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CESNUR 2004 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE |
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Undoubtedly we are living in the times of changes - the contemporary world is full of contradictions in the different aspects of its social reality. The sphere of religion might be called one of the most varied in forms. The prognosis about the retreat of religion to the periphery of the social reality show few signs of being fulfilled. Even more - religion reemerged maybe with not in very new, but indeed innovative forms.
Alongside or overlaying official religion there has always been another pattern of religious belief - nonofficial religion. Sociologists of religion define nonofficial religion as a set of religious and quasireligious beliefs and practices that is not accepted, recognized, or controlled by the official religion. (McGuire, 1992:104) Sometimes it might be referred to by using terms like “folk”, “popular” or “common” religion, rather because it is a religion of simple people without interference of clergy or other religiously educated persons and their knowledge. According to Luckmann, only in societies where religion is separated as an institution from other institutional spheres does an official model of religion emerge, leaving elements of belief and custom not accepted as “official” to be carried on outside the religious institution. (Luckmann, 1967:66, 67) The elements of nonofficial religion may be popular and accepted by society and considered normal by the members of official religion, even though sometimes they contradict the doctrine of official religion.
Religious situation of Lithuania in the context of Western world is not distinguished. Historically, it is a Christian country, with almost 6 hundred years of Christianity. According, to the 2001 Census, 79 percent of Lithuanians say they are Roman Catholics.[1] Other 6 percent of the population declares their belonging to other Christian denominations. However, the European Value research conducted in 1999 revealed that 76 percent of population believed in life after death, 43 percent believed in reincarnation, 79 percent believed in telepathy, 33 percent were reading horoscopes every week. Some sociologists think that such answers of respondents might be supporting the theory of secularization processes occurring in Lithuania’s society. (éiliuiliukaitė, 2000:222) It could be proposed that these beliefs of respondents illustrate the nonofficial religion existing in Lithuanian society.
Researchers of religion distinguish different forms of nonofficial religion - variety of superstitious and magical beliefs and practices, beliefs in paranormal occurrences, (i.e. events outside the usual range of experiences). “Occult” practices should also be attributed to the sphere of nonofficial religion. (McGuire, 1992:108) Various secret organizations like freemasons, Rosicrucian’s order and kabbalistic groups are to be considered the part of nonofficial religion, too. In these groups mystery and awe surround the esoteric knowledge protected by the secret society and its protection promotes solidarity of the group. (Simmel, 1906; Tiryakian, 1974:266, 267) The other element of esoteric culture that might be found in nonofficial religion is astrology.
In the early eighties most of the elements of nonofficial religion received a new boost in Western society facing the coming new millennium. With the reference to the message of coming of new era the new movement was called “New Age”. Its syncretism has questioned former typologies of new religiosity. There are still debates about its definitions, because it hardly corresponds to what we are used to call a new religious movement, the term of sect or cult doesn’t fit in this case either. Some scientists suggest calling it an audience cult. (Stark&Bainbridge, 1985) While other scientists offer the term of milieu trying to avoid confusion the word movement could cause. (Hanegraaff, 1996:377) This last term might be supported because it really depicts the variety within New Age, ranging from religious to commercial.
On the one hand the New Age has absorbed esoteric and occult beliefs and practices from the above mentioned forms of nonofficial religion, but at the same time it has absorbed different elements of Eastern religions that were brought to the Western world with the help of globalization. All these trends might be seen in various beliefs and practices that found places for themselves in the milieu that scientist call New Age with one major idea - waiting for the coming of a new age and changes that will occur with this event. With these anticipated changes of the world the attention is directed to the human self- realization and self development, also stressing healing, which in this case differs from curing. For this reason different alternative healing methods are invoked, also techniques from eastern religions for self relaxation and better self understanding like meditation, yoga etc.
In the Lithuanian context of New Age one organization undoubtedly stands as the main bearer of its ideas. (Navickas, 2003) It is called the Academy of Parapsychology, which operates as a public organization. Since it was founded in 1992 it has extended its activities from school to academy with already more that 400 hundred graduates. Its founder is a former professor of philosophy Vytautas Kazlauskas, a charismatic leader with gift of orator. The academy publishes its monthly magazine and attracts the attention of society with huge fairs-conferences organized every year. The existence and activities of this academy seems to be considered more and more “normal” in Lithuanian society and therefore more research is needed to understand it.
