We invite you to our international
conference on Sacrifice, Ordeal and Divination and would be
honoured if you contributed to its success by sharing your research findings.
The conference is the tenth event within our conference series Religious
ethnological concepts in multidisciplinary approach, and will be organized
by the Pécs University, Department of Ethnology and Cultural
Anthropology, with support of the
ERC project „East-West”. Vernacular
religion on the boundary of Eastern and Western Christianity: continuity,
changes and interactions, and in co-operation with the Belief
Narrative Network of ISFNR. The conference will be
held at the Pécs Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Pécs, Hungary, Friday 12th–Sunday 14th December, 2014.
Attached you can find the Call
for papers with all the necessery information. The deadline for
application is February 1st 2014.
Best
regards:
Éva
Pócs
professor emeritus
University of Pécs
Dept.of
Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
H-7624
Pécs
Rókus u. 2.
Hungary
----
SACRIFICE, ORDEAL,
DIVINATION
International conference
at the Pécs Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pécs,
Hungary
Friday 12th–Sunday 14th December,
2014
Organisers:
Pécs University, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
Pécs Committee of
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
With support of „East-West”. Vernacular religion on the boundary of Eastern and Western Christianity: continuity, changes and interactions (ERC project № 324214)
In co-operation
with the Belief Narrative Network of
ISFNR
Call for
papers
November
15th 2013
Dear
Colleague,
We have the honour to invite you to
our international conference and would be honoured if you contributed to its
success by sharing your research findings. The conference is the tenth event
within the series Religious ethnological
concepts in multidisciplinary approach launched in 1993. Ever since that
time it has remained our goal to apply an interdisciplinary approach to some of
the key concepts of religious anthropology and review the latest research
findings in folklore studies, anthropology, religious studies, cultural history,
psychiatry and other disciplines, while engaging in conversation within and
among professions in order to solve new scientific problems. Besides the
Hungarian organisers, Pécs University and the Pécs Committee of the Academy, the
Belief Narrative network of researchers which is part of the International Society for Folk Narrative
Research (ISFNR) are once again kindly acting as co-organisers of the event.
Our invitations have been sent, besides Hungarian scholars, also to a number of
researchers in Europe, America and Asia, and indeed several excellent British,
German and Spanish experts have already indicated their intention to attend. The
conference will be held in English, occasionally in French or in German, and on
request by applicants we might also set up a Hungarian speaking section. Papers
delivered at the conference will be published, according to plan, in a series
which has already proved successful and whose Hungarian title translates as Studies on the transcendent. We are
hoping that an English version of the volume can also be
produced.
As regards the proposed theme of the
conference, rites of divination, ordeal and sacrifice play an equally important
role in the Christian cultures of Europe as among peoples of other religions in
other continents. Nevertheless, research of the subject in Europe is rather
incomplete, particularly in comparison to the anthropological studies carried on
in Africa. Each of the three topics in the title deserve to be studied
separately, but at this conference our main concern is to analyse them from the
perspective of the anthropology of religion in such a way as to grasp the
internal connections of these areas and the outer connections organised around
them. In general, it may be declared that European research lacks analysis of
their popular forms from perspectives of religion or religious anthropology.
Particularly when compared to research into non-European peoples, there are not
enough comprehensive summaries, descriptions of the phenomenology of religion or
papers which highlight and interpret problems that we can rely on. These could
highlight the role of various systems of sacrifice, ordeal and divination in the
religious cultures of Europe, their place within official and popular religion
and, most importantly, in the local communities of European societies, the
public and private life of their people. At this conference we would like to
make up for this shortcoming to some extent, therefore we would mostly like to
hear talks about the interpretation of divination, ordeal and sacrifice as religious and/or social
phenomena. We need to define their place within the religious systems of Europe,
within the official, vernacular, popular and local religions in the full
Christian context, including its denominational variants, as well as outside of
it. We believe it is particularly important to examine Christian and
non-Christian, religious and magical, as well as past elite and popular forms
and practices side by side, bringing them, as it were, to a common
denominator, using identical,
'synchretic' categories of religious anthropology.
As regards the possible aspects of
analysing the concepts and rituals of sacrifice, the main aspects can be e.g.
the sacrifice as a form of communication with the supernatural world; as an
exchange relation with the deity; as participation in the sacred; as a joint
feast with the deity; as a form or catharsis, cleansing and rebirth; Christian
forms of sacrifice and formations existing in the vernacular variants of
Christianity and labelled as 'magic' or 'folk belief' by research.
