Religion, spirituality, and the social sciences: challenging marginalisation (2008) is edited by Basia Spalek and Alia Imtoual, the former from the field of criminology, criminal justice, and victims; the latter a writer on Muslims in Australia. Unfortunately neither writes a chapter of their own, although both write the conclusion. The contrubutors are a mix of very experienced and less experienced writers. Central to the many discussions is the hegemony of secularism in the social sciences, producing tensions when examining spiritual or religious topics. After decades of relative marginalisation in the social sciences (this is the meaning of marginalisation in the title), religion and spirituality have returned as a topic worthy of research and indeed as a factor which needs to be understood as the world tries to make sense of itself. 7/11 has brought Islamic values to the fore in a contested way; the death of Victoria Climbie as an example of belief in child demons could not be grasped by the Laming Commission, but many children are abused and killed because of beliefs in spirits, demons and ancestors. Religion is an aspect of identity for some, and attacks on religion can be part of their victimisation - 'spirit injury' is a term apparently used by critical Black feminists. One sub-theme is the championing of mixed-method research (that is introducing a qualitative aspect). There are examples of quantitative nonsenses, such as a statistical grouping which puts aboriginees, bahais and scientologists in the same box, to produce meaningless statistics. One appeal is to come to terms with shamanic altered mental states, another to included emotion in the research process, not only reporting the emotions of respondants, but also allowing emotion in the researcher, who is trying to get to grips with emotions labeled spiritual of religious.
This is one part of the issue. Another is that we need to understand the place of emotions in self understanding, and in particular distinguish between helpful and harmful emotions. People can be emotional to an obsessive level about nonsense, about demon possiession (remember The Crucible?), and about angels, crystals, heaven, hell. Giving them a voice does not mean we have to accept their dangerous misunderstandings.
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Saturday, 3 October 2009
The Bushmen of the Kalahari
I began to be interested in the Bushmen of the Kalahari in the 1970s when reading Laurens Van Der Post's stories A Far Off Place and A Story is Like the Wind, about a friendship between white and Bushmen children. We now know not to believe as fact everything that Van Der Post said (see the biography Storyteller by JDF Jones). The Bushmen (also called the San) have been called a relic of stone age humanity, with interest taken by archaeologists. This is a typical academic gravy train with little substance: they are contemporary people, not museum pieces. That they have suffered at the hands of both white and black is incontrovertible - if you are in doubt, Sandy Gall's The Bushmen of Southern Africa: Slaughter of the Innocent is essential reading. Their hunter-gatherer lifestyle has become virtually impossible today, and their knowledge and skills are in danger of dying out completely.
My current interest is in their spirituality, thanks to an invitation to contribute to the journal Alternation of the Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa. A link to this paper will be added here when available. This post is to set out the agenda.
Christian missionaries have painted a picture of animistic African tribes worshipping trees and stones and indulging in blood sacrifices. None of this is true of the Bushmen/San so their traditional spirituality is of interest. Fortunately there has been high quality ethnological and anthropological research from the 19th and 20th centuries, preserving information that no longer exists. I am not, as some do, placing these in an evolutionary sequence but allowing the Bushmen the dignity of others trying to see the world through their eyes. If we in the west were stripped of our scientific explanations for things and left to make sense of the land, sea and skies, we would be in a similar position. Their understanding of their environment and the living things within it are based on observation and long communal experience (tradition). For gathering, the women developed an encyclopedic 'ethnobotanical' knowledge of the nature and properties of plants (for food and healing), and their locations and seasons. For hunting, the men had wide understanding of animals and their habits, and some understanding of internal organs from cutting up the bodies. This is the beginnings of a scientific view of their world, as Louis Lieberberg notes in The Art of Tracking: The Origin of Science. The sky and stars were invaluable for time keeping and guidance, and they recognised that there were near and far astral bodies and pictured constellations in their own way.
Some things however lie beyond understanding by observation. The weather and especially the rains. Disease, sickness and death. Social discord and jealousy. For this, no natural explanations worked, so they assumed supernatural forces. especially gods in the east and west, with the spirits of the dead living with them and working for them. These gods were not worshipped, just recognized as existing and to some extent feared. One tried not to offend them, and to try to escape their influence. A young person might die because the spirits wanted a new child or wife. Given their lack of knowledge about germs and viruses, this has had explanatory power over the centuries - and they recognize that their attitudes and social customs are those handed down by the old ones.
