Visions of freedom, practices of the "flesh": a performative approach to the thelemic gnostic mass and its contemporary reconfigurations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2525-3123.gis.2022.185695Keywords:
Thelema, Magic, Esotericism, Body, Ritual performanceAbstract
Taking into consideration the emergency of new esoteric religiosities and ritual practices from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, that is, a set of magical-religious practices and discourses which represents Western´s rejected knowledge, New Age movement being its main representative, this article aims to analyze the thelemic gnostic mass and its contemporary reconfigurations as performances that allow those who practice them an active transformation of the self and of the world, establishing a being-in-the-world according to values like individual and sexual freedom. The gnostic mass is one of the main rituals of Thelema, magical-religious system founded and developed by Aleister Crowley since 1904 in England. In order to make this analysis the critical proposals by Ernesto de Martino regarding crisis of presence and religious reintegration; by Silvia Mancini on altered states of consciousness, and by Stanley Tambiah and Victor Turner on performative analysis of ritual will be utilized.
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