Spirituality: Past, Present and Future Perspectives (Religion and Spirituality) 1536157139, 9781536157130

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1
“Done by the Name of Thy Holy Child Jesus”:
Plural Hermeneutics of the Faith Healing
Abstract
Medical Anthropological and Hermeneutical Analysis of the Spiritual and the Physical
Transcendence and Spirituality in Schemas
Adding the Depth of the Personal – Magic and Pneuma
Multiple Realities, Plural Interpretation
Unclarified Issues of Profane and Religious Realities
Medical Anthropology of Evangelical Healing
The Right and Forms of Healing and Recovery in the Old and the New Testament
Counter-Culture Features
The Interpretation of Evangelical Healings in the Theological Schools
Pluralism of Christian Medicine and Syncretism of Spiritual Healing
The Biomedical Side of Faith Healing
Conclusion
References
Chapter 2
Spirituality and Psychological Well-Being: An Attention to the Agnostics and the Undecided
Abstract
Introduction
Psychological Well-Being
Spirituality and Well-Being
The Agnostics and the Undecided
An Empirical Study
Methods
Participants and Procedures
Measures
Perceived Mental and Physical Health
Mental Well-Being
Subjective Well-Being
Happiness
Self-Actualization
Data Analysis Strategy
Results
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3
The Impact of Spirituality on End-of-Life Care Decisions: A Strategy to Encourage African-Americans to Better Prepare for the Inevitable
Abstract
Introduction
Death and Dying: Viewed Through Multiple Lenses
Demographic Disparities
Consumer Education Explanations
Explanations Involving Institutional Mistrust
The Growth of Hospice Care: Understanding the Medicare Impact
Spirituality of Death the Final Frontier for African Americans
The Unique Spirituality of Death in the African American Community
Nudging Changes in Behavior
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4
Yukio Mishima and the Love of the Void: The Existential Theme of Fallenness in Runaway Horses
Abstract
Introduction
The Unreality of Karma
Being-Towards-Death
Isao’s Purity: Death as the Possibility of Impossibility
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5
I See the Dark Universe: The Dark Spirituality of Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s Lyrics and Francois Laruelle’s Lointain
Abstract
Chapter 6
Vasudhaiva KuṬumbakam Based Land Acquisition: Toward a Sustainable (Spiritual) Business through Holistic Stakeholder Management
Abstract
Introduction
Research Methodology and Method
Land, Spiritualism, and India
The Current State of Land Acquisition in India
Land Acquisition and the People
Land Acquisition and the Government
Land Acquisition and the Corporate Sector
Bhoodan: Vasudhaiva KuṬumbakam Based Land Transfer
The State of India during Independence
Bhoodan: Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam Based Voluntary Land Transfer Movement
Socio-Economic Impacts of Bhoodan
Similarities between India in the Past and India at Present: A Time to Reinvent Bhoodan
Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam Based Land Acquisition
Discussion, Contributions, Limitations, and Future Research Directions
Theoretical Contributions
Contributions to Practitioners
Shortcomings and Future Research Directions
Conclusion
References
Biographical Sktech
Index
Blank Page

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RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

SPIRITUALITY PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

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RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY Additional books and e-books in this series can be found on Nova’s website under the Series tab.

RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

SPIRITUALITY PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

CLINT BALDWIN EDITOR

Copyright © 2019 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher. We have partnered with Copyright Clearance Center to make it easy for you to obtain permissions to reuse content from this publication. Simply navigate to this publication’s page on Nova’s website and locate the “Get Permission” button below the title description. This button is linked directly to the title’s permission page on copyright.com. Alternatively, you can visit copyright.com and search by title, ISBN, or ISSN. For further questions about using the service on copyright.com, please contact: Copyright Clearance Center Phone: +1-(978) 750-8400 Fax: +1-(978) 750-4470 E-mail: [email protected].

NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Any parts of this book based on government reports are so indicated and copyright is claimed for those parts to the extent applicable to compilations of such works. Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. Additional color graphics may be available in the e-book version of this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: HERRN

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

vii “Done by the Name of Thy Holy Child Jesus”: Plural Hermeneutics of the Faith Healing Imre Lázár Spirituality and Psychological Well-Being: An Attention to the Agnostics and the Undecided Paola Gremigni and Giulia Casu The Impact of Spirituality on End-of-Life Care Decisions: A Strategy to Encourage AfricanAmericans to Better Prepare for the Inevitable Chester A. Robinson Yukio Mishima and the Love of the Void: The Existential Theme of Fallenness in Runaway Horses Adam Lovasz I See the Dark Universe: The Dark Spirituality of Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s Lyrics and Francois Laruelle’s Lointain Mark Horvath

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Contents Vasudhaiva KuṬumbakam Based Land Acquisition: Toward a Sustainable (Spiritual) Business through Holistic Stakeholder Management Siddharth Mohapatra and Pratima Verma

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Index

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Related Nova Publications

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PREFACE In Spirituality: Past, Present and Future Perspectives, the hermeneutic pluralism of religious and spiritual healing and its evangelical roots are studied by means of the conceptual systems of religious anthropology and medical anthropology. The next chapter analyzes the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. The authors focus on agnostics and undecided people who lie between theists as certain believers and atheists as certain non-believers. The authors also assess how spirituality in the African American community influences end-of-life care decisions. In his The Sea of Fertility tetralogy of novels, Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima outlines a philosophy of life and death that bears profoundly transgressive spiritual implications. This compilation discusses how, through his blending of Buddhist notions relating to reincarnation and the insubstantiality of all phenomena, Mishima constructs what amounts to a new spirituality committed to immanence. In the penultimate chapter, the concept of dark spirituality is discussed through what Francois Laruelle calls the “lointain”, an unnameable, ineffable “distance” without measure. This concept is then examined through Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s musical work and how his song, “Black,” defines blackness in terms of irreducible alterity.

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Lastly, while Bhoodan accentuated upon land donation from a resource ownership perspective, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition stresses upon land transfer from the stakeholder concept. Implications for research and practice are discussed in the closing chapter. Chapter 1 - In this writing, the hermeneutic pluralism of religious and spiritual healing and its roots in the Gospel are studied through the conceptual systems of the anthropology of religion and medical anthropology. The cosmological assumptions, explanatory models, idioms related to diseases, pathology and healing as preserved in the texts of the Old Testament and the New Testament, as well as their occurrence and meaning in healing rituals then and now will also be studied. Within the frame of this work, the author attempts to map the possible lay, religious, and scientific attitudes towards faith healing and recovery in an age of spiritual awakening. Emphasizing the importance of primary cosmological assumptions and accepting their plurality, the authors call for an open dialogue in the frame of the biopsychosocial-spiritual paradigm. Chapter 2 - This chapter analyzes the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. The authors focused on agnostics and undecided people who lie between theists as certain believers and atheists as certain non-believers. Agnostics are defined as people who consciously suspend any judgment on the existence of God as an entity outside of the experimental verification and declare as “unknowable” everything that cannot be submitted to an empirical observation. Undecided people are defined as persons who declare that they are unsure if God exists. Both agnostics and undecided people have been overlooked by previous research that has mainly focused on theists or atheists, who might represent the extremes of a continuum of spirituality. Such a categorization does not consider existential certainty and uncertainty and their consequences for a person’s mental well-being. Our research question was: do the agnostics and the undecided report lower levels of psychological well-being compared to theists and atheists? The authors collected data of more than 1,000 participants from the general population (male and female). Our findings indicated that agnostics and undecided people reported significantly lower levels of happiness and perceived mental well-being

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than both theists and atheists, independent of gender and age. The authors cannot draw firm conclusions regarding the cause of the differences found because our study had a cross-sectional and non-longitudinal design. However, existential uncertainty seems to play a role in a person’s perception of psychological well-being. Chapter 3 - Dying is one of the few events in life that is certain to occur, but for which we rarely plan. Although decisions about how we confront death may vary, death itself is universal. The focus in this chapter is on how spirituality in the African American community influences endof-life care decisions. The examination includes how it evolved since the entry of African slaves in the U.S., and how the legacy of this spirituality continues to impact attitudes and decisions surrounding death today. The chapter begins with a synopsis of how people died in traditional American society and the shift to how we typically die today. From there the authors explore the literature on what has been learned about African Americans and end-of-life care decisions over the past 7 decades. These discussions explore differences in demographics, community awareness, mistrust of medical institutions, and a general lack of access to services. The chapter concludes with propositions on how this unique spirituality impacts endof-life care decisions. Based on these insights, pathways are offered on how to ‘nudge’ African Americans toward making more informed end-oflife care decisions. Chapter 4 - In his The Sea of Fertility tetralogy of novels, Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima outlines a philosophy of life and death that bears profoundly transgressive spiritual implications. Through his blending of Buddhist notions relating to reincarnation and the insubstantiality of all phenomena, with existentialist ideas, Mishima constructs what amounts to a new spirituality committed to immanence. The character of Isao Iinuma, student protagonist of the second installment of The Sea of Fertility, delves ever deeper into metaphysical and ideological themes, to the point wherein his very life becomes an embodiment of philosophy, serving as an apt symbol for deathbound human subjectivity. During the course of his life, Shigekuni Honda, the narrator, comes into contact with several incarnations of a childhood friend. The dividing line between reality and

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fiction in Mishima’s works is continually being transgressed, penetrated by the unreality of the real. The underlying insubstantiality of existence comes to permeate the lives of Mishima’s characters. Progressively, the lawyer’s bookish rationalism is called into question. I will argue that Mishima’s rendition of Isao’s life composes nothing less than a fundamentally unorthodox Buddhist reading of human finitude and the emptiness that characterizes primordially fallen subjectivity. Death is a falling that allows us to ascend out of society. Mishima teaches us to accept, indeed, actively embrace the certitude of our own impending annihilation, without searching for comforting illusions or self-serving excuses. Loving the void means, above all else, ridding ourselves of the unfounded desire for redemption from this nothingness. Chapter 5 - Francois Laruelle calls the “lointain”, an unnameable, ineffable “distance” without measure. One can measure the energy that leaves a black hole, one can attempt to quantify the amount of radiation leaking out of the singularity. What one cannot measure is the absence of measures. The lointain designates all expressions and no expression, for it is infinitely separated from presence. The lointain is distance sufficient to itself, exclusion of the purest kind. The non-reality of space is equal to “forgetting the world”, which opens up a ‘disoriented, wayward, and wayless, cast adrift in quotidian moments of annulment.’ Lointain, as concept, is pre-philosophical, a distance without boundaries, liquefied, foreclosed to narration. Cosmic exclusion is divine obscurity, according to Pseudo-Dionysos Areopagita, the possibility of transcending knowledge and language, a silence that is more ineffable than even ineffability itself. Mystical contemplation is directed towards the interiority of lointain, the abandonment of all sensual reality. Nonknowledge and non-reality, once expressed, betray their meanings and commit grammatical suicide. No sentence that contains the plenitude of lointain is meaningful. The ontological circumstance of universal seclusion may be compared to Levi R. Bryant’s concept of “dark object”. Bryant, a disciple of Bruno Latour, seeks to create a renewed understanding of objects by creating a new system of categorization. He writes of “bright”, “satellite”, “dim” and “dark objects”. In Bryant’s view dark objects, similarly to the Laruellian

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lointain, cannot even be inferred. We cannot speak of them, not even in a negative sense. They are simply unamenable to abstraction, so inscrutable is their thick blackness. Dark objects are precluded from presence. These existents are unimaginable, and through their unimaginability, reject the labels and concepts of any system of relations. No coordinates contain them. The lointain closes in upon itself complete, without any leakages. Rasu-Yong Tugen’s speculative poems, drawing upon Romantic and Gothic horror themes, seek to de-scribe the world as it “is”, announcing universal emptiness with broken, shadowy words. Traced with the contours of dirt, Bonnie Prince Billy’s work is permeated with blackness, serving as the source of his prosaic, whimsical meditations upon existence and meaning(lessness). Within Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s musical world, one cannot escape from mutual isolation and solitude. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s song “Black” defines blackness in terms of irreducible alterity. So far are we from it, that every attempt at contact is condemned to failure. Our movements are not our own, but rather, are gravitated by dark objects. Chapter 6 - Land has spiritual connotations in India since time immemorial. Whereas business spirituality underlines business as a part of interconnected stakeholders, the current land acquisition for commercial purposes often sidelines the interests of a key stakeholder group—landowners and users—jeopardizing their wellbeing. This has led to poor stakeholder management and lost opportunities both for business and society. Interestingly, there was fierce socio-economic tensions among the masses in the post-independent India, which was streamlined through the Bhoodan (land-gift) movement wherein land transfer from landlords to the landless was attempted through spiritual means. In today’s managerial lexicon, it can be seen as a nuance of the strong version of stakeholder management, i.e., making stakeholders full partners and engage in collective decision-making. Drawing similarities between India in the past and India at present, employing historical data and biographical method, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition ethics is conceptualized to create a collective decision-making means to facilitate voluntary land transfer by the land-owners and users for commercial use, thereby accomplishing stakeholder wellbeing, spiritually. While Bhoodan

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accentuated upon land donation from a resource ownership perspective, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition stresses upon land transfer from the stakeholder concept. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

In: Spirituality Editor: Clint Baldwin

ISBN: 978-1-53615-713-0 © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 1

“DONE BY THE NAME OF THY HOLY CHILD JESUS”: PLURAL HERMENEUTICS OF THE FAITH HEALING Imre Lázár Institute of Behavioral Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT In this writing, the hermeneutic pluralism of religious and spiritual healing and its roots in the Gospel are studied through the conceptual systems of the anthropology of religion and medical anthropology. The cosmological assumptions, explanatory models, idioms related to diseases, pathology and healing as preserved in the texts of the Old Testament and the New Testament, as well as their occurrence and meaning in healing rituals then and now will also be studied. 

Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].

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Imre Lázár Within the frame of this work, the author attempts to map the possible lay, religious, and scientific attitudes towards faith healing and recovery in an age of spiritual awakening. Emphasizing the importance of primary cosmological assumptions and accepting their plurality, we call for an open dialogue in the frame of the biopsychosocial-spiritual paradigm.

Keywords: faith healings, multiple realities, medical anthropology, hermeneutics, religious interpretations, healings in the Bible Marc 16:17. “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.” John 17.16. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The King James Bible

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND HERMENEUTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SPIRITUAL AND THE PHYSICAL The Millennial spiritual turn closed a long debate about the spiritual content of human existence. Max Weber’s vision of the “Zeitgeist” of modernity did not leave much space for spirituality in the 20th century: “The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world', where disenchantment means that there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation,” where “man has been disenchanted and denuded of its mystical but inwardly genuine plasticity.” Weber (1918) cited by Walton 2000

Chris Partridge (2006) opposes this when he writes about the reenchantment of the West. According to his narrative, the epoch of modernity itself was deeply perfused with cultural streams, fashions and even Zeitgeist-like movements of irrationalism, spiritualism, and

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occultism, and religions have kept a significant part of their positions, too. According to Naisbitt: “At the dawn of the third millennium, there are unmistakable signs of a worldwide multidenominational revival” (Naisbitt, Aburdene 1990). Healing reflects the understanding of the human being in its (his/her) ontological context. The disenchanted being is reduced to soma and psyche in a monist, materialist context, and the reenchanted human regains its spiritual, eternal dimensions including pneuma and soul. This new sensitivity brings back “superempirical” explanations, laying on of hands, altered states of consciousness, the “nonlocal mind” with a hope, that they are still unexplained part of nature. (Levin 2009) Reenchantment does not need scientific approval of these phenomena, like faith healing, intercessory prayer, healing with lay on of hands, psychotronics, reincarnation therapy, astrological medicine. However, validation itself implies the identification of underlying, hidden cosmological assumptions. Sometimes the supernatural might be taken as unexplained natural based on the personal choice of cosmology. Even Nature might reflect its Creator, and natural laws have a supernatural origin in the physicotheological frame. Exploring the available diverse belief systems, it can be stated that in the majority of cultures, spiritual interpretation is closely associated with healing. It is worth to note that the human ecological frame of illness and disease as a maladaptation to the environment may be seen as disturbed communication. Fosarelli (2002) cites Bakken and Hofeller: “Health is a dynamic, integrated state of balance and communication or dialogue with regard to body, mind, and spirit; the physiological systems of the body; other individuals; the external environment; and God. Illness is the result of dysfunctional dialogue or breakdown in communication. Signals are either ignored or misinterpreted [regarding physical, psychological, or spiritual health]”

The spiritual, supernatural aspects of healing emerge in the case of traditional pathological concepts: spell, hex, possession, loss of soul and taboo-breaking (Clements 1932) or related to diseases attributed to divine punishment, as well (Hallowell 1941 in Landy 1977). In addition to the

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above, we also face spiritual frames in the different ways of divination that can be interpreted as particular forms of disease identification and sacral communication. The cosmologies fuelling sacral communication interwoven with the archaic forms of healing are often included in a canonized frame by the conventional and institutionalized forms of religion, which can be also interpreted as a powerful and permanent state of mind or a system of signs organising motivation, reflecting the universal order of being, and requiring a place in the interpretation of health and illness of both cosmological and psychosomatic significance. In the situation of post-modern existence (and maybe in other periods as well) it is reasonable not to think of competing ideologies, cosmologies, and realities but consider their concurrent and multiplied, and context dependent existence instead. Spirituality has taken a central position in anthropology since the beginning. Edward Tylor’s book, published in 1889 and titled ‘Primitive Religion’ identified animism as the most fundamental religious idea according to which the living have visible, bodily, and invisible and spiritual components at the same time. According to Tylor, death, dream, and trance as experiencing the separation of body and soul root in the above idea, by which the concept of loss of soul and possession can be interpreted as well. The other dominant category is magic, as one might find it central in Evans-Pritchard’s first work, in 1937. Malinowski (1948) in his theory attributes the power of magic to its suggestive effect. His biopsychological functionalism is close to the placebo theory when he correlates the effects to the suggestive effect of the magical elements used by the healer, and to their influence inducing faith and hopes to win over the ill person’s doubts and fears. Religious and spiritual phenomena are conceptualized in frames of the belief system of the interpreting community. Beliefs constitute a cosmologically sound system of symbolic and meaningful elements, which are included in common myths that can be told, and rituals that can be acted, and this replaces the chaotic and frustrating world with an organized cosmos. If sickness derives from the imbalance of the macrocosmos and

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the microcosmos, or it becomes embodied in this, healing itself means the recovery of the personal cosmos, which is a mythical and transcendental task.

Spirituality and Religion as the Basis of Culture If we try to understand the different hermeneutics of the healing ministry of Jesus and its fate along with the history of Christianism and the medicine, we have to announce the role of basic assumptions of the given culture. Culture with its symbols, values and myths, rituals and discourses, heroes and institutions, ways of adaptation and subsistence depend on their most profound, invisible and unquestioned layer, on its underlying cosmological assumptions. According to Edward T. Hall (1984) culture has three different layers from the visible tertiary level culture, including rituals, signs, and symbols through the secondary level consisting of underlying sets of values, rules and roles to the determining primary and the deepest level of the given culture in which the unreflected assumptions and rules are accepted and obeyed by all, usually out of awareness. It is clear that basic cosmological assumptions regarding nature, transcendence, and spirituality are configured both by the primary and secondary level of the given culture, and expressed and performed on the cultural surface, in the tertiary level of culture. This observable surface offers the sacred symbols and codes, rituals and texts and narratives implying heroes, expressed values, creating a web of meaning for the researcher of religious and spiritual sphere. Interpretive anthropology of religion explores systems of symbolic meaning as a basis of heuristics of religious and spiritual phenomena. This semantic system helps to translate the personal experiences into construable signs and texts generating hermeneutic communities along with the processes of sacral communication. The mutual relationship between human experiences and agency in the primary and secondary culture creates an interrelated dynamism. In these processes, the personal insights embodied during

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religious and spiritual experiences may reshape cosmological assumptions. This way, the embodiment might play a crucial role in the hermeneutic reframing the basic cosmological assumptions inducing deep cultural transformations in the context of spirituality (Lázár 2006). Religious rituals, iconographies, eclectic personal rituals, magical performances, divination, mantics need a unique analytic tool, sacral semiotics, which identifies the symbolic langue and parole of sacred communication, its paradigmatic vocabulary and syntagmatic relations and laws, including semantics and pragmatics. Interpretive anthropology might integrate the classical semiotic tradition and classification system of Saussure, Peirce, and Morris for a better description of sacred semiosis. Iconography and typology also help to uncover the textual layer, the holy codes of a given culture. The deeper, secondary layer of the culture includes behavioral rules, morals, and values, ways and logic of conduct, transactional schemas shaped by the given spirituality and religious norms. Structuralism maps the spiritual phenomena and experience for the sake of unrevealing a deeper structure underlying it, relocating the sacred in those elemental linguistic stabilizing our experience by inscribing and deciphering. The structuralism of Lévi-Strauss anchors these dyadic and opposing binaries of spiritual representations of the surrounding world (up and down, heaven and earth, sacred and profane) into deeper cognitive structures of the human mind. Another hermeneutic rout also leads beyond the surface of the tertiary, and sometimes even the secondary culture. The deconstruction explores what exists beneath the structures of consciousness, but also beneath the structures that underlie them through critical decentering, dismantling, demystification, which might hurt the religious or spiritual essence of the metaphysical basis of the given value system. Deconstructive criticism with its tendency of textual decreation basic cosmological assumptions inducing demolition of religious texts, rituals, and sacred text-based norms as well, expresses noticeable antipathy to spiritual and religious concerns. The Foucauldian discourse analysis targets also this secondary culture to explore the power relations, the system of interests, value-laden behaviors. This approach is not far from the classical Durkheimian way

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which tried to detach spiritual and religious notions from their transcendental basis and understands the empirical, social aspect of religion, common to all religions which induced him to go beyond the concepts of spirituality and God. The evolutionary, time-scale based anthropological frameworks regarding the progress of religious concepts did not offer unified schema at all. Lubbock rendered this perspective as a sequence of atheism, fetishism, and/or theriomorphism, totemism, shamanism and finally, he listed the last divine “chapter” of anthropomorphic deities. His contemporary, Edward Burnett Tylor started the evolution of religion with animism, followed by fetishism, idolatries, polytheism and finally monotheism, while Frazer discriminated only three consecutive paradigms: magic, religion, and science. The medical anthropologist and historian Ackerknecht opposed only two cosmologies: the magico-religious paradigm versus naturalist science. The unilinear evolutionary claim also included a concept, that most fundamental notions of all cosmologies and system of social institutions: law, healing, communication, and art have a primitive religious origin. It is interesting, how scientific cosmology and belief system and its institutionalized discourse system is ready to take the role of previous religious functions. According to Roy Rappaport (1999), both religions and science offer cosmological axioms describing the perceived nature of the universe implying an adaptive value of rituals as regulators in maintaining the relationship with their environment. These belief systems, as representations exposed to the changing conditions, are an active part of the environmental adaptation with the aim to preserve the system as a whole. Science might substitute religious discourses taking over the cosmogonical explanatory models like the theory of the genesis of Nature, morals and values, explanation of misfortune, illness causation and healing. Biomedicine offers a good sample for this substitutive shift from religion to science. According to Olivier Clerc biomedicine is proper field where the unconscious transposition of the religious experience may evolve, medicine can fulfill the saving or messianic role “delivering

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through the certainties of science what the old discredited gods were not able to deliver,” where the doctors and scientists may be seen as the priests of the new religion. Clerc (2001) lists the above religious projective features of biomedicine, where science offers analogies for previous religious roles. “Vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism and is accompanied by the same threats and fears. The search for health has replaced the quest for salvation. The fight against the disease has replaced the fight against sin. Eradication of viruses has taken the place of exorcizing demons. The hope of physical immortality (cloning, genetic engineering) has been substituted for the hope of eternal life. Pills have replaced the sacrament of bread and wine. Donations to cancer research take precedence over donations to the church. A hypothetical universal vaccine could save humanity from all its illnesses, as the Savior has saved the world from all its sins. The medical power has become the government’s ally, as was the Catholic Church in the past. “Charlatans” are persecuted today as “heretics” was yesterday. Dogmatism rules out promising alternative medical theories. The same absence of individual responsibility is now found in medicine, as previously in the Christian religion. Patients are alienated from their bodies, as sinners used to be from their souls.”

Durkheim’s structuralist view preceded notions of structuralistfunctionalist approach of Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber, when he revealed, those religious concepts are modeled upon and expresses the structures of society at the level of rituals, morals and value system and the logical conformity, created by synchronization of values, morals support social stability. Durkheim sees religious myth as a source of classification and modeling the surrounding reality, obviously including the most profound cosmological framework of basic religious assumptions. This way the Durkheimian concept is comprehensive and paradigmatic but detaches the discourse of religion and spirituality from the transcendental at the same time.

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There is another access to the primary cultural layer of religions, the philosophic. Heidegger reopened the way of understanding religion as a cosmological enterprise, as an act of revelation, an unveiling or aletheia. Similar hidden aims are introduced by the term “collective unconscious” in the Jungian approach through his psychotherapeutic and hermeneutic approaches. Phenomenology of religion, as we learned from Van der Leuw, Rudolf Otto or Eliade, also helps to describe religious phenomena in terms consistent with the orientation of worshippers by a collection, a grouping, an arrangement, and a classifying of the main groups of religious conceptions. This phenomenology keeps transcendental in the center, in forms of “mysterium tremendum” and “fascinans” of the Sacred, das Heilige, the ineffable, “Totalis Aliter” or “wholly other.” It is a clear reposition of the transcendental into the center, freeing it from evolutionary (in)validation. Although culture and spirituality could not be detached at the modernity at all (Lázár 2019), the growing re-enchantment of arts in the last half of the 20th century brought fine arts, literature, and theater back to its sacred basis, as Sepsi unveils it in Weil’s philosophical works and drama and Pilinszky’s poetry, or even more in Novarina’s theater also dealing with the theological kenose concept in her analysis (Sepsi, 2012, 2014, 2017). Even the rationalist Homo Economicus, himself has opened his new niches for spirituality in the world of the organizations (Lázár 2003). Phenomenology shares the emic anthropological approach in seeking the religious meaning of observed ritual and other phenomena as it stands for the believers themselves. Phenomenology of religion interprets the diversity of perception, understanding, and care of the appearing Sacred and mysterious.

Transcendence and Spirituality in Schemas Dealing with the psychological interpretation of religion, Wulf (1997) offered a two-dimensional schema to explore cultural differences of

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religious interpretations including accepting or denial of transcendence and the extent of spiritual attunement and tenacity to the sacred texts, their fundamentalist or arbitral and symbolic interpretation. His fourfold classification along the axis of the transcendental and textual/dogmatic dimensions generates categories: literary affirmation (high transcendence/low symbolism), literal disaffirmation (low transcendence/low symbolism), symbolic affirmation and symbolic disaffirmation. Similar typology is offered by Hutsebaut (2000), who also creates two axes for a fourfold classification of religious styles and orientation. One axis measures faith versus skepticism, while the other axis deals with the interpretation of the sacred text: literal versus symbolic. The faith side includes two religious styles: the orthodox and the so-called “second naïveté” (Ricoeur’s term, the second naïveté refers to a “post-critical” hermeneutic approximation of the sacred text, approaching the symbols properly, keeping in mind, that they don’t point actually to any specific thing. This way, religious language, and symbols receive new content). The skeptic side includes outsider-critical, and relativizing styles. The orthodox belief system is characterized by literal thinking, strong influence of religion on conduct, hierarchy, feeling of shame accompanying faith where God is prominently constant, religion offers answers, while typology of the so-called second naiveté contains symbolical thinking, spiritual interest, loving God, religious content can change according to their interpretation, religion as a personal quest for meaning (Hutsebaut 2000). This contrast of traditional “literal” and institutionalized religiosity and the contemporary drift towards the more liberal and individualist “second naiveté” reflects the emergence of individualized religious styles, and explains the phenomenon of the relocalization of the Sacred. These attitudes and hermeneutic dispositions are determining elements of the unreflected primary culture and generate psychological, social and political attitudes, values system, morals and at the visible level narratives, symbols, heroes, and rituals, be they religious, spiritual, or skeptic, demystifying relativizing.

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Adding the Depth of the Personal – Magic and Pneuma Inspired by models of Wulf and Hutsebaut we can establish an explanatory schema including a third axis following the classic religious anthropological model of Frazer. Beyond the religious discourse, and the inclusion/exclusion of the transcendental, magic offers a personal dimension. Magic means personal use of supernatural power through magical practice, religion means humbleness and delegation of a personal transcendental agency to the priesthood, while the naturalist approach denies the transcendental agency itself. Our three axis-based model includes a relationship with the spiritual and transcendental, the attitude towards the religious discourse (text, ritual, institutions, rules, roles, and codes), while perceived personal control over perceived spiritual and transcendental powers creates the third “magical” axis.

Figure 1. Interpretation matrix (Lázár modified after Hutsebaut 2000).

The eight folders are the following: religious fundamentalism (high transcendence, high loyalty to religious discourse, low personal control), dogmatic criticism (denial of transcendence, high loyalty to counter-

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religious discourse, low personal control), charismatic religious specialists, exorcists, religious mystics (high transcendence, high loyalty to religious discourse), rationalizing, existentialist, nihilist or postmodern reductive view of religion (low transcendence, low loyalty to religious discourse, high personal control), heretic, charismatic religious/occultist, esoteric, magical agency (high transcendence, low loyalty to religious discourse, high personal control), atheist, secularized commonsense (low transcendence, low loyalty to religious discourse, low personal control), pick-up and mix New Age spirituality (low loyalty to religious discourse, high transcendence, low personal control). Based on this classification, we might conclude that beyond the dominance of a given religious/spiritual pattern, all of them are sustained and prove to play a role in the complex dynamics of changing spiritual and religious patterns, pools for use and abuse in all times. If it is agreed by both the healer and patient, supernatural forces and beings have their places in this belief system; moreover, rituals often aim at influencing them. Shamans and priests are the specialists of the above influence. As for shamans, the representation and ‘cultivation’ of spiritual cosmology are not differentiated, the activity of the shaman combines healing, establishing the relationship between the natural and the supernatural, media, justice and exercising the religious cult. The priest’s role is more differentiated as it serves the ritual activity of the concerned group, and it may be a part of or separate from healing and justice. An essential element of shamanistic healing also aims at the invisible world as retrieving the migrated soul or getting rid of the possession through the presence of supporting spirits are all the hidden events of the underlying world, happening in the publicity of the community around the shaman. For medical anthropology, among religious and spiritual ceremonies, the reintegrative social role of the healing rituals is especially important. This dramaturgy of healing does not only serve the reintegration of the person and the supernatural, but it reorganizes the relationship between the individual and the community, too. The underlying cause of sickness is often the shame deriving from the person’s emotional experience obtained in the community, hate, fear or the violation of rules, therefore confession,

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absolution, and readmission work as psychosomatic healing factors in the above symbolic rituals. Hallowell (1941) considers the absolving catharsis itself the basis of spiritual healing. Similarly, La Barre (1964) also finds confession being a part of healing the cathartic element of therapy among American Indians. These anthropological considerations are supported by the psychoimmunological reactions accompanying shame, social exclusion or submission, loss of control and social support. The knowledge of animist, spiritualist cosmologies and the identification of the related conceptual system, the network of meanings and mythical reality are the criteria for the emic interpretation of spiritual healing. Different exotic forms of spiritual healing can be brought closer by finding a common denomination for the characteristics of the above healers’ particular procedures with the use of the comparative method. The above classification systems suggest the significance of spiritual identification and praxis based on particular cosmological choices. However, in the case of Christian biomedical experts or patients with their plural shopping of healing services, be they biomedical, alternative or faith healing, we find more plural picture of healing practice.

Multiple Realities, Plural Interpretation The phenomenological approach of Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) for multiple realities can be used for the patients acting among and shifting through religious, scientific and common mental frameworks, and the practice of their healers, as well as for alternative or faith healing practiced across unique partial universes and the limited worlds of discourse and meaning. Multiple realities identified by Schutz also include religious, mystical and meditative experiences, what is more, the reality of scientific experience being different from everyday reality as well. The above realities have their laws, and they can be characterized by congruent experiences, the world of meaning and paradigms that are valid in their scope, however, conflict other domains. The above different reality domains can be characterized by different sets of knowledge, the tuned

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states of consciousness, suspending the doubt for the concerned situation, spontaneity being typical of the concerned reality, awareness of having an own experience, sociality being typical of the relevant reality domain and particular time perspective. Schutz’s analysis can be used for the study of alternative medicine and faith healing, as well as for the comparison of the common, the scientific and supernatural models of Man. It shall be studied how the above realities work, how they affect their participants, and in what special conditions they become an accepted reality. On the other hand, the concurrent existence, interrelationship, and co-existence with conflicts of the above multiple realities should also be considered. Table 1. Multiple realities of healing based on Schutz’s theory Characteristics of reality Set of knowledge

Form of consciousness Commitment

Forms of spontaneity

Self-experience

Model of the human being in ordinary reality Scientific, material model of the human being, biomedicine, bioreductionist, allopathic, physical, chemical interventions Alert reflexive, critical, indoctrinated, rational consciousness The teacher or parent suspends doubts for scientific criteria, external experts and events Priority of material experience, spontaneous preferences, an order of values, material orientation

EGO centered nature, autonomy (based on the psychological term of Angyal), material life goals

Mystical model of the human being Miracles, reports on near-death experiences, mystical experience lived in the body, divination, mantic, possession

Changed states of consciousness (ASC, SSC), charismatic experience The teacher or parent suspends doubts for the concerned belief system, obtainable mystical experience or technique Spiritual orientation, a system of values, moral and behavior, and the experience of being rewarded, lived attachment to a spiritual person (Christ, Mary, the Saints), sacral communication Spiritual orientation, spiritual life goals, service, sacrifice, homonomy (based on the psychological term of Angyal)

“Done by the Name of Thy Holy Child Jesus” Characteristics of reality Sociality, interpersonal uniformity

Time prospect

Inner congruency and consistency of experience

The specific nature of the concerned reality Untranslatability

The passage from one reality to another is hindered (shock experience)

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Model of the human being in ordinary reality Secularized, bureaucratized, material production and consumption-based social reality, Homo economicus, rationalism, hedonism “Chronos,” mechanical time, mono- or polychronic time organization determined by working order. The finality of human life creates a materialist attitude, the enforcement of pleasure principle, avoiding suffering, searching control, active coping. Material nature is primary.

Mystical model of the human being

Bioreductionism denies the spiritual, denies miracles and searches for material explanations to supernatural phenomena.

The spiritual opens the closed material universe characterized by the laws of conservation, and the exceptions: miracles, stigma, charismatic donations, uncorrupted bodies indicate the significance of pneumatic life order . Near-death experiences, extra body or other spiritual experiences change the system of values.

The materialist attitude that is indifferent to miracles and skeptic to the supernatural excludes openness and acceptance to supernatural phenomena.

Consumption, material practice are inferior to spiritual life principles, Buddhist economy, voluntary simplicity, frugality, spiritualized order of life “Chairos,” sacred time, the order of sacral feasts in the year cycle, time of daily prayers, the order of lived relationship with the timeless, Life is a learning process of the spirit. Life exceeds the natural form of existence, as a frame of evangelical attitude, and carrier of the Pneuma.

Spiritual reality is fundamental.

