Article: Abracadabra! Postmodern Therapeutic Methods – Language as a Neo-Magical Tool

"There are only two things in the world – nothing and semantics." (Werner Erhard) This paper (some 6,000 words) argues that a new genre of therapy has appeared in the arena of contemporary spiritual alternative healing, which expresses an outlook never-before-seen in the history of medicine: postmodern therapy. Postmodern therapeutic methods (PTMs) express a popularization of postmodernist philosophy in regards to language and its role in the therapeutic process. These methods will be illustrated, and then analyzed in comparison to two other groups of methods: traditional magic, and modern medicine. In addition, we shall characterize PTMs as neo-magic, as they exercise the psychologization and rationalization of magic.

0 Comments

Lecture: The gates of creativity shall never be locked – A comparative study of the spiritual-musical adaptation of the liturgical poem ‘Im Nin’alu’ in contemporary pop-culture

This lecture is part of the research project on the current reincarnation of the liturgical poem 'Im Nin'alu' in contemporary western pop-culture. The lecture deals with issues and challenges of coping in the postmodern situation, and presents three models of contemporary spirituality through the study case that is discussed: a spirituality of return to tradition, a spirituality of yearning to the Other, and a remix-postmodern spirituality. I've co-published an English article on this subject in the journal Folklore. The lecture took place in the 2nd international conference of the center of Yemenite Judaism and its culture, conducted on September 2018, marking 400 years of Shalem Shabbazi's birthday, at Yad Ben Zvi in Jerusalem. A simultaneous translation (Hebrew-English) has been executed in the conference.

0 Comments