The trance healing dance gives an illustration of several processes. It is the central social ritual, with some but restricted significance on theology. Those, usually men, who go into trance and heal, recognise that there is an inner power which can rise up, overcome them, and give them special powers. They recognize these powers in many things around them, and they avoid certain foods and certain times. When healing, the tranced man goes from person to person healing them - the benefits are psychological and psychosomatic. Their frequency was about twice a week. When crises are felt - a big family row, for example, this is their solution. In trance the men may see the messengers of the gods, or even the gods, as surrounding the camp, and their duty is to frighten and chase them away, because they bring sickness with them.
It will be interesting to wonder whether better health education will have an impact, and whether the natural/supernatural division will continue afterwards. But it has in the Christian and Muslim worlds, so it probably will. Except the San do not rejoice in the promise of an afterlife, it is, as they see it, just how things are. When they begin to see that there are natural explanations for many of life's mysteries, my guess is that trance dances will still be felt to be socially useful.
My current interest is in their spirituality, thanks to an invitation to contribute to the journal Alternation of the Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa. A link to this paper will be added here when available. This post is to set out the agenda.
Christian missionaries have painted a picture of animistic African tribes worshipping trees and stones and indulging in blood sacrifices. None of this is true of the Bushmen/San so their traditional spirituality is of interest. Fortunately there has been high quality ethnological and anthropological research from the 19th and 20th centuries, preserving information that no longer exists. I am not, as some do, placing these in an evolutionary sequence but allowing the Bushmen the dignity of others trying to see the world through their eyes. If we in the west were stripped of our scientific explanations for things and left to make sense of the land, sea and skies, we would be in a similar position. Their understanding of their environment and the living things within it are based on observation and long communal experience (tradition). For gathering, the women developed an encyclopedic 'ethnobotanical' knowledge of the nature and properties of plants (for food and healing), and their locations and seasons. For hunting, the men had wide understanding of animals and their habits, and some understanding of internal organs from cutting up the bodies. This is the beginnings of a scientific view of their world, as Louis Lieberberg notes in The Art of Tracking: The Origin of Science. The sky and stars were invaluable for time keeping and guidance, and they recognised that there were near and far astral bodies and pictured constellations in their own way.
Some things however lie beyond understanding by observation. The weather and especially the rains. Disease, sickness and death. Social discord and jealousy. For this, no natural explanations worked, so they assumed supernatural forces. especially gods in the east and west, with the spirits of the dead living with them and working for them. These gods were not worshipped, just recognized as existing and to some extent feared. One tried not to offend them, and to try to escape their influence. A young person might die because the spirits wanted a new child or wife. Given their lack of knowledge about germs and viruses, this has had explanatory power over the centuries - and they recognize that their attitudes and social customs are those handed down by the old ones.
The trance healing dance gives an illustration of several processes. It is the central social ritual, with some but restricted significance on theology. Those, usually men, who go into trance and heal, recognise that there is an inner power which can rise up, overcome them, and give them special powers. They recognize these powers in many things around them, and they avoid certain foods and certain times. When healing, the tranced man goes from person to person healing them - the benefits are psychological and psychosomatic. Their frequency was about twice a week. When crises are felt - a big family row, for example, this is their solution. In trance the men may see the messengers of the gods, or even the gods, as surrounding the camp, and their duty is to frighten and chase them away, because they bring sickness with them.
It will be interesting to wonder whether better health education will have an impact, and whether the natural/supernatural division will continue afterwards. But it has in the Christian and Muslim worlds, so it probably will. Except the San do not rejoice in the promise of an afterlife, it is, as they see it, just how things are. When they begin to see that there are natural explanations for many of life's mysteries, my guess is that trance dances will still be felt to be socially useful.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Spirituality Education.
Spirituality is a never-ending topic. It gets thoroughly confused with religiosity, which is not only quite different, but may well be its opposite.
I focus here on Cathy Ota's and Clive Erricker's Spiritual Education, a compilation of conference papers from 2002. The papers give me a few pegs to hang critique on, whether I like the paper or not. Some papers are wide of the mark. Christiana Welch purports to report on North American Indian (="First Nation") Spirituality but is in fact talking superficially about how the First Nations are represented in 'cowboys and indians' narratives.
David Tacey's Encountering Tradition in a Postmodern Context. Tacey admits to being religious in a generalised radical way but part of a revisionist project [176]. He balances faith with the secular, and espouses a need for prophetic revival, that is a new critique and renovation of tradition. My problem comes with 'Tradition'. Christianity fossilises a two millenia old spirituality, which was already at second hand when the New Testament was written. I have the highest regard for Jesus the 'prophet' (that is, social critic) but despair over the quagmire he has been buried in. Liberating Jesus is part of our task of liberating the dispossessed. The radical Jesus has been colonised and exploited from 30CE until today. And may I burn at the stake for showing dissent, following his example.