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The above frame is suitable for interpreting traditional spiritual medicine and alternative medicine together. Spiritual case histories cannot be recorded without knowing the mythical world concept of symbolic healing. Sacral medicine and the procedures of spiritual healing can be included in the broad category of spiritual intervention. All this indicates to the anthropologist that the different cosmological systems cannot be rigidly separated, and wide-scale synthesizing interactions should be considered. It is an actual task, as biomedicine has also been opened to the spiritual discourse when Sulmasy extended Engel’s bio-psycho-social paradigm towards spirituality in his BPSS paradigm (Sulmasy 2002). On the other hand, it is evident that the old trap of Cartesian dualism keeps the discourse mostly in its old school frame, where “Western biomedicine... is still wrestling with a body-mind dualism that defies consensus; thus, for most... any resolution of a body-mindspirit pluralism is simply beyond consideration.” Levin and Vanderpool 1987

Nevertheless, there are many biomedical experts with Christian faith, who heals with homeopathy, acupuncture representing this medical and spiritual multiple reality. Even various interpretations of religious phenomena are based on different cosmologies of theist, deist, atheist, agnostic or post-modern interpretation of God.

Unclarified Issues of Profane and Religious Realities The renewal of spiritual interests and the revival movement characterizing the turn of the millennium provided a supporting background for the revival of spiritual medicine. The above process was defined as the dominant feature of the turn of the millennium by Naisbitt’s prognosis in 1990 and the Megatrends 2000 work, and it was interpreted as ‘re-enchantment’ by Csordas (2007) and Chris Partridge (2004). Nevertheless, we can see that the above process is mutual; and scientific

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interpretation, rationalizing practice and searching for scientific evidence penetrate the fields of spiritual medicine as well. The task of medical anthropology is to interpret the above phenomena from a cultural aspect, to identify the cosmologies and networks of meaning included therein, and reveal their overlapping, however, it should also undertake to play a role in the dynamics of the above processes by raising awareness and providing a cultural ‘translation’ service. The most crucial feature of spiritual healing is that it is not limited to either the healer and the patient. During both making a diagnosis, and in the presumptive healing process, it involves impersonalized or personalized invisible factors (malignant and protective spirits, intervening Gods), or objects, symbols, dematerialized natural factors mediating their effects (e.g., healing spring). Thus healer-patient communication is also converted into a three-participant relationship, in which the idea of making contact with supernatural power and forces plays a vital role. Commonsense, material scientific experience and imagination, mystical experience are not identical, and it is difficult to find a passage among them for those being laypeople, skeptical, or orienting among the methodological frames, experiencing miracles or supernatural events. Fantasizing based on religious or mystical belief systems should be distinguished from experiencing alternative realities that lead to mystical experience needs initiation and becomes possible as a result of serious and regular exercises. Anyone that experiences spiritual phenomena, possession, near-death experiences, extreme body state, stigmatization or levitation personally, what is more in its materiality as bodily experience, will join to a mystical reality that is clearly distinguished from the reality of fantasizing. However, its authenticity can be hardly judged from the aspect of everyday reality, as the ontological quality of the experience cannot be evaluated just because of the uniqueness, the statistical evidencebased validation, the translation difficulties, the impermeability, and the obstacles to suspending doubts.

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Imre Lázár Table 2. Multiple perceived realities

Everyday reality (dominant reality shared by the majority, ‘paramount reality’, common sense) The reality of natural science (independent of everyday thinking, the world is understood in mathematical terms, scientific models based on research and interpreted in evidence based materialist, closed model)

The reality of the supernatural (dependent on faith and the work of the Holy Spirit in the converted person, divinative experience, near-death experiences, miracles, revelation, pneumatic experience. Model of the universe is open to the supernatural)

Worlds of fantasy (culturally constructed or individual creative realities, worlds that are independent of everyday thinking, original and shared, at group level)

In a highly simplified comparison of the dimensions related to our subject, the everyday lay life-world, scientific understanding of the world, the supernatural mystical world based on personal or collective experience, and the arbitrary personal or collectively constructed fantasy-world can be listed as possible alternatives.

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF EVANGELICAL HEALING Healing is a strategy, which reorganizes the social and psychological meaning system related to the problems of existence accompanied by health deterioration. According to the rationalizing (etic) interpretation of the above process, sickness becomes a meaningful cultural construction. The interpretation of evangelical healing also offers the above-detailed alternatives. However, the theist faith vested in God intervening in everyday life by Jesus at a supernatural level, the deist model of a nonintervening God, and the approach considering the narratives of sacral healing is just a mythical inheritance or providing psychosomatic, material explanations all lead to different interpretations. These variations rest on

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exclusion or inclusion of transcendence, the degree of identification with institutionalized discourse and the degree of perceived personal spiritual control. Based on these different cosmological assumptions distinct medical realities emerge. One might interpret the same healing episode by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark and Luke in different explanatory models. It is interesting that the physician Luke offered the theological interpretation considering Peter’s mother-in-law to be possessed by a demon named Fever, while Mark saw her only suffering from fever. In Luke’s narrative, Jesus exorcizes the demon, while Mark only describes the fact, that Jesus lifts her by the hand (Pilch 2000). The empirical, biomedical interpretation of Christian faith healing may lead to results endangered by misunderstandings. Although the symptom patterns, situations, disabilities determined from the text may help with the identification of diseases in the sense of modern taxonomy, this cannot be indicative concerning either contemporary nosology (disease classification) or the used treatments. It is tempting but might be a misleading rationalization to identify the Gospel narratives about demonic possession with a biomedical background of psychosis, epilepsy. The emic approach, i.e., the hermeneutical approach adjusted to the cultural context, as well the concept and meaning system of the concerned period may offer more. The network of sickness meaning includes notions of transcendent, ideas of malevolent spirits interfering with human affairs. Healing is firmly attached to ontological and spiritual qualifiers like wholeness, cleanness, and purity, which include a transcendental view of the human entity, and the dangers of his/her corruption signed by impurity and uncleanness. The first step of emic approximation of healing is understanding the interpreting strategy of the healer. The semantic sickness network is a coherent complex of meaning and experience that is closely related to the meaning system of the concerned society. All this is needed to clarify the conflict, correlations and possible strategies of co-existence related to evangelical healing, the practice of alternative medicine and our biomedical knowledge.

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The healing practice of the concerned period and society is deeply embedded in the sociocultural and technological context of the concerned culture. To interpret the medical system, the institutions, the healing roles, and the dominant explanatory models, a thorough analysis of the era is needed, which also needs reconciliation the interpretive frames between religion historical, historic anthropological and exegetic sources and medical anthropology. If medical anthropology helps biomedical specialists have an insight into the belief system for health and sickness of far cultures, it may do the same for theologists as well. Table 3. Interpretative models of healing Experimental, biomedical model Illness and disease are explained at the level of the pathophysiological processes. Symptoms reveal underlying processes in the body. The basis of interpretation: Objective data disclosure based on laboratory data, imaging techniques. The goal of interpretation: Making a diagnosis, explanation to symptoms to the patient. Interpretation strategy: Revealing the relationship between symptoms, and their reference in the objective disease processes of the body. Therapeutic goal: Medication, surgical treatment to eliminate the cause of disease, recreation the physiological balance.

Cultural hermeneutical model The suffering person constructs the meaningful world of sickness. The concerned belief system determines the relevance of data. The basis of interpretation: Disclosure of patient’s explanatory model, decoding the semantic sickness network. The goal of interpretation: Revealing the meaning of the sickness episode. Interpretation strategy: Revealing the relationship between the symptoms and the semantic sickness network, symptoms as text and their context. Therapeutic goal: The healer influences how the patient lives and interprets the disease, by understanding and changing the hidden, the healer helps the patient reinterpret the patient’s state in a meaningful context.

Empiricist versus hermeneutical model (after Pilch 2000).

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The first culture-dependent category is human being himself and his health. The health model of the bioreductionist framework is fundamentally different from the spiritual and sacral model. The difference is based on the cultural layer including primary and unquestionable, fundamental cosmological assumptions that are often handled as taboos, and this is also represented in the differences of interpretation, as well as the plurality of interpretations may occur for one person as suggested by Schutz’s phenomenology. Nevertheless, this does not mean that an even religious theologist should handle the examples of evangelical healing as miracles or supernatural events, and interpret them independent of contemporary mythical ideas. Bultmann, a representative of rational theology, offers this historical, cultural understanding of the samples of miraculous healing. The psychological and social recovering and reintegrating role of healing is crucial as it recovers the integrity of the meaningful networks including the patient, and gives personal and social meaning to the sickness experience. The tools of symbolic healing are the so-called transactional symbols that offer a way to therapeutic change in the patient’s emotional system through particularizing the generally used and agreed meaning system. The task of the healer is to raise the patient’s personal experience into the therapeutic meaning system, whereas the patient particularizes the symbolic meaning system to personal experience. In the fourth stage of symbolic healing, the healer reinforces the specified symbolic meaning embedded in the experience of physical and emotional changes. All the above is very important in the contemporary acceptance of Christian healing, and the interpreting the healing activity of Jesus, how it was judged by the Pharisees, as well as in leaving the above action to the disciples. To study the healing by Jesus, the cosmology of the period, contemporary sickness concepts, beliefs related to healing, the medical model included in the traditions of the Old and the New Testament and the meaning system of the sickness are to be explored. The following issues can be studied: whether healing is embedded in dominant culture and religion or marginalized, the ideas about healing, to

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what extent healing is related to supernatural, spiritual factors, and to what extent it can be attributed to human practice. The following question can be raised: what is the place of healing in faith, and what is the place of faith in healing and the Gospel at the turn of the millennium? The above question involves a general ontological problem: is Man a biological entity with spiritual experience or a spiritual entity with biological experience?

The Right and Forms of Healing and Recovery in the Old and the New Testament To what extent can healing be considered a sacral communication and an established link between Heaven and Earth? In biblical times, health and illness were divine “domains”. Even the Old Testament includes the metaphors of healing in the description of God: “The Lord…who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psalms 103:3). Forrai highlights that the above metaphor indicates a link between the sickness and the physical, spiritual and even mental dimensions of its healing even at the time of the Old Testament. Yahweh himself is a physician as well. “I will not put on you any of the diseases which I put on the Egyptians: for I am the Lord your life-giver.” However, the healing God is also a source of a punitive, sickening power in the model of the Old Testament. With the punitive model of God, the person may easily consider his lousy luck a punishment for his sins, what is more, a trial in the sinless state as the Book of Job evidences it. The story of Job shows that this is often an intensive spiritual experience that can also be considered the trial of faith, which, in addition to the shock, usually involves a mental, spiritual elevation, therefore, construction of meaning, reintegration, and recovery in such trials is a part of living the relationship between Man and God and its catharsis. Even early functionalist anthropological research points out within the disease sanction model at the phenomenon that diseases progressing in the usual way are treated by the person, himself. However, if the course of the

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disease is irregular, frustrating and recovery lasts long, the meaning of the sickness changes and it becomes associated with the disintegration of the cosmic order and the punishment of the person’s transgressive deeds. In this situation healing of the body is not sufficient; the spiritual world shall also be propritiated. Therefore in this situation, the patient turns to the shaman and connects his sins to the illness and complaints considered as the punishment of the spiritual world. In his disease sanction model, Alfred I. Hallowell (in Landy 1975) uses the Saulteaoux Indians belonging to the Ojibwas to evidence that the disease sanction supposition has a forceful power regulating the given society. Diseases and sins are connected during the public healing ritual by the shaman, which helps to evidence social rules and the risk of their violation for the children and women of the tribe through confessing the above sins publicly. The activity of the shaman to propritiate the spiritual world reduces the anxiety of the Indian and helps the Indian’s social re-admission, as well as adds a social catharsis to recovery. This disease sanction concept is an essential element in the ideas of the Jews in the Old Testament as well. Examples of this can be found in several text places: Exodus, 15.26. “And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.” Leviticus 26.16. “I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.” Deuteronomy 7.15. “And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.” Deuteronomy 28.22. “The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.”

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Similarly, people living in the period also use the tools of divination and sacral communication to reveal the causes of the disease. 2 King 1.2. “And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease.” 2.8.8. “And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and enquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?

The considered divine help superior to and obviously more efficient than medical help, however, the scriptures mention noblemen who considered profane knowledge superior: 2 Chronicles 16.12. “And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.”

An example taken from the Book of Chronicles indicates the spiritual nature of healing as the King was severly condemned for healing his gout by doctors instead of accepting the heavenly ordainment. The scriptures do not only identify supernatural causes underlying the disease as a physical process, but sickness can also be caused by the psychological suffering of social origin or a psychosomatic pathological process: Psalms 69.20. “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.”

The logic and holistic interpretation of sickness explanatory models exceeding physical interpretation are indicated by similar citations referring to the psychosomatic role of emotions inducing diseases.

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Proverbs 13.12. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.” Songs of Solomon 2.5. “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.”

The healing power of propritiating and forgiving is also expressed in some text places: Psalms 103.3. “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;”

The attitude to think of sickness as predestination or divine punishment considered the fight against the disease a severe misdeed (Forrai 2003), at the same time, several texts indicate that many considered healing an act against God’s predestined will. David’s descendant, Hezekiah, King of Judea (720-692 B.C.) gained respect in Mishnah (a religious collection edited by Judah ha-Nasi, based on Midrash, i.e., contemporary spoken religious tradition, studying the meaning of the Scripture) by hiding the Book of Remedies, which could offer a remedy for all problems. A fundamental item of Mishnah, attributed to an unknown wise proverbs that the best of doctors are destined for Hell (Kiddushin 4.14 cited in Forrai) as according to Avot of Rabbi Natan (36:5) the healer can be considered a conspirator of the patient, who intends to avoid his fate predestined by the Lord. Nevertheless, the above text part from Hezekiah is not alone either as the school of Rabbi Ishmael emphasizes the importance of healing referring to the text of the Holy Bible mainly in the case of external or physical diseases (Exodus 21.19 “he who struck him … shall have him thoroughly healed”). However, Forrai points out at Abraham Ibn Esra’s text from the twelfth century, which allows treating only physical injuries but not internal diseases. In Ezekiel’s book healing is a prophetic reference to the Christian attitude:

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Imre Lázár Ezekiel 34.4. “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.” Ezekiel 34.16. “I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.”

Within the frame of the disease sanction model, the suffering person considers superior powers, i.e., the Lord responsible for disease and bad luck, which makes the above-indicated dilemma understandable for the healers. Nevertheless, divine punishment is associated with the concept of propitiation and penitence. The following quotations refer to the polysemy in such a sense of the sickness semantics. Isaiah 53.3. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Isaiah 53.4. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53.10. “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

Differentiation of the ideas related to the sickening power is referred to by the fact that many text places associate the source of sickness to the counter-power, i.e., the Satan and the possessing spirits of the demon world. The Book of Job is a source for us from this aspect as well as the source of disease, and bad luck is not the punitive God, but the Satan considered an enemy even if the Lord does not intervene, by trusting in Job and putting him to a trial. In this sense, healing may be an action against Satan in the Old Testament as well, as it is evident in the New Testament.

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The Lord is the most crucial healer: Isaiah 38.10. “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.” Deuteronomy 32.39. “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.” Psalms 30.3. “O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.”

The divine principle of healing is a pledge of recognizing Jesus as the Son of God for many. 1 Acts 4.30. “By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.”

Whereas the Old Testament mainly associates sickness with a punitive God, a change in meaning can be seen in the New Testament as here diseases are attributed to Satanian and demonian influence in the first place, and exorcism plays an essential role in healing as well. Matthew 4.24. “And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.” Matthew 8.16. “When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick.” Mark 1.34. “And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.” Mark. 6.13. “And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.”

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Imre Lázár Luke 7.21. “And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight.”

The above text places put possession in the first place among the causes of sickness within lay or archaic sickness explanations. Otherwise, Clements, in one of his early medical anthropological works, still reflecting the diffusionist concept, and comparing more than three hundred cultures, in addition to the curse, evil eye, hex, loss of soul and taboo-breaking, mentions possession in the first place. Christ’s sacrifice and saving suffering shows Christ as not only a healer but a sufferer to propitiate for others’ sins as the fulfilled example of the already cited Prophet Esaias. Matthew 8.17. “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.”

St. Ephrem Syrus in his (or his disciplines’) work ‘Cave of Treasures’ marks Jesus by the gifts of the three Magis, as King (gold), Priest (frankincense), and Doctor (myrhh). Healing by Jesus is not separated from the teaching practice: Matthew 9.35. “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”

In addition to the already mentioned exorcist practice and the termination of possession, the forms of healing by Jesus also include laying on of hands, as well as the healing power of ‘sacred’ objects and garment related to Jesus. Mark 6.5. “And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.”

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Luke 4.40. “Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.” Luke 6.36. “And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.”

The story about the recovery of the bleeding woman represents the healing power of Jesus. Mark 5.27-30. “When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?”

The source of power was interpreted in different ways. It may be a resurrected person: Matthew 14.1-2. “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.”

The source of healing power is the divinity of Christ. 1.Peter 3.22. “Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.” Acts 2.22. 2 “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know.”

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Imre Lázár Nevertheless, the above powers are also part of apostolic initiation: 2.Cor.12.12. “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.” 1.Cor. 12.28. “And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” I.Cor.12.7. “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” I.Cor.12.10. “To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:”

The above-detailed mechanism of symbolic healing allows the healer to help and strengthen the change in patient’s experience through the transactive symbols of the shared mythical reality, and to promote the recovery of patient’s body by a psychophysical mechanism. The medical anthropological interpretation referred to as meaning response can be considered the extension of the above model. Here the change in the state of a psychosomatic nature is implemented in recovery through the psychological and physiological factors enforced concerning meaning. Moerman, as well as Csordas and Kleinman (1990), extended Dow’s concept of symbolical healing to all healing as all treatments have symbolic components and meaning response, which plays a role in healing. In many cases, diagnosis or the mutual recording of the case history is a part of the above creation of meaning, which includes restructuring the chaotic situation in the reassuring order of healing for the patient. Mediating the forgiving of God, strengthening faith, as well as the ritual lustration may be considered therapeutic operations to give meaning. The gesture in the healing by Jesus, i.e., the forgiving of God mediated by Jesus plays a vital role in easing the suffering interpreted within the general “disease sanction” frame. In the concerned culture, sins are forgiven through a sacrifice in church, which is categorically impossible for the most fallen as they cannot bring sacrificial animals to the altar

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without any money or goods. Jesus offered help to the most fallen in this field as well by bridging the constraint of the ruling order. Forgiving also plays a central role in the shamanistic healing of the above mentioned Ojibwa tribe, and to receive forgiveness, the Indians have to confess their sins in public. The power of belief vested in the healer is the healing power of faith itself in the healing by Jesus. According to the placebo theory, a more intensive expectation-attribution process leads to a more probably change. Based on studies, endorphins also play a role in the placebo effect mechanism. However, the placebo cannot be an explanatory model for all forms of religious healing. Listing the illnesses healed by Jesus, we find blindness, deafness, leprosy, palsy, psychiatric and epileptic phenomena explained by spirit possession healed by Jesus via word, touch, prayer, exorcism, mud and water, saliva, forgiving the sins, by the faith of the patient, father or friends, by touching Jesus’s garment. Main healing acts include healing by laying on of hands, word (suggestion, prayer), as well as healing with saliva, water, and mud. Exorcism occurs in one-fourth of healing, which also includes the disorder involving spasms of epileptic nature; Jesus identifies fasting and begging as the healing procedure for this specific disease. The visible difference among the Gospels related to healings offers a separate plane of analysis. In Mark, we can observe healing with saliva, whereas in John, he heals with mud and water, which forms of healing are not explicit in Mark and Luke. The texts of Matthew and Luke are rich in healing narratives; however, Mark reports fewer cures, and John’s Gospel with its five mentioned healing stories leaves the above phenomena in the background. The precise, ‘detailed description’ type and context-dependent interpretation of the above healings is essential, and no healing gesture can be analyzed alone without the extended cultural, social and spiritual meaning field. All this organize the phenomena of possession, devilry, and demonian possession to be a cultural, mythical reality in the emic approach (that uses the concepts of the concerned culture for interpretation and

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evaluation, and is familiar with the relevant cosmology). This way, prayer and fastening as sacral communication within the domain of faith become superior to material determination and causality. Laying on of hands, the touch of Jesus clothes, and His personal touch all mediate an “energetic” healing effect. Etic rationalization, which is, in fact, socio-structuralist, psychophysiological and materialistic interpretation of meaning, looks for explanations to the phenomena with the use of hypno-suggestive psychosomatic aspects, the expectation-attribution principle of the placebo effect and the model of symbolic healing in the above cases. It replaces mythical reality with a theoretical reality bound to the evidence-based, empirical interpretation culture of the domain of physical interpretation. Accepting divine miracles includes high inclusion of transcendence, high emic loyalty to religious discourse, while (de)mythization of divine miraculous healing reduces integration of transcendence and commitment to religious discourse, and the etic materialist rationalization excludes transcendence and offers psycho-biological explanatory models. The third interpretation domain is indifferent to the pressure to choose among magical-mythical reality and rationalizing interpretation. However, it studies the structural, functional content and meaning of healings, which is especially important regarding the subversive nature of the healing by Jesus, concerning the concerned religious regulations, e.g., prohibitions on the Sabbath day, the ethnocentric aspects, and the prohibition of resurrecting the dead.

Counter-Culture Features - Healing on the Sabbath day (agency against rigid and formal religious rules) - Faith and recovery of those of other religions, identities. - The resurrection of a dead man - Healing act called blasphemy (the Saviour is accused of healing by Beelzebub) - Failure due to skepticism

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(social psychological trap: “no one is a prophet in their land”)

The practice of Jesus was a challenge to the Pharisees and their interpretation of the sacred writings. They consider a significant part of the acts and healing by Jesus magic or blasphemy violating the laws and stigmatize it as countercultural practice. Luke. 13,14 “And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.”

Jesus answers with a critical accent: “If a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses will not be broken, why are you angry with Me for making the whole man well on the Sabbath?”

Pilch (2000) considers the social context of healings of Jesus, as a sample of a counter-cultural or anti-society group phenomenon, where the anti-society is “set up within another society as a conscious alternative to it.” In this context, wholeness and purity mean a different value system from the dominant one, and healing as the restoration of meaning in life is a challenge of the prevailing social structures. In this explanatory frame, an emphasis is put on the contemporary medical system to identify the healing acts of Jesus, as well. While the doctors of health care system of biblical times applied a philosophical frame in diagnosing, and curing, and did not touch the patients, Jesus was accepted or debated as a folk healer, who could heal at a distance, by command, or by touching the patients. Understanding his social position and context is also depends on inclusion or exclusion of the transcendence, where Pilch (2000) emphasizes, that “in John’s group, Jesus is the source of life and light, of the wholeness created by God at the beginning and maintained by God in the present.”

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However, Pilch (2000) also applies an etic “naturalization” – not far from Craffert’s sociotype concept of SSC, when gives a psychological explanation regarding the living Jesus: “It is access to the resurrected Messiah of Israel in altered states of consciousness (ASC) experiences that enable results such as those reported in the significant healing interactions of Jesus.”

Text places about the divine healing raise several questions demanding hermeneutics. Critical issues are the cosmology determining the meaning network of sickness and healing, the group and socio-semiotics of the ideas about life and death, the way and initiation of the healer, the obtainment, quality and method of operation of healing capabilities, and the cosmological frame of the concerned belief and healing practice.

THE INTERPRETATION OF EVANGELICAL HEALINGS IN THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS In the introduction, we offered diverse ways for interpretation based on inclusion/exclusion of transcendence, pneuma, and there is dichotomy regarding the explanations of the sickness experience and healing acts based on etic, biomedical aspect versus emic approach including the cultural, hermeneutical understanding. This dichotomy is not limited to medical, medical historical or anthropological disciplines. Craffert (2008) involves the positivist-postmodern historiographical method in a similar opposition to the anthropological historiographical stance. On one side, the author distinguishes three historiographical attitudes. Based on ontological monism, the historical aspect and the written and objective pieces of evidence are brought into the foreground as testimonies. Positivist historiography can be characterized by the risk of scientistic attitude, naïve realism, and removal from the context (scissors and paste), whereas postmodern historiography can be described by antirealism and rhetoric attitude according to Craffert.

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Table 4. Historiographies of the Gospels based on Craffert (2008) Positivist-postmodern historiography Historical Jesus is not identical to the Jesus representations in the Gospel Gospels were created linearly, based on traditions layered onto one another, whose center or basis include the earliest authentic material. Interpretation advances from the identified factual bases in an inductive way to the historical person who can be found in the supposed center.

Anthropological historiography Historical persons (and sociotypes) such as shaman healers may be similar to Jesus of Nazareth. Each Gospel is composed of the configurational residues of social processes, which are created by the dynamics of social roles. Interpretation is implemented by comparing the social role and the cultural dynamics of the social type’s life.

Contrary to the above, the features of anthropological historiography include intercultural dialogue, critical realism, observed cultural processes and dynamics and documents (field objects, texts) as evidence. The unified and polarized story thus involves the person interpreting the text in a dichotomy similar to that of the biomedical, empirical versus hermeneutical, anthropological models. In anthropological historiography, the Christian picture of the healing Jesus needs analysis of contemporary cultural processes, as well as the means of legitimation, rumors, remembrance, and evocation. Thus the Gospel is a text source, which reports on the events of healing by Jesus. However, it also presents the social role that was established, accepted and refused, welcomed and sanctioned in the concerned culture. Craffert’s research is original in the sense that he interpreted what rationalizing or existentialist theological schools did not speak about such as divine healing with the comparative tools of anthropology from the aspect of comparable cultural role patterns, belief, and activity forms. Thus his work, introducing Jesus as a “Galilean Shaman”, can offer a shared domain of interpretation for us regarding the activity forms of spiritual healing, Christian faith healing, and alternative medicine referring to Jesus. This sociotypecentered picture of Jesus is based on a “human prototype,” i.e., on the pattern of a specific human activity type, mental frame, thinking that is

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socially observed, as well as perceived and identified separated from other groups, and whose quality is named individually. The analysis of the “sociotype” may help reveal the cultural dynamics of the person’s life, the culturally determined perception and interpretation regarding the person’s features, as well as it may help understand how the stories about the person are created and change. Craffert (2008) offers the sociotype of the shaman – being integral in almost all archaic cultures – to interpret the world of Jesus including evangelical healing activity, the practice and capability of influencing the spiritual world, and wonderwork, which can be characterized by an altered state of mind and other specific interactions established between the shaman and his community. The emphasized integrative role of the Shaman regarding the sick and his society, Nature, and Supernatural appears in the Gospel, too. Jesus heals the afflicted sick people reintegrating them into society, just as restoring the integrity of their soul. These historiographies let the reader exclude the transcendence, the supernatural, and does not refer to the divinity of Jesus, avoiding an open confession of underlying cosmological assumption. This way, these theories reflect a scientific, Enlightenment statement regarding Christian healing instead, be they theological, medical anthropological or another kind. There are other samples, giving room for spiritual and transcendental, avoiding material rationalization of the emic understanding or cosmological indifference of neutral textual analysis, and incorporating the transcendent reality of the concerned culture in the interpretation. Edith Turner's oeuvre and Felicitas Goodman’s experimental anthropology offer a good sample for this. Nevertheless, the above aspect also includes the risk of drifting away from the track of anthropology such as it happens in the case of Jonathan Horwitz or Carlos Castaneda. On the other hand, rationalization of transcendent experience, miracles, and mystical phenomena did not avoid theology at all. The gaining ground of natural sciences and the success of empirical, evidence-based and material clinical approach influenced the theological interpretation of divine healing, too.

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The theological glance on miraculous healing shifts away from their medical meaning, even from their mystical content, as well. They were taken as signs of the Divine and not human. When Jesus enabled His disciples to heal and exorcize in His name, it is the restitution of human’s communication with the Divine, the re-inclusion of Transcendence. The early Christianism accepts this as a gift helping the suffering other. To pray for the ill as a way of healing includes the transcendence both at the institutional and personal level. As centuries passed by and Christian discourse started to be institutionalized more and more, healing began to be relegated to monasteries. That relocated the transcendental power to the “specialists,” exorcism and healing became the ability of a few. According to Cessationists, healing, speaking in tongues and prophecy ceased with the apostles. These miracles were signs and message of God's revelation and helped to spread the Gospel. (On the other side Cessationists do not deny that God still occasionally does miracles today, such as healings or divine guidance.) This statement appears as early as the third century when Cyprian had written down, that God had withdrawn the gift given to the apostles. Instead of heroic and humble efforts of miraculous healing, accepting human suffering became the Imago Christi, and attitudes towards the nature of illness as a sanction (rooted in the Old Testament) came in front. As illness is a punishment for sin, human access to healing forces became questioned. There is a difference between disease as a punishment of the Lord or disease as a work of the evil, possession by the demons in the Gospels. Even one is tempted to suppose different underlying cosmological assumptions behind this contradiction. As Kelsey (1970) points to these changes, the importance of healing ministry faded away, as Christians’ ability and rights to heal the minds and bodies of men thought to be withdrawn. “It was the soul that Christianity should heal. It came to be believed that the suffering caused by illness had a real value in developing good Christian character.”

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Healing priestly anointment slowly became an extreme unction in the Middle Ages, and the Church accepted the superiority of material approach in healing the body, it became also admitted, that the apostolic charisma of miraculous healing was “provided” by the Lord (only) to strengthen and reinforce the Church. However, the service and capability mentioned above are not present in the Church beyond that. The rationalist and existentialist ideas indicate that supernatural intervention in the profane world ruled by the natural laws of the created world can be excluded. This approach had been a characteristic of the Protestantism since the beginning as Luther emphasized that the time of miracles was over, and the gift of the Holy Spirit is to lighten the Word and the Scriptures: “now that the apostles have preached the Word and have given their writings, and nothing more than what they have written remains to be revealed, no new and special revelation or miracle is necessary.”

Calvin stated similarly: “But the gift of healing disappeared with the other miraculous powers which the Lord was pleased to give for a time, that it might render the new preaching of the gospel for ever wonderful. Therefore even if we to grant that anointing was a sacrament of those powers which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, it pertains not to us, to whom no such power have been committed.”

Although Luther stated that the Apostles’ gifts were not given to the simple believer, he considered illness as the work of the devil and criticized contemporary preachers, who lacked a holy hatred of disease, just as the physicians, who did not recognize that the cause of the disease is often at the spiritual level. It was a direct consequence of alienating healing ministry from the pastoral praxis. Of course, faith healing always kept its positions among charismatics, saints, outstanding Christian personalities like Hildegard von Bingen or Johann Christoph Blumhardt, living in an epoch of 19th century’s Enlightenment. Blumhardt gave a sad depiction of his contemporaries (C.G.S. 1940):

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“I was struck with the great difference between the Christians of the Scripture and those of our day. How much the Lord and the Apostles say about the Holy Spirit I But I could not find Him living in our Church in the same way as they record. In fact, I could not find the gifts of the Holy Spirit possessed by the early Christians at all…. I was longing to have the Holy Spirit within me, and I felt a poverty which should not exist after I8oo years of witness to Christ and His Apostles.”

Blumhardt was convinced that the gift of Spiritual Healing which the Lord gave to the Apostles and the Church, never would have been lost if the Church had not lost her full faith. He became a famous faith healer, exorcist, exerting profound influence even on the church’s most determined opponents resulting in radical transformations of their life and character, leading to conversion. This faith healing had social and psychological fruits: marriages were said to be saved and enemies reconciled. Bumhardt and his theologian son influenced much Karl Barth, himself. Barth in his Church dogmatics is also critical to the representatives of the rational theology, and his angelological chapter outlines a transcendent cosmological framework as the context of scripture interpretation. Nevertheless, he takes also a neutral, negligent position related to Christian healing although he does not deny its possibility. Dispensationalism occurs as the ecclesiastical criticism of faith healing in the twentieth century as well. Bloggs criticizes the risk in faith healing or its superficial manifestations. In the conference of the Lutheran Church held in 1962, theologists, physicians, and parsons called attention to the dark sides of faith healing. The conference agreed that faith healing, considered delusive and a method of making money, is a healing practice competing with biomedicine thought to be the gift of God, and its significant hazard is that if it is unsuccessful, healers will blame the patient, saying that patient’s faith is not strong enough. In their critical analysis, David Hunt and T.A. McMahon (1985) conclude the same as Peter Craffert just from the opposite direction and with the opposite sign. In their opinion faith healing is not based on

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Christian faith but it is a hybrid practice of the Christians misled by shamanism. The separation of existentialist theology is underpinned by the thought spanning from Kierkegaard, through Jaspers, to Merleu-Ponty stating that supernatural, immaterial reality being independent of personal psychological material can be excluded from the interpretation of human existence. Husserl’s denial of supernatural forces influencing the spacetime system of human life reached theology as well. In Kelsey’s opinion, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, and Bultmann are under the same influence, which also caused indifference to Christian faith healing and denial of its modern forms at the same time. That does not mean rejection of the role of faith in health, as Tillich emphasized the relationship among religion, belief, health, and healing and, subsequently, identified a spiritual dimension of health status (Tillich 1961). Nevertheless, the Bultmannian approach considers the world of healing by Jesus stories constructed by the believers as a mythological reality. “The world-picture of the New Testament, the world shown by Jesus, is a mythological reality, a world where heaven, earth and hell are worded in three stories, the concept of supernatural powers affecting events, the concept of miracles, especially the concept of supernatural powers affecting the inner domains of the soul, the concept according to which man can be tempted and seduced by evil powers, and can be possessed by demonian spirits.”(Bultmann cited by Kelsey, 1966)

The above theology needs the demythologization of early Christian texts so that the modern world-picture will not hinder conveying the Gospels. The price is very high as the above concept denies the existence of angels and demons, the visions, possession and the mysticism of prophecies. Kelsey writes that according to that aspect miraculous powers, supernatural phenomena were not withdrawn as they did not happen in fact; therefore, faith healing, visions, miraculous healing cannot occur today either, we only see the formation of new myths. On the other side, the Christian world could see an unprecedented charismatic awakening during these two centuries: Pentecostalists,

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Catholic charismatic movements, neo-Protestant small churches became a scene of Christian healing. Bakken and Hofeller (1992) call upon Christians to reclaim Jesus’ legacy of healing and holistic health. Prayer for healing does seem to have an efficacious effect on the health of some people, as we see it in reports of intercessory prayers.

Pluralism of Christian Medicine and Syncretism of Spiritual Healing In the New Testament, diseases are mainly attributed to the influence of Satan or demons, and exorcism plays an essential role in healing as well. In addition to the exorcist practice, the forms of healing by Jesus also include laying on of hands healing, just as the healing power of ‘sacred’ objects, garment related to Jesus. Prayer and fastening as sacral communication in the domain of faith become superordinate to material determination and causalities through faith. Similarly to eastern medicine, it should be considered here as well to what extent this tradition is present in contemporary alternative medicine. Healing through laying on of hands, for example, is one of the most popular alternative treatment options in Great Britain (Astin 2000), which forms a bridge to healing by prana, hado therapy, and reiki although considerably different cosmological backgrounds can characterize the above treatment forms. The use of prayer in spiritual medicine is experiencing a renaissance, as well as the number of so-called distance healing prayer groups have significantly increased. The same way as the number of faith healings in charismatic Christian communities has become also higher, which is connected to the outflow of the Holy Spirit, and full apology and forgiveness, and the purification of the heart are the criteria thereof. Fastening is an essential form of spiritual healing, which is widely used in alternative medical practice as well. Another essential feature of Christian spiritual healing is visiting shrines and healing springs and linking healing to religiousness.