The aim of this research was to give answers to the questions raised: what people are attracted into this academy, what is their religious belonging, is there anything special in the teachings of academy for Lithuanian context. The research was conducted in two stages. At first the method from the group of qualitative methods - an interview - was used. The founder of this academy professor Vytautas Kazlauskas has agreed to participate in this research and gave interview. The application of interview method in this research is conditioned by common tendencies in contemporary sociology, where the importance of subjective interpretations of participants of the social processes is emphasized. The analysis of such interpretations is regarded as an important method of scientific analysis. (Семенова, 1998) The interview with the founder of the Academy might be called a case study and more specifically as an instrumental case study, when a specific case is studied in order to understand its supportive role, facilitating our understanding of something else, in this case - the Academy of Parapsychology. (Stake, 1994) The interview method also gives an opportunity for researcher to understand what is important for respondent, to identify the main fragments of his life and activities.
In the second stage of the research the questionnaires were distributed among the students of Academy of Parapsychology. The questions were created by the author of this research and it was a pilot version of research that is planned to be conducted later. There were eighteen questions in this questionnaire that was subdivided into three parts. In the first part of the questionnaire there were questions about personal information, age, gender, social position, education, religious tradition, current religious belonging, and religiosity. The other part of questionnaire was dedicated to faith related questions. Questions about the main elements of Christianity were asked, as well as about life after death and reincarnation. The last part was dedicated to information about respondent’s status in the academy, when was the first time he or she came, what were motives for this choice etc.
The interview was conducted at home of professor Vytautas Kazlauskas where the library of academy is also located. Mr.Kazlauskas is a rector of the academy and a leader of the White Magicians fellowship, he is also giving lectures on parapsychology, bioenergetics, consults waiters, heals patients. This interview was very unusual because from the first moment the respondent was talking without any attempts to answer the questions of the researcher. In the methodology of social sciences such respondents are usually described as gate keepers , i.e. watchdogs that are trying to protect their institutions, such cases might be related to the willingness of members to accept research.(Punch, 1994) The similar situation was when the researcher tried to distribute questionnaires to the members of academy, finally it was done by Mr.Kazlauskas.
The interview conducted with rector of the academy might be structured into a few parts, although all these parts are overlaping. There are parts about worldview of respondents, his thoughts about world, life and human being; in this part his ideas about bioenergetics, opinions on kabbala teaching, mysticism and Satja Sai Baba might be also found. In the other part of the interview the main fragments of respondent’s life, his childhood, early days, education, the period of communism and another period of parapsychology might be found. Though the main attention was paid to the respondent’s worldview, the important stages of his life might be seen and described, too. He had a poor childhood, and according to his words one of his favorite hobbies was reading books. Through the entire interview respondent emphasized the books he has written. Often these books are related to parapsychology, from fiction to practical remarks from the work as parapsychologist. The question about his past the respondent answered very briefly - he was preparing to be a “red”, i.e. the teacher of communist ideology, when in 1961 he decided to become a lecturer of philosophy. When he chose philosophy he wrote a dissertation and became a lecturer at the academies of art and music in Vilnius. He was also interested in the international relations and later founded a club, called “The Globe” where he moderated discussions. During the Soviet period he had many opportunities to travel in the former Soviet Republics where he lectured on international relations and philosophy. Through the period of Perestroika he was taking part in the political events of regaining Lithuania’s independence, had many acquaintances among the well-known persons from that period, politicians, culture persons and clergy. But later he withdrew from the political and public life and founded the Academy of Parapsychology. In this activity he is till now. Although he mentioned that he accepted an offer to take part in the founding of Humanism political party and he thinks he is still named as a leader of this currently not existing party.
The other part of interview is about the worldview of the founder of the Academy of Parapsychology and for analysis of it the other two descriptions of the main ideas of New Age were invoked. First description is taken from the document of Pontifical Council for Culture and Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, issued in 2003 „Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life. A Christian Reflection on the “New Age”. Although usually in this document statements about doctrine of New Age were analyzed in contrast to Christianity, but the analysis of this doctrine is really useful in this case, having in mind Christian milieu of Lithuania. The second analysis that was invoked analyzing this case was done by Dutch scientist Rendeer Kranenborg, where the main features of New Age were analyzed comparing them with doctrine of Neopaganism, this was also useful for Lithuanian context, having in mind the tendencies in society, trying to resurrect ideas of paganism. However in the following analysis only the elements of New Age doctrine found in the interview with Mr.Kazlauskas will be invoked. (See Table No.1)
There are eight main features of the New Age doctrine that would be discussed in this analysis. At first, the concept of God is analyzed. In Vatican official’s and Kranenborg’s descriptions of New Age God is seen as something impersonal, it has some spheres of hierarchical order but real divinity exist in every human being and they have to search for it. Mr. Kazlauskas during interview told that there are many gods and there is possibility that there will be more, as an example he mentioned Kalki Yoga who had announced himself god. But according to respondent he would never announce himself god because he wanted to stay respectful in the eyes of Catholic Church.
