Do you want to stay informed about this journal? Click the buttons to subscribe to our alerts.
This paper is mainly based on interviews and observations that the author made during the process of writing a book about a hundred forms of religious and spiritual movements, teachings, and techniques in Estonia, thus being a reflection of trends and transformations of spiritual thought and practice in a country that has been repeatedly called the least religious country in Europe or even the whole world. Bringing some topical case analyses from this empirical material, the article will offer an amended interpretative framework for discussing features that are relevant in the research of Western contemporary spiritualities, for example multiple, situational, and fluctuating spiritual identities incongruent with the use of stable categories in religiosity statistics; children as important spiritual agents; mediatized liquidity and hybridity of spiritual thought being part of the ‘all-inclusive’ and ‘open-ended’ spiritual environment; and public conflicts and private symbioses of scientific, spiritual, and religious worldviews.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Adams, Kate, Brendan Hyde & Richard Woolley, The Spiritual Dimension of Childhood (London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008).
af Burén, Ann, “Living Simultaneity: On Religion among Semi-secular Swedes,” PhD diss. (Gothenburg: Södertörns Högskola, 2015).
Altnurme, Lea, Uued usulised ja vaimsed ühendused Eestis [New Religious and Spiritual Associations in Estonia] (Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2012).
Asprem, Egil, “Contemporary Ritual Magic,” in: Christopher Partridge (ed), The Occult World (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2015), 382–395.
Barrett, David, The New Believers: A Survey of Sects, Cults and Alternative Religions (London: Cassell, 2001).
Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 2000).
Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Fear (Cambridge: Polity, 2006).
Bauman, Zygmunt, & Leonidas Donskis, Liquid Evil (Cambridge: Polity, 2006).
Besecke, Kelly, “Beyond Literalism: Reflexive Spirituality and Religious Meaning,” in: Nancy T. Ammerman (ed.), Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 169–186.
Bowman, Marion, & Ülo Valk, Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life: Expressions of Belief (New York & London: Routledge, 2012).
Bromley, David G., “The Sociology of New Religious Movements,” in: Olav Hammer & Mikael Rothstein (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 13–28.
Bullivant, Stephen, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion: Findings from the European Social Survey (2014–16) to Inform the 2018 Synod of Bishops (Paris: St. Mary’s University’s Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society & Institut Catholique de Paris, 2018).
Campbell, Colin, The Easternisation of the West (Boulder: Paradigm, 2007).
Carrette, Jeremy, & Richard King, Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion (New York: Routledge, 2005).
Cleary, Daniel, & Gráinne Donohue, “‘Something Drew Me In’: The Professional and Personal Impact of Working with Spirituality in Addiction Recovery,” Religions 9/3(2018), 1–9.
Eason, Allen, Stephen Colmant, & Carrie Winterowd, “Sweat Therapy Theory, Practice, and Efficacy,” Journal of Experiential Education 32/2(2009), 121–136.
Eccles, Janet, “Holistic Switchers: The Spiritual and Value Commitments of a Group of Older Women Church Leavers,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 1/2(2012), 187–202.
efita, kp = collection of “School-lore 2018,” archives (Tartu: Department of Folkloristics, Estonian Literary Museum).
Epley, Nicholas, Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).
Heelas, Paul, Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).
Heelas, Paul, “Eesti kui katselabor—Ideaalne näide vaimsuse ja religiooni suundumuste uurimiseks” [The Estonian ‘Lab’: A Golden Land for Studying Trajectories of Spirituality and Religion], in: Marko Uibu (ed.), Mitut usku Eesti III. Valik usundiloolisi uurimusi: Uue vaimsuse eri (Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2013), 167–187.
Heelas, Paul, “Religion and Sources of Significance: The Dawning of a Secular Age,” in: Martin Holborn (ed.), Contemporary Sociology (Cambridge: Polity, 2015), 415–443.
Heelas, Paul, et al., The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004).
Hiiemäe, Reet, “Magic in Soviet and Post-Soviet Estonia,” in: Alexandra Cotofana & James Nyce (eds.), Religion and Magic in Socialist and Post-socialist Contexts II: Baltic, Eastern European, and Post-USSR Case Studies. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 173 (Hannover: Ibidem Verlag, 2017), 135 −160.
Hiiemäe, Reet, “Destiny, Miracle Healers and Magical Intervention: Vernacular Beliefs on Involuntary Childlessness in Estonia,” Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 11/2(2017), 25 −50.
Hiiemäe, Reet, “‘What Is This Mystical Bogeyman or Ghost Called?’ Sharing Nightmare Experiences on Internet Forums,” in: Ekaterina Anastasova & Svetoslava Toncheva (eds.), Balkan and Baltic States in United Europe: Histories, Religions, and Cultures II (Sofia: Paradigma Publishing House, 2018), 292 −311.
Hiiemäe, Reet, Usundid ja vaimsed õpetused Eestis (Tallinn: Varrak, 2019).
Hiiemäe, Reet, “Vaimud, tulnukad ja Slenderman: üleloomulikud kogemused tänapäeva õpilaspärimuses” [Ghosts, Aliens, and Slenderman: Supernatural Experiences in Contemporary School-lore], Mäetagused 74/2(2019), 31 −50.
Hjarvard, Stig, “Three Forms of Mediatized Religion: Changing the Public Face of Religion,” in: Stig Hjarvard & Mia Lövheim (eds.), Mediatization and Religion: Nordic Perspectives (Göteborg: Nordicum, 2012), 21–44.
Klingenberg, Maria, & Sofia Sjö, “Theorizing Religious Socialization: A Critical Assessment,” Religion 49/2(2019), 163–178.
