The study of Ancient Egyptian ritual practices in comparative perspective is a twofold endeavor. At one hand, a sequence of ritual actions and events is lost forever and principles of its reconstruction require careful methodological reflection. the main point is that available written and visual records were complementary to the ritual action as such and not aimed at its plain transcription. the other side of the problem is the need of description of Egyptian ritual in terms of modern ritual studies to make it a part of a broader discussion. However, applicability to Egyptian material of models derived mostly from modern ethnographic studies should be thoroughly considered. In particular, as a part of interpretational strategies embedded in modern textual culture, they can produce narrative explanations alien to ancient practices.
This article considers discussion of these topics and proposed approaches to the problem in modern Egyptology. At first, the basic structure of Egyptian funerary ritual and some aspects of temple ritual are presented, together with discussion on problems of its reconstruction. Secondly, usefulness for the interpretation of Egyptian data of rites de passage and ritual syntax models is considered.
While in studies such as that of H. Hays one model is preferred at the expense of another, this article is aimed at differentiating spheres of application of different models and their complementarity in producing of a deeper and ‘thicker’ description of Egyptian ritual. As a result, the author proposes a combination of semiotic perspective on Egyptian ritual developed by J. Assmann with dynamic interpretation of ritual practice in the frame of rites de passage model.
This article analyzes the ritual component of marriage in the context of war. It deals with the Dead Sea Scrolls’ and rabbinic’s reading of two Biblical narratives: beautiful captive (Deut. 21:10-14) and a wife, who came back from captivity (Gen. 12, 20; 1 Sam. 30:5, 18; 2 Sam. 2:2, 3:1-5). These texts show how, with the help of different hermeneutic techniques, commentators adopt the biblical texts to the changing historical contexts.
The article is devoted to the analysis of the main French sources which describe the murder of Henry of Guise and Louis of Lorraine, Cardinal of Guise, in the Royal Château de Blois in December, 1588. The murder of the leaders of the Catholic party was initiated by the King of France and has got a response in a large number of texts. the authors of the texts give a reliable picture of the event in Royal Château de Blois. However the representation of the same events varies. thus, the members of the Catholic League emphasize the religious aspect of the image of Guise brothers (Guise brothers are represented as “martyrs for belief” by means of a comparison with the biblical characters with the use of the pattern of imitatio Christi). The details that do not fit this image are simply dropped. the “royalist” literature creates a “secular” image of Guise brothers, which can be explained by personal positions of the authors but also through wider political context.
The study aims to reconstruct the ideology and describe the practices of the spiritualist circle guided by P.A. Chistiakov and A.I. Bobrova. Research objectives are: 1) to mark key events in the history of the circle and 2) to define the peculiarities of circle’s ideology and practices. the novelty of research consists in that the authors collected and summarized for the first time the data related to this circle. Research materials include various documents: personal correspondence, manuscripts on spiritualism, circle’s protocols and publications in spiritualist journal “Rebus”. The study makes a contribution to research of the history of spiritualist movement in Russia.
The article observes the influence of transcendental philosophy of I. Kant, I. Fichte, F. Schelling and G. Hegel on F. Schleiermacher's doctrine of religion.
The authors rethink Schleiеrmacher's receptions of the philosophy of religion of B. Spinoza. The authors used Schleiermacher's text to test the hypothesis of V. Dilthey, that one of Schleiermacher’s text that one of the most important reforms in the history of Western theology (the emergence of liberal theology of Protestantism) and its accompanying product (the philosophical and theological trend in religious studies) became possible thanks to the discoveries of the German transcendental philosophy of the 18th–19th centuries.
Kant’s «Copernican revolution» in philosophy corresponds to a revolution in the understanding of religion in Schleiermacher. Knowledge of religion in the interpretation of Schleiermacher ceases to be knowledge about the religious object, but only about the subject, its piety. The only object in the study of religion is a religious subject.
Massimo Introvigne (born 1955) is one of the world known researchers of the new religions, author of dozens of books in the sociology of religion. He is the founder of the International Center for the Study of new Religious Movements in Turin, which holds annual conferences and gathers the best experts in this field. The last conference was held in 2018 in Taiwan. Introvigne was interviewed by Boris Falikov, his Russian colleague, Associate Professor of the Center for Study of Religion at the Russian State University for the Humanities. He tells about his long academic journey, the methods of studying nRM, the new directions in the discipline. He also speaks of his colleagues and debates with those who prefer to fight the new religions instead of studying them. Introvigne also shares some elements of his personal life like his – friendship with the famous semiotician and writer Umberto Eco and his own collection of comic, one of the largest in the world.
The Sources
The document published here is entitled «on the question of organization. the project». According to our assumption, the document appears to be a draft of an «esoteric» charter of Russian spiritualist society. The peculiarities of the script let us assign the authorship to P.A. Chistiakov, who is mostly known as the editor of the spiritualist periodical «Rebus». The present document describes the structure of the Society, the rules regulating the relationship between members, the procedures by which the leaders are elected and new members are recruited and kinds of possible violations as well as the ways of resolving the conflicts. the document was intended only for internal use in the Society and that’s why it provides data that could help us clarify the specificity of the ideology of the Society, particulary the information concerning the role of the «spirit-controles» and the attitude of the Society towards the other religious doctrines. the published text is accompanied by the introductory article which demonstrates the significance of the publication for the study of the history of spiritualism in Russia. the published document could be of interest for the historians of religion, sociologists and researchers of the Silver Age culture.