Jesus Christ. According to both sources the figure of Jesus Christ is very important in New Age doctrine, but he is not the only Christ and one of the many other oracles and enlightened persons. According to Mr.Kazlauskas he has written a book about Jesus Christ where he proves his divinity, but the most interesting thing to him is how Christ cured people. Together with Christ he mentioned his mother Mary, saying that Christ had shown her seven stages of heaven. The respondent is keen on the wisdom of Christ, his idea about loving of people and God Father.
Human being. In the New Age doctrine the human beings are gods that bear in themselves the divine spark. Their life has to be dedicated for self-development, trying to achieve self-realization, in order to become one with the divine spark. As it might be seen the respondent is expressing similar ideas in other words, he reflects the human possibilities to find spirit that would empower him to do something in this life. He has to invoke creative love and try to open his inner eyes. And finally he talked about divinity that might be obtained by human beings.
Sin. The concept of sin might not be found in Neopaganism, it arrives from Christianity, that’s why more attention was paid to it by Vatican document about New Age. The document states that sin doesn’t exit in New Age. Only an imperfect knowledge exist that is alienation from cosmos. The founder of academy reflected that sin is a myth, because every nation has different conceptions of sin, for instance he said about polygamy in Islam what is honorable for Muslim and in Lithuanian context that would be a huge sin, both churchly and civil.
Suffering and death. The Vatican document states that the reason of suffering according to New Age is a bad karma or incapacity to use human’s resources. The important element of spiritual development is reincarnation, a stage of spiritual evolution that begins before birth and continues after death. The respondent talked about karma law and said that he had no doubts about it. He did not mention the concept of reincarnation, but said that in his previous life he was a peasant. Such words presuppose his belief in reincarnation.
Future. The concept of future is very important in New Age, as it was mentioned above the idea of a new age which is coming in the near future is the main idea of this movement. The founder of the Academy of Parapsychology was talking about new age that it is coming and that people need more optimism, hope and faith and to regain spirit’s health before this event.
Nature. One of the main ideas of New Age is to live in harmony with nature. The movements of ecology, admiring nature and earth are derived from New Age, too. With this admiration of nature come New Age ideas of alternative medicine, different therapies, like aroma, sound etc. Respondent gave a long talk about trees, their energy and biorhythms that influence humans’, it might be guessed that nature is very important for him, he feels cohesion with it. And these propositions suppose the idea that a human being is a part of nature and he has to live in harmony with it.
Channeling. The other important idea of New Age is human possibility to become a medium, which might lose control of his mind and body through channeling. The information that is received through channeling is reputed of supernatural reality. During interview respondent talked about huge energy that inspires ecstasy through which the persons might receive information and write it down. He said that all his books were written during such moments. They were dictated to him and he wrote them unconsciously.
Of course many others features of New Age might be discussed, for instance, attitudes towards astrology, genders, teachings of kabbala and Satja Sai Baba that were mentioned in the interview, too. All these statements support the assertion mentioned above that the founder of the Academy of Parapsychology has a worldview very similar to New Age doctrine. The only thing that is different is a concept of Mary that appears in the narrative of Mr.Kazlauskas. It has to be asserted that Virgin Mary is a very popular figure for religious people of Lithuania and subsequent data of this research will show a similar thing.
The last part of interview was dedicated to the Academy of Parapsychology and its rector told that he founded it through his spirituality and faith, to help people to be healed and to find their spirit. According to his words, there are about twenty lectures in the academy; the age of its visitors has a changed over the time - before more senior people were coming, now - younger and middle age. Most of them have secondary education, big part - university education. Education in academy is fee-paying. There is a broad range of disciplines in the academy - yoga, folk medicine, food theory, parapsychology, bioenergetics, kabbala, numbers, astrology, mineralogy, Eastern medicine, the life of ancient China and Korea, acupressure, Reiki. The rector of academy emphasized that lectures in the academy were given by well known persons from Roman Catholic Church, too.