Judaism fossilises a spirituality which was five hundred years older. An exile to Babylon had led to a spike of nationalism from which the Hebrew Scriptures were created. All religions attempt to fossilise an historic form of spirituality, giving peacock status to this prophet or that. Our world is rather different. It cannot be critiqued by an Ezra or Nehemiah concerned with racial purity, or a Paul, who never met Jesus, obsessed with a risen spirit. This does not diminish their contribution, but it removes their authority. Authority and spirituality do not mix, for authority removes freedom of thought and belief. Tradition enshrines the authority of this person or that. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha made it clear that worship and blind obedience were counter to his holistic humanistic (if maybe metaphysical) philosophy, and adherents should not blindly obey.
He offers a case study of 'Elizabeth', a revisionist Catholic. She rejects secular spirituality as a cop-out without resolving her need to be spiritual and religious at the same time. She suffers from the need for external authority to ease the stresses of deciding for oneself. Tacey concludes by emphasising the micro, the personal spiritual experiences of wholeness, integrity and worth. He argues that this is a back-door into religion and will help us to rediscover tradition.
The are several problems, in addition to the fragmentation that he discusses. We may find these religious traditions wanting, with discriminations and assumptions that violate human worth and dignity. Assumptions of original sin rather than original innocence, for example. The great figures of religious traditions (Jesus, Muhammad, Nanak) were reformists with spiritual insights who declared the religions around them as unworthy. They may well continue to do so if they could investigate the religions that draw on their names. 'Rediscovery and renewal' should enable the world to escape labels, and isms, sects, cults and denominations and allow the concept of unity to mean something. It will be unity in diversity - and our individual takes on what the concept of God might mean, will be part of this diversity. But it does not have to make unity impossible.
Mike Pike asks, in 'Reading and Responding to Biblical Texts' why the Bible cannot be read as literature, for personal enlightenment and as personally relevant. The short answer is that most biblical texts were written not as literature but as preaching, so that the use of these texts for personal development is problematic. The texts demand a point of view; personal development demands openness. Interpreting biblical texts requires particular skills, such as Paul Ricoeur develops in his studies of hermeneutics (not mentioned by Pike), such as Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (1995). The use of real literary analysis on biblical texts was pioneered by Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative, and with Frank Kermode he edited The Literary Guide to the Bible, neither cited by Pike) but this did not aim at personal fulfilment and development, but was literary criticism. Of course we want children to develop their own life stances, whether they are reading the Bible, Michael Morpurgo or Philip Pullman. The problem with the Bible is its claim (and claims on its behalf) to truth and authority which demands that the point of view stated has to be accepted as the true point of view. This is not on. It is indoctrination and not education. Education is possible when such stories are actively subjected to the form of literary criticism appropriate to the age of the child. I am developing a range of discussions on this topic on http://4004bce.blogspot.com and will be happy for comments on points of detail.
Mark Halstead, writing on metaphors for spirituality, is spectacularly wide of the mark, writing that children need help in understanding that metaphors are not literal. Children are experts in pretend play and pretend story, which is all a metaphor is - to explain A I pretend it is B. Children are also deeply spiritual, responding to life, brimming with excitement, and becoming engrossed in creative activities. The trouble is that adults mess them up by asking wrong questions and, to be frank, lying to them. Remember Santa Claus? Schools despiritualise children - extending the thought that Ivan Illich so brilliantly began in 1970. They do it by having a point of view, a set of 'truths' to be imposed, and disallowing free thought in children. Children can pretend all day, and therefore make creative links and wise observations. It is adults who cannot hear what they have to say.
I focus here on Cathy Ota's and Clive Erricker's Spiritual Education, a compilation of conference papers from 2002. The papers give me a few pegs to hang critique on, whether I like the paper or not. Some papers are wide of the mark. Christiana Welch purports to report on North American Indian (="First Nation") Spirituality but is in fact talking superficially about how the First Nations are represented in 'cowboys and indians' narratives.
David Tacey's Encountering Tradition in a Postmodern Context. Tacey admits to being religious in a generalised radical way but part of a revisionist project [176]. He balances faith with the secular, and espouses a need for prophetic revival, that is a new critique and renovation of tradition. My problem comes with 'Tradition'. Christianity fossilises a two millenia old spirituality, which was already at second hand when the New Testament was written. I have the highest regard for Jesus the 'prophet' (that is, social critic) but despair over the quagmire he has been buried in. Liberating Jesus is part of our task of liberating the dispossessed. The radical Jesus has been colonised and exploited from 30CE until today. And may I burn at the stake for showing dissent, following his example.