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The contemporary healing practice related to Christian tradition is not unified at all. The historical, cultural disintegration of Christianity is also represented in the content of spiritual healing. We can see a complex picture ranging from the healing practice of Coptic Christianity with a magical nature, through Catholicism commissioning priests specialized in exorcism, to Protestantism taking the prohibition of enchantment very seriously, also including the faith healing practice of charismatic Christians and Pentecostalists. The Copts can be considered the successors of the former indigenous Egyptians, which also manifests itself in their syncretistic healing magic also permeating their Christianity. In ancient Coptic scriptures, medicine occurs as science being subordinate to enchantment. Healing procedures were always accompanied by incantation, and exorcism was also carried out with the use of magical medication. It is also valid today that if Copt people become ill, they first visit a priest or sacred healer, and they only see a doctor first in the case of an insignificant cold or stomach ache. Coptic healing also preserved the practice of healing in sleeping and incubation that was widespread in ancient times. For example, Epidaurus was a famous incubation healing place of the Greek. Well-known Coptic incubation places are the Church of Saint George at Mit Damsis and the Church of Saint John at Menuthis. According to the sources, visions related to Saint John and Saint Cyr, as well as dreaming activity played an important role in healing. (Abonyi 2002) Healing with a piece of clothes sacred by the liturgy at the end of the ceremony is also a ritual element for example. There are famous and wellknown healing springs such as the spring that broke out at the grave of Saint Menas from Amariout, or the miraculous spring of Mary the Virgin well at Mostorud. Pilgrimages aiming at recovery, and being famous for healing the possessed, neurotic and hysteric persons, such as that related to Saint George are similarly important. As the activity of demons is considered to be the underlying reason for the disease, exorcism plays an essential role in healing. There is no specific exorcist’s prayer, but psalms are used for the above purpose such as Psalm 90. is suitable for exorcizing all demon types, whereas the believer may

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purify his home with the use of Psalm 127. Psalms 7, 27, 450, 46 protect against magic. Psalms 81, 92 and 123 protect against all harmful things and malignant spirits. An additional criterion of successful exorcism is fastening in addition to prayer. Zar is a healing cult of the Copts that is the best documented by medical anthropologists. This ceremony is also suitable for making a diagnosis. Its aim is to identify, atone and exorcize the possessing spirit. The Zar Cult considered of an Ethiopian origin is present among the Copts, in South Iran and Sudan as well. This ceremony is carried out by the Copts on Saturday morning for some time or in the case of diseases similar to insanity and of unknown origin if prayers and magical acts are ineffective. Identification of the possessing spirit happens by intermittent, rhythmic music inducing a trance state and when the patient reaches the trance state, the patient starts an obsessed and uncontrolled dance and speaking in a voice is different from the patient’s voice. At this point, Sheikha, i.e., the leader of the Zar ceremony is already able to communicate with the spirit and fulfill the spirit’s requests, due to which the soul will leave the patient’s body, as it is believed by those being present. Healing underwent a different process in western Christianity. Visiting the healing, miraculous sacred springs, and wells, or the faith vested in the healing effect of holy relics can be considered a common element. There are many healing fountains, sacred springs. One of them is Lourdes, where many miraculous healings of internal and nervous disorders from cancer to nervous palsy, blindness were reported. Almost 70 of them were valued as “inexplicable” by the extremely rigorous scientific and medical examinations of Lourdes Medical Bureau as real miracles without any physiological, biomedical explanation, tested by biomedical and theologian investigators. As Saint Bernadette said, in case of these healings “One must have faith and pray; the water will have no virtue without faith.” The transcendental proofs of the Lourdian Blessed Virgin Mary Apparition are verified not only by the mentioned miraculous cures but by the incorrupted body of Bernadette Soubirous, exhumated several times. Even her liver had not been decomposed and kept its consistency after 45 years of Bernadette’s burial. This way, the inclusion of the transcendent

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rests on biomedical, material proof in Lourdes. The description of the autopsy contains these words of the pathologist: “What struck me during this examination, of course, was the state of perfect preservation of the skeleton, the fibrous tissues of the muscles (still supple and firm), of the ligaments, and of the skin, and above all the totally unexpected state of the liver after 46 years.” Doctor Comte (1925) cited by Paul De Marco 2018

The Millennial spiritual turn helped to multiplicate medical realities, widened niches of healing for Eastern professional traditional medicines, like Ayurveda, TCM, and Unani medicine. Several spiritual healing elements, neglected for a long time, occurred again within the frame of the spiritual revival at the end of the millennium or religious renewal movements. The postmodern freedom of shifting from one medical reality to another created a new habitus of plural consuming different health services. (Lázár, Johannessen 2006). This situation implies apparent risks and dangers and urges mutual openness, communication, and cooperation of health service providers. Teaching medical anthropology might help all the affected actors of the field.

THE BIOMEDICAL SIDE OF FAITH HEALING Biomedical, behavioral epidemiological reports show that greater religiosity associated with better health. Levin and Schiller (1987) sum up 200 articles that examined the connection between religion and health in the areas of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, colitis and enteritis, general health status, mortality, cancer of the uterus and cervix, and other cancers. Increased religiosity/spirituality is related to better health according to several researchers. Religious practice is positively correlated with psychological well-being indicators (satisfaction, happiness, positive emotional attitudes, and morality). There was also an

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inverse relationship with depression, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, and alcohol addiction. (George et al. 2000; Koenig et al. 2001; MoreiraAlmeida et al. 2006). The religious respondents of the Hungarostudy survey proved to be less depressed, less hostile, more cooperative and having better coping methods. They also reported receiving more social support (Székely, Skrabski 2006 cited in Lázár 2016). This approach doesn’t include transcendence explicitly, but the psychophysiological explanatory basis is pronounced in the background. The spiritual coping diminishes stress mechanisms, and psychoimmunological mechanisms help the optimal balance. (Koenig and Cohen 2002, Ray 2004) According to Townsend et al. (2002), regular church attendance is beneficial to the immune system, can significantly lower blood pressure, dismiss the risks of coronary heart disease, and suicide. It might be relevant regarding health behavior, as Hummer, Rogers, Nam, and Ellison (1999) found seven years difference in the average life expectancy between believers and skeptic in their follow-up study involving about 20,000 people (Ellison et al. 2000). Religious-based counseling (Koenig, Larson 2001), forgiveness protocols (McCullough et al. 2000), religious coping (Pargament 1997) and mindfulness practices (Kabat-Zinn et al. 2003) are part of this medically applied religious/spiritual arsenal. As the ritual of faith healing has a strict condition, to apologize and to forgive everybody, these studies regarding forgiveness also help to translate between different explanatory models and medical realities. The meta-analysis of forgiveness studies by Baskin and Enright (2004) supports the notion, that forgiveness interventions are useful in clinical practice. Although these explanatory models do not need inclusion of the transcendence, they do not exclude it either.

CONCLUSION The narratives regarding faith healing call for plural explanations which reflect diverse cosmologies. Be they theological, biomedical or

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medical anthropological, mystical or naturalist-materialist – their description needs an emic humbleness as a shared basis. It is a cosmological choice, a personal decision at the underlying assumptions, at the primary level of the given culture whether we exclude or include transcendence in understanding faith healing. One can explain these phenomena by the cultural, the psychophysiological or the theological framework with or without the inclusion of the miracles, and one might also suspend doubts for scientific criteria or doubts for the concerned belief system and mystical experience. Sometimes mystical experiences gain physical proofs, or transcendental events are explained in social-cultural or psycho-physiological frames. One might pass through different realities in different settings and contexts, leaving the scenes of every day’s reality, through the world of fantasies, arriving into the reality of natural sciences or being converted by the reality of Supernatural. Sometimes these multiple realities are not separated but are tied together as different compartments of one’s world like daydreaming phantasies, praying in the Church, healing or being healed in the hospital, or seeking help for an incurable disease at a charismatic healer. Even the most sacred proof for the Divinity or the divine gifts might be valued in plural ways based on the inclusion or exclusion of transcendence, the different loyalties to the religious discourse, and the perceived personal agency. The biopsychosocial-spiritual paradigm opens these barriers for open discussion and dialogue between these realities.

REFERENCES The biblical citations are taken from the King James Bible. Abonyi, I. (2002) Az egyiptomi kopt mágia (Copt Magic in Egypt) Budapest, Freesis Ld. Astin, J.A. 2000. “The Characteristics of CAM Users: A Complex Picture. Pp 101-114 In Complementary Medicine - Challenge and Change, eds. Kelner M., Wellman, B. Pescosolido, B., Saks, M. London: Routledge.

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Bakken, K.L., Hofeller K.H. 1992. Journey toward Wholeness: A ChristCentered Approach to Health and Healing. New York: Crossroad. Baskin, T.W., Enright, R.D. 2004. Intervention studies on forgiveness: A meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling and Development, 82, 79–90. Bultmann R. 1958. Jesus Christ and Mythology cit. M.T. Kelsky (1966) in Psychology, Medicine & Christian Healing Harper & Row San Francisco. Calvin, J. 1953. Institutes of the Christian Religion 2:636 cit. M.T. Kelsky (1966) in Psychology, Medicine & Christian Healing Harper & Row San Francisco. C.G.S. 1940. The Centenary of Faith Healing Churchman 54.2. Clements, F.E. 1932. Primitive Concepts of Disease: University of California Press, 1932. Clerc, O. 2001. Modern Medicine: A Neo-Christian Religion; The Hidden Influence of Beliefs and Fears Continuum Vol.6.No.3. Csordas, T.J., Kleinman, A. 1990. The Therapeutic Process in Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method ed. T.M. Johnson C.E Sargent 11-25 New York, Praeger. Csordas, T.J. 2007. Global religions and the re-enchantment of the world: The case of the Catholic charismatic renewal. Anthropological Theory, 7(3), 295–314. Craffert, P.F. 2008. The Life of a Galilean Shaman Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon. De Marco P. 2018 Lourdes 2019 Paperback (Standard Copyright

License) Dow, J. 1986. Universal Aspects of Symbolic Healing: A Theoretical Synthesis Am. Anthr. 88.56-69. Ellison, ChG., Hummer RA, Cormier, S., Rogers RG. (2000) Religious Involvement and Mortality Risk among African American Adults.” Research on Aging. 22(6):630-667. Evans-Pritchard E.E. 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande., Oxford University Press. 1976

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Forrai, Gy. Dr. 2003. Gyógyítások könyve [Book of Healings] Makkábi kiadói Kft. Fosarelli, P. 2002. Fearfully Wonderfully Made: The Interconnectedness of Body-Mind-Spirit Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Fall, 2002), pp. 207-229. George, L.K., Larson, D.B., Koenig, H.G., McCullough, M.E. 2000. Spirituality and health: What we know, what we need to know. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 102–116. Hall, E.T. 1984. The Dance of Life, Surbiton: Anchor Press, pp 230-31. Hallowell, A.I. 1977. The Social Function of Anxiety in a Primitive Society. In Culture, disease, and healing: studies in medical anthropology. edited by David Landy. Imprint: New York: Macmillan Hunt, D., McMahon, T.A. 1985. The Seduction of Christianity Eugene OR Harvest House. Hutsebaut, D. 2000. Post-Critical Belief Scale. Exploration of a possible developmental process. Journal of Empirical Theology, 13(2), 19-28. Kabat-Zinn, J. 2003. Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past, Present, and Future Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 10:2, SUMMER pp 144-156. Koenig, H.G., Cohen, H.J. (Eds.). 2002. The link between religion and health: Psychoneuroimmunology and the faith factor. New York, NY, US: Oxford. Koenig, H.G., Larson D.B. 2001. Religion and mental health: evidence for an association Journal of International Review of Psychiatry Volume 13, 2001 - Issue 2. La Barre, W. 1964. Confessions as cathartic therapy in American Indian tribes. In A. Kiev (Ed.) Magic, faith, and healing pp. 36-49. New York: Free Press. Lázár, I. 2004. Spirituality and Human Ecosystems in eds L. Zsolnai, Spirituality and Ethics in Management Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht. Lázár I., Johanessen H. 2006 Epilogue: Multiple Medical Realities Lázár, I. 2006. Táltos Healers, Neoshamans and Multiple Medical Realities in Postsocialist Hungary In Johannessen H., Lázár I. (eds.) Multiple

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Medical Realities: Patients and Healers in Biomedical, Alternative and Traditional Medicine. Oxford; New York: Berghahn, 2006. Pp. 35-54. Lázár I. 2016 Attached files: Anthropological Essays on Body, Psyche, Attachment and Spirituality 305.pp. Cambridge Scholars Pub. Newcastle upon Tyne Lázár, I. 2019. Spirituality and Culture in eds.: L. Zsolnai, B. Flanagan The Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions 458 pp Taylor & Francis Group. Levin, J. 2009. Restoring the Spiritual: Reflections on Arrogance and Myopia - Allopathic and Holistic Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 48, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 482-495. Levin, J.S., Schiller, P.L. 1987. Is there a religious factor in health? Journal of Religion and Health, 26, 9-36. Luther, M.L. 1986. Sermons on the Gospel of St John, Ch. 14–16, in Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 vols. St Louis: Concordia Publishing House 1955- 86), Vol. 24, 367. Malinowski, B. 1948. Magic, Science and Religion Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1948. 327 p. McCullough, E., Pargament, I., Thoresen, C.E. (Eds.). 2000. Forgiveness: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Moreira-Almeida, A, Neto F.L, Koenig H.G. 2006. Religiousness and mental health: a review. Braz J Psychiatry. Sep; 28(3):242-50. Partridge, Ch. 2006. The Re-Enchantment of the West: Alternative Spiritualities, Popular Culture, and Occulture T. & T. Clark Publishers. Pargament, I. 1997. The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Pilch, J.J. 2000. Healing in the New Testament Fortress Press, Minneapolis Ray, O. 2004. How the mind hurts and heals the body. Am Psychol. Jan; 59(1):29-40. Rappaport, R.A. 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Reflections from Medical Anthropology In: Johannessen H., Lázár I. (szerk.) Multiple Medical Realities: Patients and Healers in

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Biomedical, Alternative and Traditional Medicine. Oxford; New York: Berghahn, 2006. pp. 183-197. Sepsi, E. 2012. Theatrum philosophicum du dépassement du moi, in G. Gutbrod, J. Janiaud, E. Sepsi (szerk.). Simone Weil - philosophie, mystique, esthétique, [Simone Weil - philosophy, mysticism, aesthetics] Paris, Archives Karéline, 2012, 35-52. Sepsi, E. 2014. Le théâtre de János Pilinszky vu dans l’optique de Mallarmé, Simone Weil et Robert Wilson, [The theater of János Pilinszky seen in the optics of Mallarmé, Simone Weil and Robert Wilson], Paris, L’Harmattan. Sepsi, E 2017. Kép, jelenlét, kenózis a kortárs francia költészetben és Valère Novarina színházában, [Image, presence, canoeism in contemporary French poetry and theater in Valère Novarina], Budapest, L’Harmattan. Sulmasy, D.P. 2002. A Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Model for the Care of Patients at the End of Life. The Gerontologist, 42, 24-33. Townsend M, Kladder V, Ayele H, Mulligan T. (2002) Systematic review of clinical trials examining the effects of religion on health. South Med J. 2002 Dec; 95(12):1429-34. Tillich, P. 1961. The meaning of health. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 5, 92-100. Weber, M. (1918-19) Science as a Vocation cited by Walton Ch. L. Is disenchantment the end of religion? in http://www.philocrites. com/essays/weber.html downloaded 01. 04. 2019. Wulff, D.M. 1997. Psychology of religion: Classic and contemporary (2nded.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

In: Spirituality Editor: Clint Baldwin

ISBN: 978-1-53615-713-0 © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 2

SPIRITUALITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING: AN ATTENTION TO THE AGNOSTICS AND THE UNDECIDED Paola Gremigni*, PhD and Giulia Casu, PhD Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

ABSTRACT This chapter analyzes the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. We focused on agnostics and undecided people who lie between theists as certain believers and atheists as certain nonbelievers. Agnostics are defined as people who consciously suspend any judgment on the existence of God as an entity outside of the experimental verification and declare as “unknowable” everything that cannot be submitted to an empirical observation. Undecided people are defined as persons who declare that they are unsure if God exists. Both agnostics and undecided people have been overlooked by previous research that has mainly focused on theists or atheists, who might represent the extremes of a continuum of spirituality. Such a categorization does not consider existential certainty and uncertainty and their consequences for a person’s *

Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].

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Paola Gremigni and Giulia Casu mental well-being. Our research question was: do the agnostics and the undecided report lower levels of psychological well-being compared to theists and atheists? We collected data of more than 1,000 participants from the general population (male and female). Our findings indicated that agnostics and undecided people reported significantly lower levels of happiness and perceived mental well-being than both theists and atheists, independent of gender and age. We cannot draw firm conclusions regarding the cause of the differences found because our study had a cross-sectional and nonlongitudinal design. However, existential uncertainty seems to play a role in a person’s perception of psychological well-being.

INTRODUCTION This chapter focuses on the relationship between well-being and spirituality paying a particular attention to agnostics and undecided people. These persons have been overlooked in previous research where a tendency prevailed to categorize people dichotomously as theists or atheists, who might represent the extremes of a continuum of spirituality. Our research question was: do agnostics and undecided people report lower levels of psychological well-being compared to theists and atheists?

Psychological Well-Being The bio-medical model, which prevailed in the West until the twentieth century, proposed a concept of health that was gradually replaced with a model of positive psychological functioning. The concept of health that emerged in the last decades of the twentieth century was far more than just disease-free biological functioning. The idea of positive health was introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, rather than the simple absence of illness or disability (WHO 1958, 459).

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In 1977, Engel proposed the bio-psycho-social model that considered the human being as a functioning unit, in opposition to the dualism of mind and body. Engel's model considered health as the result of multiple biological, psychological and social factors that interact with each other and recognized that behavior can be explained in terms of multiple contexts or levels of organization that influence each other. In the new perspective, health and illness found an explanation based no longer on single causes, but on the mutual influence of multiple factors that interact at different levels. Individuals, placed within the context of biological, family and socio-cultural systems, were seen as active participants in the dynamics of maintenance and change of the system to which they belong. The approach that defined health no longer as a state, but as a process, produced further developments in the eighties of the last century, when the WHO proposed an orientation centered on health promotion. Health was defined as the extent to which an individual or group is able to achieve aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to deal effectively with the environment. Therefore, health became a resource for daily life, no longer the goal of life. This positive concept emphasized the social and personal resources well beyond the physical ones (WHO 1984). More recently, cultural and philosophical factors, including the attribution of meaning and purpose to existence and life, have been introduced to explain the complex concept of psychological well-being (Ryff and Singer 1998). The study of well-being, historically, has seen two theoretical approaches, defined respectively “hedonic” (Kahneman 1999) and “eudemonic” (Waterman 1993), each founded on different concepts of the human nature and the individual’s positive functioning within the community and the society (Keyes 1998). Kahneman (1999) defined the hedonic psychology as the study of what makes the experience of life pleasant or unpleasant, while Diener and Lucas (1999) defined subjective well-being as a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life. The cognitive component refers to satisfaction with life, and the affective component refers to the experience of positive or pleasant emotions. Several authors have highlighted the possible role of culture and values in determining subjective well-being (Suh and Oishi 2004). For

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example, the individual-society relationship can deeply affect people’s well-being in different ways depending on whether the emphasis is put on the individual (individualistic societies) or on the group (collectivistic societies) (Triandis 2000). The eudemonic perspective defined well-being as the result of development, actualization, and full deployment of the individual’s potentials, as well as of constructing meanings and pursuing shared objectives. According to this concept, individual well-being and happiness can only be realized within a process of mutual interaction between the individual and his or her social context. Therefore, eudaimonia understood as happiness corresponds to the satisfaction of individual and collective needs. Furthermore, Waterman (1993) suggested that well-being as eudaimonia occurs when people's activities are congruent with their values. This congruence makes the individual experiencing a profound sense of authenticity that promotes his or her personal growth. Ryff (1989) defined well-being as the realization of one’s own authentic self and proposed a concept of psychological well-being as formed by six fundamental dimensions: self-acceptance, positive social relations, autonomy in thought and action, meaning and purpose in life, environmental mastery to suit personal needs, and continued growth as a person. Ryan and Deci (2000) proposed a new theory of well-being linked to the eudemonic approach named “self-determination theory”. According to this theory, self-realization represents a central aspect of individual wellbeing. Rayan and Deci hypothesized the presence of three types of psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The satisfaction of these needs is essential for achieving and experiencing selfactualization, psychological growth and development, vitality, and energy. The perception of a high level of well-being is also connected to the experience of intrinsic motivation, gratification, internalization of the rules of one’s own culture and society, satisfaction with life, and optimal mental health. Within the framework of psychological well-being, a core component of human psychological functioning is the construction of meaning and

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purpose in life. Meaning has been conceived as a compulsion “to impose a meaningful order upon reality” (Berger 1967, 22) and as such it has been seen as a consequence of being human, rather than something developed under a religious or a philosophical framework. For example, Baumeister (1991) viewed life meaning as comprised of four elements: goals or purposes, values and justification for goals and purposes, sense of control, and self-worth. Meaning has been also seen as consisting of purpose (having goals), significance (having values), and coherence, where coherence refers to one’s ability to make sense of situations and is achieved when one’s expectations are confirmed by the experience (Heintzelman and King 2014). Within this perspective, meaning in life is something that the individuals construct for themselves. Research shows consistent associations between meaning in life and well-being. Possessing a high sense of meaning and purpose in life was associated with a better overall health (Krause 2007), with a reduced risk for all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events (Cohen, Bavishi, and Rozanski 2016), and with a better immune system functioning (Van Tongeren et al. 2017). Meaning in life has been also associated with higher levels of psychological well-being, showing strong associations with life satisfaction and positive affect (Zika and Chamberlain 1992), happiness (e.g., Steger et al. 2008; Park, Park, and Peterson 2010; Westerhof et al. 2010), and other positive psychological benefits (e.g., Steger and Kashdan 2007). Speed, Coleman III, and Langston (2018) have recently argued that meaning in life is multidimensional and varies across social categories. A distinction should be made between types of meaning, either in its endogenous or exogenous form. In the endogenous form, meaning is perceived to be internally produced, while in the exogenous form it is perceived to be externally produced. A traditional source of exogenous meaning is God; however, Speed et al. (2018) recommended that it should not be regarded as a sole source of exogenous meaning because people may perceive many other external sources providing them within meaning, like the universe, social connectedness, etc. Within this perspective, theists could be more likely to believe that meaning is externally produced, while

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atheists could be more likely to believe that meaning is internally produced, but they still may have a meaning in life. This view is in contrast with a commonsense view that considers nonreligious or atheists to be nihilist or fatalistic, based on the perception that they have no source of meaning in life because they lack a religious or spiritual schema to interpret the world. The conclusion that a spiritual or religious framework is necessary for meaning implies that meaning cannot be internally derived or generated. However, the existing literature does not support such a conclusion. Indeed, research has shown that non-believers do not experience deficits in meaning in life. For example, non-believers have been found to have a rational worldview and to focus their moral concerns on social justice and the here-and-now, lacking interest in a reality beyond this world (Caldwell-Harris 2012). Some studies have found no differences between atheists and theists on fatalistic or nihilistic worldview (Speed et al. 2018).

Spirituality and Well-Being The term spirituality has received many definitions. William James, a founder of the American psychology who devoted to the religious experience an important volume (James 1902), equated religion with spirituality (Hauerwas 2001) and regarded it as the feelings, acts, and experiences of the individuals in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. In the common sense, spiritual is defined as opposite to material or what is experienced by the physical senses and is intended as something that transcends ordinary physical limits. Miller and Thoresen (2003, 27) intended spirituality as “a broad focus on the immaterial features of life regarded as not commonly perceptible by the physical senses that are used to understand the material world”. They also observed that the major religions have similarly used spirituality to refer to concepts such as transcendent, sacred, holy, or divine, despite religion is an institutional phenomenon. Although spirituality and religion have been largely confused, an important difference is that religion is

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rooted in a tradition that arises from a group of people who share beliefs and established practices. In contrast, spirituality is something more personal and individualistic that may be free of the regulations associated with religion. In our study, we tried to avoid confusing spirituality with religion and did not use them synonymously as other authors did (e.g., Koenig 2009). However, we gave to the term “spirituality” a meaning that is more restricted than that currently used in many studies. Indeed, current standard measures of spirituality often include constructs like meaning and purpose in life, connectedness with other beings, peacefulness, existential wellbeing and joy, etc. (Koenig 2009). We instead intended spirituality as limited to spiritual beliefs based on affirmation of the existence of God or any transcendent non-material form of deity, independent of adherence to any religion or affiliation to any religious community or organization. Miller and Thoresen (2003) underlined that investigation of spiritual factors and health is both clearly warranted and clinically relevant. They affirmed that spirituality can be studied scientifically, as a very large body of scientific research on this topic demonstrates, although they also advised that some features of spiritual experiences might never be adequately captured by scientific methods. In reviewing the literature on the associations between spirituality and mental health, Koenig (2009) found out that some studies reported no association between them, a few reported negative associations, while the majority reported statistically significant positive associations. However, the large majority of studies used spirituality synonymously with religion involvement. In particular, religion involvement was related to better coping with stress and with lower levels of depression, anxiety, suicidal behavior, and substance abuse. Similar results have been confirmed in a more recent review (Bonelli and Koening 2013) where 72% of the examined evidence-based papers reported that people with higher religious involvement had less levels of mental disorders. However, Galen (2015, 55) observed that most of the literature that found a positive association between spirituality and well-being refers to religious activity and attendance rather than privately-held belief in God.

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Therefore, most of the comparisons are made between religiously-involved attenders and never-attenders who are not necessarily equivalent to nonbelieving atheists. This has important consequences on the interpretation of findings in terms of mechanisms that link spirituality and health. For example, Galen (2015, 56) observed that “it is not belief in God, but rather the social networking present in religious groups”, in other words social engagement, that drives the positive effects of pro-sociality or life satisfaction. Wilkinson and Coleman (2010) expressed a concern about “the absence of comparisons of religious and atheistic belief” because “the more usual focus has been on comparing strong versus weak religious belief” (Wilkinson and Coleman 2010, 340). Atheism has received growing attention in the literature, with the rise of the “New Atheist” movement as a secular worldview promoted in opposition to religious involvement (Cimino and Smith 2011). Atheism can be identified with the conscious refutation of transcendental beliefs that are implicated in a spiritual/religious worldview. Wilkinson and Coleman (2010, 340) argued that “if religion is a shared system of beliefs and practices based on a transcendent understanding of life, then atheism can presently be understood as a shared belief system based on a materialist conceptualization of the universe”. In their study on beliefs and coping in old age, they found that informants with strong atheistic beliefs and those with strong religious beliefs did not differ on their coping with different negative stresses. Therefore, they concluded that “a strong atheistic belief system can fulfil the same role as a strong religious belief system in providing support, explanation, consolation and inspiration” (Wilkinson and Coleman 2010, 337). A similar view was expressed by Hayward et al. (2016) who suggested that the New Atheist movement promotes some of the same psychological components, including a sense of meaning and purpose in life, that are thought to mediate the benefits of religion or spirituality on health. Therefore, atheists could have the same benefits than theists due to their worldview. Although there is evidence in the literature that atheism has fewer positive effects on well-being than a theistic view (Hayward et al. 2016),

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several studies have shown that atheists do not suffer from psychological deficits (e.g., lack of happiness or reduced well-being) because of their position (Galen and Kloet 2011; Speed 2017; Streib and Hood 2013; Galen 2015; Speed and Fowler 2017) and their mental health is equivalent to that of highly religious people (Horning et al. 2011; Meltzer et al. 2011; Mochon, Norton, and Ariely 2011). A recent study (Baker, Stroope, and Walker 2018) reported better physical health outcomes and significantly lower levels of psychiatric symptoms, such as anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion, for atheists compared to other secular individuals and members of some religious traditions. Other studies also found different outcomes among secular individuals. For example, Garneau (2012) found that uncertain atheists experienced significantly higher levels of psychological distress than certain openly self-defined atheists. Similarly, non-believers who did not self-define themselves as atheists were more likely to report negative well-being outcomes as related to crises of meaning and doubt than atheists (e.g., Krause 2006; Galek et al. 2007; Schnell and Keenan 2011). Baker et al. (2018, 6) explained such findings in terms of identity processes and social support by observing that “there are more resources for identity verification, social network building, and social support” for affirmative atheists than for individuals who self-identify as agnostic, humanist, skeptic, rationalist, or spiritual but not religious.

The Agnostics and the Undecided Hayward et al. (2016, 1028) underlined that “self-described atheists constitute the smallest category of religious non-affiliation, with agnostics and those simply stating they have ‘no religious preference’ making up the bulk of the unaffiliated population”. Taking into consideration this observation, in our research, we involved theists, atheists, agnostics, and other people who did not self-defined with one of these categories. Agnostics define themselves as people who consciously suspend any judgment on the existence of God as an entity outside of the experimental

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verification and declare as “unknowable” everything that cannot be submitted to an empirical observation. Therefore, agnosticism is not merely denoting personal uncertainty, but implies the presence of beliefs that promote uncertainty and claim that the nature of reality is ultimately unknowable. Agnostics have been overlooked by previous research that categorized people dichotomously as theists or atheists, who might represent the extremes of a continuum of spirituality. For example, Speed et al. (2018) in their recent study involved only persons indicating that they believe in God, labeled as “theists”, and persons indicating that they did not believe in God, labeled as “atheists”, whereas persons answering questions with “I don’t know” were excluded from the analyses. Such a categorization does not take into consideration existential certainty and uncertainty and their consequences for a person’s mental well-being. From this perspective, there are many different positions within the two extremes of theism and atheism. The agnostics formed a category of persons characterized by a declared position of uncertainty regarding the existence of God. Besides this relatively well-defined category, there are many people who have not a defined position or report not having a clear idea. They are also characterized by uncertainty regarding the existence of God or any spiritual/transcendental deity. Another category is formed by people who are not interested in the existence or non-existence of God and do not assume and express a position in this regard. From our point of view, it is not possible to classify them among people who have certainties nor among those who have uncertainties. However, this does not mean that they should be excluded from research involvement. In conclusion, in our research, we were interested in the impact that having a clear position or having a non-clear position regarding spirituality, intended as believing in the existence of God or any form of transcendent deity, has on the psychological well-being of the individual. From this perspective, the spirituality-well-being relationship would shift from the comparison between the content of different existential beliefs to the comparison between different degrees of certainty or uncertainty in worldview. This perspective is in line with Galen’s (2015) interpretation of

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the curvilinear results of some empirical studies, where people with least firm beliefs (confused, undecided or indifferent) report lower well-being than people who have either a strongly religious or a strongly nonreligious worldview.

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY The literature shows that the ability to attribute meanings to the existence is a spiritual component that contributes to providing serenity and lower levels of anxiety. In a similar way, the science also can provide order, meanings, and something to believe in. This is the reason why some authors think that spirituality and rationalism or atheism bring similar benefits to people. Hayward et al. (2016) argued that the agnostics may suffer with respect to mental and physical health outcomes because they may be prone to more existential uncertainty and lack of a stable worldview (Hogg, Adelman, and Blagg 2010; Vail III et al. 2010) in comparison with either religiously-affiliated individuals or atheists. Indeed, both groups are likely to have certainty in their religious or non-religious worldviews, respectively. In our research, we preferred to differentiate people based on their spiritual view instead of their religious affiliation, by considering spirituality as a worldview based on the existence of God or any form of transcendent deity, independent of religious affiliation or attendance. Thus, we considered spirituality as a concept that is more related to a personal worldview than to community shared beliefs and practices. Our general research question was: do agnostics and undecided people report lower levels of psychological well-being than theists and atheists? To answer this question, we divided the participants arbitrarily into five groups according to their self-reported beliefs. The “agnostics” included people who purposely declared as “unknowable” everything that cannot be observed. The “undecided” included people who had not a clear position with regard to the existence of God. The “theists” included people who unequivocally affirmed a belief in God. The “atheists” included people

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who firmly denied the existence of any transcendental deity. Finally, the “indifferent” were people who were not interested in spiritual matters. The dependent variables we used to test for differences between groups were perceived mental and physical health, mental and subjective well-being, happiness, and self-actualization. We hypothesized that theists and atheists reported higher levels of psychological well-being than agnostics and undecided people, at least in some of the variables. Instead, we did not elaborate any hypothesis about the link between a lack of interest in spiritual matters and psychological well-being.

METHODS Participants and Procedures We collected data of a sample of more than 1,000 people from the general population by sending the link to an online survey using several mailing lists. Particularly, we used the authors’ personal mailing lists and we also involved 80 psychology students to help collecting data with the same approach. An e-mail message was sent containing: 1) a brief description of the research purposes, 2) an invitation to participate in the survey, 3) the assurance that the survey would be anonymous, and the data would be available only to the researchers and used exclusively for research purposes, and 4) the link that redirected to the online survey. Once the participant reached the online survey initial page, a more detailed description of the research design and purposes was provided together with the names and addresses of the researchers, information regarding the privacy and data treatment, and an informed consent to participate that was signed by clicking on the “yes, I consent to participate” button. In addition, each participant was offered the possibility to ask for a feedback on the research general results by sending an email to the researchers. Only after clicking the consent button the participant was directed to the first page of the survey and could start answering the questionnaire. Inclusion criteria for participation were 18 years of age or

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older and Italian speaking. The research protocol was approved by the Bioethical Committee of the authors’ University. Participants were 1,031, 54.5% female, aged 18-70 years, mean age 35.03 ± 12.94 SD. Level of education was 8.7% lower than high school, 45.1% high school, 39.2% university degree, and 7% post-degree. Participants were classified into 5 categories: theists (49.8%), atheists (16.5%), agnostics (14.6%), undecided (14.3%), and indifferent (4.8%). Classification was based on participants’ answer to a single open-ended question and a multiple-choice question regarding their condition about spirituality (see Measures). We included in the theist group all persons who defined themselves as believers in God or identified themselves with a religion affiliation and also chose “I believe in God or other forms of transcendent deity” in the multiple-choice question. We classified as atheists those participants who explicitly defined themselves as atheists, rationalists or materialists and chose “I do not believe in God nor in any form of transcendent deity”. We classified as agnostics only people who defined themselves agnostics and we classified as undecided all people who used descriptions such as “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure”, “I have not a clear idea” or similar and checked the answer “I do not know if God does exist” to the multiple-choice question. Finally, we classified as indifferent 50 participants who answered the open-ended question “I do not ask myself the question/problem” or “I am not at all interested in this issue/problem” and similar. Most of them did not answer the multiplechoice question; a few of them checked different options. Based on this classification, we implicitly identified both theists and atheists as people who got a clear idea about the existence of something that transcends the physical senses, although based on opposite views, and thus as people who have more certainties than uncertainties about existential or spiritual questions. On the opposite, those we defined “agnostics” or “undecided” were implicitly considered as people who have more existential uncertainties than certainties.

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Measures A sociodemographic part was included in the survey, which collected data on gender, age, and level of education. Two questions were used to classify the participants according to their spiritual view. The first was an open-ended question asking “How would you define yourself regarding the existence of God (e.g., theist, atheist, etc.)? Please, specify”. We elaborated this open-ended question also taking into consideration the answer to a second multiple-choice question: “Which is your position regarding the existence of God?”. Possible answers were: “I believe in God or other forms of transcendent deity”, “I do not believe in God nor in any form of transcendent deity”, and “I do not know if God does exist or not”. Psychological questionnaires with Likert scale answer format were then presented within the survey.

