Contenu du sommaire : Renaître

In contemporary Western societies, being born again has become a necessary step in the construction of the subject. It comes in the shape of a regeneration experienced by the individual in his/her life, without his/her having to go through the experience of death. New spiritualities, alternative therapies and evangelism particularly encourage their followers to achieve rebirth. What is the historical background of this idea? What mechanisms does it bring into play? Can these experiences of rebirth be compared to the various forms of initiation that have been studied by anthropologists? The introductory article of the latest issue of Terrain gives an overview of possible answers to these questions by examining some examples of what being reborn means in various contexts, past and present.

Past life regression is a form of therapy that uses hypnosis to make the patient re-experience “previous lives” in order to free him/her from traumas, phobias, or more simply, for self-exploration purposes. Can one experience reincarnation in real time? What is the subject actually given access to under hypnosis? What status should be given to the visions and body states that are experienced as being so strange by the subject him/herself? These controversial issues are discussed with reference to Colonel de Rochas experiments with past life regression in the late 19th century, and they are placed in the wider historical context of experimental research in reincarnation.

In ancient as well as in contemporary India, the concept of the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra) is closely related to the concept of karma (action). The authors explore an aspect of the theory of Karma that is quite unknown: the reminiscence of former lives as a way for specialists to increase their knowledge and to achieve certain therapeutic or soteriological goals. Following a backward movement that starts with contemporary karmic healing practices in an Indian metropolis, the article gives an overview of the Karmavipākasaṃhitā, an astrological treaty written in the 18th century, as well as of Vedic material in which the vision of past lives appears as the expression of ascetic perfection (siddhi).

The article shows that spiritual experiences, whether sensory or supernatural, are not just triggered or learnt, they occur as part of a “kindling” pattern: events are habituated for individuals and depend on people's reactivity as well as on social expectations. Supernatural experiences are events that not everyone has, they do not behave as discrete phenomena; instead they tend to occur more in relation to one another, like syndromes. Although constrained, some of these events are habituated for the group as well as for the individual. Cultural learning is not sufficient to explain the patterning of spiritual experience.

With a view to shedding light on the dynamics that are at work in the making of the individual in contemporary Western societies, this article describes and analyses the recurring features that shape corporal practices, such as dance, which are often associated with some form of “spirituality”. Taking these dances as being part of a ritual approach, the authors focus on the central position given to the body as a source of actions and emotions; they highlight the intentionality as well as the paradoxical and highly reflexive dimension involved in the approach to the construction of the self these practices rely on, and they point out the fundamental role played by others as witnesses and as resources.

The author analyses the notion of “spiritual transformation” in the context of the presence of evangelical groups like the Canada Awakening Ministries (CAM) among the Inuit. The CAM, who have been established among the Inuit in both the Nunavik and the Nunavut for a long time, have developed close relationships with pastors from the Fiji Islands. They perform various rites of exorcism and earth-healing rituals whose idiom, the author suggests, is recognized by the Inuit although their traditions are quite different. Nowadays these traditions face many challenges: the strong interest in the environment is confronted with the exploitation of local resources and the discussions on global warming.

Achieving rebirth through a change in one's civil status involves dealing with public order rules as well as strict legal principles that can make it very difficult for people to change their legal gender for example. Changing genders is always carried out under strict legal supervision and positive law is still very much attached to the idea that the legal sex of a person should coincide with her/his apparent sex. However, the rule of law in French jurisprudence does not stand judicial analysis and, as evidenced by recent reforms, the time has come for governments to alter their legislation.

This is the story of an encounter between a bear and an anthropologist in Kamtchatka. The author recalls the event as well as the dreams she had had before the encounter. It took place during her stay among the Even, where she was conducting fieldwork in the Icha area in Kamtchatka. She compares her first experience of doing fieldwork among the Gwich'in in Alaska and her experience in Kamtchatka, and raises the issues of critical distance in anthropology and of the relationships she has with the people she conducts participant observation among.

Can a theory emerge from the thousand ways of being born again that have been brought to light by ethnographic research? Is rebirth a specifically human phenomenon? Can we experience rebirth in the absence of ritual? These are the types of questions Maurice Bloch discusses in the interview. He has come across these questions on several occasions during his career and has developed the theory that man is the only species with a transcendental approach to the social, that is, with a capacity to construct roles and imaginary communities.

The stench of Lazarus, when Jesus raised him from the dead, has always been a problem: how can a smell be represented? How can the fascination one may feel for a body that although chosen by Christ remains repelling be expressed? In early representations, the question of smell is ignored and Lazarus is depicted as a new-born child in swaddling bands. In the medieval period, the sensory aspect of the scene is highlighted: the corpse-like figure of Lazarus clearly evokes the stench from a decaying body. After a period during which it was scarcely represented, the figure reappeared in multiple forms, and especially in pop culture with the image of the walking dead and as a process of self-representation for artists.

The portfolio presents a selection of images showing that bioart and biodesign can deal with questions relating to life after death. Projects exploiting human biomaterials, algae and fungi activity or the possibilities offered by synthetic biology rely on the resources of art and of science in order to reflect on the boundary between living and nonliving matter and explore the potential for transformation, hybridization and evolution of organisms and environments.