Judaism fossilises a spirituality which was five hundred years older. An exile to Babylon had led to a spike of nationalism from which the Hebrew Scriptures were created. All religions attempt to fossilise an historic form of spirituality, giving peacock status to this prophet or that. Our world is rather different. It cannot be critiqued by an Ezra or Nehemiah concerned with racial purity, or a Paul, who never met Jesus, obsessed with a risen spirit. This does not diminish their contribution, but it removes their authority. Authority and spirituality do not mix, for authority removes freedom of thought and belief. Tradition enshrines the authority of this person or that. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha made it clear that worship and blind obedience were counter to his holistic humanistic (if maybe metaphysical) philosophy, and adherents should not blindly obey.
He offers a case study of 'Elizabeth', a revisionist Catholic. She rejects secular spirituality as a cop-out without resolving her need to be spiritual and religious at the same time. She suffers from the need for external authority to ease the stresses of deciding for oneself. Tacey concludes by emphasising the micro, the personal spiritual experiences of wholeness, integrity and worth. He argues that this is a back-door into religion and will help us to rediscover tradition.
The are several problems, in addition to the fragmentation that he discusses. We may find these religious traditions wanting, with discriminations and assumptions that violate human worth and dignity. Assumptions of original sin rather than original innocence, for example. The great figures of religious traditions (Jesus, Muhammad, Nanak) were reformists with spiritual insights who declared the religions around them as unworthy. They may well continue to do so if they could investigate the religions that draw on their names. 'Rediscovery and renewal' should enable the world to escape labels, and isms, sects, cults and denominations and allow the concept of unity to mean something. It will be unity in diversity - and our individual takes on what the concept of God might mean, will be part of this diversity. But it does not have to make unity impossible.
Mike Pike asks, in 'Reading and Responding to Biblical Texts' why the Bible cannot be read as literature, for personal enlightenment and as personally relevant. The short answer is that most biblical texts were written not as literature but as preaching, so that the use of these texts for personal development is problematic. The texts demand a point of view; personal development demands openness. Interpreting biblical texts requires particular skills, such as Paul Ricoeur develops in his studies of hermeneutics (not mentioned by Pike), such as Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (1995). The use of real literary analysis on biblical texts was pioneered by Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative, and with Frank Kermode he edited The Literary Guide to the Bible, neither cited by Pike) but this did not aim at personal fulfilment and development, but was literary criticism. Of course we want children to develop their own life stances, whether they are reading the Bible, Michael Morpurgo or Philip Pullman. The problem with the Bible is its claim (and claims on its behalf) to truth and authority which demands that the point of view stated has to be accepted as the true point of view. This is not on. It is indoctrination and not education. Education is possible when such stories are actively subjected to the form of literary criticism appropriate to the age of the child. I am developing a range of discussions on this topic on http://4004bce.blogspot.com and will be happy for comments on points of detail.
Mark Halstead, writing on metaphors for spirituality, is spectacularly wide of the mark, writing that children need help in understanding that metaphors are not literal. Children are experts in pretend play and pretend story, which is all a metaphor is - to explain A I pretend it is B. Children are also deeply spiritual, responding to life, brimming with excitement, and becoming engrossed in creative activities. The trouble is that adults mess them up by asking wrong questions and, to be frank, lying to them. Remember Santa Claus? Schools despiritualise children - extending the thought that Ivan Illich so brilliantly began in 1970. They do it by having a point of view, a set of 'truths' to be imposed, and disallowing free thought in children. Children can pretend all day, and therefore make creative links and wise observations. It is adults who cannot hear what they have to say.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Secular Spirituality?
Sage have published a long and detailed Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, and my review has just appeared. Word limits truncated the text; my full text is linked below. This reduction persuaded me to write a separate paper, also linked below.
The Handbook thoroughly confuses spiritual development with religious development. Only a few of the 60+ authors begin to tease out differences. Guidance on spiritual education by NCC and OFSTED make it clear that religious aspects are only part of the whole, but that spirituality is embedded also in creativity, emotions and relationships. The book I edited with Erica Brown (of Acorns Children's Hospices) in 1999 on spiritual, moral, social and cultural education across the curriculum located 'the spiritual', whether in maths, science, history or the arts, in deep 'who am I?' questions, as opposed to the 'how do I relate?' question behind moral education.
For all children, the issue of 'who am I, really, deep down' is of supreme importance. For children who cannot answer 'I am the child of loving and caring parents' the implications are far reaching. Where does their image of themselves come from? Some may find other significant adult role models, including teachers (of both children and adults) who are sensitive to the issues and open hearted. Those who joined teaching to help people and give them a chance in life. But their role model might be a gang leader, or an over-paid celebrity with a drink and drug problem. Their life horizons will be affected - for some, their life ambition is to make money, in whatever way necessary.