Perceived Mental and Physical Health The perceived mental and physical health outcome variables were measured with two single-item self-report measures asking respectively, “How would you rate your actual level of mental health?” and “How would you rate your actual level of physical health?” The answer was based on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 = poor to 10 = excellent. Singleitem measures can be usefully applied as screening tools for self-rated global mental health (Ahmad et al. 2014; Casu and Gremigni 2019). Single-item of self-rated physical health has been also used world-wide and shown to be a strong predictor of mortality, health care utilization, and morbidity (e.g., Manor, Matthews, and Chris 2001). Mental Well-Being Mental well-being was measured with the 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being index (WHO-5). This is a reliable onedimensional tool for the study of mental well-being. It derives from a larger scale developed in 1990 by the WHO for a project on quality of life in patients suffering from diabetes. A reduced 5-item version was derived from the initial 28 items (Bech et al. 2003) and largely used around the

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world (Topp et al. 2015). The WHO-5 provides answers on a 6-point Likert scale where 1 is equal to “never” and 6 is equal to “always”. The items, which refer to the last two weeks, are all positive and address interests, positive mood, and vitality. We used the Italian version available at the official site for this measure: https://www.psykiatri-regionh.dk/who5/who-5-questionnaires/Pages/default.aspx. Cronbach’s α in this study was good: α = 0.83.

Subjective Well-Being Subjective well-being (SWB) refers to a person's levels of pleasant affect, lack of unpleasant affect, and life satisfaction (Diener 2000). This variable was measured by combining the affective dimension and the cognitive dimension of SWB, in particular, the balance of positive and negative affect and satisfaction with life by using the following formula: SWB = SWLS + (PA – NA) (Librán 2006). Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, and Tellegen 1988) is a reliable bi-dimensional tool for the measurement of positive and negative emotional states. The PANAS consists of 20 adjectives, 10 for the scale of positive affect (PA), which reflects the degree to which a person feels active, enthusiastic, determined, and 10 for the scale of negative affect (NA), which addresses unpleasant emotions like anger, fear, or embarrassment. Respondents rate how much, usually, they feel the way described by each adjective through a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 “nothing” to 5 “very”. In this study, we used the Italian validated version (Terracciano, McCrae, and Costa 2003). Cronbach’s α in this study was good: α = 0.78 for the PA, and α = 0.78 for the NA. The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985) was developed to measure global cognitive judgments of one’s life satisfaction. It is a 5-item scale answered using a 7-point scale from 7 “strongly agree” to 1 “strongly disagree”. In this study, we used the Italian validated version (Di Fabio and Gori 2016) with excellent Cronbach’s α = 0.88.

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Happiness Happiness was measured by the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) developed by Lyubomirsky and Lepper (1999) with the aim of using a “subjectivist” approach to the assessment of happiness. It is composed of 4 items with a 7-point Likert scale answer from 1 “I completely disagree” to 7 “I completely agree”. Respondents are asked to express their agreement with each statement related to how they generally feel, also considering the relationship with others. The SHS is one of the most used measures of happiness and has been recently validated in Italy on a sample of 993 participants (Iani et al. 2014). Cronbach’s α in this study was good: α = 0.82. Self-Actualization Self-actualization was measured with a subscale of the Measure of Individual Differences in Need Preferences (MIDNP; Sheldon et al. 2001). It includes 6 items of the 30-item MIDNP that are related to selfactualization and self-esteem and are based on the self-determination theory. Self-actualization refers to the feeling that one is developing his or her best potentials and is making life meaningful. Self-esteem refers to feeling that one is a worthy person who is as good as anyone else. Participants answer each item using a 7-point scale from 1 “not at all” to 7 “very much”. Items were translated into Italian and back translated independently by two bilingual psychologists. Cronbach’s α in this study was excellent: α = 0.88.

DATA ANALYSIS STRATEGY The open-ended question on the self-definition in relation to spirituality was independently coded by three researchers also taking into consideration the answer to a multiple-choice question regarding the same topic. It required four coding rounds to achieve an interrater agreement expressed by a Kappa statistic value greater than 0.90. Indeed, a Kappa

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coefficient of 1 indicates perfect agreement, whereas a Kappa of 0 indicates agreement equivalent to chance (Cohen 1960). Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation with the Pearson’s Chi square test, Pearson’s bivariate correlation index, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with multiple comparison using Tukey’s test were used to describe the characteristics of the sample and to test for differences in the sample composition. Cronbach’s α was used to test for reliability of measures with values of 0.70 and above considered acceptable to optimal. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test for the main differences between groups. The significance level was set at p < 0.05. Analyses were run using IBM-SPSS 24.

RESULTS Regarding the sample age, theists (Mage = 37.52 ± 13.36 SD) were significantly older than agnostics (Mage = 31.19 ± 11.05 SD; p < 0.001), atheists (Mage = 32.36 ± 11.95 SD; p < 0.001), and undecided people (Mage = 33.78 ± 13.08 SD; p = 0.01). However, age was poorly correlated with the dependent variables, with Pearson’s r values ranging from 0.09 to 0.16, although statistically significant due to the large sample size. Therefore, we did not control for the effect of age in the tests of between group differences. Pearson’s Chi-square test showed a significant (Chi2 = 15.75, p = 0.003) difference in the composition of subgroups according to gender and spiritual classification. As shown in Table 1, being agnostic, atheist or indifferent was more prevalent among men than women, while being theists or undecided was more prevalent among women than men. The MANOVA to test for the differences between groups controlling for gender showed that spirituality and gender both have significant effects on some of the dependent variables independent of each other, since the gender*spirituality interactions were all nonsignificant. Univariate ANOVAs showed that all dependent variables significantly differed across spiritual categories, while differences across gender referred only to

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perceived mental and physical health, mental well-being, and subjective well-being. Mean values of groups are presented in Table 2 for gender and in Table 3 for spirituality. Table 1. Gender * Spirituality Crosstabulation

Gender Women Count % within Gender % of Total Men Count % within Gender % of Total Total Count % within Gender % of Total

Spirituality Agnostic Atheist Theist 72 82 296

Total Undecided Indifferent 92 20 562

12.8%

14.6%

52.7%

16.4%

3.6%

100%

7.0% 79

8.0% 88

28.7% 217

8.9% 55

1.9% 30

54.5% 469

16.8%

18.8%

46.3%

11.7%

6.4%

100%

7.7% 151

8.5% 170

21.0% 513

5.3% 147

2.9% 50

45.5% 1031

14.6%

16.5%

49.8%

14.3%

4.8%

100%

14.6%

16.5%

49.8%

14.3%

4.8%

100%

Regarding gender, men scored significantly higher than women on perceived mental and physical health, mental well-being, and subjective well-being. Regarding spirituality, multiple comparisons showed that the agnostics had significantly lower scores than both the atheists (p = 0.004) and the theists (p < 0.001) in perceived mental health; the undecided had significantly lower scores than both the atheists (p = 0.001) and the theists (p < 0.001), while there were nonsignificant differences between atheists and theists. Nonsignificant differences were also found across groups in perceived physical health. In mental well-being the agnostics had significantly lower scores than both the atheists (p = 0.03) and the theists (p < 0.001). The undecided had also significantly lower scores than the atheists (p = 0.02) and the theists (p < 0.001), while there were nonsignificant differences between atheists and theists. In subjective well-being the theists had significantly higher scores than the agnostics (p < 0.001), the undecided (p < 0.001), and the

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atheists (p = 0.02). In happiness the agnostics had significantly lower scores than both the atheists (p < 0.001) and the theists (p < 0.001). The undecided also had significantly lower scores than both the atheists (p = 0.004) and the theists (p < 0.001). In self-actualization the theists had significantly higher scores than the agnostics (p < 0.001), the undecided (p < 0.001), and the atheists (p = 0.02), while the undecided had a lower score than the atheists (p = 0.03). The indifferent did not differ from the other groups in all the dependent variables except for higher scores on happiness than the agnostics (p = 0.04). Based on multiple comparisons, homogeneous subsets were formed in relation to some of the dependent variables. In particular, agnostics and undecided people formed a homogeneous subset in relation to perceived mental health and happiness, while theists, atheists and indifferent people formed another homogeneous subset based on the same variables. Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Women (n = 562) and Men (n = 469)

Perceived mental health

Perceived physical health Mental well-being

Subjective well-being

Happiness

Self-actualization

Gender

Mean

Women Men Total Women Men Total Women Men Total Women Men Total Women Men Total Women Men Total

7.17 7.70 7.41 6.75 6.99 6.86 18.09 19.31 18.64 30.22 34.88 32.34 18.60 18.89 18.73 30.13 30.42 30.26

Std. Deviation 1.94 1.65 1.83 1.70 1.49 1.61 4.98 4.01 4.60 14.65 12.96 14.09 4.35 3.98 4.19 7.18 6.28 6.78

F (p-value) 13.65 (0.001)

6.29 (0.01)

12.15 (0.001)

21.04 (0.001)

0.47 (0.49)

0.52 (0.47)

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Paola Gremigni and Giulia Casu Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of Groups based on Spirituality

Perceived Mental Health

Perceived Physical Health

Mental Well-being

Subjective Well-being

Happiness

Self-actualization

Categories

Mean

Agnostic Undecided Atheist Theist Indifferent Total Agnostic Undecided Atheist Theist Indifferent Total Agnostic Undecided Atheist Theist Indifferent Total Agnostic Undecided Atheist Theist Indifferent Total Agnostic Undecided Atheist Theist Indifferent Total Agnostic Undecided Atheist Theist Indifferent Total

6.83 6.76 7.53 7.71 7.54 7.41 6.67 6.55 7.04 6.96 6.72 6.86 17.41 17.32 18.88 19.35 18.20 18.64 28.79 28.03 31.29 34.98 32.24 32.34 16.90 17.35 18.95 19.59 18.76 18.73 28.43 27.75 29.90 31.70 29.68 30.26

Std. Deviation 2.09 1.92 1.75 1.66 1.83 1.83 1.67 1.78 1.41 1.61 1.50 1.61 4.19 4.57 4.56 4.62 4.34 4.60 13.32 14.38 14.55 13.61 13.44 14.09 4.15 4.28 4.33 3.90 3.72 4.19 7.43 6.81 7.09 6.04 7.34 6.78

F (p-value) 13.32 (0.001)

2.74 (0.03)

9.07 (0.001)

11.17 (0.001)

17.13 (0.001)

13.01 (0.001)

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CONCLUSION The main findings of our study indicated that agnostics and undecided people reported significantly lower levels of psychological well-being than both theists and atheists, independent of gender and age. Indeed, in both the global index of perceived mental health and the index of mental wellbeing, having a strong conviction or a worldview based on certainty has more positive effects than uncertainty, independent of the content of such strong beliefs (i.e., either theism or atheism), and the same results were found in regard to happiness. Therefore, existential uncertainty, or the lack of certain answers to spiritual questions, seems to play a negative role in people's perception of psychological well-being, while having certainties in relation to the existence or nonexistence of a transcendent deity appears to be a protective factor. However, subjective well-being and selfactualization were higher in theists than in all the other groups, suggesting that spirituality and secularity do not have a simple relationship with psychological well-being. Subjective well-being consists of a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life. It includes cognitive judgments of satisfaction and fulfillment and experiences of pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Its component of pleasant emotions could be associated with happiness, that is also a positive emotion. However, it should be taken into consideration that subjective well-being has also a component based on unpleasant emotions, and pleasant and unpleasant affects have proven to be independent and not simply opposite of one another. This could explain why subjective wellbeing on the one hand and happiness and mental well-being on the other hand may have different correlates. Indeed, both happiness and mental well-being, and the instruments used to measure them, are based on positive emotional states and moods. It is therefore possible that these exclusively positive emotional states are more correlated to each other than are correlated with subjective well-being. As a consequence, they might correlate differently with certainty and uncertainty in worldview. On the other hand, the cognitive component of subjective well-being, which focuses on fulfillment, makes this psychological construct similar to the

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concept of self-actualization, and then, we could expect that higher subjective well-being was also connected with higher self-actualization. In other words, all constructs that pertain to the nomothetic network of positive psychology are expected to correlate with each other. However, they might also have some specificities that emerge when they are associated with other broader dimensions that affect the individual’s worldview. In this study, aspects of psychological well-being that are more related to the emotional and global condition (i.e., happiness and perceived mental health and well-being) seem to be more affected by the degrees of certainty or uncertainty in the worldview, independent of its content. On the other hand, cognitive aspects of psychological well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life, a sense of fulfillment, and self-actualization) seem to be more affected by the content of worldview that regards the belief in the existence or nonexistence of God. It has been proposed that spiritual beliefs can affect mental health via cognitive, emotional, or behavioral pathways (BoscoRuggiero 2016). For example, spiritual beliefs may strengthen emotional regulation, prevent anxiety or depression, and provide people with a greater sense of control over their lives. Although we cannot draw conclusions about the cause of the differences found in our sample, since our study had a cross-sectional and non-longitudinal design, according to our findings, it could be hypothesized that different pathways may affect different aspects of the individual’s psychological well-being. Regarding the associations between gender, spirituality and well-being, in our study the majority of theists and undecided were women, whereas the majority of atheists and agnostics were men, the same result that was obtained by Hayward et al. (2016). However, being female or male did not affect the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. The effect of gender in the relationship between spirituality and well-being has been poorly investigated and deserves further research. In this study, men had higher scores than women in most well-being dimensions, except for self-actualization and happiness. This mixed result is not surprising, given that in the literature the effects of gender on mental well‐being are not clear and univocal. Indeed, large surveys showed little evidence of

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gender differences, some studies showed higher scores for men, while others showed higher scores for women on some specific aspects (for a review see Huppert 2009). This study has several limitations. First, the sample was a convenience sample that may not be representative of our country’s population. Second, the questions we used to classify the participants based on their position on spirituality may be approximate. A more specific measurement instrument is needed to classify the participants reliably according to the main objective of this study, that is spiritual/existential certainty or uncertainty, and future studies should be aimed at developing it. Furthermore, in this study, secular or nontheist individuals were classified into a relatively small number of categories. Future research with larger samples is recommended to identify other potential categories between the affirmed theists and the affirmed atheists. Finally, this study had a cross-sectional design, and thus, we cannot establish a causal link between one’s own spiritual position and his or her psychological well-being. Long term longitudinal studies are needed to confirm the preliminary findings that emerged from this study and to delve further into why and how different expressions of spirituality are related to psychological well-being. We found some consistent differences between agnostics and undecided people on the one hand and theists and atheists on the other hand, and we proposed a key mechanism to account for these differences that is based on certainty and uncertainty in one’s worldview. However, we did not test this mechanism directly. Therefore, empirical observations of the mechanisms connecting spirituality to psychological health deserve further investigations. Despites the limitations, the findings of this study may open up some questions that future research may wish to answer. The first and most important question concerns the mechanisms by which arose the group differences found in our study. In general, our findings support the idea that uncertainty is related to negative well-being outcomes (Mannheimer and Hill 2014; Lim 2015; Baker et al. 2018), while certainty is related to positive outcomes. However, theoretically based hypotheses to explain this link should be tested with larger samples and more specific measurement

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instruments. For example, beliefs have been suggested to have the potential to instill hope, meaning and purpose in life, thereby increasing psychological resilience and well-being (Sternthal et al. 2010), and meaning in life was found to mediate the relationship between stress and mental health (Van Tongeren et al. 2017). Hence, further research could address meaning in life as a mediator in the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. The scientific investigation of an important aspect of human nature like spirituality, which may be strictly related to the view of life and existence, can lead to important information for helping people live in better health. Such information has important practical implications in psychology and especially in clinical psychology. For example, psychological interventions could focus on certainty and uncertainty and their consequences for a person’s mental well-being. In particular, people who are characterized by a worldview that is largely based on uncertainty could be helped to better cope with such a view in order to reach positive experiences, and greater meaning and satisfaction in life.

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Personality, Cognitive Style, and the Dynamic between Seeking and Experiencing Meaning.” Journal of Personality 76:199–228. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00484.x. Sternthal, Michelle J., David R. Williams, Marc A. Musick, and Anna C. Buck. 2010. “Depression, Anxiety, and Religious Life: A Search for Mediators.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51:343–59. doi:10.1177/0022146510378237. Streib, Heinz, and Ralph W. Hood. 2013. “Modeling the Religious Field: Religion, Spirituality, Mysticism, and Related World Views.” Implicit Religion 16:137-55. doi:10.1558/imre.v16i2.133. Suh, Eunkook M., and Shigehiro Oishi. 2004. “Culture and Subjective Well-Being: Introduction to Special Issue.” Journal of Happiness Studies 5:219-22. doi:10.1007/s10902-004-8783-y. Terraciano, Antonio, Robert R. McCrae, and Paul T. Costa Jr. 2003. “Factorial and Construct Validity of the Italian Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS).” European Journal of Psychological Assessment 19:131-41. doi:10.1027//1015-5759.19.2.131. Topp, Christian W., Søren D. Østergaard, Susan Søndergaard, and Per Bech. 2015. “The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: A Systematic Review of the Literature.” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 84:167-76. doi:10.1159/000376585. Triandis, Harry C. 2000. “Cultural Syndromes and Subjective WellBeing.” In Subjective Well-Being across Cultures, edited by Ed Diener, and Eunkook M. Suh, 13-37. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vail III, Kenneth E., Zachary K. Rothschild, Dave R. Weise, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski, and Jeff Greenberg. 2010. “A Terror Management Analysis of the Psychological Functions of Religion.” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14:84–94. doi:10.1177/ 1088868309351165. Van Tongeren, Daryl R., Peter C. Hill, Neal Krause, Gail H. Ironson, and Kenneth I. Pargament. 2017. “The Mediating Role of Meaning in the Association between Stress and Health.” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 51:775-81. doi:10.1007/s12160-017-9899-8.

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Waterman, Alan S. 1993. “Two Conceptions of Happiness: Contrasts of Personal Expressiveness (Eudaimonia) and Hedonic Enjoyment.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64:678-91. doi:10.1037/ 0022-3514.64.4.678. Watson, David, Lee Anna Clark, and Auke Tellegen. 1988. “Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54:1063-70. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063. Westerhof, Gerben J., Ernst T. Bohlmeijer, Ilse M.J. Van Beljouw, and Anne Margriet Pot. 2010. “Improvement in Personal Meaning Mediates the Effects of a Life Review Intervention on Depressive Symptoms in a Randomized Controlled Trial.” The Gerontologist 54:541–9. doi:10.1093/geront/gnp168. Wilkinson, Peter J., and Peter G. Coleman. 2010. “Strong Beliefs and Coping in Old Age: A Case-Based Comparison of Atheism and Religious Faith.” Ageing & Society 30:337-61. doi:10.1017/s014 4686x09990353. World Health Organization (WHO). 1958. The First Ten Years of the World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. World Health Organization (WHO). 1984. Health Promotion: A Discussion Document on the Concept and Principles. Copenhagen, Denmark: WHO Regional Office for Europe. Zika, Sheryl, and Kerry Chamberlain. 1992. “On the Relation between Meaning in Life and Psychological Well‐Being.” British Journal of Psychology 83:133-45. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02429.x.

In: Spirituality Editor: Clint Baldwin

ISBN: 978-1-53615-713-0 © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 3

THE IMPACT OF SPIRITUALITY ON END-OF-LIFE CARE DECISIONS: A STRATEGY TO ENCOURAGE AFRICAN-AMERICANS TO BETTER PREPARE FOR THE INEVITABLE Chester A. Robinson, DPA College of Public Service, Jackson State University Jackson, MS, US

ABSTRACT Dying is one of the few events in life that is certain to occur, but for which we rarely plan. Although decisions about how we confront death may vary, death itself is universal. The focus in this chapter is on how spirituality in the African American community influences end-of-life care decisions. The examination includes how it evolved since the entry of African slaves in the U.S., and how the legacy of this spirituality 

Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].

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Chester A. Robinson continues to impact attitudes and decisions surrounding death today. The chapter begins with a synopsis of how people died in traditional American society and the shift to how we typically die today. From there we explore the literature on what has been learned about African Americans and end-of-life care decisions over the past 7 decades. These discussions explore differences in demographics, community awareness, mistrust of medical institutions, and a general lack of access to services. The chapter concludes with propositions on how this unique spirituality impacts end-of-life care decisions. Based on these insights, pathways are offered on how to ‘nudge’ African Americans toward making more informed end-of- life care decisions.

Keywords: end of life care, hospice, death and dying, health disparities, palliative care, spirituality of death, African American religious beliefs on death

INTRODUCTION Until well in the 20th Century in the United States, how we prepared for our ‘final earthly journey’ was virtually the same for everyone. Death came in its own time, in its own way. Death was as unique as the individual who was experiencing it (Lewis, p. 20). The appropriate place to die was a foregone conclusion: by social expectation and practice, it was at home, surrounded by family and friends (Rothman). These notions applied to everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity. As Harlem Renaissance author, poet and playwright, Langston Hughes (1902-1967) once said, ‘There is no color line in death.’ Death was the great equalizer. As my maternal grandmother, Fannie Ross, phrased it: ‘No matter how high or low you are in life, we’ve all got to go.’ Both of these sage commentaries indicate that no matter how we reach the end of life, our mortality is universal – there is no color line in death (African American Outreach Guide, p. 3). The shift from the typical death being located at home to a hospital was not immediate. In the 1940s, most Americans still died at home. In 1949, only 40% of persons older than 65 years of age died in the hospital. But over the next several decades, as the hospital increasingly

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monopolized acute care delivery and its reputation for curative care sored, the trend toward hospital death accelerated. By the 1970s and early 1980s, more than half of U.S. deaths occurred in hospitals and the proportion occurring at home dropped to 15% (Rothman, p. 2458). Concurrently, advances in medicine have increased our capacity to prolong life. Mortality rates for several major diseases have fallen and patients are living longer with more complex multi-morbidities. Researchers in a Canadian study, looking at morbidity at the time of death found that the prevalence of multi-morbidity increased form 79.6 percent in 1994 to 95.3 percent in 2013. This increase, however, varied by socioeconomic status and type of chronic conditions (Bosella, p. 464). Today, more and more people are dying in later years from chronic illnesses and diseases that can progress slowly. The most common causes of death, are now associated with conditions such as dementia, congestive heart failure, or cancer. Most older people dying from these causes often suffer debilitating symptoms, delirium, or severe pain over several years in the process. Over time, we have come to think of ways to ‘manage death.’ Delaying the process as long as possible and trying to create the most graceful exit. In the U.S. many people are now living into their 80s, 90s, and increasingly 100-plus. So, we have come to associate death primarily with old age. This shift in how and where we die has caused increasing concern about the traditional medical ‘problem-cure’ model of providing care. This model is often criticized four falling short of following consumer perceptions of quality and personal preferences in end of life care. Concerns have been raised reflecting notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deaths which are threaded throughout discussions about the dying process and how death occurs. These two concepts are not fixed in meaning but rather are shaped by people’s experience, spiritual beliefs, culture, social mores, technology, and available options for dying. According to the U. S. Institute of Medicine, a good death is characterized by ‘one that is free from avoidable distress and suffering for patients, families, and caregivers. In general, services are provided in accord with patients’ and families’ wishes, and are reasonably consistent with clinical, cultural, and ethical

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standards. Conversely, a bad death is characterized by needless suffering, lack of sensitivity for patient or family wishes or values. Fundamentally, it involves a sense among participants or observers that norms of decency have been offended’ (Institute of Medicine, p. 4). In general, the concern raised with the problem-cure model of health care is its emphasis on life-enhancing therapies which often fall short of guiding quality in end of life care. The growing discrepancy with what is generally perceived as a ‘good death’ and how we actually die redirected the nation’s attention toward a closer examination about our attitudes and perceptions of a death with dignity. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ (1969-1981) groundbreaking and widely debated work on the dying process set the stage for this national introspection. The outgrowth was an increased emphasis on dying as a time of continued personal growth and profound spirituality. Kubler-Ross maintained that by accepting death’s inevitability, dying persons can live meaningfully during their final days, come to terms with key life decisions and accept who and where they are. End of life care planning involves a process of communication between an individual, his or her family members, and health care providers to ensure care is consistent with the individual’s decisions about treatment preferences and values. This public policy debate spurred the demand for improved and earlier end of life care planning. Promoting quality end of life care decision making has become an important societal goal, as well as for individuals. A number of operational tools designed to help individuals face death on their own terms through better planning and decision-making are now widely available. Examples cover a continuum of both legal and personal health mechanisms to help a dying person ‘settle their affairs.’ This planning process typically results in written instructions, including advanced directives, powers of attorney, wills or other legal procedures to be executed by a competent person in the event the person becomes incapacitated or dies. It also includes services such as palliative care, hospice, euthanasia, and other services. At the societal level, public policies have been instituted to enhance individual decision-making; such as, the dying person’s “Bill of Rights.”

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DEATH AND DYING: VIEWED THROUGH MULTIPLE LENSES It is commonly believed in the U.S. that everyone desires to have a peaceful death, one that is marked by advanced planning and settlement of one’s emotional, family and financial affairs. Although individuals usually have ample opportunity to express their wishes before death, these wishes are left unspoken for 70% of Americans (Hilliard). Intuitively, what most people want includes:      

die in their own homes surrounded by relatives and friends settled all worldly affairs give parting words to loved ones freedom from pain and suffering physical and emotional comfort

Starting the conversation, however, about end of life care planning is not easy. In fact, a large chunk of U.S. adults haven’t given much thought to their preferences at all. One noted advocate and columnist, Brandi Alexander, in describing her family’s situation, also depicts the dilemma of many families: “… When my father’s cancer came out of remission in 2010, he declined in a matter of months. I had never had one conversation with him about his end-of-life care goals, preferences and values, so he suffered terribly during his last days. My family spent so much time fighting over what we thought he wanted, when in reality, none of us knew what he really wanted. That experience taught me not only the importance of these discussions but also how much of a need there is for us to start planning early, before a time of crisis …”

Promoting earlier end of life care planning and decision making has become an important societal goal in all modern nations. This is

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particularly true for making a decision to forgo or to sustain life with artificial treatments. It is a complex process that brings various individual, economic, educational, social and cultural traits into play. It is precisely because of this complexity that the literature is replete with evidence identifying significant disparities between African Americans and Whites. This extends across the entire spectrum of end of life care planning. A persistent flow of studies involving culturally diverse patient’s responses to end of life care planning began to appear in the 1990s. It has consistently demonstrated that there are significant disparities in planning and how and where we die among population groups. These differences persist despite extensive public and private efforts to provide information and greater access to end of life planning options. The answer to the basic question of ‘Why these differences persist?’ has varied. A recent PEW Research Center survey demonstrated that African Americans differed from non-Hispanic Whites in their willingness to complete advance directives and their desires about life-sustaining treatment. Both earlier and recent studies have found that significantly more African Americans and Hispanics want their doctors to keep them alive regardless of how ill they are. More whites agreed to stop life-prolonging treatment under some circumstances. This suggests that a common notion of a good death that provides structure for end of life care is lacking, particularly for African Americans. Invariably, we are lacking a comprehensive understanding about how the concept of a good death might vary across relevant populations or different cultures (Wicker, p. 29). Typically, studies offer descriptive explanations which are useful but fail to provide insights for the underlying causes. In many instances, we are left with our own suppositions about educational, cultural, and socio-economic differences. Much remains to be learned about effective means to incorporate patient preferences and to accommodate cultural differences at the end of life. Studies that focus on racial/ethnic differences in end of life care planning are significant because who we are and our perceptions of a ‘good death’ are the products of generations of core religious beliefs, culture, and a variety of socio-economic factors. These broad contextual influences have a significant impact upon an individual’s end-of life care decision-

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making. Enhancing our knowledge of African American decision making is important because, if African American elders want greater access to end of life care services we need to remove any barriers they face in doing so. From a public policy perspective it is important to understand and address these barriers. If African American elders have access to these services; but, service providers cannot accommodate their preferences in receiving care, or if public programs are not adequately equipped to accommodate these preferences, then these limitations could also serve as barriers to receiving care; and, therefore, need to be examined.

DEMOGRAPHIC DISPARITIES Health disparities across population groups in the U.S. are not a new phenomenon. So, it comes as no surprise that this is also the case with end of life care decisions. Since the early 1960s, our Nation has conducted major efforts to identify and address health care disparities. This arose out of social justice concerns and reflects genuine efforts by both the public and private sectors to reduce health disparities. Although the term is often interpreted to mean racial or ethnic disparities, many other dimensions of health disparities exist. Regardless of the definition, the underlying conclusion is that systematic differences in population health status or delivery are inherently unfair. Moreover, the assumption is that these ‘inequalities’ do not occur naturally, but are attributed to some social or economic conditions (Unnatural Causes). The field is replete with scholarship documenting the extent of health disparities in the U.S. and the contributing demographic factors. Similarly, differences in end of life care decisions are well documented in income, education, environmental, economic conditions, health behaviors, medical disease or condition, as well as differences in the levels of quality care received. End of life care disparities have also been observed by geographic location, age, gender, and disability status (Atrash, p. 3). A common linking thread behind these disparities is that U.S. minority groups experience poorer access to medical care and services than their

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White counterparts. For example, even after adjusting for socioeconomic status and access-related indicators, African Americans are less likely than Whites to have primary care providers. Although previous research has shown that these factors create real barriers to care and services, they do not tell the whole story (Welch, p. 1145).

CONSUMER EDUCATION EXPLANATIONS There are historical and present day challenges in consumer education about end of life care decision making that limit the effectiveness of various initiatives in reaching all population groups equally. The literature is clear that there are historical and present day obstacles to reaching all population groups equally. Even at rudimentary levels of communications between patients and health professionals have been noted. There is considerable anecdotal evidence supporting the conclusion that workingclass people, who constitute the majority of African Americans, feel more uncomfortable and less prepared in dealing with middle- and upper-status professionals than they do in dealing with persons of equal status. Moreover, poor people, as a class, frequently mistrust traditional bureaucratic institutions that have “mistreated” them, or lack confidence in their ability to communicate their concerns and problems in terms which doctors can comprehend (Smith). C. P. Jones has proposed a framework for understanding how social class and social conflict influence health outcome on three levels: (1) perceptions of adhering to institutional processes in the face of need, (2) differential assumptions about the abilities, motives, and intentions of others based on race or status, and (3) the internalization by the under-privileged of concepts of ‘whiteness,’ self-devaluation, resignation, helplessness, and hopelessness (Jones, 1212-15). To illustrate this consumer education challenge, in May 2006, Caring Connections, a component of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), conducted two African American end of life focus groups in St. Louis, Missouri. Group participants discussed their general feelings and issues regarding end of life thinking, and planning.

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Most participants were unaware of the true meaning of advance planning, using it interchangeably with end of life care, which they connected with life insurance and funeral planning. Many misinterpreted the materials they were given, and thought that advance medical care planning referred to an agency or organization where all advance directives are stored. It was noted that there was significant distrust in the focus groups that even if preferences are specified in writing, the medical professional in charge would not honor them (African American Outreach Guide).

EXPLANATIONS INVOLVING INSTITUTIONAL MISTRUST Studies have demonstrated that decades, even centuries, after racial discrimination, de-facto segregation, and other inequities that flow from these conditions, their impact can remain firmly embedded in American society. A number of studies specifically highlight explanations of prior discrimination or abuse to explain differences in end of life care planning. Many African Americans remember the days of segregation, Jim Crow laws and violence towards their people. And many African Americans are deeply distrustful of the government and the health care system, a distrust that is rooted in both historical and present day experiences. For example, most people are familiar with the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. This infamous clinical study was conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service on the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men in Alabama. Participants were told that they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government while purposely left untreated. Similarly, there is the case of Henrietta Lacks (August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951), an African American woman who was the unwitting source of cells from her cancerous tumor which were cultured to create the first known human immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line. In 2017, the first data from an unprecedented survey of 3,453 African Americans, Latino, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Whites, and LGBT adults conducted by the Harvard University T. H. Chan School of

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Public Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation explored experiences with discrimination. Every demographic group surveyed felt that discrimination against their race or ethnic group continues to exists in America today. This included 78 percent of Latinos, 75 percent of Native Americans, 61 percent of Asian Americans, and 55 percent of NonHispanic Whites. However, 92 percent of African Americans surveyed were most likely to agree that discrimination continues to exist. When asked about their own personal experiences, 32 percent of African Americans said they have personally experienced racial discrimination when going to a doctor or a health clinic. Twenty-two 22 percent have avoided seeking medical care out of concern about discrimination (Williams). Certainly, an argument could be made that considerable progress has been achieved over the past 60 decades in combating discrimination and injustices. However, historians and political scientists have noted that long after an original economic, political or tragic social event has occurred, racial attitudes can persist.

THE GROWTH OF HOSPICE CARE: UNDERSTANDING THE MEDICARE IMPACT Eighty percent of people who die in the United States are on Medicare. This fact alone makes end-of-life care policies a crucial component of the Nation’s largest health insurer (Rao and Stasio). Upon reaching age 65, virtually all Americans are eligible for Medicare, making it uniquely a universal medical insurance program. Medicare also provides the same benefit package to all beneficiaries. Further, the vast majority of health care providers and institutions participate in the program, which in theory, should help ensure that minority beneficiaries have equal access to services (Eicher, pp. 365-75). However, Medicare data over the past 50 years has shown that having equal health insurance coverage does not necessarily solve the disparity problem. Racial and ethnic minorities have lower utilization than Whites, even when insurance status, income, age, and

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severity of medical conditions are comparable (Smedley, 138-79). Among Medicare beneficiaries, for example, significant disparities persist in health care despite the clear intent of the law to provide equal access to medical care, regardless of race, income, or location of residence. For Medicare hospice patients who have a prognosis of no more than six months life, covered services range from in-home care to stand alone centers to special wings in hospitals. The program does nothing to artificially lengthen or shorten life, focusing mostly on a patient’s comfort. People on Medicare account for the vast majority of U.S. deaths and medical costs in the last year of life. This care accounts for roughly one quarter of Medicare’s budget (Sedensky, p. 6A, Riley, p. 565). Indeed, the Medicare program has significantly improved access to end of life care services for all segments of the elderly population, especially for African Americans. In the 1980s, the National Hospice Organization (NHO) Task Force on Access to Hospice Care by Minority Groups, determined that there were no significant national studies about access to hospice care to non-white groups. The most significant hospice research available was the National Hospice Study, conducted by Brown University (Mor, et al.). This research was part of a study mandated by the U.S. Congress to compare the cost and quality of hospice care to that received by similar patients in conventional care settings. While not providing patient racial or ethnic characteristics, it did describe the racial makeup of primary care givers and volunteers. According to the study only 8.1 percent of primary caregivers in home health agency-based hospices were non-white, as were 5.3 percent in hospital-based hospice, and 2.7 percent of all hospice volunteers (Harper, p. 2). Since then, hospice care has grown from about 25,000 privately funded patients in 1982, when Congress approved coverage under Medicare, to 1.45 million people in 2008. Table I shows differences in hospice use by racial and ethnic groups. As of 2010, hospice use was highest among White Medicare decedents followed by Hispanic, African American, Native American, and Asian American ethnicity. Medicare hospice use grew substantially among all these groups between 2000 and 2010.

