Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Jul 2023)
The Individual Religiosity in Colin Campbell Studies
Abstract
Most studies in the field of sociology of religion and the theoretical sectology are devoted to structured forms of sectarianism. However, the phenomenon of unconventional religiosity has a broader nature, including non-institutionalized forms of religion. In 1972, the English sociologist Colin Campbell suggested, that unconventional religiosity had a kind of generating community, which he called the Cultic Milieu. The concept of Cultic Milieu is used by modern scholars in various discourses (sectology, esoteriology, sociology of religion, and religious studies). Campbell believed that in the process of secularization of the West, there was a shift in religious preferences to the field of individual preferences and landmarks. According to Campbell, the decline of church religiosity leads to the emergence of new options for religious affiliation. This article analyzes the causes and forms of unconventional religiosity according to which the contemporary person of Postmodern resorts to Eastern and folk religious practices. As part of his research, C. Campbell believes that the process of easternisation of the West takes place as part of a broader “rehabilitation of the natural”. To characterize these processes, the English sociologist uses theological categories: impersonal, transcendent God and creational dualism — the rods of European civilization. In the process of easternisation of the West, a significant transformation of borrowings takes place against the background of the scientific paradigm shift. The result of the easternisation process is worldview polymorphism, and as a consequence, mythologization of consciousness within the framework of simplification and unification. With regard to modern magical and superstitious practices of individual nature, Campbell complements B. Malinovsky’s “lacuna theory” with new characteristics: uncontrolled ritual, half-magic, semi-decomposed magic, and instrumental activity. Paradoxically, modern superstitions and magical rituals no longer need social approval, but move into the field of individual practices as a form of adaptation activism. The proposed characteristics are quite consistent with the concepts of ethnologists, according to which the etiological myth, having lost its significance, continues to exist in the form of taboo prohibitions, superstitions and prejudices.
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