As it was mentioned above the second stage of research was conducted to have more concrete picture of people, studying in the Academy of Parapsychology. The questionnaires were distributed among the people who came to academy, in order to listen to the lecture of its rector, where they received questionnaires. There were 69 completed questionnaires. The respondents were mostly from second and third age groups, i.e. 31-60 years old (Table.No.1)[2], mostly female - 88 percent (Table No. 2). The special education is dominant among respondents (Table No.3). Special education was very popular during Soviet era, different crafts were taught in such special schools; in order to go to such school, a person had to finish nine grades and then he received secondary education in special school and a craft too. The schooling usually lasted for a few years. The social position of respondents might be seen in the Table No. 4, more than a half of the respondents currently work. Table No. 5 depicts the religious tradition of respondents, 84 percent - Roman Catholics and 78 percent of respondent say they belong to Roman Catholic Church (Table No. 6). The question”are you religious?” was answered positively by 55 percents of respondents (Table No. 7). The question about attendance of religious community the majority, 56 percents of respondents, answered “a few times in a year, during religious feasts and the family occasions“. The questions about belief elements (Table No.9) were mostly answered positively - almost 90 percent believe in Heavenly Father, almost 87 percent believe in Jesus Christ and 72 percent believe in His resurrection, almost 63 percent believe in Mary’s virgin birth, 91 percent believe in life after death and at the same time almost 87 percent believe in reincarnation. The majority of respondents 85 percents are students (Table No.13), 81 percent of the respondents were studying in this institution for a few years already (Table No. 12) The question about the way in which the respondents learned about this academy, had two answers; almost half of them learned about it through a parapsychology magazine “émogus” (Human being) and the other 33 percent - learned about it from their friends and acquaintances (Table No. 10). The question about motives of coming to the Academy of Parapsychology the majority, 72 percent of respondents answered that they wanted to learn about all the things mentioned in the possible answers before. Para-psychological powers of human beings, black and white magic, soul journeys, God, Jesus Christ, spirits, alternative healing practices and predictions of the future (Table No. 11). Having such answers a picture of the average student of the academy of Parapsychology might be constructed. It is a middle age woman, with special education, working, religious, Roman Catholic, who attends church few times in a year, and believes in Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and His resurrection, life after Death and reincarnation. She wants to learn more about parapsychological powers of human beings, black and white magic, and journeys of souls, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, spirits, alternative healing methods and predictions of the future, she found out about the Academy of Parapsychology after buying and reading the magazine of parapsychology, and she is a student in it for almost few years.
* * *
The social reality of the Soviet period in Lithuania was constructed without a place in it for religion. With the moment of regaining country’s independence, the place of religion had to be somehow filled in. The official religion and its main institution, Roman Catholic Church, took up a strong position as a moral authority in the society. But the first tendencies of society’s religiosity that were revealed by research, conducted in 1997 by Lithuanian sociologists and in 1990 and 1999 by the European Value research, revealed that the official religion had little control over people‘s beliefs. The research revealed that the number of people declaring their belonging to religious denomination has grown up 19 percent, from 62 in 1990 to 81 in 1999. The main indicators of church attendance has changed a little bit, more people were going to church during religious feasts, but the number of people going to the church every week did not change. (éiliukaitė, 2000) The above mentioned research, conducted in 1999 also involved questions about Christian doctrine, like “do you believe in the existence of God”, which was positively answered 51 percent of respondents. The question “do you believe in life after death” in this research was answered positively by 76 percent of respondents. At the same time the question about belief in reincarnation was answered positively by 43 percent. The research confirmed what Luckmann stressed: while traditional beliefs of official religions may be among the components selected, other elements are drawn from popular culture - newspaper advice columns, popular inspirational literature, lyrics of popular music, “women’s magazine” versions of popular psychology, horoscopes, night-school courses on meditation techniques and so on.(Luckmann, 1967:103-106) And such cases might be interpreted as the existence of the nonofficial religion in Lithuanian society, and it shows that our country is not that different from the rest of the world. The nonofficial religion is more widespread than generally recognized and it overlaps official religion in both content and adherents. (McGuire, 1992:129)
The academy of parapsychology might be called an institution of nonofficial religion but of course more research has to be done in this case. Meanwhile analyzing the data from the research conducted in this institution might be said that the main ideas it bears are similar to those of the New Age movement. And the data about the students of this academy shows their religiosity which overlaps with the official religion, i.e. Roman Catholicism, and at the same time has syncretical elements from other religions.