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Chester A. Robinson Table 1. Percent of Medicare Decedents Who Use Hospice

All beneficiaries White AfricanAmerican Hispanic Asian American Native North American

2000 22.9%

2007 38.9%

2008 40.1%

2009 42.0%

2010 44.0%

23.8% 17.0%

40.5% 29.9%

41.8% 30.8%

43.7% 32.6%

45.8% 34.0%

21.1% 15.2%

32.6% 22.9%

32.9% 24.5%

34.8% 26.0%

37.0% 28.1%

13.0%

28.8%

29.8%

29.7%

30.6%

Source: MedPAC analysis of data from the denominator file and the Medicare Beneficiary database from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (March 2012). Chapter 11, Hospice, Report to Congress on Medicare Payment Policy. Washington, DC

Even with Medicare’s historic achievements in extending greater access to health consumers, marked disparities persist in treatment and health status. For example, the 2002 Institute of Medicine Report, Unequal Treatment, found that minority beneficiaries fall short of Whites on many measures of health status. Blacks have shorter life expectancy at age 65 than Whites (by 1.8 years), and Black and Latino beneficiaries are more likely than whites to have chronic conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes (Arias, p. 51). These lingering differences are pointed to by socialcultural theorists as indications of wide diversity in cultural, environment, community, and other factors that are not readily apparent in aggregate Medicare program data. At first glance, America is making great strides toward a medical and cultural shift in its approach to end-of-life care: More and more health care providers are recognizing the benefits of hospice, more people are dying at home, and many health care organizations are institutionalizing the discussions between providers and patients that would help patients formalize their wishes for end of life care. But, pull up the curtain on these statistics and the drama that unfolds tells a very different story. End of life

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continues to be characterized by aggressive medical intervention and runaway costs. While fewer individuals are dying in hospitals than in the past and more are receiving hospice care, more patients are receiving care in an intensive care unit in their last month of life and a growing number are shuffled around between different care sites in their final three months (Adamopolos). This has led many analysts to conclude that these existing patterns of care do not meet the needs and preferences of terminally ill patients in obtaining a ‘good death.’

SPIRITUALITY OF DEATH THE FINAL FRONTIER FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS After thousands of years of pondering it, we still consider death, and the process of dying, to be among life’s most perplexing mysteries. We yearn to understand death, and how to make sense of it in the context of our lives. What we know for certain is that death is: universal, irreversible, brings about the end of life functions, can be caused by either internal biological causes (cancer, organ failure) or external causes (trauma). Everyone understands ‘I am going to die.’ On the intangible side, we accept that death and dying is not a purely individual act, any more than life is (Aries p. 41). An individual’s experiences while dying are differently shaped by the nature of their illness, by individuals, by family, and by others’ reactions to it. These factors are equally as relevant as the quality of care provided for their medical, physical comfort, psychological, and practical needs. As adults, we carry all of these factors in our heads on some level when we think about death. However, we aren’t born with them; at some point in childhood, just about all of us confront the idea of death. A study in 1996 by Speece and Brent concluded that, it is not until about 10 years of age that healthy children achieve a mature understanding of death: that it is irreversible, permanent, and inevitable. Children’s thoughts on death are

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shaped by a wide range of factors, including, culture, religion, personal experience and the media. These notions of death are often reflected in the way we speak of death in our social discourse. We tend to use metaphors which reflect our discomfort with the topic, and our attitudes toward death. For example; in the entertainment media (movies, television) we often hear references to snuffed out, annihilated or similar terms. In more serious social settings we hear phrases like: passed on, resting in peace, transitioned, laid to rest, and crossed over. We seem to struggle in social conversations to use the word death, with all of its finality implications. Part of the challenge is intellectual, says Brian Carpenter, professor of psychology and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Lewis, who studies the psychology of aging and family relationships in late life. ‘No matter how hard we try, it is difficult to genuinely understand that the dying person will be gone’ he says, and it’s hard to talk about death if you can’t grasp or accept it. Denial is easier (Bernstein, p. A12). When we personalize, and think about our own death, it is difficult for most people to imagine nonexistence in any form – spiritual or physical. Some have argued that because religion offers explanations for the unknown and eases ones fears, that religion evolved as a terror management device. A handy way to remove the uncertainty surrounding one of the scariest things we can imagine: death. Much of what we have learned about death and dying is informed by the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychiatry. Also, philosophers have given considerable thought to this conundrum, as well as all religious institutions. David Émile Durkheim the eminent French sociologist is often cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science. His book, “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life” (1912) has been regarded as one of the most profound and original works on religion. Durkheim’s purpose was to identify the social origin and function of religion as he felt that religion was a source of camaraderie and solidarity. Durkheim defined religion as ‘… a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church. Durkheim say religion is the most fundamental social

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institution of humankind, and one that gave rise to other social forms. It is the strongest sense of collective consciousness and emerged in the early hunter and gatherer societies. Even in modern times as religion appears to be losing its importance, in Durkheim view, it still lays the foundation of society and the interactions that govern it. Moreover, despite the advent of alternative forces of influence in society, Durkheim argued that no replacement for the force of religion has yet been created. An indication that Durkheim’s beliefs are correct is demonstrated in the fact that all cultures have developed beliefs and practices regarding death in order to minimize its disruptive effects on the social structure. These spiritual practices influence how members of a particular society react to their own death and that of others (Hooyman, p. 554). Almost every religion offers an explanation for what happens to us after we die, with the assurance that death isn’t the end. There is, in fact, evidence that every religious people don’t fear death as much as others. Protestants, Catholics and Muslims all believe in a day of resurrection and judgement, in which our souls are directed to heaven (Jannah in the case of Muslims) or hell based upon our good deeds or misdeeds during our time spent on earth. Granted that all religions don’t see death the same way, placing varying emphasis on heaven and hell, the resurrection, and atonement for our sins and God mercy. Most Christians believe that Jesus was fully divine, but also fully human. All humans die, but Jesus was raised to life beyond death, and Christians believe that humans can be incorporated into this everlasting life as well. Throughout Christianity’s history, theologians and church authorities have strongly emphasized the afterlife.

THE UNIQUE SPIRITUALITY OF DEATH IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY Since the 1950s, a new generation of historians has focused on spirituality in the African American community and its perceptions of death and dying. Their work has established the uniqueness, importance,

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and adaptation of Christianity for African Americans. While some debate the extent of African influence on Christianity, all have noted a distinctive brand of religion enslaved African Americans have adopted. About 90% of all African Americans were slaves before the Civil War and the informal theology accepted by African Americans treated earth as a place of suffering and heaven as a place of rest and reward. Today, the top ten most religious states in America are all located in the south or southern Midwest, according to a new Gallup report. All ten states are part of the socalled ‘Bible Belt’ or the area in the U.S. with a heavy socially conservative evangelical Protestant population which is heavily African American. These states are, starting with the most religious: Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kentucky and Texas, which are tied. The Gallup report ranked each state’s religiousness by asking respondents if religion is an important part of their daily live. Overall, analysis shows that a solid majority of Americans said religion is important in their daily lives. A full 65 percent. The importance of the church is deeply rooted in the African American community. In this respect, a distinction is often drawn between ‘going to church vs being the church.’ Most people talk about ‘going to church’ as if church were a building or a place or an event. In fact, nowhere in the New Testament does it mention going to church or referring to church as a building or an organization. Churches in the New Testament always refer to a community of believers. If one goes to church, then church is something done once or twice a week. But if the community is called the Church, then you take the Church everywhere you go. You are always ‘in church.’ That means you should behave and think the same way all the time. As previously discussed, death is a process that involves an interaction among individuals and group behaviors. Religious beliefs are also key factors that interact with age and cohort to affect attitudes toward death. For instance, in all age groups who hold the strongest beliefs in an afterlife have less anxiety about dying. Religious people are less fearful about the unknown and view death as the doorway to a better state of being. Those

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most fearful about death are irregular participants in formal religious activities or whose belief systems may be confused and uncertain (Cicitelli). Religion can either comfort or create anxiety about an afterlife, but across cultures, it offers one way to try to make sense of death. Revelations 22:11-12 is an often quoted biblical reference about the heavenly rewards of the afterlife. This scripture says: … 11 Let the unrighteous continue to be unrighteous, and the vile continue to be vile; let the righteous continue to practice righteousness, and the holy continue to be holy. … 12 Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to each person according to what he has done. … 13 I am the alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Notice that Jesus is bring His reward with Him. In addition, What does Jesus mean by ‘quickly’? The Greek word ‘tachy’ can be translated either ‘soon’ (within a short period of time) or ‘quickly’ (swiftly or suddenly). Don’t the faithful dead get their reward immediately at death by going to be with Jesus in heaven? This is a sentiment openly embraced in African American churches. After all, many Christian believers have been dead for over two millennia. Are they still waiting for Christ’s second coming? As most informed ministers would point out, however, we need to remember that ‘a thousand years in (God’s) sight are just like yesterday past, like a watch in the night’ (Psalm 90:4). If we look at the word ‘soon’ from God’s perspective, it looks very different. Nevertheless, shouldn’t they have been enjoying their reward long before now, and certainly before the time of Christ’s second coming? Yet, Jesus said that Jesus will bring their reward with Him when he comes, an idea that makes no sense if the dead have been with Him already in heaven. The answer to this conundrum may be found in traditional African American spirituals. Commonly known as gospel songs, these spirituals are more than just music for African Americans. They constitute the story of our people, expressed in a soulful voice. Gospel music has roots in the Black oral tradition, and typically utilizes a great deal of repetition, which

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allows those who could not read the opportunity to participate in worship. During this time, hymns and sacred songs were lined and repeated in a call and response fashion, and Negro spirituals and work songs emerged. Repetition and “call and response” are accepted elements in African American music, designed to achieve an altered state of consciousness we sometimes refer to as “trance,” and strengthen communal bonds. As Negro spirituals are Christian songs, most of them concern what the Bible says and how to live with the Spirit of God. For African Americans at the time, these songs in all likelihood represented the interpretation of the scripture. For example, the “dark days of bondage” were enlightened by the hope and faith that God will not leave slaves alone. Other examples of songs and key verses include: I’ll Be Singing Up There … If you miss me singing down here, oh … Come on up to bright Glory … You’ll find me singing up there Safe in the Arms of Jesus … Safe in the arms of Jesus … Safe on His gentle breast … There by His Love o’er shaded … Sweetly my Soul shall rest Sweet By and By … There’s a land that is fairer than day … And by faith we can see it a far … For the Father waits over the way … To prepare us a dwelling place there I’ll Fly Away … Some glad morning when life is over … I’ll fly away

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… To a home on God’s celestial shore On Jordan’s … On Jordan’s stormy banks, I stand … And cast a wishful eye … Who will come and go with me … I am bound for the Promised Land

From Africans initial embrace of Christianity, to the Black church into today’s modern religious practice, it remains the backbone of African American communities (African American Outreach Guide, p. 7). In African American faith, the church is the centerpiece of the community. Members seek out everything form spiritual guidance to relationship counsel, to adult vocational education programs, to guidance in voting in political elections. Each African American religious denomination takes great pride in its ability to hold together its congregation even in the gravest of times, as exhibited in the 1960s civil rights movement. As noted by famed Mississippi author, Clifton Taubert: ‘It was closer to our hearts than our homes – The Colored Church. It was more than an institution; it was the very heart beat of our lives. Our church was all our own, beyond the influence of whites, with its own societal structure.’

In this manner, religious beliefs have a significant influence on African American decisions and practices during the end of life. This is reflected in African Americans lower rates of acceptance to advance directives and palliative care measures. Racial distrust in health care delivery and dysfunctional communication between physician and patient at the end of life can combine to exert a pernicious impact on the process of dying. In this respect, conversations between patients and health professionals can be at cross purposes, with both parties missing the perspective of the other. Data from a sample of 293 chronically ill older adults seeking care at two large medical centers in urban New Jersey illustrates this point. Blacks and

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Hispanics in this sample were significantly less likely than Whites to have a living will, a durable power of attorney for health care, and to have discussed their end of life treatment preferences with medical personnel. Multivariate analyses revealed that the Black-White gap in advance care planning was accounted for by Blacks’ religious beliefs. The HispanicWhite gap is partially accounted for by the belief that one’s illness negatively affects one’s family (Carr, pp. 1-16). Many African Americans perceive the concept of end of life care treatments as ‘giving up hope’ or the medical profession not respecting their religious or personal values. For example, African American elders are more likely than whites to believe that God is the ultimate decision maker regarding the time, manner, and place of death, and to have religious prohibitions against limiting life sustaining treatment (Johnson). This analysis supports earlier studies that Blacks and Latinos are significantly less likely than Whites to make formal preparations for endof-life care. However, a key observation should be noted with this analysis is that although ethnic minorities also are less likely to engage in informal practices that do not require contact with the formal health care system (i.e., discussions with loved ones), this difference was no longer statistically significant after sociodemographic, attitudes, and death experiences were statically controlled. This suggests that ethnic minorities are not necessarily opposed to discussing or thinking about death, but powerful obstacles persist with respect to formal, legal aspects of advance care planning. This is a logical conclusion given the African American unique religious heritage. Throughout life, others have failed to deliver, whether it is at the individual, institutional or societal level; i.e., a failed marriage, an inadequate educational system, an untrustworthy health care system, or unequal criminal justice system. Logically, the question then becomes, why would you want to put your trust and faith in them at the end of life?. After all, God is omniscient and always present. History has taught African Americans that Jesus is the primary care giver and the only consistent and reliable entity throughout life. Therefore, it makes sense to rely on His word and direction at the end of earthly life.

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As previously stated, historians and political scientists have noted that long after an original economic, political or tragic social event has occurred, racial attitudes can persist. In their new book, Deep Roots, Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen examined slavery’s southern legacy and how it has an impact on present-day attitudes. In many respects, they point out that current beliefs are directly tied to the past. ‘Once a community has moved along a path, the authors conclude, ‘it becomes firmly rooted and difficult to reverse or change’…. Even if the original incentives no longer apply.’ The work of these authors joins a growing body of what’s known in the social sciences as ‘persistence literature.’ The preponderance of literature suggests that the role of the church in the broader African American community has the potential to yield insights into the personal preferences about end of life treatments. For example, most white mainline Protestants (72%), white Catholics (65%) and white evangelical Protestants (62%) say they would stop their medical treatment if they had an incurable disease and were suffering a great deal of pain (PEW, 2013). By contrast, most African American Protestants (61%) and 57% of Hispanic Catholics say they would tell their doctors to do everything possible to save their lives in the same circumstances (PEW, 2013). On balance, African Americans and Hispanics are less likely than whites to say they would halt medical treatment if they faced these kinds of situations.

Nudging Changes in Behavior Is it a utopian dream to believe that, at some point, in our multicultural-racial society that differences in end of life care preferences, as well as other health disparities, will be fully understood and addressed? Perhaps not! We have learned that these differences reflect the interplay of political, economic, and social-cultural factors, some of which our society and leaders are not eager to take on. Our core religious beliefs have also been a major contributing factor in how we perceive our environment and how we make end of life care decisions. Much of the research offers useful

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clues about why many African Americans are more resistant to end of life care planning. In the aggregate, the research suggest that most African Americans deal with these decisions from a belief system that is rooted in a broader world view, in which spirituality has come to play a pivotal role. To deal with this system of beliefs, a much broader concept of health and end of life care is needed. So, what lurks behind this need for a broader concept for health and end of life care planning? A particularly informative study conducted in the Bolivian Amazon with the Tsimane people offers us some fundamental building blocks. Researchers questioned how to encourage reluctant villagers to take advantage of health care services that were offered, particularly when things like rashes, coughs, and pains made it clear that they should. ‘We tried to get what they think,’ says Michael Gurven, the University of California at Santa Barbara researcher, who led the study. ‘If they think they’re in charge of what happens to them, that what they put into their body or what they do effects what happens, they’re likely to go to the doctor. With that feeling of control, they’re likely to believe that medical treatment will help heal them, or that they might be able to prevent getting sick in the first place. It turned out that the Tsimane people largely believed that forces outside their control, like a mosquito bite that results in a deadly fever or a neighbor who puts a curse on them, mattered more than things within their control’ (Susan Brink). This may appear to be nonlinear, but avoiding trips to the doctor happens all over the world. The same kind of thinking in the U.S. keeps people from medical care, particularly in disadvantaged communities where things are chaotic and people believe their circumstances are out of their control or controlled by chance. People living in chaotic environments might think that they don’t have control over what’s happening today, so why worry about what might happen in the future. But a couple of things have worked to get the indigenous Bolivians to the medical clinic. ‘We don’t just explain the illness, and how treatments will have an effect. Medical knowledge isn’t the answer, says Gurven. ‘We try to get them thinking that it matters to their family that they get treated. We get them thinking about their lives in the future. We ask them about their

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children’s lives five years from now’ (Brink). This is a form of ‘nudging,’ and has been used by spouses all over the world to get their mates to the doctor: if you won’t do it for yourself, think of the kids. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their 2008 book ‘Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness,’ brought nudge theory to prominence to demonstrate how to effectively change behavior. A nudge makes it more likely that an individual will make a particular choice, or behave in a particular way, by altering the environment so that automatic cognitive processes are triggered to favor the desired outcome. This theory recognizes that an individual’s behavior is not always in alignment with their intentions. It is common knowledge that humans are not fully rational beings; that is, people will often do something that is not in their own self-interest, even when they are aware that their actions are not in their interest (Thaler and Sunstein). Sometimes nudges takes the form of changing the rules that determine whether someone participates in a program or not: for example, switching the default so people are automatically enrolled in a retirement savings plan, rather than only enrolling people who actively sign up for the program. But oftentimes, nudges can be as simple as sending people simplified information about opportunities that are available to them, or reminders abut important tasks they have to complete in order to participate in beneficial programs. For example: automated messages or telephone reminders to take medications on a certain day or time. Another approach showing promise has been to use more culturally sensitive education to increase awareness of end of life care services and its benefits. Also, studies suggest that cultural diversity among hospice staff may influence diversity among hospice patients (Rhodes, pp. 613616). As we become an increasingly diverse society, we need to bolster current educational efforts to improve cultural competence among health care providers. Overcoming the health disparity gap will require better patient education, better tools for patient engagement, and increased provider awareness of population-specific barriers to care. Providers will need to improve the skills required to care for patients from dissimilar backgrounds and languages. Admittedly, the effectiveness of cultural-

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competence training remains to be fully tested but its potential benefits should not remain unexplored (Peterson, p. 1173). Ann C. Klassen and her colleagues captured it well when they conclude that “….. Caregivers cannot undo a patient’s past experiences, but they can be aware of the influence of those experiences on current decisions and well-being” (Klassen, p. 816). Third, many public and private organizational efforts frequently focus on persuading people to change their behaviors and perceptions of end of life care to make it more ‘logical.’ This approach fails to challenge the medical and social structures and place primary responsibility on individual choices. This is particularly so with African Americans who have encountered discrimination (both overt and covert), mistreatment, and suffered inequalities. These have been powerful and frequently systematic experiences that have been woven into cultural experiences and are not easily dispensed. Moreover, given the powerful influence of our environment, people cannot be expected to change patterns of decision making through individual behavior alone. Rather, any solution that public policy officials test must also consider changing community environmental situations (Lavery, pp. 611-16). Finally, we must consider what the future holds for American religion in end of life care decision making. The United States has been and remains one of the most religious nations in the world. A large percent of our population participates in organized religious practice while others engage in private spirituality. The role religion plays in our national life is evident as we read current news stories regarding fetal cell research, abortion rights, and the push in several recent presidential administrations to use and fund faith based organizations to meet social needs. Religion, like other societal institutions, does not exist in a vacuum. We must also think about the implications world-wide mega trends might mean in the context of end of life decision making and our common life and our national spiritual identity. All nations are experiencing growing religious diversity and the trend is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Fifty years ago America’s religious landscape was dominated by Protestant Churches, Catholic Cathedrals and Jewish

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Synagogues. Things have changed! As Diane Eck suggests in her new book, A New Religious America, America in the year 2000 has become the world’s most religiously diverse nation. New religious expressions have been accompanied each new wave of immigrants. This growing religious diversity will continue to impact communities, corporations and culture. Moslems, Buddhists, Sikh’s and other religious traditions that were once considered “World” Religions in college courses are now “American” religions. Currently there are more Moslems in America than there are American Jews or Episcopalians or Presbyterians. In 2001 the Post Office, which traditionally issues a Hanukah and Christmas stamp, also issued a stamp celebrating the end of the Moslem observance of Ramadan. Religious diversity will continue to grow. The implications of this diversity are far reaching and likely to expose the general population not only to different religious teachings, but alternative concepts of the afterlife. These mega trends are becoming more evident and are expressed in increasing levels of secular thought and levels of religiosity. To illustrate, an annual Gallop Poll asked the question, ‘How important would you say religion is in your life?’ The poll showed a general decline in those who responded ‘very important’ from a high of 61% in 1997 to 51% in 2017. Also, the poll showed increases in those who think religion, as a whole, is losing its influence on American life from 63% in 1992 to 73% in 2017.

CONCLUSION The fear of death can present a hurdle to end of life care decision making. This planning hesitancy is apparent, even when we face the fact that humans have a 100% mortality rate. Our anxiety about death can affect an array of planning choices from decisions about medical treatment, managing savings for retirement, purchasing life insurance, estate planning and drafting wills. The lack of planning also leads to problems like family discord, higher medical costs, and unnecessary stress added to grief. So, why do we have this fear? Certainly, a basic human instinct is to ‘plan for life’ and most people don’t ‘plan to die’. Modern medicine today

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has become highly advanced; it offers the promise of extending life beyond traditional expectations. Death is now perceived as a surprise, an emergency, or a failure of the medical profession, rather than a natural part of the cycle of life. In its broadest societal context, Ernest Becker, an American cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary thinker, suggests that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality. He wrote several books on human motivation and behavior, most notably the 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, The Denial of Death. In it, he argues that “the basic motivation for human behavior is our biological need to control our basic anxiety, to deny the terror of death”. Becker suggested that a significant function of culture is to “provide successful ways to engage in death denial.” In the context of Becker’s proposition and the unique historical, cultural, and religious experiences of African Americans, logical explanations evolve that explain disparities in the willingness to engage in end of life care decision making. This suggests than planners should use simple strategies to help African Americans cope with any anxiety that may arise from thinking about death. In addition, viewing advanced decision making as a tool for helping heirs and family members rather than as a way to prepare for one’s death is likely to make planning for the future seem like less of a daunting prospect. In this respect, I can think of no better parting words that capture the personal depth and need for better end of life care planning than those expressed by John A. Powell, who said, “… Perhaps my last mission here in life is to teach my children how to care for me, how to make decisions for me, when I no longer can for myself” (Tippett).

REFERENCES Adamopoulos, Helen, (June 3, 2013). The Cost and Quality Conundrum of American End of Life Care, Medicare News Group, Located at: http://www.medicarenewsgroup.com.

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African American Outreach Guide (2008), Caring Connections, Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life, National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2006). The National Healthcare Disparities Report. Rockville, Maryland. Located at:www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr06/nhdr06.htm. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2011). The National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD. Located at: http://www.ahrq.gov/ qual/qrdr11.htm AHRQ Bub#12-0006, March, 2012. Alexander, Brandi (February 28, 2018). Conversations on End-of-Life Care Crucial, Commentary in The Clarion Ledger Newspaper. Allitt, Patrick N. (2001). American Religious History, the Teaching Campany Publications, Chantilly, Virginia. Arias, E. (September 2003). Deaths: Final Data for 2001, National Vital Statistics Report. 52(3). Also see: Sharma, R. and H. Lius (2004). Health and Health Care of the Medicare Population: Data from the 2000 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey. Rockville, MD: Westat. p. 51. Arias, Elizabeth (September, 24, 2012). National Vital Statistics Reports, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Life Tables, 2008, Vol 61, No3. Atrash, Hani K. and Melissa D. Hunter. (2006). Health Disparities in the United States: A Continuing Challenge. Multicultural Medicine and Health Disparities. Edited by David Satcher and Rubens Pamies. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing. Becker, Ernest (1997). The Denial of Death, Free Press, New York, NY. Belluck, Pam (August 30, 2014). Coverage for End of Life Talks Gaining Ground, New York Times, Located at: http://nyti.ms/1uc8661. Berkson, Mark (2016). Death, Dying, and the Afterlife, Lessons from World Cultures, The Great Courses Publications, Chantilly Virginia. Bernstein, Elizabeth (April 17, 2018). Talking to Your Dying Loved One, The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, p. A12.

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Braveman, P. A, Cubbin C. Egerter, et.al (2010). Socioeconomic Disparities in Health in the United States: What the Patterns Tell Us’. American Journal of Public Health, 100 (Supplement 1) S186-96. Brink, Susan (March 11, 2018). How To Get People To See A Doctor When They Don’t Want To, An Interview with Michael Gurven, in Goats and Soda, Stories of Life in a Changing World, Located at: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/03/11/591274115/ho w-to-get-people-to-see-a-doctor-when-they-dont-want-to. Burgess, Diana (2008). The Association between Perceived Discrimination and Underutilization of Needed Medical and Mental Health Care in a Multi-Ethnic Community Sample. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 19(3) 904. Byock, Ira (1997). Dying Well, Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life, Riverhead Books, NY 1997. Carr, Deborah (2011). Racial Differences in End-of-Life Planning: Why Don’t Blacks and Latino Prepare for the Inevitable?. OMEGA, Vol. 63(1) 1-20. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (January 14, 2011). Health Disparities and Inequalities Report, Vol. 60. Supplement. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary. National Health Expenditure Data for 2010. Washington, D.C.:U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Located at: www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHeathExpendData. Cicirell, V. G. (2006). Fear of Death in Mid-Old Age, Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 61B, pp. 75-81. Donley, Greer (2011). Making the Case for Talking to Patients About the Costs of End of Life Care, Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, 39(2): 183-193. Eck, Diane (2001). A New Religious America: How a Christian Country Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation, HarperCollins Publishers: New York. Eichner, June and Vladeck, Bruce C. (2005). Medicare as a Catalyst for Reducing Health Disparities. Health Affairs, 24(2)365-375.

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Gallop Poll (2017). Religion, located at: http://news.gallup.com/ poll/1690/religion.aspx. Hafiz, Yasmine (November 12, 2013). American Attitudes Towards Death: 12 Facts From New PEW Research Center Survey, Huffington Post Religion. Harper, Bernice C. (1995). Report from the National Task Force on Access to Hospice Care by Minority Groups, in Donna, Gordan, Audrey and Harper, Hospice Care and Cultural Diversity, The Haworth Press, NY. Haupt, Barbara (March 6, 1997). Characteristics of Patients Receiving Hospice Care Services: United States, 1994, Advance Data, National Center for Health Statistics, No. 282. Hendrickson, Michael C. (1986). The Role of the Church in Aging, Vol. II, Implications for Practice and Service, The Haworth Press, NY. Hilliard, Tandrea S., Washington, Tiffany, et al. (August 2013). Wishes Left Unspoken: Engaging Underserved Populations in End of Life Advance Care Planning, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Meharry Medical College, Vol. 24, No.3, pp. 979-986. Hooyman, Nancy and H. Asuman Kiyak (2011). Death, Dying, Bereavement, and Widowhood (Chapter 13), Social Gerontology, A Multi-disciplinary Perspective. Pearson Education, Inc. Boston, MA, 2011. Institute of Medicine (2015). Committee on Approaching Death: Addressing Key End of Life Issues, Dying In America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. Located at: www.national-academies.org. Johnson, K. Elbert, Avila, K. and Tulsky, J (2005). The Influence of Spiritual Beliefs and Practices on the Treatment Preferences of African Americans: A Review of the Literature, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 53, 711-719. Johnson, Richard W. and Schaner, Simone G. (2005). Many Older Americans Engage in Care Giving Activities, Perspectives on Productive Aging, The Urban Institute, Washington D.C.

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Jones, C. P. (2000). Levels of Racism: A Theoretical Framework and a Gardener’s Tale. American Journal of Public Health. 90(8):12121215. Klassen, A., Hall, A. and Saksvig, B. (2002). Relationship Between Patients’ Perceptions of Disadvantage and Discrimination and Listing for Kidney Transplantation. American Journal of Public Health. 92(5)811-816. Also see Diana J. Burgess (2008). The Association Between Perceived Discrimination and Underutilization of Needed Medical and Mental Health Care in a Multi-Ethnic Community Sample. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 19, 894-911. Ko, Eunjeong and Jaehoan, Lee (2014). End of Life Treatment Preferences Among Low-Income Older Adults: A Race/Ethnicity Comparison Study, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Meharry Medical College, Vol. 25, No. 3. Koenig, Barbara A. (1997). Cultural Diversity in Decision Making About Care at the End of Life, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life, National Academy of Sciences. http://www. nap.edu/catalog/5801/html. Koenig, Harold G. Smiley, Mona and Gonzales, JoAnn (1988). Religion, Health, and Aging, A Review and Theoretical Integration, Greenwood Press, NY. Lavery, Hennessey, Smith, S., Esparaza, M., Hrushow, A., Moore, A., Reed, M. (2005). The Community Action Model: A CommunityDriven Model Designed to Address Disparities in Health. American Journal of Public Health. 95(4) 611-616. Lewis, Dwight (July 4, 2010). How Do We Prepare for Our Final Journey, The Tennessean, p. 20A. MedPac, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (March 2012). Chapter 11, Hospice, Report to Congress on Medicare Payment Policy. Washington, DC 20001, Located at: www.medpac.gov. Noah, Barbara A. (2012). The Role of Race in End-of-Life Care, Journal of Health Care Law and Policy, vol 15, No.2, pp. 349-347.

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Peterson, Eric and Yancy, Clyde (2009). Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Cardiac Care. New England Journal of Medicine. 360(12): 1172-3. Pew Research Center (November 21, 2013). Views on End of Life Medical Treatments, Located at: http://www. Pewforum.org/2013/11/21/viewson-end-of-life-medical-treatments/. Rao, Anita and Stasio, Frank (January 14, 2016). Policy Changes for Endof-Life Care, The State of Things.Org. National Public Radio. Reese, Dona, Ahern, Robin, Nair, Shonkar (November 1999). Hospice Access and Use by African Americans: Addressing Cultural and Institutional Barriers Through Participatory Action Research, Journal of Social Work, vol. 44, No. 6. Rhodes, Ramona, (September 2006). Racial Disparities in Hospice: Moving from Analysis to Intervention, American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, Vol. 8, No. 9:613-616. Riley, Gerald F. and Lubitz, James D. (April 2010). Long-Term Trends in Medicare Payments in the Last Year of Life, Research Brief, Health Services Research, 45:2, pp. 565-576. Rosella, Laura, Kornas, Kathy et al. (March 2018). Accumulation of Chronic Conditions at the Time of Death increased in Ontario From 1994 to 2013, Health Affairs, 37:3, pp. 464-472. Rothman, David J. (June 26, 2014). Where We Die, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 370, No. 26, pp. 2457-2460. Sedensky, Matt (November 12, 2009). Health Bill Seeks Early End of Life Decisions, The Tennessean News Paper, p. 6A. Smedley, B. D., Smith, A. Y. and Nelson, A. R. eds. (2002). Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Also see Martin Ruther and Allen Dobson (1981). Equal Treatment and Unequal Benefits: A Re-examination of the Use of Medicare Services by Race, 1967-1976. Health Care Financing Review. Winter, pp. 55-83. Smith, Michael and Jennings, Edward (December 1977). Distribution, Utilization and Innovation In Health Care. Washington D.C.: The American Political Science Association, p. 66.

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Thaler, Richard H. and Sunstein, Cass R. (2009). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Penguin Books. The Commonwealth Fund (2016). Hospice Use at End of Life, Located at: http://www.commonwarlthfund.org/performance-snapshots/access-tohospice-care. Tippett, Krista (May 10, 2018). Opening to the Question of Belonging with John A. Powell, On Being, Located at: https://onbeing.org/programs/ john-a-powell-opening-to-the-question-of-belonging-may2018/. Unnatural Causes (2008). Action Toolkit, California Newsreel. Located at: www.unaturalcauses.org. Unnatural Causes (2008). Is Inequity Making Us Sick, California Newsreel, Located at: www.unnaturalcauses org. Varmus, Harold (June 5, 2011). Health Disparities Defined, Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities, The National Institutes of Health. Located at: http://crchd.cancer.gov/disparities/defined.html. Welch, Lisa C., Teno, Joan M. and Mor, Vincent (2005). End of Life Care in Black and White: Race Matters for Medical Care of Dying Patients and Their Families, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 53:1145-1153. Wicher, Camille P, Meeker, Mary Ann (February 2012). What Influences African American End of Life Preferences, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Meharry Medical College, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 28-58. Williams, David R. (October 24, 2017). Why Discrimination is a Health Issue, Culture of Health Blog, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Located at: https://www.rwjf.org/en/blog/2017/10/discrimination-is-ahealth-issue.html. Zitter, Jessica Nutik (November 6, 2017). How the Rise of Medical Technology is Worsening Death. Health Affairs Blog, Located at: DOI:10.1377/HBLOG 20121101.

In: Spirituality Editor: Clint Baldwin

ISBN: 978-1-53615-713-0 © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 4

YUKIO MISHIMA AND THE LOVE OF THE VOID: THE EXISTENTIAL THEME OF FALLENNESS IN RUNAWAY HORSES Adam Lovasz Institute of Philosophy, Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT In his The Sea of Fertility tetralogy of novels, Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima outlines a philosophy of life and death that bears profoundly transgressive spiritual implications. Through his blending of Buddhist notions relating to reincarnation and the insubstantiality of all phenomena, with existentialist ideas, Mishima constructs what amounts to a new spirituality committed to immanence. The character of Isao Iinuma, student protagonist of the second installment of The Sea of Fertility, delves ever deeper into metaphysical and ideological themes, to the point wherein his very life becomes an embodiment of philosophy, serving as an apt symbol for deathbound human subjectivity. During the course of his life, Shigekuni Honda, the narrator, comes into contact with 

Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].

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Adam Lovasz several incarnations of a childhood friend. The dividing line between reality and fiction in Mishima’s works is continually being transgressed, penetrated by the unreality of the real. The underlying insubstantiality of existence comes to permeate the lives of Mishima’s characters. Progressively, the lawyer’s bookish rationalism is called into question. I will argue that Mishima’s rendition of Isao’s life composes nothing less than a fundamentally unorthodox Buddhist reading of human finitude and the emptiness that characterizes primordially fallen subjectivity. Death is a falling that allows us to ascend out of society. Mishima teaches us to accept, indeed, actively embrace the certitude of our own impending annihilation, without searching for comforting illusions or self-serving excuses. Loving the void means, above all else, ridding ourselves of the unfounded desire for redemption from this nothingness.

