number of active visitors, as well as a relatively low average age:

Last Wednesday, approximately four hundred people made their way through rain and wind to the Engelbrekt church in Stockholm to attend Europe's first service with a Oneness blessing. It was undeniably an unusual evening, it is not normal for the church to be full on a weekday evening. It is also not normal that so many actively participate in the fair, nor that the average age of the visitors is between 35 and 40 years.

The Christian-oriented website BibelFokus comments on the arrangement: "The Church of Sweden offers the occult 'spirit baptism' in the Mass!"

Overview Text fragment