Spiritual education is not a textbook curriculum but a state of mind, in adults and passed on to children by infectious example. Children have strong innate curiosity about who they are and what they can become, and if they are negative, then the adults around them have knocked the positivity out of them. They are made disspirited, separated from a spiritual way of seeing in which their lives are, and will become, significant in positive ways which promote relationship and community.
I am not institutionally religious and have no great need for belief in the supernatural. I have no need for pat answers, since I love ambiguity and unanswered questions. Its a good job, since that is all we have in life. Yet I have certainties, about respect, equality of opportunity, social justice, the right to life, community, the support of the weak. This is what I mean by sacred. They are things I would die for.
When I talk with members of the various religions, these things are their sacreds too. So our conversations and relationships are easy and positive. There are shared understandings. There is much to share. I may be not 'in' but I am also not 'out'. I personally do not dignify my sacreds as divine revelations, but they are absolutes for me nonetheless. Arguing for my sacreds is why I write. The best of religious thinkers and writes also start inside the soul with the same issues and do not say, 'You must believe what I do. My way is the only path'. At this deeper level, religions can scarcely be divided. The Sikh scriptures have verses from Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs. They differ at a superficial level, tribal differences that can kill. At this level religion ceases to be spiritual.
So children being spiritual means that they think deeply about their place in the community and the world, and how they can promote peace through their actions and attitudes. They show respect for others, and learn to respect themselves. Regarding others as their equals, they support others unselfishly and feel enriched by their success. Peace is something to be fought for, non-violently, opposing both conflict and the root causes of conflict since these threaten safety, security and life itself.
Links:
Review of Sage Handbook
Secular Spiritual Education? , Educational Futures, vol.1, no. 1, pp.49-69.
The Handbook thoroughly confuses spiritual development with religious development. Only a few of the 60+ authors begin to tease out differences. Guidance on spiritual education by NCC and OFSTED make it clear that religious aspects are only part of the whole, but that spirituality is embedded also in creativity, emotions and relationships. The book I edited with Erica Brown (of Acorns Children's Hospices) in 1999 on spiritual, moral, social and cultural education across the curriculum located 'the spiritual', whether in maths, science, history or the arts, in deep 'who am I?' questions, as opposed to the 'how do I relate?' question behind moral education.
For all children, the issue of 'who am I, really, deep down' is of supreme importance. For children who cannot answer 'I am the child of loving and caring parents' the implications are far reaching. Where does their image of themselves come from? Some may find other significant adult role models, including teachers (of both children and adults) who are sensitive to the issues and open hearted. Those who joined teaching to help people and give them a chance in life. But their role model might be a gang leader, or an over-paid celebrity with a drink and drug problem. Their life horizons will be affected - for some, their life ambition is to make money, in whatever way necessary.
Spiritual education is not a textbook curriculum but a state of mind, in adults and passed on to children by infectious example. Children have strong innate curiosity about who they are and what they can become, and if they are negative, then the adults around them have knocked the positivity out of them. They are made disspirited, separated from a spiritual way of seeing in which their lives are, and will become, significant in positive ways which promote relationship and community.
I am not institutionally religious and have no great need for belief in the supernatural. I have no need for pat answers, since I love ambiguity and unanswered questions. Its a good job, since that is all we have in life. Yet I have certainties, about respect, equality of opportunity, social justice, the right to life, community, the support of the weak. This is what I mean by sacred. They are things I would die for.
When I talk with members of the various religions, these things are their sacreds too. So our conversations and relationships are easy and positive. There are shared understandings. There is much to share. I may be not 'in' but I am also not 'out'. I personally do not dignify my sacreds as divine revelations, but they are absolutes for me nonetheless. Arguing for my sacreds is why I write. The best of religious thinkers and writes also start inside the soul with the same issues and do not say, 'You must believe what I do. My way is the only path'. At this deeper level, religions can scarcely be divided. The Sikh scriptures have verses from Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs. They differ at a superficial level, tribal differences that can kill. At this level religion ceases to be spiritual.
So children being spiritual means that they think deeply about their place in the community and the world, and how they can promote peace through their actions and attitudes. They show respect for others, and learn to respect themselves. Regarding others as their equals, they support others unselfishly and feel enriched by their success. Peace is something to be fought for, non-violently, opposing both conflict and the root causes of conflict since these threaten safety, security and life itself.
Links:
Review of Sage Handbook
Secular Spiritual Education? , Educational Futures, vol.1, no. 1, pp.49-69.
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