Keywords: death, nothingness, redemption, spirituality, transgression

INTRODUCTION What if the world were nothing more than an evanescent dream? This hypothesis has stalked the margins of religion, metaphysics and human thought in general for millennia, if not more. It is no exaggeration to state that this unsettling ontological proposition composes the dark heart of Yukio Mishima’s tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility (Hōjō no Umi, 豊饒の海) For us, this overarching ontological theme – the permeability of the reality/unreality boundary - connects with another philosophical concern, one that is in turn encapsulated by the much commented upon life of the author himself: the status of death in philosophy. If the world is a dream, what conclusions can we draw about the flow of time, heading as it is irreversibly towards death? Indeed, if the whole of reality is unreal, insubstantial, an illusion constructed by the mind, then what can one say regarding the penultimate stage of life? Should we fear our own imminent disappearance or, from an existential perspective, is there some comfort to be gained from a view of the world that privileges insubstantiality and emptiness? These and other questions permeate the narrative of Mishima’s tetralogy. Each novel composes a repetition, albeit always in a slightly different form, of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, as conceived of by

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Mahayana Buddhism. Specifically, in the context of this essay, we would like to comment upon the especially interesting character of Isao Iinuma, whose story we find recounted in the second installment of The Sea of Fertility, entitled Runaway Horses (Honba, 奔馬, 1969) and what the figure of this aggressive, in many respects dangerously misguided young man could symbolize. Ikuho Amano, commenting in passing upon Isao’s character, has noted the presence of a “decadent narcissism” and “solipsistic worldview” permeating the novel, hinting at a deep affinity between Mishima’s general outlook and Isao’s non-conformist spirituality.1 Rather than repeating the somewhat popular tropes relating Mishima’s readings of European Surrealist authors and his enthusiasm for Georges Bataille or the Marquis De Sade’s work, we propose that we take seriously Mishima’s Buddhism. After all, Buddhist teachings are repeatedly referenced throughout The Sea of Fertility. Instead of dismissing such references as mere narrative window-dressing, these can serve as important signposts for interpretation and commentary alike. Combining Buddhist ideas relating to the impermanence and insubstantiality of the world with Martin Heidegger’s view of Dasein as Being-towards-death, we suggest that Mishima’s novels can be read in a new light, as modern heterodoxical or even heretical Buddhist scriptures that hybridize traditional teachings with European existentialist themes relating to the deathbound immanence of the human subject.

THE UNREALITY OF KARMA At several points in Mishima’s tetralogy, the reader is treated to particularly succinct summarizations of Buddhist ontology. For example, in The Temple of Dawn (暁の寺 Akatsuki no Tera, 1970) we read the following statement of the Buddhist idea of selflessness, as well as the paradoxical manner in which this view relates to reincarnation: “If there is 1

Amano, Ikuho. 2013. Decadent Literature in Twentieth Century Japan. Spectacles of Idle Labor New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 145.

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no core substance called soul in beings, there is, of course, none in inorganic matter. Indeed, quite like a jellyfish devoid of bone, there is no innate essence in all of creation. But then the troublesome question arises: if good acts produce a good subsequent experience and evil acts a bad one, and if, indeed, everything returns to nothingness following death, what then is the transmigrating substance?”2 If everything lacks any innate substance as Mahayana Buddhism teaches, then this could potentially represent a profound challenge to all forms of ethics. The circumstance of insubstantiality actually threatens a complete overthrow of ethical norms, for if there is no subject, moral responsibility seems to evaporate into thin air. Nobody can be held accountable for their actions any longer, for selflessness would imply the absence of an agent capable of actually making decisions or committing acts. According to Mishima’s interpretation, it is largely in response to this problem that the Yogācāra or “Mind-Only” school of Buddhist philosophy came into being, otherwise known as the Yuishiki School in the Japanese cultural setting and referenced as such by Mishima. The transitory solution of the Mind-Only School is an amelioration of the original problem, albeit one that does not entirely displace the tension described by Mishima. For adherents of the Yogācāra School, the self, though nonexistent, gathers good and bad karma alike through a complex process of “perfuming.” (Mishima 1973a: 23-4) The invention of this metaphor allowed adherents of this school to maintain the orthodox Buddhist position relating to the absence of a self while not being compelled to abandon belief in karma and karmic retribution. For a moral economy to function effectively, good deeds must be rewarded and bad deeds cannot go unpunished. If belief in such determinacy were to abate, then social conventions would potentially collapse into chaos. As is well known, on the 25th of November 1970, Yukio Mishima committed suicide by the traditional samurai method of seppuku; in other words, ritual disembowelment and beheading by an assistant. Would this catastrophic event signify a final defeat, a collapse, a falling out of ethical 2

Mishima, Yukio. 1973a. The Temple of Dawn. Translated by E. Dale Saunders and Cecilia Segawa Seigle. London: Secker & Warburg, 23.

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categories, rather than a triumphant ascension beyond good and evil? The highly drastic circumstances of Mishima’s death have given rise to a veritable cottage industry of psychoanalytical interpretations. Roy Starrs has viewed Mishima’s life as constituting an immensely tragic failure, in the sense that Mishima failed to make the transition from “passive to active nihilist, despite his almost inhuman efforts.”3 Mishima would supposedly constitute an example of somebody unable to make the transition from passive, masochistic nihilism through active nihilism to a conjectural positive “therapeutic outcome”, identified by Starrs with some sort of peaceful Buddhist contemplative acceptance. In Starrs’ somewhat arrogant summation, Mishima as a fallen individual would constitute an example of a suffering person incapable of arriving at acceptance of Being. (Starrs 2009: 96) Mishima did not want to be cured, even though he knew he was unwell. The inability to accept the vacuity of one’s own being endangers the integrity of the subject, inescapably opening up the path to complete amorality and extinction. Somewhat more positively, Danielle Bergeron identifies Mishima’s entire oeuvre as a progression from passivity to an annihilatory, but spiritually nonetheless triumphant form of masculinity, achieved through an overturning of the dominant cultural structure. In Bergeron’s interpretation, Mishima’s work may be read as an aestheticized progress from the relative softness of the pen towards the sharpness of the samurai sword: “the phallic symbol of the samurai’s sword replaced the pen to give a public form to the original fantasy that organized his life.”4 The original fantasy of an early death would be the hidden cypher running through all of Mishima’s literary output. Rather than retroactively submitting the novelist to a psychoanalysis (a rather useless rhetorical gesture), we would instead propose taking seriously the Buddhist soteriological dilemma outlined earlier. In our view, Mishima’s radically transgressive, but nonetheless consistent identification with and desire for Starrs, Roy. 2009 “A Devil of a Job. Mishima and the Masochistic Death Drive”. Angelaki 14:3, 85-99., 90. 4 Bergeron, Danielle. 2002. “Violence in Works of Art, or, Mishima from the Pen to the Sword.” In: After Lacan. Clinical Practice and the Subject of the Unconscious, edited by Willy Apollon, Danielle Bergeron and Kareen Ror Malone, 181-193. Albany: State University of New York Press., 190. 3

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death cannot be understood without fully coming to terms with the full philosophical implications of the Mind-Only viewpoint. What we are particularly interested in is how ontology, as conceived of in the MindOnly tradition, impacts the subject’s – in our case, Isao’s, – relation towards a death that is accepted as always already imminent. If we achieve an understanding of the insubstantiality of all existents, if the cosmos in general is nothing more than a dream, albeit one that seems to present us with coherence and at least the appearance of causality, then how does such a view relate to everyday ethics? Are ethics even possible if we recognize the world that surrounds us as unreal? As our point of departure, we choose Yogācāra master Xuanzang’s (c. 602-664) “Verses Delineating the Eight Consciousnesses.” The brief work is “a verse summary of a commentary on a verse summary of the Treatise on the Stages of Yoga Practice.”5 Hence, it constitutes an outline of the essence of Yogācāra philosophy, and was intended as such by its author. This text is therefore more than sufficient for our present purposes. In total, consciousness is composed of eight levels. The first five of these correlate with the world of manifestation. Even the contemplation of emptiness is not, in and of itself, the final stage of enlightenment. We are told that the fifth consciousness is the emergence of a clarity, in which the “stage of no outflows is realized.” (ibid) But even this is only a transitory stage upon the spiritual path, for in Yogācāra thought, the elimination of one’s own personal suffering does not automatically entail fulfillment. We have not reached the goal of our own Being, if attachment to a self remains stubbornly intact. (ibid) Like the extraction of a thorn from one’s side, the process of detachment and deconditioning can be fraught with suffering. It takes a great deal of pain to attain the complete abatement of suffering. The sixth stage of consciousness occurs in a deconditioned state of what we may call extramorality. Here the meditator becomes conscious of the impermanent nature of distinctions normally taken for granted by conventional society. Differences such as that between good and evil, right and wrong or, we might add, life or death, come to be viewed as uncertain, 5

Xuanzang “Verses Delineating the Eight Consciousnesses.” Translated by Richard Epstein (1986), http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/Yogacara/BasicVersessontents.htm.

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open to change. Dualities are essentially interchangeable. Not only is the manifested external world subordinated to change: our inner emotional life too is “constantly in flux.”6 Moral categories in general are constructs, products of inner life that are in no way free of impermanence. It is within the Sixth Consciousness that awareness arises of the conditioned nature of dualistic categorizations. Here is the crux of the matter: according to Yogācāra teaching, that which is conditioned is a construct of the self. Even physical causality originates from within consciousness. The law of karma too is nothing more than a product of the mind. Differently put, we imagine our own karmic circumstances into being. Karma is manufactured through acts of consciousness; the mind is endowed with the ability to “summon forth the power of karma.” (ibid) Instead of constituting an oppressive, external mechanism, karma is reconceived as our own innermost quality. Our fate would be whatever we happen dream up for ourselves. Predictably, the seventh consciousness composes a deepening of this solipsistic vision. Penetrating into the depths of a suprapersonal level of awareness, the meditator comes to the realization that consciousness itself forms “the basis of defilement and purity.” (ibid) The operations of karma manifest on the level of the mind. How could this be otherwise, if reality is nothing apart from impermanence? But if mind is immanent to reality, then the law of karma and all ethical laws are devoid of substance. No self is to be found, yet suffering may still be said to “exist” in a highly 6

ibid. This viewpoint will be echoed much later by, among other European philosophers, Henri Bergson. In his early work, Time and Free Will, Bergson writes of inner life as being constituted by various indeterminate, heterogeneous flows. When we look inward, far from encountering anything resembling simplicity, we uncover infinite layers that ceaselessly threaten to explode our subjectivity: “inner duration, perceived by consciousness, is nothing else but the melting of states of consciousness into one another.” Bergson, Henri. 1913. Time and Free Will. An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F. L. Pogson. Mineola: Dover Publications., 107. Further on, Bergson writes on the possibility of a literature that could represent the unrepresentably heterogeneous flow of the subject’s inner life: “Now, if some bold novelist, tearing aside the cleverly woven curtain of our conventional ego, shows us under this appearance of logic a fundamental absurdity, under this juxtasposition of simple states an infinite permeation of a thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named, we commend him for having known is better than we knew ourselves.” Bergson 1913: 133. Could Mishima, with his eminently swordlike pen, cutting away the flesh of a false reality, have been an example of the Bergsonian “bold novelist”? We leave this question open for future debate.

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relative sense of the word, for new selves are continually being born within the mind. These new subjectivities undergo a “perfuming”, through which they are filled with the karmic aftereffects of previous lives. But those who penetrate into the eighth consciousness understand that causality is, in the final instance, illusory. Even the spiritual path itself is empty, void of innate meaning and substance, as if it never occurred in the first place: “upon completion of the vajra Path, it is empty of the ripening of the results.” (ibid) What would the absence of “ripening” mean? At the level of the eighth consciousness, the adept becomes aware of the inherent emptiness of both the karmic law and the dharmas. According to a popular usage of the phrase, karma tends to ripen like fruit. Or, alternately, as in the case of bad karma, the acts of evil beings accumulate as rotten produce. Henceforth, we may say that if good karma has fragrance, then bad karma has a putrid odor. But the text in question deliberately refrains from introducing such a distinction. All it talks about is perfuming, a being-inundated with a particular smell or smoke. The scent of karma fills us, but the adept knows that he or she must refrain from the ripening process. As the commentary accompanying the translation states, in the eighth consciousness, “due to the absence of self and because the Boddhisatva contemplates the emptiness of both self and dharmas during this period, no fresh defiling karma is created”, but the results of other ripenings progress unabated, outside of the purified mind. (ibid) There is no question of stopping the rotten fruit’s process of putrefaction upon the plane of manifestation: karma persistently inundates those unable to attain the bliss of liberation, while a minority of meditators emplace themselves within an empty, barren clearing. We are encouraged by Xuanzang not to produce more karma. This can hardly be surprising from what amounts to a religious ascetic text whose intention is to guide mendicants upon the path to enlightenment. Unproductivity is the essence of monastic retirement and spiritual practice. Otherwise, we may never attain the joyful experience of not attaining anything in particular. The uttermost possibility of life is its denial, the pinnacle of gain the most all-encompassing loss. Asceticism generally is the acceptance of not accepting anything this or any other false

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realm has to offer. Such is the ascetic imperative. Consciousness of seedperfuming entails the rejection of karmic creation, a sapping of our desire in favor of limitless discernment. Cutting across the plane of manifestation, we achieve a silent grounding. Nonetheless, this regrounding demands a complete rejection of dualistic distinctions in favor of equality. Because even the dharmas, that is, truths as such, are conditioned by mind, ethics too becomes hollowed out from within. However much the text would militate against such a heretical reading, we cannot but get the impression that, for the deviant, decadent reader, such a transcendence of good and evil could open the way to an absolute freedom, a freedom whose unconditionedness destroys any possibility of fear.

BEING-TOWARDS-DEATH Prior to engaging the contradictory character of Isao and, by extension, the authorial ego of Mishima himself, we must introduce, through a conceptual leap, another component. We speak here of Martin Heidegger’s tome, Being and Time (Sein und Zeit). According to our view, Isao’s relation to death uncannily resembles the position of European existentialism, as exemplified by Being and Time. For simplicity’s sake, we would like to draw upon Heidegger’s elucidation of the inherently deathbound nature of subjectivity or Dasein, outlined in §46-53 of Being and Time. How can the subject relate to death? For Heidegger, Dasein is characterized by a “fore-having.”7 We are always ahead of ourselves, always looking ahead, making plans. Nothing holds as much interest for us as the future. It is no exaggeration to say that humans are forward-looking creatures. Something is always waiting to be settled. The Being of Dasein is a being-towards “its potentiality-for-Being (...) right to its end.” (ibid) Further on, Heidegger introduces a bizarre simile, comparing the process of dying to that of ripening. “With ripeness”, he writes, “the fruit fulfils itself”, but Dasein, as opposed to the fruit, “may well have passed its 7

Heidegger, Martin. (2001) Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell., 279.

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ripeness prior to its end.” (Heidegger 2001: 288) An ending therefore need not entail fulfilment. And why would it, if we accept the Buddhist proposition that all existents are insubstantial? Dying as a phenomenal event is unaccessible to representation. Nobody can die instead of us; the death of Dasein’s “Being-a-whole” is unrepresentable by its very essence. (Heidegger 2001: 284) We learn nothing about death from observing the deaths of others. No representation can substitute for truly undergoing death, direct existential knowledge of death is predicated upon actually dying. We learn nothing about death by viewing videos relating the untimely demises of strangers. Even the highest degree level of empathy cannot allow us to directly access the experiences of those who have departed. Death is the fall of Dasein, an undergoing. Yet death is also that which is most essentially ours. Far from being merely the end of our manifestation, “death is a way to be”, for Dasein “is already its end too.” (Heidegger 2001: 289) The inevitability of death permeates our lives and loves, not unlike the putrid stench of rotting karma. We are always already in the process of falling into the abyss of rotten death: if we are unavoidably deathbound, then our being may also be characterized as a Being-a-hole. Our being resembles a gap within existence, exuding rancid decay. If death belongs unavoidably to life, then life in general must be interpreted as being an unavoidable self-voiding. As an existential possibility, death is a way of Being “in which Dasein is towards its own death.” (Heidegger 2001: 291) Yet life, in its delusive state, perpetually attempts to avoid recognition of the self-voiding constantly at work inside of it. Death is always that which stands before us. Our demise being what constitutes our being, we could easily be mistaken in thinking that this perfuming of karma would be something that perpetually calls attention to its own presence. But in the realm of the everyday, on the level of conventional reality, we see something very different take place. Far from concentrating their attention upon their impending demise, most people prefer to exclude knowledge of annihilation from their minds. “Death”, writes Heidegger, “is something that stands before us – something impending”, but this impending danger is never present-at-hand. (Heidegger 2001: 293-4) Never is our own ending

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accessible in the manner of an object. Indeed, mortality is not even an ending in the sense of an actuality awaiting fulfilment. The problem is, we can never be sure whether our death – of which we are can nonetheless be certain – will be a fulfilment. Truly, the knowledge that our own undoing could very well prove, in retrospect, to be a cosmically pointless event, is a sorrowful awareness. Death is at once the uttermost possibility of Dasein’s being, and the ultimate voiding of that very possibility. Any authentic relating to death must take into account its paradoxical association with the possibility/impossibility dyad: “As potentiality-for-Being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped.” (Heidegger 2001: 294) Nothing within the world of manifestation can be ours in the same manner as our own death can: death is the most intimate, secret reality. While all else tends to melt into relational structures, our own future nothingness is already here, fumigating our consciousness, filling our vacuous bodies with impotentialities. If all relations are without substance, as Buddhist ontology suggests, then the sole potentiality-for-Being, to borrow Heidegger’s expression, is impotentiality, the ability not to connect with any relation at all. The deceased are without relation, for they occupy a privileged position: as distinct from other entities, Dasein can become disclosed to itself. It is capable of accessing, disclosing its own being. However, this capability is a double-edged sword. If we are capable of unveiling the truth of emptiness, we are also capable, as intelligent but cowardly beings, of covering over and cognitively evading the coming disaster. Truth, for Heidegger, signifies “the uncoveredness of some entity.” (Heidegger 2001: 300) Those who relate authentically to death would accept the impending unavoidability of non-relationality. Nothing, the subject included, can persevere amongst the relations of the world. Sooner or later, each object must undergo a fall. Interestingly, not unlike Xuanzang’s Verses, Heidegger in Being and Time views conventions as obstacles of the attainment of truth. Everyday language, far from revealing the truth, serves to veil it. Fallenness would

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mean, above all else, entanglement within “concealing, specific interpretative frameworks” that entrap us within “closed modes of being.”8 Everydayness prevents us from accessing our innermost possibility: on the level of intersubjectively constructed conventional reality the “they” takes the place of the subject’s own interiority. (Heidegger 2001: 296) When it becomes the object of “idle talk”, social morals, or mediation – these three are treated here as synonymous – death is placed outside of the subject. When death becomes a mediated event, it is treated “in a fugitive manner”, as something awful that happens to others, but never to ourselves. (Heidegger 2001: 297) The “they” autoimmunizes itself against death by treating it as an event amenable to representation. Mediation allows the “they” to treat death in an everyday manner. Any time we turn on the news, we see reports about the untimely demises of people living on distant continents. In this manner, death is objectified, as if it were an objective reality outside of the “they’s” interiority. Echoing themes that would become salient topics in critical studies of mass media, Heidegger speaks suggestively, of dying being “perverted into an event of public occurrence” by mediation. (ibid) Representation attempts to ameliorate death, desensitizing us to its pervasive presence while nonetheless allowing the subject to evade having to actually think deeply about their own impending doom. To be “fallen” in a Heideggerian sense means, ironically, to keep the primordial fallenness of death at a safe enough distance from ourselves through mediated overrepresentation. The “they” is a collective consciousness, perpetually producing delusion. Its consolations, however, can never provide an authentic disclosure of the truth of Being’s innermost non-relationality. Mediation is only ever palliative in nature, “the ‘they’ provides a constant tranquilization about death”, but this tranquilization also “does not permit us the courage for anxiety in the face of death.” (Heidegger 2001: 298) Decent citizens are not supposed to think constantly about their extinction. One could argue that even recent ecological discourses pertaining to largescale species extinctions in the Anthropocene era also tend rather to obscure the circumstance of finitude, instead of 8

DiCenso, James J. (1988) “Heidegger's Hermeneutic of Fallenness.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56.4.: 667-679., 673.

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actually assisting us in authentically coming to terms with the unavoidable, unameliorable impermanence of all existents. Anxiety, it should be emphasized, is something quite distinct from simple fear. In Heidegger’s usage of the term, anxiety is not some form of chronic worrying, a mental illness to be eradicated or numbed, but rather a manner of care, a fundamentally ethical method of accepting our finitude. If falling is an evasion of death, a “fleeing in the face of death”, then deep, existential anxiety would be an impassioned acceptance of impossibility as our innermost possibility. (ibid) Those who are fallen cannot come to terms with death, while the anxious are those who care passionately for their own impossibility, embracing the unavoidable fallenness that is death. At several points in the passage we find the following mantralike assertion: “Being-towards-the-end has been defined as being towards one’s own most potentiality-for-Being, which is non-relational and is not to be outstripped.” (Heidegger 2001: 299) Repetitiveness is a hallmark of the Heideggerian methodology, and is also a key component of the Buddhist meditative method as well. Repetition drills into the skull, disclosing truth to the meditator, cracking open their consciousness, infinitely softening their inner life, so much so that the innerness melts into infinite space. The ownmost possibility is the ability not to be. Severed from relationality, the subject achieves full extinction. Even though its every possibility is already an impotentiality, the subject must nonetheless arrive at the disclosing of this truth. If every day Dasein seeks to elide and evade annihilation, if everyday life is a fallenness, then a truly interesting and counterintuitive possibility presents itself: we can reimagine death as an ascension. The realm of conventional, social reality is the space of fallenness – therefore, the sole way of ascending out of this morass is to die. Fallenness corresponds to the “closed existential mode”, (DiCenso 1988: 674) while, by extension, though Heidegger shies from explicitly stating this, the end that is our own most impotentiality would be the most radically open mode of existence. Inauthenticity would be the mode of deferral, the palliative, tranquilizing, mediation that deludes us into distancing death from ourselves, immunizing us from the impending ending. (Heidegger 2001: 302) Authenticity, on the other hand, corresponds to acceptance of death.

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Those who persist in delusion come to view dissolution as an external objectivity, something separate from their subjectivity. Unpredictability and indefiniteness are safely excluded, quarantined, deferred to a point in time somewhere out there in a future that has been, if not foreclosed, then at least delayed indefinitely. Such a view is deluded, however, because it fails to take into consideration the inherently future-oriented mode of being of Dasein. In a sense, we are always already living in the future: it penetrates to the very core of our existence. Heidegger asserts in no uncertain terms that “death is, as Dasein’s end, in the Being of this entity.” (Heidegger 2001: 303) The ripening fruit of our undoing is already eating at us. From an extra temporal speculative perspective, all karmic fruits have already attained their own most ripeness. At the moment of death, we become the most open: destruction is our ultimate attainment. Complete loss is the most imperfect putridity and, hence, the penultimate summit of the way. Such a view could easily strike us as overly pessimistic. Nonetheless, it is the realization of this ontological secret that provides the subject with something bordering on hope. Authentically anxious acceptance of death allows Dasein to “divert” itself from mediation, severing itself from intersubjective inauthenticity. (ibid) The authentic mode of relating to death entails a separation from social mores, through an individualist rejection of morality. It is at this point that Heidegger’s existentialism differs most fundamentally from Buddhism. While the latter negates the self altogether, Heidegger views the solipsistic self as the foundation of any authentic ethics. However, as we have seen, up to a certain point along the way leading to enlightenment, Yogācāra philosophy also separates the self from the world. And one can easily make the case that Heidegger, though maintaining the primacy of the individual in ethics, also equates Dasein with a mode of emptiness through identifying death as its own most possibility. Nothing is ours to the same degree as our undoing. Subjectivity is free to the extent that it embraces its own death. “The more unveiledly this possibility gets understood”, Heidegger explains, “the more purely does the understanding penetrate into it as the possibility of the impossibility of any existence at all.” (Heidegger 2001: 307) Could it be

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that existence itself is inseparable from the mode of impossibility? What if the entire world were nothing more than a dreamlike state, a product of the imagination? As we have seen, this is precisely the anti-realist position that the Yogācāra School of Buddhism explicitly advocates. The world and its causal relations are nothing more than constructs of consciousness. While Heidegger takes the existence of external objects quite seriously, death in Being and Time nonetheless constitutes the possibility of an allencompassing unreality that can potentially disentangle the world of Dasein from the external world, leading subjectivity into nothingness. Dasein can only be itself if it is willing to come to terms with its impending unreality – the “non-relational character of death” being what, in the final instances, individualizes us in an absolute manner. (Heidegger 2001: 308) If karmic fragrance is what lays claim to the selfless subject in Yogācāra, then death is the individuating mechanism at work in Heideggerian existentialism, repeatedly laying claim to subjectivity “as an individual Dasein.” (ibid) Squaring the circle, Heidegger suggests that the most complete freedom, far from denoting an active, aggressive, assertive mode of being, would actually lie within a type of passivity. Authentic anticipation discloses the unavoidability of complete and total voiding. The meditator in Xuanzang’s text, we may recall, is encouraged to abandon any attachment to self. Liberation abides in self-abandonment. For Heidegger, a cultivated anticipation of death has an emancipatory effect: “anticipation discloses to existence that its uttermost possibility lies in giving itself up, and thus it shatters all one’s tenaciousness to whatever existence one has reached.” (ibid) Absolute surrender would be the most authentic ontological mode of relating to the non-relationality that is death. However, this is a far cry from idle passivity. Dasein frees itself by making the possibility of acceptance “possible for itself as its own most potentiality-for-Being.” (Heidegger 2001: 309) How do we make our own karma? How may Dasein cultivate impotentiality as its most fundamental existential mode? It is to this question we shall turn next, through the example of Isao Iinuma.

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ISAO’S PURITY: DEATH AS THE POSSIBILITY OF IMPOSSIBILITY Can ritual suicide constitute a successful therapeutic outcome, as Bergeron has provocatively suggested in her psychoanalytical study of Mishima’s seppuku? Everything depends upon what meaning we attach to the notion of sacrifice, self-sacrifice included. Edith Wyschogrod points out that Runaway Horses may be read as a performative attempt “to create beauty through ritual suicide.”9 Alternately, rather than emphasizing the undeniably aesthetic dimension of Mishima’s rendition of Isao’s demise, we would highlight its ethical and karmic implications. Specifically, what kind of ethical agent is this highly dangerous young man? Is his relation to death authentic or not? The answer to this question will depend upon how we interpret reality itself as portrayed in the novel. Early on, the narrator of the events, lawyer Shigekuni Honda, finds the dividing line between dream and reality to be permeable. A stalwart rationalist, a believer in the truth of Aristotelian philosophy and the inherently predictable, mechanistic nature of reality, Honda’s beliefs are profoundly shaken by an uncanny experience. Seeing a half-naked young man, Isao, standing beneath a waterfall, Honda is shocked to find “three small moles” upon his left side, exactly the same formation as that which adorned the body of his deceased childhood friend, Kiyoaki, who promised to meet Honda in a next life “under the falls.”10 Never again can Hond re-enter the mode of ignorant everydayness. The shocking revelation of Isao’s karmic affinity with Kiyoaki precludes this. He is ejected from his fallenness into every day, rationally minded perception. While the modern, disenchanted social setting of twentieth century Japan does not take karma all that seriously, Honda awakens to the possibility of an inscrutable causality whose revelation would plunge human society into chaos. It is too late to return to evasiveness in the face of karmic fate: “he turned on all the lights, trying in Wyschogrod, Edith. (1993) “Killing the cat: sacrifice and beauty in Genet and Mishima.” Religion & literature 25.2: 105-119., 111. 10 Mishima, Yukio. 1973b. Runaway Horses. Translated by Michael Gallagher. London: Secker & Warburg., 40. 9

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vain to keep mystery at a distance. The miraculous had invaded his own ordered world, and he had no idea what might happen in the future.” (Mishima 1973b: 42) The mystery of reincarnation inescapably implies that Isao’s fate shall be, in some obscure manner, a repetition of Kiyoaki’s. In spite of his astonishment, Honda knows all too well that Isao too shall achieve an early death. Sure enough, Honda comes to learn that his impressionable young man (not unlike, by all accounts, Mishima as well) harbors an intense attraction to an early, untimely, death. Isao’s favorite book, The League of the Divine Spirit, is a patriotic text relating the details of an attempted coup, as well as the subsequent ritual suicide of the surviving participants. (Mishima 1973b: 60) In vain does Honda attempt to dissuade Isao from the path of death, for Honda also has, in a way, ascended out of social life. Both protagonists are falling into the sky of death, albeit at differing velocities. If “elegance can have nothing to do with use or purpose” as Mishima suggests, then the most elegant gesture would be a completely useless autophagy of one’s own life. (Mishima 1973b: 149) Isao is enchanted by one passage in particular from The League of the Divine Wind, a metafictional concoction of Mishima’s inserted into Runaway Horses in the form of a long chapter. After the quelling of the 1876 Shinpuren Rebellion, a few conspirators retreat to the mountains. Contemplating the natural beauty of the mountains, they are driven to purify themselves through suicide: “now the divinity seemed so embodied in the bright-flecked clouds upon the mountain peaks that the watching men felt that they were viewing an epiphany of the Floating Bridge. Should they not turn their swords joyfully upon themselves and make an end to their lives?” (Mishima 1973b: 95) Isao becomes ever more obsessed with purity. But this purity he seeks is directly commensurate with impurity. The most impure outflow, the spilling of blood and innards, becomes transposed in Isao’s neo-samurai fantasy world into the very quintessence of purity. “The blood-smeared corpse” of a samurai who has died for the honor of the Emperor becomes “at once like fragrant cherryblossoms.” (Mishima 1973b: 119) Again, we smell here the fragrance of karma, in spite of Isao’s professed Shinto sympathies (this ambitious,

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scheming, plotting man, eager to throw away his life for an Emperor he has never met, is an avid consumer of chauvinist anti-Buddhist pamphlets). As against overinterpreting Isao’s ideological commitments, we would instead emphasize that this extreme anti-modern political position seems to be subordinated to his intense desire for a glorious death. The beautiful death, the abrupt demise whose beauty is accentuated by the youth of the dying subject, is established as a magical and occult method, a spiritual technology the diabolical goal of which is the extraction of darkness from light: “Mishima’s beautiful object includes within it a destabilizing immanence”, for the object of desire – in Isao’s case, the eagerly awaited early death – “suggests a darkness within its very brightness.”11 Not only does Isao accept death in the Heideggerian sense of surrendering authentically to its inevitability. He goes beyond this level of existential commitment. As an active nihilist, he passionately desires cessation: “he was always thinking of death, and this had so refined him that the physical seemed to fall away, freeing him from the pull of the earth and enabling him to walk about some distance above its surface.” (Mishima 1973b: 131) We begin to suspect that Isao’s absurd plot to overthrow decadent modern Japan’s parasitical oligarchs, hatched together with a group of similarly impressionable students, seems to be a mere by-product of a more primordial, almost congenitally decadent fascination with dying at a young age. To paraphrase Heidegger, Isao has become ripe for death decades ahead of schedule. The ethical paradox within karma and liberation from karma arises from the fact that we must immerse ourselves in impurity in order to become purified. Selfless realization necessitates the abandonment of dualities, for the maintenance of any distinction becomes, after a certain point, a hindrance to further spiritual development. As the Yogācāra meditator draws sustenance from recognition of consciousness as the source of good and bad karma alike, so Isao too resolves to penetrate to the heart of Being through an act that shall place him far beyond good and evil, joining together “sin and death, seppuku and glory”, drawing 11

Wallace, John R. (1997) “Tarrying with the negative: aesthetic vision in Murasaki and Mishima.” Monumenta Nipponica 52.2.: 181-199., 188.

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“nourishment from the very source of sin.” (Mishima 1973b: 189) Sacrificial violence, in Isao’s extreme worldview, is the sin that purges impurity. It is only through a moral inversion, an overthrow of prevailing values, that we may regain purity. (Mishima 1973b: 188) Isao’s nihilism is directed towards the unity of opposites, a coincidentia oppositorum that would reinstate order through complete disorder, rebuilding morality by unleashing an all-encompassing transgression. The most pure ethical act must coincide with the most evil action. Sacrifice would therefore constitute the height of authenticity, the active act of nihilism that destroys all dualities through aggressive penetration beyond the veil of delusion. Mishima’s sword, wielded with deadly effectiveness by Isao, is the evil force which confronts us with the delusional nature of all manifestation. Pure evil coincides with the most authentic relating to death. Isao attempts to cultivate not mere acceptance of evil as something necessary to morality, or acceptance of death as something unavoidable for life. Preferably, Isao would, not unlike adherents of Yogācāra, unite both good and evil so as to annihilate both terms: “the evil that he wanted to store within himself had to be pure evil, no less pure than the righteousness within him. In any event, once he had attained his purpose he would turn his sword against himself. At that moment, he felt, the pure evil within him would also die in the clash with the pure rightousness of his act.” (Mishima 1973b: 248) In spite of Isao’s professed antipathy to Buddhism, he is here nonetheless in essence giving voice to the Yogācāra/Yuishiki goal of neutralizing all karma, good and bad alike. Death, in particular the vulnerable exposure of the sacrificed being’s fatally opened body, would correspond to the disclosure of Being in general. Walking in a forest, Isao imagines shooting a stag and glimpsing how “the full force of evil” would shine “in the dark gleam of the blood pouring out from the heart of the beast.” (Mishima 1973b: 249) At times, readers may find themselves overwhelmed by the remorseless violence of Mishima’s prose. On every such occasion, we must keep in mind the Heideggerian injunction to remain true to the certitude of being-towards-death. Throughout the novel, we sense the ever more oppressive certainty of Isao’s impending fate. Death is that which

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beshadows, for better or worse, our finite existence. It is all too simple to forget our own predicament, a predicament we share with every conscious being: consciousness is unavoidably aware of extinction and destruction. Try as we might, we too are “riding low in the dark winter sea of death” together with Isao. (Mishima 1973b: 298) His fictional ontological status in no way implies that the relating towards death Isao’s character symbolizes should be thought of as somehow inauthentic. Also, not dissimilarly to Heidegger’s rejection of the intersubjective perspective and the Yogācāra transcendence of conventions, Isao too devalues everyday morality in favor of a state of absolute deconditioning. “The law”, Isao tells the courtroom, “is an accumulation of tireless attempts to block a man’s desire to change life into an instant of poetry. Certainly it would not be right to let everybody exchange his life for a line of poetry written in a splash of blood. But the mass of men, lacking valor, pass away their lives without ever feeling the least touch of such a desire.” (Mishima 1973b: 338) Would this be an example of what Heidegger refers to cryptically as “anxiety”? Isao not only passively accepts death, he desirously seeks to achieve his ownmost possibility, the possibility of absolute foreclosure, the possibility that is impossibility. This absolute impossibility is the epitome of Dasein’s ascension out of the false evasiveness of everyday modes of being. The pure act in Isao’s interpretation would be an act of transgression which rejoins “heaven and earth.” (Mishima 1973b: 394) Regeneration is commensurate then with degeneration. Fallenness can only be erased, at least in the Heideggerian view, through an active embrace of one’s “thrownness” into death. (Heidegger 2001: 310) Absolute neutralization is the penetration of the bad will into the good will, and vice versa. Isao’s sword writes a crimson poetry that resituates the subject outside of any society or culture. In other words, he achieves a cultivation of death, a refinement whose end-goal is a decadent wasting of his life for a chimerical, uncertain purpose. We suspect Isao does not actually believe in the restoration of traditional Japanese values. Rather, he uses the circumstance of perceived social decay to construct a privatized political mythology that may serve as a springboard for his leap into the thrownness that is annihilation. At heart, the fallenness of intersubjectivity can only be

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extinguished by tumbling into the void. “The existential conditions of the possibility of fallenness, in the sense of the evil or hardened heart” are, after all, “the same existential conditions or structures” as those of the “good will.”12 Isao is an entirely reflexive ethical agent. His mind has been made up from the very beginning. What makes Isao’s purity a “terrible” one is its complete undomesticatability. The eighth consciousness, we learn in the “Verses Delineating the Eight Consciousnesses”, lies beyond the level of volition. Karma is unconsciously created. In Western terms, it is a product of the unconscious plane. Isao’s “terrible purity” is the truth he cannot reveal in any discursive manner. (Mishima 1973b: 351) Never does he unveil the degree of perceptive penetration he has achieved, not even to Honda, who acts as a benefactor or confidante of sorts to this reincarnated embodiment of Kiyoaki. If karmic causation is strictly impersonal, how can we nonetheless embrace our death as our most personal, our most individualistic aspect? Society, the illusory shadow-realm of the “they”, cannot integrate extramoral or amoral perspectives into its operations. There is no substance to be found. This allows us to live without fear. (Mishima 1973b: 356) If truly nothing exists, if nothingness is the sole non-relationality to be found, then we have no reason to fear extinction. It is perfectly natural to be anxious, but Mishima teaches us to accept immanence. We have no doubt that Isao is a fictional character, less real than the historically-based contents of his (imaginary) favorite novel, The League of the Divine Wind. But from an absolute perspective, Mishima and indeed, we ourselves as readers, are also projections of consciousness, just as empty as all the karmas and dharmas. The self is nevertheless capable of shaping its own karma. Once we penetrate into the mystery of insubstantiality, contemplative reflection unites with emptiness as its ownmost opportunity. Prior to his penultimate act, Isao provides an ontological summarization of the certainty of impossibility: “the sun will not rise for some time (...) and I can’t afford to wait. There is no shining disk climbing upward. There is no noble pine to shelter me. Nor is there a 12

Bourgeois, Patrick L., and Frank Schalow (1987) “The Integrity and Fallenness of Human Existence.” The Southern journal of philosophy 25.1.: 123-132., 130.

