Session: Deities in Neo-Paganism, Occultism and the New Age
This fascinating session, organized and chaired by Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro, dealt with deities in Neo-Paganism, Occultism and the New Age.
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May 17, 2023
Magic and paganism / Mind and psychology / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study
Lecture: Bio-Medicine and Alternative Medicine – From a Modernistic Paradigm to a Postmodernistic Paradigm
This study compares the conventional bio-medicine's worldview with the one of complementary/alternative medicine, indicating the parallel lines between those worldviews to modernism and postmodernism (respectively). The studt identifies a new and innovative group of therapy, with a logic yet to exist - neiter in the modern nor the traditional world (thus we also present a comparative reference to traditional, pre-modern, therapy). The comparison's focus is the issue of language's role in the therapeutic process. The novel worldview isn't caracteristic to every new or alternative therapy, thus I named this innovative group of therapy methods "the new alternative medicine".
January 19, 2022
Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Education and higher education / History / Methodology and models / Myth / Science/medicine and technology
Article: Historians as Storytellers – A Critical Examination of New-Age Religion’s Scholarly Historiography
It seems the past is not fixed, but rather ever-changing. This study isn't about the history of New Age religion, but rather a critical analysis of the history sceince as it manifests in the scholarly discourse on the history of New Age.
January 17, 2022
Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Mind and psychology / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study
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.
January 17, 2022