From the results of this survey research only preliminary conclusions might be drawn and of course many new questions might be raised that might be answered by continuing this research.
REFERENCES
1. McGuire, Meredith B. 1992. Religion: the Social Context. 3rd ed. Belmont: Wadsworth Publ.Co.
2. Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: Macmillan.
3. iliuiliukaitė, Rūta. 2000. Religinių vertybių kaita Lietuvoje 1990-1999 metais. In: Kultūrologija. Nr. 6. Vilnius: Gervelė.
4. Simmel, Georg. 1906. The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies. In: American Journal of Sociology 11:441-498.
5. Tyrakian, Edward A. 1974. On the Margins of the Visible. Toward the Sociology of Esoteric Culture. New York: Wiley.
6. Stark, Rodney and Bainbridge, William Sims. 1985. The Future of Religion. Secularisation, Revival and Cult Formation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
7. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. 1996. New Age Religion and Western Culture. Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden-New York:Brill.
8. Navickas, Andrius. 2003. „Naujasis Am ius“ius“ ir öiuolaikinė sekuliari visuomenė. In: http://www.religija.lt/content/view/56/45/
9. Семенова, В., В., 1998. Качественные методы: введение в гуманистическуюсоциологию
10. Stake, Robert E. 1994. Case Studies. In: Handbook of Qualitative Research. Ed. Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln. . London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. P. 236-247.
11. Punch, Maurice. 1994. Politics and Ethics in Qualitative Research. In: Handbook of Qualitative Research. Ed. Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln. . London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. P. 83-97.
12. Pontifical Council for Culture, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. 2003. Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life. A Christian Reflection on the “New Age”. In: www.lcn.lt
13. Kranenborg, Reender. 2001. New Age and Neopaganism: Two Different Traditions? A paper presented at the 2001 CESNUR conference in London. In: www.cesnur.org.
14. Juknevičius, Stanislovas. 1998. Secularisation and Rennaisance of Religiosity in the Contemporary Lithuanian Society. In: Spectrum. Studies in the History of Culture. Vilnius: Gervelė.
APPENDIX
TABLE NO. 1.
TABLE NO. 2
TABLE NO. 3
TABLE NO. 4
TABLE NO. 5
TABLE NO. 6
TABLE NO. 7
TABLE NO. 8
TABLE NO. 9
|
No. |
Question |
Yes |
Rather yes than no |
No |
Rather no than yes |
Don’t know |
|
1. |
Do you believe in Heavenly Father, the Creator of heaven and earth? |
89.95 |
2.89 |
2.89 |
1.44 |
2.89 |
|
2. |
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son of God? |
86.95 |
2.89 |
2.89 |
1.44 |
5.79 |
|
3. |
Do you believe in Jesus Christ resurrection three days after his death? |
72.46 |
14.49 |
2.89 |
0 |
10.14 |
|
4. |
Do you believe in Mary’s virgin birth? |
63.76 |
14.49 |
4.34 |
4.34 |
13.04 |
|
5. |
Do you believe in life after death? |
91.30 |
4.34 |
1.44 |
1.44 |
1.44 |
|
6. |
Do you believe in theory of reincarnation, stating that human’s soul reincarnates after death? |
86.95 |
5.79 |
2.89 |
1.44 |
2.89 |
TABLE NO. 10
TABLE NO. 11
Why did you come to the Academy of Parapsychology?
|
No. |
Answer |
Percents |
|
1. |
Wanted to learn more about parapsychological powers of human beings, black and white magics, journeys of souls, karma etc. |
13.04 |
|
2. |
Wanted to learn more about God, Jesus Christ, angels, etc. |
4.34 |
|
3. |
Wanted to learn more about alternative healing practices, Reiki, different therapies, etc. |
2.89 |
|
4. |
Wanted to learn more about future predictions: astrology, fortune-telling, etc. |
1.44 |
|
5. |
All together |
72.46 |
|
6. |
Other |
5.79 |
TABLE NO. 12
TABLE NO. 13