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sparkling sea.” (Mishima 1973b: 420-1) Outside of consciousness, there is no outside. This basal consciousness is, in turn, also empty, void of content. Its thoughts are nothing outside of relations. Birth- and deathproducing karmic circularity, once recognized as empty, can be fixed, stopped, neutralized and extinguished by liberating enlightenment. There is no consciousness in itself, because there is no karmic chain and no causality outside of relations. The sole non-relationality is vacuity.

CONCLUSION During the course of our essay, we have hoped to show how in Mishima’s works Buddhist Yogācāra ideas blend with themes connected with European existentialist philosophy, contributing to a fundamentally heterodoxical and transgressive form of modernized Buddhism. In this case, we have shown how the existentialist idea of fallenness connects with the Buddhist idea of emptiness in Runaway Horses. From the Yogācāra School, Mishima borrows a concept of karma that holds the cycle of karma, along with all other causal relations, to be nothing more than a product of consciousness. Outside of the mind, there is no law or ethics. Moral categories are mental constructs. But aside from the Buddhist tradition, Mishima also emphasizes a transgressive individualism that is accentuated ad absurdum, to the point wherein all morals and social conventions are overthrown by a “pure” sacrificial act. This echoes Martin Heidegger’s notion of an individualistic and thereby authentic beingtowards-death. While society would seek to evade entropy through a mediated, hence inauthentic, conception of death, Dasein is capable of relating to its own extinction as its own most possibility. The most individual possibility can be grasped through an active embrace of our annihilation, an undoing that is always already impending. Taking these two perspectives together, we have intepreted the figure of Isao Iinuma as embodying an authentically Heideggerian relating to death. Mishima’s transgressive Buddhism is one that, far from negating desire and individuality as traditional Buddhism tends to do, esposues an individualist

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type of enlightenment through the active desire for nothingness. Mishima teaches us to love the void with a passion. This passionate subsumption within the void is the ineffable possibility underlying all ethics, namely, the acquisition of absolute loss in the form of a gain which unites us with our own most impossibility.

REFERENCES Amano, Ikuho. 2013. Decadent Literature in Twentieth Century Japan. Spectacles of Idle Labor New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bergeron, Danielle. 2002. “Violence in Works of Art, or, Mishima from the Pen to the Sword.” In: After Lacan. Clinical Practice and the Subject of the Unconscious, edited by Willy Apollon, Danielle Bergeron and Kareen Ror Malone, 181-193. Albany: State University of New York Press. Bergson, Henri. 1913. Time and Free Will. An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F. L. Pogson. Mineola: Dover Publications. Bourgeois, Patrick L., and Frank Schalow (1987) “The Integrity and Fallenness of Human Existence.” The Southern journal of philosophy 25.1.: 123-132. DiCenso, James J. 1988. “Heidegger’s Hermeneutic of Fallenness.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56.4.: 667-679. Heidegger, Martin. 2001. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell. Mishima, Yukio. 1973a. The Temple of Dawn. Translated by E. Dale Saunders and Cecilia Segawa Seigle. London: Secker & Warburg. Mishima, Yukio. 1973b. Runaway Horses. Translated by Michael Gallagher. London: Secker & Warburg. Starrs, Roy. 2009. “A Devil of a Job. Mishima and the Masochistic Death Drive.” Angelaki 14:3, 85-99. Wallace, John R. 1997. “Tarrying with the negative: aesthetic vision in Murasaki and Mishima.” Monumenta Nipponica 52.2.: 181-199.

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Wyschogrod, Edith. 1993. “Killing the cat: sacrifice and beauty in Genet and Mishima.” Religion & literature 25.2: 105-119. Xuanzang. 1986. Verses Delineating the Eight Consciousnesses. Translated by Richard Epstein, http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/ Yogacara/BasicVersessontents.htm.

In: Spirituality Editor: Clint Baldwin

ISBN: 978-1-53615-713-0 © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 5

I SEE THE DARK UNIVERSE: THE DARK SPIRITUALITY OF BONNIE ʻPRINCE’ BILLY’S LYRICS AND FRANCOIS LARUELLE’S LOINTAIN Mark Horvath Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Humanities, Doctoral School of Philosophy, Aesthetics Doctoral Programme, Budapest, Hungary

ABSTRACT Francois Laruelle calls the “lointain”, an unnameable, ineffable “distance” without measure.1 One can measure the energy that leaves a black hole, one can attempt to quantify the amount of radiation leaking out of the singularity. What one cannot measure is the absence of measures. The lointain designates all expressions and no expression, for it is infintely separated from presence. The lointain is distance sufficient

1

François Laruelle, ‘On the Black Universe’. In: Thacker, Eugene [et al.] (2013) Dark Nights of the Universe (Miami: NAME Publications), 102-103.

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Mark Horvath to itself, exclusion of the purest kind.2 The non-reality of space is equal to “forgetting the world”, which opens up a ‘disoriented, wayward, and wayless, cast adrift in quotidian moments of annulment.’3 Lointain, as concept, is pre-philosophical, a distance without boundaries, liquefied, foreclosed to narration. Cosmic exclusion is divine obscurity, according to Pseudo-Dionysos Areopagita, the possibility of transcending knowledge and language, a silence that is more ineffable than even ineffability itself. Mystical contemplation is directed towards the interiority of lointain, the abandonment of all sensual reality. Nonknowledge and non-reality, once expressed, betray their meanings and commit grammatical suicide. No sentence that contains the plenitude of lointain is meaningful. The ontological circumstance of universal seclusion may be compared to Levi R. Bryant’s concept of “dark object”. Bryant, a disciple of Bruno Latour, seeks to create a renewed understanding of objects by creating a new system of categorization. He writes of “bright”, “satellite”, “dim” and “dark objects”.4 In Bryant’s view dark objects, similarly to the Laruellian lointain, cannot even be inferred. We cannot speak of them, not even in a negative sense. They are simply unamenable to abstraction, so inscrutable is their thick blackness. Dark objects are precluded from presence. These existents are unimaginable, and through their unimaginability, reject the labels and concepts of any system of relations. No coordinates contain them. The lointain closes in upon itself complete, without any leakages. Rasu-Yong Tugen’s speculative poems, drawing upon Romantic and Gothic horror themes, seek to de-scribe the world as it “is”, announcing universal emptiness with broken, shadowy words. Traced with the contours of dirt, Bonnie Prince Billy’s work is permeated with blackness, serving as the source of his prosaic, whimsical meditations upon existence and meaning(lessness). Within Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s musical world, one cannot escape from mutual isolation and solitude. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s song “Black” defines blackness in terms of irreducible alterity. So far are we from it, that every attempt at contact is condemned to failure. Our movements are not our own, but rather, are gravitated by dark objects.

The presence of space is dependent upon an original mistake. Heraclitus wrote cryptically that “the aeon [the game of life] is like a child,

Eugene Thacker, ‘Remote: The Forgetting of the World’. In: Thacker, Eugene [et al.] (2013) Dark Nights of the Universe (Miami: NAME Publications), 2. 3 Thacker 2013: 3. 4 Levy R. Bryant (2014) Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media (Einburgh: Edinburgh University Press), 198-211. 2

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playing a board game; the child; the kingdom.”5 The kingdom of space is the game of a black child, a game of excess that always crosses the boundaries, always undoing and overwhelming itself. Perhaps this cosmic child is the “little black angel” addressed in Death in June’s “Little Black Angel”: “Oh lie away, oh lie away asleeping Lie away safe in my arms.” 6 It lies within the arms of its protective father, the void that begot the “aeon” which is the game of life. Space is a materialized structure that begets with plenitude. It is the plenitude that begets, and as such, constitutes an immanent critique of societies and peoples that delude themselves into thinking that they themselves are the creators, the producers, the designers. To design is to de-sign, designify, to reject the provenance of Creation. For all that which the de-signer makes is a product of this Little Black Angel’s workings. Work? No, we should not have the temerity to unjustly label its free play “work”. It is play, manipulation not for profit, but for enjoyment. As opposed to the depressive realism of contemporary society, there is the playfulness of this small child. Our own reality is infinitely more impoverished than we like to imagine it to be, not because of the supposed structures of an oppressive social system (that too is there), but as a consequence of the ontological reality of our unreality. If the entire world truly is a board game, it is a simulacra without purpose. The Little Black Angel was not begotten so as to beget further divine emanations, but to play and be in the world, to create incessantly, aimlessly, to produce unproductively. Space and spatial entities are foreclosed to themselves, their becomings. Toys are made for being toyed with. The impossibility of presence in the context of universe-as-plaything is darkness itself. Spatialized reality is foreclosed, unimaginable and unnameable. Its shadow is incommunicable for anything, with the exception of the cosmic child. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra hints at a dark affinity between all suffering beings and objects: “Have you ever said Yes to one joy? Oh my friends, then you

5 6

Heraclitus, Fragment B-52. http://www.deathinjune.net/lyrics/littleblackangel.htm.

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also said Yes to all pain. All things are enchained, entwined, enamored”.7 Existents are enamored with one another and their own chains of suffering. Oh, how long these chains are! Surrealism is more than a fleeting movement, it is an expression of absurdity, the rejection of both time and space. Surrealism spreads its dreamy net across the worlds. The reality of space comes to be profoundly questioned in surrealist art. It is not simply a question of unsettling the spatial relations of homo sapiens, but instead, a more profound disaggregation of spatiality. After all, once we separate the aggregates, no substance or essence remains. The problem, after the extraction of sapient subjectivity, would no longer be the inherently problematic fact of human presence, but the issue of spatial nonreality as such. But in the absence of reality, can one even speak of a problematic of spatiality? The only possibility that remains, in the absence of both substance and its aggregates, is what Francois Laruelle calls the “lointain”, an unnameable, ineffable “distance” without measure.8 One can measure the energy that leaves a black hole, one can attempt to quantify the amount of radiation leaking out of the singularity. What one cannot measure is the absence of measures. The lointain designates all expressions and no expression, for it is infinitely separated from presence. It is not for nothing that Nietzsche has Zarathustra say, immediately after addressing the issue of suffering, that “all joy want eternity”.9 Joy seeks after that which returns eternally, but along with joy there comes, of necessity, suffering. 10 Soon after addressing the seekers, Zarathustra is overcome with a sense of enjoyment, gifted by “a cloud of love” that pours over him.11 This moment is the darkening of light, the moment of nonexpression. Nietzsche chooses to express this darkness as “a cloud”, but what is Zarathustra’s sky composed of? We must understand that the sky above Zarathustra’s head and he himself are one and the same entity. Indeed, Nietzsche likens his

7

Friedrich Nietzsche (2006 [1891]) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press), 263. 8 François Laruelle, ‘On the Black Universe’. In: Thacker, Eugene [et al.] (2013) Dark Nights of the Universe (Miami: NAME Publications), 102-103. 9 Nietzsche 2006 [1881]: 263. 10 Ibid. 11 Nietzsche 2006 [1881]: 265.

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hero to “a morning sun that emerges from dark mountains.”12 It is characteristic of the philosopher’s trickster nature that immediately after, he darkens this solar entity by drenching Zarathustra with the effluence of a cloud. The prophet/hero is literally drenched and darkened by love. Could it be black rain that is raining down from a volcanically supercharged sky? Zarathustra is, in a way, the lointain of which we speak. After receiving the overflowing effluence of “the cloud of love”, Zarathustra’s heart is “freed” and his tears drop down into his hands.13 Freedom is the height of ecstasy, and tears are pulses of radiation emanating from within the black hole. The lointain is distance sufficient to itself, exclusion of the purest kind.14 The non-reality of space is equal to “forgetting the world”, which opens up a “disoriented, wayward, and wayless, cast adrift in quotidian moments of annulment.”15 Lointain, as concept, is pre-philosophical, a distance without boundaries, liquified, foreclosed to narration. Cosmic exclusion is divine obscurity, according to Pseudo-Dionysos Areopagita, the possibility of transcending knowledge and language, a silence that is more ineffable than even ineffability itself. Mystical contemplation is directed towards the interiority of lointain, the abandonment of all sensual reality. Nonknowledge and non-reality, once expressed, betray their meanings and commit grammatical suicide. No sentence that contains the plenitude of lointain is meaningful. Unknowledge is a complete lack of access, the absence of self-transparency. The Cloude of Unknowinge, a 14th century mystical text, gives a dark and traditional rendition of this condition of infinite darkness.16 It is difficult not to see the parallels between Zarathustra’s overwhelming, ecstatic meeting with a cloud and the “cloud of unknowing” described in the medieval text. Through his unknowing, Zarathustra arrives at a monumental, self-devastating love, a love that accepts the suffering of all things, the beloved Other included. It 12

Nietzsche 2006 [1881]: 264 Nietzsche 2006 [1881]: 265. 14 Eugene Thacker, ‘Remote: The Forgetting of the World’. In: Thacker, Eugene [et al.] (2013) Dark Nights of the Universe (Miami: NAME Publications), 2. 15 Thacker 2013: 3. 16 The Cloud of Unknowing, here: http://www.catholicspiritualdirection.org/cloudunknowing.pdf. 13

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is significant that the encounter with “the cloud of love” composes the closing section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, as if Nietzsche were attempting to communicate with his readers the limits of language, while nevertheless pointing toward the impossibility of being. “Joy”, in Nietzsche’s view, is “deeper still than misery”.17 The mystic seeks to transcend all, transcendence included. The impersonality of the divine cloud is all that remains of connectivity. Joy is suffering, and suffering is blessed for those with the strength to persevere and penetrate into the immaculate singularity of the cloud. Eugene Thacker emphasizes that the Cloude of Unkowing follows a dualistic narrative structure, differentiating between the cloud of forgetting and the cloud of unknowing. Through this gesture, the anonymous author constructs two forms of negation, reaching a dualistically nondualistic darkening of discourse.18 Non-expression and unpossessability are not the only forms of disaggregation, but also the only possibilities on the road to unknowledge.19 The ontological circumstance of universal seclusion may be compared to Levi R. Bryant’s concept of “dark object”. Bryant, a disciple of Bruno Latour, seeks to create a renewed understanding of objects by creating a new system of categorization. He writes of “bright”, “satellite”, “dim” and “dark objects”.20 In Bryant’s view dark objects, similarly to the Laruellian lointain, cannot even be inferred. We cannot speak of them, not even in a negative sense. They are simply unamenable to abstraction, so inscrutable is their thick blackness. Dark objects are precluded from presence. These existents are unimaginable, and through their unimaginability, reject the labels and concepts of any system of relations. No coordinates contain them. The lointain closes in upon itself complete, without any leakages. Darkened things fail to manifest in the world at any level; unlocalizable, they can be neither registered nor realized. Rasu-Yong Tugen’s speculative poems, drawing upon Romantic and Gothic horror themes, seek to describe the world as it “is”, announcing universal emptiness with broken, 17

Nietzsche 2006 [1891]: 264. Eugene Thacker (2015a) Starry Speculative Corpse (Alresford: Zero Books), 31. 19 M.O.N. (2012) Obliv Onanis M I: Dissolving (Gnome Books), 47. 20 Levy R. Bryant (2014) Onto-Cartography: An Ontology of Machines and Media (Einburgh: Edinburgh University Press), 198-211. 18

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shadowy words. Unknowledge comes to be reflected upon the world through poetry. Through this nonrepresentational form of ecological writing, exclusion and exile are, to an extent, integrated into aesthetics, modulating the totality darkness.21 According to Rasu-Yong Tugen the world is “far away and indifferent, colorless and flat, grey and shadowy.” While in Laruelle’s poem we read of “the black universe”, in Tugen we find a representation of the world that is filled with dancing shadows, replete with all the gradations this implies.22 Colors return in Tugen’s mortuary renditions, as opposed to the complete darkness of a blackened universe. Both approaches are ways toward darkness, and both speak of incommunicability. But Tugen nevertheless calls the reader’s attention to the following epistemological circumstance: “I see everything through a cloud of shrouded in mist.”23 Tugen’s cloud has a detemporalizing actuality that forever separates the loved one from time. The cloud of love is unchanging, constant, eternal. As Nietzsche reminds us, “there is no time on earth for such things”.24 Laruelle rejects even the possibility of our ever arriving at knowledge or cognition of the universe’s blackness, for the lointain is distance itself. It is the polar opposite of proximity. Earlier on, Zarathustra comments, somewhat aristocratically, on his infinite distance from those who cannot understand the truth of his teaching: “I no longer sympathize with you; this cloud beneath me, this black and heavy thing at which I laugh – precisely this is your thundercloud. You look upward when you long for elevation. And I look down because I am elevated.”25 A reversal of perspectives is achieved relatively early on, for Zarathustra is already, in this scene, situated above the cloud. He is beyond even unknowing, but nevertheless, descends, seeking to somehow emancipate those with endowed the requisite “hearing”. (alas, Zarathustra fails to become, at least in the context of Nietzsche’s book, the founder of any new religion or movement, if that was ever his intention...) In order to descend, Rasu-Yong Tugen, Baroness De Tristreombre. ‘XXI’, In: Rasu-Yong Tugen, Baroness De Tristreombre (2014) Songs From the Black Moon (Gnome Books), 25. 22 Laruelle 2013: 102-103. 23 Rasu-Yong Tugen, Baroness De Tristreombre 2014: 25. 24 Nietzsche 2006 [1891]: 265. 25 Nietzsche 2006 [1891]: 28. 21

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one must see through the cloud, penetrating through the mist. Tugen views the cloud in an ironically Nietzschean manner: we can reach through it towards the multiplicity of existents with ease and skill. Vision, for Tugen is perpetually beclouded, obscured: “I sit up, I walk, I talk, I sleep, but none of it comes any nearer.”26 Visions of the cloud are always characterized by incoherence and impossibility. We are enjoined by the author of The Cloude of Unkowinge to “try to suppress all knowledge and feeling of anything less than God, and trample it down deep under the cloud of forgetting.”27 Contemplation is at once a passive relation to blackness, and an active suppression, a forgetting of “all knowledge and feeling of anything less than God”, of anything at all that resides outside of the singularity. Nothing may be at work in the mind of the seeker, no created thing may reside there.28 Cognition is grasped by an impossible depth. Darkness is the vision of the void, an overcoding flood of detemporalization. Experiencing the cloud, one is gripped by the ecstasy of darkness. In another section, the author of the Cloude relates that “our little love concentrated on this cloud of unknowing holds within itself all the virtues of a man’s soul.”29 Our virtues themselves are literally beclouded, externalized by the presence of this ineffable plenitude. The cloud betokens the cosmic expansion of “our little love”; without the advent of this overflowing, generous entity, our heart would shrivel into nothing. As the lyrics of “Little Black Angel” assert, “its better to die than forever live on.”30 It is better to die into the cloud, to bleed upwards and become one with our own beclouded, dark sky, than to persist in a state of impoverished separation. “Our little love” would be a poor, shrivelled up thing, an abject meaningless object, without the “cloud of love” that rains down upon our poverty. The cloud of love arrives, and transmutes Zarathustra’s poverty into gold. This is the darkness of ecstasy. We can make contact, but only with our own absence, among the denizens of an empty sky. Contact, intimacy, these are words for the fallen ones. 26

Rasu-Yong Tugen, Baroness De Tristreombre 2014: 25. Anonymous (1978) The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works (London: Penguin), 110. 28 Ibid. 29 Anonymous 1978: 147. 30 http://www.deathinjune.net/lyrics/littleblackangel.htm. 27

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Fallenness is the generalized condition of the lointain, a level that appears in Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s song, “I see a darkness”. Behind everyday human connections and relations, there resides a sinister backdrop of ambiguity and uncertainty, making any real attachment all but impossible. Yet this “background noise” is itself the essence of any relationality. We are attached not to the Other, but to her shadow. In spite of darkness’ visibility, we may nevertheless find the possibility of an impossible love, an exchange of inscrutable fluidities. Darkness gives the tone of friendship, inherently structuring every single connection. “I see a darkness” is predicated upon a paradox: we are somehow capable of seeing that which is not there, a Thing that is attractive, yet infinitely repulsive, not unlike a filthy UnGod, a sodomite divinity who is dirt itself. Traced with the contours of dirt, Bonnie Prince Billy’s work is permeated with blackness, serving as the source of his prosaic, whimsical meditations upon existence and meaning(lessness). Within Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy’s musical world, one cannot escape from mutual isolation and solitude. Blackness is the basis of the universe itself, as Laruelle highlights: “Black prior to light is the substance of the Universe, what escaped from the World before the World was born into the World.”31

Darkness is light prior to visibility, indeed, light prior to itself, a substance that is completely empty, without content, without even withoutness. In the absence of referents, there can be no “absence”, at least not in the merely negative sense of the word. Presence never did appear, it never manifested itself in our world. There is no ground, aside from the absence of absence, an ecstatic spatiotemporalization that is always already detemporalized. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s song “Black” defines blackness in terms of irreducible alterity. So far are we from it, that every attempt at contact is condemned to failure. Our movements are not our own, but rather, are gravitated by dark objects. Human actants are progressively removed from networks that never were theirs to begin with. No encounter 31

Laruelle 2013: 105.

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is possible within the realm of impossibility, yet its materiality still speaks to us... along with a number of other actants. The materiality of darkness permeates our lives and loves: “Our life is ruled by enmity”. 32 Dark, foreclosed objects form groundless multiplicities, whose absent presences give a basis for feelings of meaningless tragedy. True, tragedy itself is apparently bountifully meaningful, yet as analytical philosopher Timothy Williamson emphasizes, no mental state is luminous.33 Mental states are conditions of virtuality wherein luminosity and transparency are all but foreclosed. There can be no light within mental space. Such a view is a far cry from Cartesian rationalism. According to Williamson, one cannot reasonably declare that “the condition for being evidence is luminous.”34 In other words, luminosity is not an aspect of truth. The truth can be dark, a substance beyond the point of contact. Truth does not come into adequation with our own ways of access. Human access and truth are two spheres of non-luminosity. Williamson goes so far as to equate luminosity, clarity as such, with impossibility: “A condition that obtains in no case, the impossible condition, is automatically luminous.”35 The universe is blackness itself, for light may only pertain within the space of impossibility. We cannot suppose the presence of that which is not. Dark substantialism is recognition of groundlessness, including the vacuity of its own presuppositions. One cannot suppose that the sage who has attained some measure of emptiness has arrived at some penultimate stage of knowledge or awareness. Nobody endowed with mental states can be luminous, absolute darkness is the rule. Tragedy is a form of vision that resides in eternal proximity to darkness, defined here as the dialectical “opposite” of luminosity. Only blackness is eternal; the universe is black in eternity. Williamson furthermore emphasizes that “an eternal condition is luminous only if one cannot change from being in a position to know that it obtains to not being in such a position.”36 One cannot be in any other Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy: Black. Timothy Williamson (2002) Knowledge and Its Limits (Oxford and London: Oxford University Press), 12. 34 Williamson 2002: 13. 35 Williamson 2002: 107. 36 Williamson 2002: 108. 32 33

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position aside from empty intimacy, a union with illimitation. The dark object that gravitates our perception into its interstices exerts a strong, eminently material magnetism, described as love of darkness by Bonnie ʻPrince’ Billy. Drowning in obscure materiality, we get a sense of depth in Laruelle’s description: “Man approaches the World only by way of transcendental darkness, into which he never entered and from he will never leave.”37

Transcendental darkness is the primary characteristic of foreclosure, constituting the essence of lointain. Eva Clanculator speaks of the truth of infinite darkness. This infinity cannot possibly form our home. A home would be a place, yet infinity is far from composing any placehood. Nature itself is irreducible to human presence, a darkness which is separation itself.38 The lyrics of “I see darkness” describe this condition of ungrounded embeddedness in stunning detail. Transcendental darkness is the source of connectivity. Williamson goes so far as to define transparency as an exception so remote as to constitute a “curiosity”: “luminous conditions are curiosities. Far from forming a cognitive home, they are remote from our ordinary interests.”39 Transcendental darkness is homelessness, it can never become a place of habitation for human presence. Surrounded by the absence of any home, one must nevertheless strive to become “at home” within obscurity. Cognition always will be homeless, deterritorialized, submerged in ash. Williamson’s epistemology highlights the eternal absence of mental luminosity. There simply are no conditions of knowledge or truth; this is the truth of (non)existence. How could one believe in the possibility of any sociability, if luminosity is impossible? The impossible itself is luminous and, by consequence, the ultimate curiosity. Every region that is luminous “is safely in it”, that is, it

37

Laruelle 2013: 105. Eva Clanculator (2012) Atheologica Germanica (Gnome Books) 50-51. 39 Williamson 2002: 109. 38

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resides safely within a given, epistemologically integrable sphere of light.40 One may know connectivity, but only when one accesses light-sources. Knowledge of truth is awareness of the impossibility of any exit, save the last one, the One that is Zero. Such givenness would compose an aggregation of groundlessness, a sociability beyond socially-embodied being. The futurity of sociability need not be accepted. As James Bliss writes, “resistance to futurity (...) follows from rejecting the tacit assumption that the world, as it is, is a fundamentally acceptable place.” 41 If the world is an unacceptable place, one cannot accept reproduction. Overproduction collapses into infertility, the self-removal of human agents. Darkness is the basis of connectivity, albeit one that has recognized its own genesis in disconnectivity. “Black was decomposing quickly”: this is the detemporalization of externality, the lointain is at once the shadow, symptom and embodiment of temporality. It is that which detemporalizes through is temporal movement. Desire itself, as Bliss notes, “is a desire for rupture”.42 Temporal extension penetrates, ruptures the realm of sociability, debilitating networks until they are rendered inoperative, delegitimated, deconstructed and depopulated. What is the lointain, if not the exclusion of any and all forms of manifestation?43 What else can there be? Decomposition is the rule, and not the exception. Bliss, in relation to queer studies, emphasizes the need to “think ʻqueer’ beyond the real or presumed sexual/gender identity, performance, or practices of particular subjects.”44 Queerness, as an ontological phenomenon, is more than merely performative: it is a universalizable embodiment of curiosity, the desire for knowledge that transbodies itself into nonproductivity. As Williamson reminds us, “curiosity is a desire to know”.45 By consequence, every form of curiosity is curious and, in a way, luminous. But curiosity, curious 40

Williamson 2002: 125. James Bliss, “Hope Against Hope: Queer Negativity, Black Feminist Theorizing, and Reproduction without Futurity.” Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature 48.1 (2015), 90. 42 Ibid. 43 Laruelle 2013: 106. 44 Bliss 2015: 91. 45 Williamson 2002: 31. 41

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queerness, is, because of its very luminosity, impossible. How else can one explain the lack of queer reproduction? Productivity is the unexceptional re-production of absence, whereas (over)saturated relationalities are manifestly unproductive. That which is luminous cannot persevere, it must disappear into the nothingness of time’s circular motion. Subjectivity is darkened by an impossibility that is its own. Regardless of whether anything new begins at all, we, following Bliss, must recognize that “this must end.”46 This, in its very ambiguity, becomes liable to a universalization without boundaries. One cannot reterritorialize “this”, whatever the utterer of “this” understands under “that”. Darkness is “disrespect for life’s proprieties”, it does not seek to degrade itself by becoming a mere cognitive home for some perception. Rather, it threatens to remove the very possibility of futurity. Black futurity is the eternalized threat of self-hating self-removal. Once one has succumbed to the lure of black futurism, one cannot view social relations in the same light. Every light, in the context of a dark age, becomes a black flame, an ever younger flaming elastic muscle-bound antagonism. Sociability agonizes over its own antagonisms, until every dualistic category submerges within the original cesspool. Points of origin are meaningless charades, dark dances that elope into the night. Darkness, in Laruelle’s view, is not an object within the world, but an aspect of intersubjective vision, an effluence we see flowing from within the Other’s pores and openings. Queer agents are fully capable of composing an “overwhelming overpresence of futures”.47 Luminous entities are always, without exception, overwhelming. They may be compared to the kinds of objects Levi R. Bryant defines as “bright objects”. As Bryant states, “a bright object is a machine that gravitationally overcodes the local manifestations, movements, and becomings of other machines.”48 Luminous entities, through their queerness, overcode other agents. Lack of access is no privilege of dark objects; bright objects too are all but inaccessible. It is not their presence as such that epistemology cannot account for, but the overwhelming fact of their existence. The 46

Bliss 2015: 90. Bliss 2015: 95. 48 Levy R. Bryant 2014: 202. 47

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darkness and muteness of the black universe is the dialectical counterpart of brightness. Light is overwhelming, because it is rare to the point of impossibility. Nothing responds to our supplication, aside from dimness. The mystery of blackness resides in the homelessness it generates within the agents affected by its irradiation. It is simultaneously negative and positive, or rather, a placelessness that transcends such dualities. From a merely ontological point of view, once could say that is ex-sists, but such a categorization fails to do justice to a lointain whose “existence is always tenuous, the stuff of shadows, night and tenebrous clouds.”49 Lointain is extreme, yet also the source of each and every median. Silence points toward an “alinguistic world”.50 Transitory anthropomorphic presences, language included, are “symbolic canopies”, huge, essentially infinitely systematic processes that must nevertheless come to an end, in spite of their ambitions. To STOP is to COME TO AN END. Resigned to our fate, we must “try to dig into the word ʻstop’ and see how much other material is there.”51 If we accept the hypothesis of correlationism, we must say that the dim, mute night of universalized (de)substantialization is inseparable from humanity. It is inseparable from that entity which separates, at least in Laruelle’s view: “Now black and I we are together Fairly just inseparable And in the terriblest of weather Our bonds are incorruptible”52

DARKNESS is completely internal, but also externalizable in relation to subjectivity.53 Human sociability is decomposable into a self-sufficiency without limitation, a desubjectivation that responds to universal night with

49

Eugene Thacker (2015a) Starry Speculative Corpse. Horror of Philosophy Vol. 2. (Winchester and Washington: Zero Books), 17-18. 50 Ars Cogitanda (2015) Footnote to Silence (Gnome Books), 25. 51 Ibid. 52 Bonnie‘Prince’ Billy: Black. 53 Laruelle 2013: 106.