Knox, Sara, “Getting into the Spirit of Things,” Cultural Studies Review 21/1(2015), 283–292.
Lied, Liv Ingeborg, “Changing the Public Face of Religion,” in: Stig Hjarvard & Mia Lövheim (eds.), Mediatization and Religion: Nordic Perspectives (Göteborg: Nordicum, 2012), 183–201.
Loseke, Donileen, & Jonathan B. Imber, Therapeutic Culture: Triumph and Defeat (New York: Routledge, 2004).
Lynch, Gordon, The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-first Century (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007).
Magliocco, Sabina, “Witchcraft, Healing and Vernacular Magic in Italy,” in: Willem de Blécourt & Owen Davies, Witchcraft Continued, e-edition (Manchester University Press, 2020), 151–173. https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526137975/9781526137975.00012.xml (accessed 2 February 2020).
Partridge, Christopher H., The Re-enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture, and Occulture (London: T & T Clark International, 2004).
Petersen, Line Nybro, “Danish Twilight Fandom: Transformative Processes of Religion,” in: Stig Hjarvard & Mia Lövheim (eds.), Mediatization and Religion: Nordic Perspectives (Göteborg: Nordicum, 2012), 163–182.
Primiano, Leonard Norman, “Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Folklife,” Western Folklore 54/1(1995), 37–56.
Remmel, Atko, & Marko Uibu, “Outside Conventional Forms: Religion and Non-religion in Estonia,” Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe 8/1(2015), 5–20.
Ringvee, Ringo, “New Religious Movements and New Age in Estonia,” in: James R. Lewis & Inga Bårdsen Tøllefsen (eds.), Handbook of Nordic New Religions. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion 11 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015), 478–494.
Ringvee, Ringo, “State, Religion and the Legal Framework in Estonia,” Religion, State & Society 36/2(2018), 181–196.
Roehlepartain, Eugene C., et al. (eds.), The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2005).
Saard, Riho, “Eesti elanike religioossusest ning tervest ja ebatervest religioonis” [About the Religiosity of the Estonian Population], Kirik & Teoloogia 2(2014). http://kjt.ee/2014/02/eesti-elanike-religioossusest-ning-tervest-ja-ebatervest-religioonis-2 (accessed 2 February 2020).
Saar Poll 2015 = Public opinion poll “Elust, usust ja usuelust 2015” [About Life, Religion, and Religious Life], compiled by the public opinion research company Saar Poll. http://www.saarpoll.ee/UserFiles/File/Elus,%20usust%20ja%20usuelust_2015_ESITLUS_FINAL.pdf (accessed 2 February 2020).
Sointu, Eeva, & Linda Woodhead, “Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47/2(2008), 259–276.
Soldevilla, Samuel Gil, José Antonio Palao Errando, & Javier Marzal Felici, “Brands as New Forms of Religiosity: The Case Study of World of Red Bull,” Trípodos 35(2014), 57–74.
Tamminen, Kalevi, “Religious Experience in Childhood and Adolescence: A View-point of Religious Development Between the Ages of 7 and 20,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 4/2(1994), 61–85.
Thurfjell, David, et al., “The Relocation of Transcendence around the Baltic Sea: Using Schutz to Conceptualize Nature Experiences,” Nature and Culture 14/2(2019), 190 −214.
Tobacyk, Jerome, Mark J. Miller, & Glenda Jones, “Paranormal Beliefs of High School Students,” Psychological Reports 55/1(1984), 255–261.
Tucker, James, “New Age Religion and the Cult of the Self,” Society 39/2(2002), 46–51.
Uibu, Marko, “Reemerging Religiosity: The Mainstreaming of New Spirituality in Estonia,” Journal of Baltic Studies 47/2(2016), 257–274.
Uibu, Marko, Religiosity as Cultural Toolbox: A Study of Estonian New Spirituality (Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 2016).
Utriainen, Terhi, “Combining Christianity and New Age: Angel Religion in Finland,” James Lewis & Inga Tøllefsen (eds.), Handbook of Nordic New Religions (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 158–172.
Utriainen, Terhi, “Ritually Framing Enchantment: Momentary Religion and Everyday Realities,Suomen Antropologi 41/4(2016), 46–61.
Vahter, Maren, “Indiaani pärimuslik amulett unenäopüüdja,” Maakodu 1(2020), 23–25.
Watts, Fraser, Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality: Concepts and Applications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Webster, David, Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish and Unhappy (Alresford & Hants: Zero, 2012).
Whyte, Andrew, “Estonia Is the Least Religious Country in the World? A Catechism,” The Tallinn Dissenter, 16 February 2018. https://medium.com/the-tallinn-dissenter/estonia-is-the-least-religious-country-in-the-world-a-catechism-323d09e84345 (accessed 2 February 2020).
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 329 | 20 | 18 |
Full Text Views | 216 | 148 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 330 | 229 | 0 |
This paper is mainly based on interviews and observations that the author made during the process of writing a book about a hundred forms of religious and spiritual movements, teachings, and techniques in Estonia, thus being a reflection of trends and transformations of spiritual thought and practice in a country that has been repeatedly called the least religious country in Europe or even the whole world. Bringing some topical case analyses from this empirical material, the article will offer an amended interpretative framework for discussing features that are relevant in the research of Western contemporary spiritualities, for example multiple, situational, and fluctuating spiritual identities incongruent with the use of stable categories in religiosity statistics; children as important spiritual agents; mediatized liquidity and hybridity of spiritual thought being part of the ‘all-inclusive’ and ‘open-ended’ spiritual environment; and public conflicts and private symbioses of scientific, spiritual, and religious worldviews.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 329 | 20 | 18 |
Full Text Views | 216 | 148 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 330 | 229 | 0 |