A few important
subject matters: Sacrifices aimed at deities or saints, pleading for or coercing
the gift of goods from heaven; sacrificial offerings, sacrificial fasting, vows
of self-restraint, atonement, ascetic forms of imitatio Christi. Official
and popular forms of offerings to the dead – masses or alms aimed to shorten
suffering in the other world; feeding the dead, eating together with the dead,
the burial feast as a sacrificial feast. Offerings to the dead as a form of
exchange; ancestors of the family and the dead of the community protecting the
family or bringing fertility to the community in exchange for food sacrifice
(e.g. on the Christmas table or in the sacred corner). Objects of sacrifice,
special sacrificial foods for the dead (mush, flat breads, milk, honey), fasting
and food taboos as offerings to the dead, foods eaten during fasting, raw foods,
archaic techniques and semi-finished products (unbroken hemp, unleavened bread)
as sacrificial offerings to avert danger from the demon world. Sacrifices of
food or of wool or hemp tied in with taboos offered to the demons visiting on
winter holidays (Lucy, Perchta, Prehta, ‘Tuesday's woman’, ‘Saint Friday’,
etc.). Sacrifices offered to house spirits ('building sacrifice') or the same as
quasi sacrificial rituals with no spirit figure in the background. Sacrifice as
a part of healing rites (food sacrifice offered to the dead who have been
conjured up or to healing spirits or fairies).
Procedures of ordeal whereby communities sought the
decision of the spirit world through an appointed official or priest in cases
requiring jurisdiction (trial by hot iron, ordeal of the bier, trial by fire, by
food, by throwing lots etc.) played hardly any part in modern age Europe. There
do still exist, however, some popular procedures of ordeal and methods of
divination used in this role for identifying sinners, thieves, perpetrators of
bewitchment or for finding treasure that had been buried (e.g. spinning a sieve,
casting beans, dowsing with sticks).
As regards divination, religious and non-religious,
elite and popular forms alike are thriving in Europe. The New Age spiritualism
is creating new formations and retrieving others the past, which are practised
by professionals and lay persons alike. The occasions, purposes and functions
are extremely varied; death, the weather, marriage, the length of life, outcome
of illness, good and bad fortune and luck are topical to this day. As regards
methods, means and spirit helpers of divination, variety is even wider. To quote
Barbara Tedlock's categories: in all societies where divination is known, its
inductive, intuitive and interpretative narrative techniques and knowledge
acquisition methods are present and overlap each other.
To quote some
examples: Divination in a
dream, in trance or with the help of mediums; with the help of dead people,
spirits and deities, presaging signs in dreams, from heaven, divination from the
stars or the moon, divining from parts or functions of the human body (palms,
face, urine, sneeze); from the intestines or shoulder blade of animals, from
formations of letters and numbers, from sand taking various shapes, from or with
a book; casting dice, wheels of fortune, cards; 'seeing' in some bright or
transparent medium, in a mirror, on the surface of water, in a crystal ball,
from oil poured into water; divination from weather signs (thunder, rainbow)
etc. To this very day, one of the richest groups of European divination rites is
those aimed to acquire from the dead their supernatural knowledge or the
capacity of seeing into the future. This is done by lying on top of the grave,
invoking the dead, using symbolic techniques (e.g. with a mirror, or looking
through a small hole or by walking a drawing a circle) to ritually creating the
sacred space, or seeing the dead at a sacred place (in a church, at the
crossroads, sitting on Lucy's chair).
The networks
of concepts and rituals around divination, ordeal and sacrifice are
interconnected or overlap at a number of points. Divination or ordeal are often
the concluding act of a sacrifice or a sacrifice is at once an ordeal or
divination rite. A good reason for discussing these three sets of concepts and
rituals together on a joint occasion and in the light of each other is that such
a context may be conducive to finding new points of connection and to
re-structuring our existing knowledge.
For instance:
animal sacrifices performed before incubation in a church; symbolic fasting
before love divination; the love and death divination common during mid-winter
festivals is tied in with giving certain types of food to the dead (e.g. placing
food for them on the Christmas table); divination rites include giving offerings
of food to demonic women who visit people during the winter festivals or on
certain days of the week (divination by a flat bread given to Lucy or by the
milk given to the Perchtas; animals were sacrificed as an offering to spirits
guarding treasure in order to secure success of the divination procedure aimed
to identify the place of the treasure.
Many aspects
of this multi-layered complexity have already been summarised to a satisfactory
extent. This means, for instance, the ancient and medieval material of certain
forms of divination (e.g. catoptromancy, divination books, divination from
dreams; the role of Greek, Latin or Arab astrological books) or regarding a
particular people (e.g. Russians) or group of sources (e.g. medieval Germanic or
Celtic sources); or the divination techniques of the elite magicians of the
early modern period.[1] Nevertheless there are still many
shortcomings and much that is incomplete. Certain areas are quite unkonwn,
particularly as regards popular forms, the village practice of divination where
local data and descriptions are scarce and incomplete and there have been very
few analyses based on modern anthropological field work. Little is known about
the role which magical specialists, diviners and seers play in contemporary
communities and even less about the communities they serve with their knowledge.
Therefore we would welcome papers about the role that contemporary forms of
sacrifice, divination or ordeal play in the everyday life, religion or mentality
of a community or which explore the collective and individual motivations why a
magical/religious specialist performing these rites becomes a diviner, and the
beliefs surrounding them (regarding their capabilities, their learning and their
helping spirits).
Another field worth exploring is
that of the narrative traditions of rites and beliefs of sacrifice and
divination, their folklore, literary and artistic representations, their
narrative metaphors, motifs, topoi and genres, the interrelations of narratives
and religious notions and beliefs.
Some techniques and functions
(astrology, moon signs, divination from a mirror, looking in water, divination
from shoulder blade, from dreams, from dream books, fate books, divination books
and divination texts, e.g. the Sybilline oracles, apocalyptic and chiliastic
oracles) have traditions going back over millennia in the various cultures of
Europe. The legacy of ancient Greek and Roman or German, Slavic, Celtic,
Hungarian etc. cultures, as well as ancient and medieval Arab i.e. Islamic
influences have survived persistently in both elite and popular cultures. This
rich historical material also invites exploration of the connections between
contemporary and past forms, and the changes in the functions over the ages – a
task which, again, has only been carried out with regard to certain topics.
We also
welcome papers based on the study of non-European peoples and non-Christian
religions which provide a different angle and offer new lessons for our European
investigations.
Please, submit your application
using the attached form, including an abstract of 10-15 sentences, by February
1st 2014. We need you to submit your abstract both in English and in
the language in which the paper
will be delivered. We will inform all applicants in the course of February
whether their application has been accepted or, possibly, rejected (for this
decision we need an abstract of sufficient detail).
We will require you to submit the
full text of the papers during November 2014, some three weeks before the
conference, so that we can send them to all participants and print
them.
We are doing everything in our power
to keep costs for participants as low as possible. At this stage we cannot
predict costs of participation, all that we can say for sure is that there is no
participation fee and we will probably be able to provide participants with
food, while travel and accommodation will have to be covered by themselves.
Accommodation for 3-4 nights will be around €100, while travel costs between
Budapest–Pécs by rail are around €32. We will be able to reimburse the
travel costs and pay for the accommodation of 4-5 persons coming from abroad. We
will be sending you further information about costs in March at the latest,
leaving you enough time to purchase low-cost air line
tickets.
Please submit your application and
your abstract to [log in to unmask] by completing the enclosed form.
Éva Pócs
professor emeritus
University of Pécs,
Department of
Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
H-7624 Pécs, Rókus
u. 2.
Phone:
+36-1-3421841; +36-70-4318194
Application
Form
Name:
Occupation, institution,
position:
Address:
Phone/Fax:
E-mail:
Title of the proposed paper:
Abstract:
[1] Some important comprehensive surveys covering
also European material and reseach in the modern period are the following: Rose,
H. J.: Divination. In Hastings, J. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
IV. Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1911; James, E. O.: Sacrifice and Sacrament. In Hastings, J.
(ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics XI. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1920; Müller-Bergström, Walther: Gottesurteil (Ordal). In Bächtold-Stäubli,
Hanns – Hoffmann-Krayer, Eduard (Hrsgs.): Handwörterbuch des deutschen
Aberglaubens, III. Berlin – Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1931; Nottarp,
Hermann: Gottesurteilstudien
(Bamberger Abhandlungen und Forschungen, Bd. II.) München: Kössel Verlag, 1956;
Heiler, Friedrich: Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion. (Die Religionen der Menschheit, Bd.
1.) Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1961; Tillhagen, Carl-Herman: Volkstümliche
Wahrsagekunst im Schweden während des vorigen Jahrhundert. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica XIX (1970),
369-388; Thomas, Keith:
Religion and the Decline of Magic. Studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth
and seventeenth century England.
London, Weidenfeld&Nicholson, 1971;
Loewe, Michael–Blacker, Carmen
(eds.): Divination and Oracles. London: George Allen & Unvin, 1980;
Zuesse, Evan M.: Divination. In Eliade, Mircea (ed.): Encyclopedy of
Religion 4. New York: Macmillan, 1987; Burnett, Charles (ed.) Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages.
Texts and Techniques in the Islamic and Christian Worlds. Aldershot:
Variorum, 1996; Keszeg Vilmos: Jóslások a
Mezőségen. Etnomantikai elemzés.
Sepsiszentgyörgy: Bon Ami, 1997; Ryan, W. F. The Bathhouse at
Midnight. An historical survey of magic and divination in Russia.
Thrupp–Stroud–Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999; Tedlock, Barbara:
Divination as a Way of Knowing: Embodiment, Visualisation, Narrative, and
Interpretation. Folklore 112
(2001);