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gestures of submergence. Every emergence is already an aspect of one or another submergence. Sociability is given by the black silence of the universe. Love is only apparently opposed to this limitless night. We truly are in need of a revolutionary de-structuring of sociability, of “disentangling optimism from futurity.”54 The background of all sociability is given by dark silence, which is only apparently opposed to love and attraction. Humans and nonhumans alike are black, unamenable to purification. Indeed, attempts at purification only lead to further production of dimness. The basis of this natural hatred is not restricted to human beings, and correlationist antihumanism registers this non-anthropocentrism. Universal silence and blackness permeate naturecultures everywhere, although in differing degrees. According to the pessimist, hatred and violence are unavoidable certainties of social life, but the origins of such negative relations reside far beyond the realm of the human. The innermost essence of the human is darkness and inaccessibility. Like all other machines, humans too “harbor hidden and volcanic powers waiting to be unleashed.”55 Even attraction cannot be defined in any other terms apart from inaccessibility and unhospitability. The desire to enter into relationality is already an aspect of the Fall, an unavoidable evil. But do we ever truly reside separated from relationality? Is it not rather that we are always within a network of dark, dim entities? Relations cannot ever give anything apart from disappointment, dishallucination, as well as, in certain rare instances, moments of acceptance. We may arrive at a fatalistic embrace of the world’s darkness, but only through recognizing the finitude of our own knowledge, even knowledge of the limit. As Williamson notes, “in order to be able to set a limit to knowledge, we do not have to find both sides of the limit.”56 One does not have to have knowledge of the more distant “side”, it can reside in a place beyond all spatio-temporal relations. What we have, in the space of actuality, is finitude. Darkness is unknowabiliy, the debilitation of discourse by the full-stop that encloses language like a 54

Bliss 2015: 95. Bryant 2014: 151. 56 Williamson 2002: 301. 55

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tomb. Bryant, helpfully, distinguishes between “absolute” and “relative” dark objects. Whereas a relative dark object is one that is unknowable for certain entities, “an absolute dark object would be a machine so withdrawn that it doesn’t manifest itself to any other machine in the entire pluriverse.”57 In our case, the Laruellian lointain, or at least its interiority, would constitute an absolute dark object, a machine completely foreclosed to contact. Transcending relative pessimism, the Nihil of total pessimism reaches its apogee when absolute nonknowledge is touched by epistemology. Williamson’s epistemic stance is refreshing for the very reason that it does not exclude the possibility of absolute nonknowledge. Human relations always return to wicked, infernal blackness: “And that I see a darkness And that I see a darkness And that I see a darkness And that I see a darkness”58

We see the darkness, and the darkness sees us. This meeting is a mystical experience, the experience of the limit. Beyond this, there can be no more knowledge-production, no more manufacture of facts. This condition is at once disconcerting and soothing. One cannot advance any further, for black has no opposite. Even the great affirmers such as Nietzsche could not confront that which “fails in the face of the rigor of its secret.”59 In the night, there can be no more talk of orientation or reorientation. Human eyes cannot accustom themselves to the complete absence of light. Yet in this night, shadows are “sucked up thirstily by the walls”.60 They become lost, abandoned in the depth of the black universe: “At night, however, bearings are quickly lost, and shadows stalk the many bridges that lead new arrivals deeper and deeper into shuttered darkness.” The night is unrepresentable, and this unrepresentability is the reason for 57

Bryant 2014: 200. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy: I see a Darkness. 59 Laruelle 2013: 106. 60 Dominic Pettman (2013) In Divisible Cities: A Phanto-Cartographical Missive (New York: Punctum Books), 73. 58

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desertion. According to Robert Harbison, the night is an opacity whose meaning we cannot fathom. It carresses our naked bodies, and influences our every move.61 There most definitely are unknowable truths.62 Within these depths of unknowability, reason sleeps, and in which we find an atmosphere of monstrous movements that produce subversive and deformed entities.63 The sleep of reason may often result in dread, a fear of the limit that is eminently postrational. Fear, limitless aversion, is what remains in the aftermath of reason’s disappearance within the cosmic black womb. This fear is bred by the unnameable Thing residing in the unspeakable place, or rather, by the fear that clones the Thing into our perception.64 Underneath the surface, in the bowels of the ineffable, a secret system of cloning is at work. Quentin Meillassoux holds that the exclusivity of chaos is the Absolute itself, the basis of all forms of knowledge. Without chaos, there can be no discovery/uncovering of order. The Absolute is nothing more than extreme chaos, hyperchaos, in which nothing is impossible, even the unthinkable becomes manifest.65 Chaos is unthematizable, unopen, similarly to the inorganicism of death: destruction is insanity itself. Insanity, the sleep of reason, is undefinable and unquantifiable. Unrestricted quantification is indeed possible66, but it leads to the most vicious of circles. The source of insanity is the incommensurability of death and the invisibility of dying. 67 Infinite madness is a symptom of lointain, for both are unknowable, closed to any register. Death is what cannot be registered68 Death, for Maurice Blanchot, is a process that transcends perception and reflection, for it is an impossible consummation.69 Fluctuating chaos, the infinity of death, is its

61

Robert Harbison (2000) Eccentric Spaces (Cambridge, London: The MIT Press), 64. Williamson 2002: 299. 63 Georges Bataille (1991 [1949]) The Accursed Share: an Essay on General Economy, Vol. 1.: Consumption (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Zone Books), 58. 64 Thacker 2015a: 17. 65 Quentin Meillassoux (2008) After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Bloomsbury Academic Press), 64. 66 Williamson 2002: 299. 67 Maurice Blanchot 1992. 68 Quentin Meillassoux, “Subtraction and Contradiction: Deleuze, Immanence, and Matter and Memory” In: COLLAPSE III: Unknown Deleuze (November 2007) 69 Blanchot 1992. 62

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own repetition. Benjamin Noys emphasizes the fluctuating, liquid nature of postmodern social theory.70 Noys complements this characterization with the following, truly morbid proposition: “The celebration of the politics of lifestyles could even be extended to the politics of ‘deathstyles’ as well. Death would be just another product in the postmodern cultural supermarket, and we could choose our style of death from any number of historically and culturally different forms.”71

Rather than mileus or postmodern lifestyles, Noys proposes that we recognize the real and actual presence of “deathstyles” in contemporary postmodern culture. Fragmentation and seemingly infinite perversion are characteristics not only of postmodern life, but postmodern death. Combinatorics and hybridity are fundamental aspects of decay, decadence and extinction in advanced societies around the world. One may purchase products that one feeds upon, and also products that feed upon oneself. Rather than following standard modes of emancipatory politics, Bliss recommends “a mode of reproduction that is not reproductive futurism; that is, Black reproduction.”72 Such a paradoxical form of reproduction would sever itself, in a revolutionary manner, from any and all typologies of futurity. It is optimistic, and yet, without a future. This Thing cannot be, and yet, shall be. The fragmentation of deathstyles, the perverted proliferation of death-forms, is the infinite variegation of civilization decayings. Rottenness is interchangeable. In Noys’ discourse, as in Bliss’, there is no trace of any “returning”, either to the space of the inorganic or to any other nonhuman dimension. Postmodern space is composed of nothing other than various forms of decomposition. Death, in Blanchot’s opinion, is an infinite movement, but a movement that leaves no traces apart from its own failure. Death happens, and yet fails to happen; it is stuck in a transitory liminal realm, unlivable, yet dominating lived life, in every single moment. One cannot escape it, any escape is impossible when 70

Benjamin Noys (2005) The Culture of Death (Oxford: Berg Publishing), 51. Ibid. 72 Bliss 2015: 85. 71

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one is situated within the impossible. As darkness is distant and unknowable, we cannot know whether death arrives in the mode of the One or the Multiple. Perhaps Noys is right when he defines it as a multiplicity of deathscapes. Noys claims that “the celebration of the politics of lifestyles could even be extended to the politics of ‘deathstyles’ as well.”73 Social death is the limitless madness of self-hatred, the selfsabotage of the social body, entropy burrowing its way through networks, until they are all cut-up and undone. Yet one can always re-turn from death, in the form of a soul-destroying zombie. When we return to the surface, we are changed, fundamentally different. Monsters breed in the dark, far from prying eyes and scientific observation. We find, within alterity, a “maddening chaos” that encloses us in the manner of a “living entity”, leaving nothing but rape and mutilation in its wake.74 Black is the only color that streams forever from the universe.75 Excluded, foreclosed, exiled: blackness is rejected by the white world. The next wave of emancipation cannot accept such rejection, it must become a Dark Enlightenment, a renewed political (extra-philosophical) movement that thrusts itself into power. A black universe cannot accept anything less than full freedom, the detemporalization of non-temporal shadows. Nontemporality and the absence of futurity slowly seeps into all the polluted pores of sociability, making a filthy swamp of every social form until nothing is left intact.76

73

Noys 2005: 51. Ben Woodard (2013) On an Ungrounded Earth: Towards a New Geophilosophy (New York: Punctum Books), 78. 75 Laruelle 2013: 106. 76 M: Un-Sight/Un-Sound 33. 74

In: Spirituality Editor: Clint Baldwin

ISBN: 978-1-53615-713-0 © 2019 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 6

VASUDHAIVA KUṬUMBAKAM BASED LAND ACQUISITION: TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE (SPIRITUAL) BUSINESS THROUGH HOLISTIC STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT Siddharth Mohapatra1,* and Pratima Verma2 1

Humanities & Liberal Arts in Management, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, Kerala, India 2 Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Area, School of Business, Alliance University, Bangalore, India

ABSTRACT Land has spiritual connotations in India since time immemorial. Whereas business spirituality underlines business as a part of interconnected stakeholders, the current land acquisition for commercial purposes often sidelines the interests of a key stakeholder group—landowners and users—jeopardizing their wellbeing. This has led to poor stakeholder management and lost opportunities both for business and *

Corresponding Author’s E-mail: [email protected].

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Siddharth Mohapatra and Pratima Verma society. Interestingly, there was fierce socio-economic tensions among the masses in the post-independent India, which was streamlined through the Bhoodan (land-gift) movement wherein land transfer from landlords to the landless was attempted through spiritual means. In today’s managerial lexicon, it can be seen as a nuance of the strong version of stakeholder management, i.e., making stakeholders full partners and engage in collective decision-making. Drawing similarities between India in the past and India at present, employing historical data and biographical method, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition ethics is conceptualized to create a collective decision-making means to facilitate voluntary land transfer by the land-owners and users for commercial use, thereby accomplishing stakeholder wellbeing, spiritually. While Bhoodan accentuated upon land donation from a resource ownership perspective, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition stresses upon land transfer from the stakeholder concept. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Bhoodan, holistic stakeholder management, India, spirituality, stakeholder concept, voluntary land transfer, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam

INTRODUCTION “Ayaṁ bandhurayaṁ nēti gaṇanā laghucētasām | udāracaritānāṁ tu Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam ||” – Mahōpaniṣad (Chapter 6, Verse 71)

Spirituality and religion are the crux of true sustainability (Carroll, 2004; Cavanagh & Hazen, 2008; Dhiman, & Marques, 2016; Fry & Slocum, 2008). Sustainability and stakeholder concept are complementary and mutually reinforcing (Schwartz & Carroll, 2008; Steurer, Langer, Konrad, & Martinuzzi, 2005). Like spirituality and religion, the stakeholder concept reckons the larger community feature of business (Wicks, 2014) and emphasizes that business exists for a higher public purpose—to create value for society (Freeman, 1984). Accordingly, stakeholder concept, spirituality and religion, and sustainability are interconnected, which can be a basis of sustainable (spiritual) business. Sustainability refers to meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

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(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 16). Spirituality, including religion, is “an inner experience of deep interconnectedness with all living beings” (Bouckaert & Zsolnai, 2011, pp. 4-5). They underline the basic human nature to appreciate and maintain the wholeness of the creation. People need social, economic, and natural resources together to realize their aspirations. However, these resources are fast getting depleted from today’s world infested with sustainability challenges. A new reality at present is that corporations have become ubiquitous in our life (Rapaport & Bailyn, 1998). Hence, for the sustenance of humankind, it is imperative that corporations run as a sustainable (spiritual) business, creating social, financial, and ecological values for a wider range of stakeholders. Stakeholders are the network of interrelated individuals and constituencies that are connected to a firm (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Freeman, 1984; Post, Preston, & Sachs, 2002). Post et al. (2002, p. 8) argue that “any stakeholder relationship may be the most critical one at a particular time or on a particular issue.” To sustain, business therefore should be sentient about the importance of a holistic approach to stakeholder management, capture the jointness of the stakeholders’ interests, and channelize them in the same direction (e.g., Freeman, 2008). The interest of the imperceptible stakeholders like the community however is seldom taken seriously in sustainability debates (Ahmed & Varshney, 2012; Jensen & Sandström, 2011; Michael & Baumann, 2016; Munshi & Kurian, 2007; see also Freeman, Wicks, & Parmar, 2004). In the process, some of the most egregious nuances of corporate irresponsibility have occurred that are mostly underplayed in the literature (Munshi & Kurian, 2007). In this context, the current state of land acquisition for commercial purpose in India (hereafter land acquisition) needs further deliberation. It is said that India is a bright spot in today’s gloomy global economic scenario. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF (2019) has projected India to grow at 7.3 percent in 2019 and 7.4 percent in 2020, the highest among major economies. India is the tenth largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world, and one of the top three preferred investment destinations for multinational companies (Economic Times,

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2016a). India’s economic growth is hugely influenced by manufacturing and service sectors, and urbanization (World Bank, 2016a). These are massive state-managed drives involving huge land acquisitions, albeit with poor compensation and rehabilitation measures (Chakravorty, 2013). On many occasions, land grabbing is a common style of land acquisition (Drèze & Sen, 2013; Perry-Kessaris, 2008), which has made Indians distrustful about land acquisition (New York Times, 2015b). Thus, transferring land in India is both a socio-economic hara-kiri and emotional ordeal. At the same time, landholdings and agrarian activities are inadequate to enrich the Indians (New York Times, 2015a). In the process, a sizeable segment of population is yet to be mainstreamed with India’s growth juggernaut. Furthermore, land acquisition has financial, ecological, and political implications. Business is unable to find resource-rich land cost-effectively and law and order problems related to land acquisition are incurring additional cost (Hindu, 2015b). There is no consensus in the Indian parliament about promulgating the appropriate laws (Indian Express, 2016b). Hence, many states are bypassing old laws to speed up projects. Such fast-paced reforms however can be damaging to livelihood and environment (e.g., Hopkins, 2007). It also can lead to conflict between the central and state governments in future because land acquisition is a matter of jurisdiction for both. In the World Bank’s (2017) global report on ease of doing business, India ranks 130 among 190 countries; land acquisition problem is cited as one of the key concerns of potential investors (Pioneer, 2016). The simultaneous social, ecological, and financial problems underlying land acquisition is apt to term it as an instance of sustainability challenge, which has led to human rights abuses, migration, cultural cleansing, resource depletion, inequality, ecosystem collapse, etc. (see Drèze & Sen, 2013). As discussed, this situation is an outcome of stakeholder mismanagement. Here comes the importance of spirituality and religion that look at the creation in its totality. Hinduism, an offshoot of the Vedic civilization, has immensely contributed to business and management (e.g., Weber, 2005[1930], p. xiv; see also Verma, 2009). Hinduism emphasizes

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on conducting business “according to dharma,” i.e., “with concern for the well-being of others” (Hatcher, 2008, p. 82), or holistic stakeholder management. However, with the emergence of many nontraditional stakeholders, e.g., the land-owners and users, doing business following dharma is easier said than done. A similar event concerning social unrests related to inequitable landholdings had happened in the post-independence era of India that was addressed through Bhoodan (land-gift movement) grounded in the ancient Indian concept Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam. The opening Sanskrit verse is found in many Vedic era scriptures. Shah and Ramamoorthy (2014, p. 449) translate it as: “Only small men discriminate saying: One is a relative; the other is a stranger. For those who live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family.” Its crux is Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam which consists of: “vasudhā” means the earth, “ēva” indeed is, and “kuṭumbakam” family. In this manner, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam decrees: the entire earth is one family. It rules out all borders and divisions whatsoever, and promotes tolerance and empathy for everyone. In other words, it stands for the “unity of mankind” (Singh, 1999, p. 40). It is considered as the “loftiest Vedic thought” (Badlani, 2008, p. 184). Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam is different from globalization; the latter is mainly a socio-economic concept related to technology and commerce, whereas the former is a spiritual concept. As in a family, its basic elements are “love and harmony, cooperation and mutual support” (Parameswaran, 2000, p. 234). India’s founding fathers have been profoundly influenced by vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam. Vivekananda (1965, p. 269) believed that “there cannot be any progress, without the whole world following in the wake, and it is becoming everyday clearer that the solution to every problem can never be attained on racial, or national, or narrow grounds.” Sri Aurobindo reckoned that “by identifying with the consciousness of everything, our consciousness expands” (Thakur, 2004, p. 58). The basis of the Gandhian vision of holistic development lies in the following: “The test of orderliness in a country is not the number of millionaires it owns, but the absence of starvation among the masses” (Gandhi, 2005[1951], p. 127). Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, the second president of India, held that “we

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must evolve ideals, habits, and sentiments which would enable us to build up a world community and live in a cooperative commonwealth” (Parameswaran, 2000, p. 231). Jamsetji N Tata, the founder of the Tata Group, held that “the community is not just another stakeholder to business, but is in fact the very purpose of its existence” (Shah & Ramamoorthy, 2014, p. 281). They speak volumes about vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam’s importance in making decision in India. Moreover, its inscription in the entrance hall of the Indian Parliament stamps its fundamental status in the Indian society (Shah & Ramamoorthy, 2014). Considering its grandness in India, we employ Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam as a spiritual concept and Bhoodan as its material manifestation to address the land acquisition impasse. This is the focus of our paper that is organized as follows. To begin with, we discuss land having spirital connotation in India since time immemorial. Then, we discuss the current state of land acquisition from social, political, and economic perspectives. Thereafter, we deliberate upon Bhoodan that inspired landlords to bequeath land to the landless to restore social harmony. At present, land- owners and users need to transfer land for commercial use to stimulate holistic development of India. However, they do not trust the government and business because of past abuses. Drawing parallels between India in the past and India at present, we thereafter argue that Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition manifested in the form of reinvented Bhoodan can be a proactive responsibility strategy (with business) to generate trust among stakeholders, enable voluntary land transfer, mitigate sustainability challenges, and create holistic development through sustainable (spiritual) business.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND METHOD Although land acquisition related poor stakeholder management is a recent issue, its roots lie in the social and cultural milieu of India. Bhoodan was an attempt to address various historical injustices underlying land related socio-economic impasses. We build arguments by analysing

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historical data because they provide critical contextual link of the past to the present (Howell & Prevenier, 2002). To explore more into the historical events, we employ biographical method to study them (Denzin, 1989). This is because biographical methods encourage a “universalistic and encompassing approach, encouraging understanding and interpretation of experience across national, cultural and traditional boundaries better to understand individual action and engagement in society” (Bornat, 2008, p. 344). To minimize study selection bias, we have reviewed literatures related multiple stakeholders to minimize spectrum effect and undertaken dual review to minimize random error (e.g., Collier, 1995).

LAND, SPIRITUALISM, AND INDIA Land has spiritual connotations in India. Lakshmī is deemed as the goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity (Narayanan, 2005). She represents the Planet Earth or Vasudhā that is considered as the “yielder of wealth” and the “goddess … [of] the bounteous earth” (Rhodes, 2010: 34). However, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam, one of India’s grandest principles, proposes that prosperity should not only be accumulated for oneself but also spread to others (Rambachan, 2006). Shah and Ramamoorthy (2014, p. 449) translate the opening Sanskrit verse as follows: “Only small men discriminate saying: One is a relative; the other is a stranger. For those who live magnanimously the entire world constitutes but a family.” Its main crux is Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam, which comprises of “Vasudhā” meaning the earth, “ēva” indeed is, and “kuṭumbakam” family. Thus, it reckons the entire earth as one family. Singh and Aktor (2015, p. 1929) posit that Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam is an ethical school of thought that helps to “maintain an order between dharma (moral code of conduct) and karma (right action).” Dāna or charity is an important means to achieve them (Singh, Jain, & Singh, 2013). In the Rigveda, one of the oldest texts in any Indo-European language, ‘da’, the root of word Dāna, refers to the act of gifting to the distressed (Hindery, 1978). Dāna means giving up or transfer the ownership of

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something for the right cause and is performed for the wellbeing of all creations and creatures (Kane, 1941). When done for the wellbeing of the other, Dāna becomes Paropakāra or benevolence (Singh et al., 2013). The Upaniṣads, a set of ancient scriptures, regard it as one of the noblest human virtues (Kane, 1941). Land donation is considered as one of the supreme forms of Dāna in India. Mythological anecdotes hint that land was donated to the needy in the pre-Vedic era. For instance, it is mentioned in ancient scriptures like the Viṣṇu Purāṇa that the benevolent king in ancient Hindu mythology Mahābalī even sacrificed his own life to fulfil his land donation vows (Soifer, 1991). Historical evidences also suggest that land donations were widespread in India. According to Manusmṛti, an ancient Hindu legal text, king was the “mahīpati” (lord of earth) and deemed to have the ownership rights of land in the post-Vedic period (Sharma, 1996, p. 81). Kings gifted land to priests, nobles, and employees in return of services or as a goodwill gesture, which subsequently were leased or donated to farmers (Sharma, 1996). Even during the Muslim rule in the medieval period, land was donated even for spiritual causes (Pande, 1996). Thus, as in the stakeholder concept, leaders, custodians, and executives in society managed land not through simply self-serving and utility maximising purposes but through higher purposes like other-centric altruism for the benefit of the society and its stakeholders. However, land lost much of its spiritual essence during the colonial era when excessive revenues from land for the British exchequer made landownership a lucrative proposition. Commercialization of land caused preferential land allotment that in turn skewed landownership further (Wolpert, 2001). At present, land is a State subject and land management (including acquisitions and tranfers) is being done with the help of social, legal, and economic means.

THE CURRENT STATE OF LAND ACQUISITION IN INDIA Land acquisition refers to the “[power of the] state … to acquire land for public purpose, in lieu of a compensation that may be paid to the

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landholders” (Mahalingam & Vyas, 2011, p. 95). Land acquisition is vital for long-term economic growth (Bardhan, 2011). To woo investors, land acquisition is one of the topmost governance priorities (Ahmed & Varshney, 2012). Rising need of land has led to rampant instances of land grabbing, i.e., the government and private investors unethically acquire resource-rich land from its traditional users for economic activities (Ahmed & Varshney, 2012; Perry-Kessaris, 2008). This has led to farreaching consequences for business, the government, environment and people.

Land Acquisition and the People Agriculture employs roughly 56.6 percent of the Indians but accounts for only 15 percent of GDP (Planning Commission of India, 2014). Policymakers consider “agriculture … [as] useless in enriching Indians” (New York Times, 2015a). Since independence, India has embarked on urbanization and industrialization for economic growth that have led to large scale acquisition of land (Chakravorty, 2013). Between 1951 and 1995, more than 50 million acres of land—almost 10 percent of India’s usable land—were acquired and converted for these projects (Fernandes, 2004). More than 60 million people have been displaced, who lost land, livelihood, common properties, and leased contracts between 1947 and 2000 (Fernandes, 2008). On many occasions, landowners merely remain mute spectators (Sarkar, 2012). The following remarks by a tribal from Odisha, who is affected by land acquisition for mining, are disturbing (Amnesty International India report, 2016, p. 62). “We worshipped the forest god. We got all our firewood from here. This place was green, now it is black with dust…. When agricultural land is lost, what are we supposed to eat? Coal?”

There are many such stories in the rural and tribal areas in India (Drèze & Sen, 2013). Although compensation is paid in urban areas, it often gets

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mismanaged. The story of a farmer in Gurugram, which has offices of 300 of Fortune 500 companies and is the IT hub of North India, tells it succinctly (Business Standard, 2013). “I got … [300 thousand US dollars] by selling nearly three acres of agricultural land [that is part of urban Gurugram now]…. I purchased six acres [of land in a nearby village] … built … a … bungalow and bought a SUV…. I never thought that money would finish one day…. Now I am working as a private security guard in a building on my own land.”

His story is similar to many others’ who once owned land in and around urban areas (e.g., Levien, 2011). On the one hand, they are in a hurry to quit farming, move to the city, and create fortunes for themselves (New York Times, 2015a). On the other hand, they, mostly being less educated or illiterate, do not understand the long-term implications of selling land; on many occasions, overspend compensation money without creating regular sources of income and lose entire fortunes (Bardhan, 2011; Guardian, 2010). In many land acquisition cases, compensation is erratic and intricate, and affects earnings. The government, in order to keep project costs low, often sets low acquisition prices (Chakravorty, 2016). In every six out of ten cases when challenged, the Supreme Court of India has increased the compensation, sometimes up to ten times of the original amount (Hindustan Times, 2016). Often, the farmer receives only one quarter of the cost of the land as compensation and the rest goes as subsidy to the buyer (Hindu, 2015a). Discontents emerge even after land is transferred. Market prices soar due to the usual post-acquisition development spree in the area, making the erstwhile owner dejected (Levien, 2011). Millions of long-standing cases of land disputes are still pending in Indian courts and many more being piled up, which even take decades for settlement like in the case of Singur involving Tata Motors (Supreme Court of India, 2016). They involve loss of pay or business, legal expenses, and emotional ordeals. There are many cases of farmer vulnerability and suicide arising from forcible land acquisition (Guardian, 2015).

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Furthermore, resettlement and rehabilitation concerning land acquisition are far from satisfactory (Chakravorty, 2013). Adivasis (tribals) and dalits (untouchables) are the worst affected when land is acquired (Drèze & Sen, 2013). Their land is not considered acquired because most of them merely use common property resources, like forest and sea, for livelihood (Chakravorty, 2016). Consequently, they do not get compensation and lose traditional livelihoods. For example, the fishermen from the displaced fishing villages near Adani Group’s Mundra port and SEZ fear that they would not be given access to the sea once the port is fully functional (Frontline, 2013). In such cases, compensation should consider the livelihood lost aspects (Fernandes, 2009). In this regard, Ghatak and Ghosh (2011, p. 66) argues that “the market price is not an adequate anchor for compensation, and this ad hoc formula will guarantee neither social justice nor efficient use of a scarce resource, notwithstanding its pro-poor appearance.” Moreover, as land ownership is an emotional issue for the Indians, the valuation of land should not only be determined by the opportunity costs or market prices but also additional factors like emotional attachments arising out of the tenure of land holding that gives social identity to people (Porwal & Singh, 2011). On many occasions, community-level cronyism, where the government and corporations create divisions by favoring some and ignoring others, has also jettisoned collective action, destroying the collectivism aspect of Indian culture (Levien, 2011). Hence, the cost of land acquisition to individuals and communities are ominous.

Land Acquisition and the Government Till 2013, land acquisition in India was governed by the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894 which empowered the State with eminent domain. Post-independence, when vast areas of land were required for development, it was used to avoid huge transaction costs. The State often forcibly acquired private properties for public purpose by paying just compensations even if the owner did not want to sell (Chakravorty, 2016).

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Post-1894, it was amended seven times. On each occasion, State’s powers were increasingly consolidated and interests of the land- owners and users were relegated as negative externalities (Chakravorty, 2016). Hence, there were growing demands to replace this anti-people law (Ghatak & Ghosh, 2011). In 2013, the Indian parliament passed the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (PRS, n.d.a). It had many people friendly provisions and stringent clauses against land grabbing and forced acquisition (Forbes, 2015). Under it, land acquisition was estimated to take 4-5 years, hence was viewed as antidevelopment and antibusiness (NITI Aayog, n.d.). Hence, the Indian government amended the 2013 Act as Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Amendment Bill 2015 (PRS, n.d.b). Some of the major changes were to remove the mandatory social impact assessments of and ignore the consent of eighty percent of the community before land acquisition (Chakravorty, 2016). They were aimed at reducing the acquisition time, lowering the indirect costs of acquisition, and attracting investment (Chakravorty, 2016). Experts opine that Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Amendment Bill 2015 cannot be a people-friendly law without these provisions (Hindu, 2015a). Opposition parties have accused the government of indulging in cronyism, hence passing it in the Indian parliament through consensus is still a daunting task (Indian Express, 2016b). To ease this logjam, some state governments are bypassing existing laws, even promulgating their own laws, to fast-track land acquisition, speed up projects, and receive big-bucks investments; albeit flouting social and environmental norms on many occasions (Reuters, 2016). In this context, Chakraborty (2016, p. 55) argues that “land acquisition by the Indian state … [has been] a profoundly regressive process—it redistributed the benefits of land use from the poor to the lesspoor and the non-poor.” Raghuram Rajan, famously known as the man who predicted the crisis of 2008, notes that such short-sighted land acquisitions are blatant instances of cronyism, i.e., stakeholder

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mismanagement, which can create grave sustainability challenges (Times of India, 2014). Furthermore, acquisition and requisitioning of land in India falls under the jurisdiction of both center and states. With no consensus in sight, it can lead to constitutional crises if some state governments violate Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 and the central government, say from a different political party, contests it. This would ultimately undermine the federal structure of India (Goswami, 2016). According to the vice chairman of the central planning commission of India: “Land acquisition a difficult task in India” (Economic Times, 2015). The political, constitutional, and governance implications of land acquisition to the Indian policymakers therefore are gloomy.

Land Acquisition and the Corporate Sector The Supreme Court of India has ruled that land acquisition lapses if compensation is not paid or the land is not taken possession within two years (Telegraph, 2015). However, it remains to be seen if and when acquisition made under an old law lapses under the current one as in the case of Reliance’s special economic zone (SEZ) in Jamnagar (Indian Express, 2016a). The Singur land acquisition case involving Tata Group’s Nano car project was an act of eminent domain by the West Bengal government to create employment for the rapidly growing population (Economist, 2008). However, the Supreme Court of India has not only ordered the return of the land to the farmers but also asked the landowners to retain the compensation because they were deprived of their land for ten years (Supreme Court of India, 2016). Adani Group’s Mundra Port and SEZ did not face acquisition hurdles because the allotted land was not privately owned (Business Standard, 2014). However, further construction, development, and expansion are banned because they have violated environmental norms, destroyed natural resources, and caused hardship to users of common property resources (Business Standard, 2014). Under the

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opposition of farmers, the Mukesh Ambani promoted Maha Mumbai SEZ project was scrapped (Economic Times, 2011). It was supposed to be the second largest SEZ in the world involving half a billion USD investment, more than one billion USD export potential, two million people directly or indirectly employed, and could have removed 20 percent of Maharashtra’s unemployment problem (Economic Times, 2011). A recent case is very interesting. Despite acquiring land at Chakan for a 100 million dollars agricultural equipment manufacturing unit, New Holland Fiat India is grappling with its future because a single farmer is withholding his land that is crucial to construct road to the site (Economic Times, 2016b). Additionally, social unrests, like protests, against economic progress are common in India, which has huge financial consequences (Smith, 2008). In sum, the legal and economic costs of land acquisition to the Indian corporations are disappointing. Although nearly 90 percent of all the land acquisitions are for government projects (Lobo & Kumar, 2009), many of them like mining, energy, industrial corridors, smart cities, high-speed rails, SEZs, etc. mainly benefits the corporate sector. Moreover, many tracts of land that are acquired invoking the eminent domain are actually for companies (Hindu, 2015a). Questions are being raised concerning why the state should acquire land for private companies (New York Times, 2015b; cf. NITI Aayog, n.d.). Considering the difficulties surrounding land acquisition, one of the top bureaucrats in the revenue ministry of Gujrat (one of the most developed states in India) has said, “The investor has to deal with the landowners himself” (Business Today, 2011). This means, companies may have to blame themselves in future for not being proactive in streamlining the land acquisition process now. Streamlining land acquisition is easier said than done. This is mainly because the public is still distrustful of the government and companies, and their intentions to acquire land due to past abuses (Indian Express, 2015). People are afraid that government will forcibly acquire their land for meagre compensations owing to the proposed changes in Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Amendment Bill, 2015 (New York Times, 2015b). They are

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also apprehensive that the judiciary will take long time to settle the matters in the case of litigations (e.g., Supreme Court of India, 2016), causing additional financial burdens. Interestingly, there are estimations that Indians could make a lot of money—up to “25 times or maybe 100 times more than they’re going to get from farming in perpetuity” (New York Times, 2015b)—if they transfer land. This however can happen only if Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Amendment Bill 2015 is properly implemented. Hence, its proper implementation is the key. However, tracing the history of legislation-based, state-governed, top-down land acquisition approach in India presents a not-so-promising picture (e.g., Somayaji & Talwar, 2011). To streamline the land acquisition process, there are growing demands to take holistic stakeholders’ perspectives into consideration. Michael and Baumann (2016, p. 129) argue that “[f]uture corporate strategies and governmental policies regarding international land deals should embrace a sophisticated process of dialogue, respect, and compensation.” Narain (2009, p. 501) suggests to revisit the “current top-down policies” and replace it with “more participative processes in which landowners and … [users] are involved.” Moreover, “a participatory approach to decisionmaking about [land acquisition] … could truly make the process fairer and more efficient” (Mariotti, 2016, p. 83). Employing a bottom-up approach, the land “transfer … [will be] voluntary and relatively friction-free” (Bardhan, 2011, p. 57). Given India’s geographical vastness and cultural pluralism, a broader social and political consensus is necessary to sustain development policies and programs like land acquisition (Wahi, 2016). Hence, to break the current land acquisition impasse, a holistic stakeholder management is the call of the hour. Turning the pages of history, one can come across Bhoodan, a similar program, which brought various sections of society together to facilitate land transfer in the aftermath of the Indian independence.1 It was led by Vinoba Bhave, a true follower of Mahatma 1

India has a rich history of managing land through spiritual movements. In the recent past, the Chipko movement has created global debates on the role of spirituality in protecting land. It originated in the 1970s and aims at sensitising people regarding preventing deforestation

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Gandhi, and grounded in the ancient Indian concept of Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam.

BHOODAN: VASUDHAIVA KUṬUMBAKAM BASED LAND TRANSFER Indian freedom fighter Vinayak Narahari “Vinoba” Bhave (1895-1982) was one of the most important spiritual leaders and social reformers of India (Jayapalan, 2003). He was considered as the greatest follower of Mahatma Gandhi and known as Gandhi’s spiritual heir (Weber, 2004). Gandhi once had remarked, “Vinoba … has acquired a degree of spirituality and asceticism that took me years of patient labour to attain” (Jayapalan, 2003, pp. 219-220). In 1964, he was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to social justice and world peace (Nobelprize.org, 2017); he was recommended by Martin Luther King, Jr. (King, 2014, p. 361). He received the Raman Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 1958 and Bharat Ratna (India’s highest civilian award) in 1983. He featured on a 1953 cover of the Time Magazine. Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982) was an important figure in the Indian freedom struggle, one of the greatest spiritual leaders and reformers of modern India and, the recipient of the 1958 Raman Magsaysay Award for community leadership and the 1983 Bharat Ratna (India’s highest civilian award). He had taken an early childhood vow to bestow selfless service to the mankind and searched for a way of life that would integrate both spiritual truth and practical action (Nadkarni, 2017). He coined Jai Jagat (victory to the world), chose the world as his family, and pledged to serve and to conserve the ecosystem in the Himalayas. It mainly leveraged the religious culture prevalent in the Northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, which traditionally accords a high value to nature and its creations, including trees, mountains, rivers, etc. and treats them as manifestation of jthe divine powers. It also succeeded in achieving its mission to a greater extent, namely facilitating local forest management through a participatory, bottom-up, and inclusive form of action to protect land erosion and other natural resources on a sustainable basis. We have considered Bhoodan as a means to address the current land acquisition related impasses because: (a) it was a cross-national effort to management land and (b) it dealt with a similar situation as we currently have.

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the entire humankind (Nadkarni, 2017). Once Gandhi had said, “Vinoba … has acquired a degree of spirituality and asceticism that took me years of patient labour to attain” (Jayapalan, 2003, pp. 219-220). Vinoba was considered as the spiritual heir of Gandhi (Nadkarni, 2017). He wholeheartedly advanced Gandhi’s ideals especially the political philosophy of sarvodaya or “the spirit of humanism recast and remodelled on the great Indian saying: vasudhaiva kutumbakam” (Chakrabarti, 1992, p. 82). Sarvodaya embraces the “spiritual fraternity of the universe,” refers to the “indivisible unity of life,” and emphasizes the “spiritual and material development of all” (Narayanasamy, 2003, p. 10). After Gandhi’s death in 1948, Vinoba pioneered the Sarvodaya Samaj (society for the welfare of all) in order to realize Gandhi’s dream India: Ram Rajya, a utopian society where there was no misery, no sorrow, no physical and mental distress (Narayanasamy, 2003). According to Narayanasamy (2003, p. 10): “The goal of Sarvodaya … is to establish a society, where there will be no exploitation of any kind, economic, social, political or cultural. In such a society every individual, big or small, rich or poor, weak or strong will have equal opportunities for all-round development. This is Sarvodaya which means welfare of all. The first step in the path to Sarvodaya, is the welfare of the lowest – ‘Antyodaya.’”

Sarvodaya transcends division and discrimination of any kind. It cherishes the spirit of oneness with fellow human beings. It regards the entire humankind as one family. Meeting the needs of the lowest strata of society was the starting point of Vinoba’s quest toward sarvodaya.

The State of India during Independence During independence, India was an agrarian society and landownership a main indicator of socio-economic status. Nearly seventy percent of the population lived in villages and the share of rural India in the national income was about 50 per cent (Reddy, Ram, Sastry, & Devi, 2004).

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However, the Indian agrarian structure displayed an acute land scarcity and profound inequalities in landownership. Over 60 per cent of the households in rural India were either landless or owned meagre acres of land; the Indian census of 1951 showed that out of 356.83 millions of people, about 44.8 million were landless cultivators (Gupta, 1954). The land-man ratio in rural India was 0.92 acres (per capita), considered very low in comparative standards (Varshney, 1998). Tenancy made this situation more complicated, especially landownership that consisted of complex layers of possession, leasing, and tilling. This was due to the zamindars (absentee landowners) in the Northeast, small landholding owner-cultivators in the Northwest and, varying degrees of ownership and leased-farming in the South, West and Central India (Varshney, 1998). Two major causes were behind the lopsided landownership during independence. First, Indian society was strictly based on the millennia old caste system which was closely connected with landownership (Nedumpara, 2004). The socially dominant upper caste people traditionally owned more land than the lower caste (Nedumpara, 2004). Second, through Permanent Settlement Act, 1793,2 the British colonisers arbitrarily entitled land rights onto many rich landlords to garner their loyalty toward the continuance of the British dominion in India (Chomsky, 1993). The landless constituted 13 per cent of the peasantry in 1891 and rose to 38 per cent in 1931 (Copley, 1997). The British colonisers were simply interested in India as a raw material producing colony, and not in reforming her agrarian system (Chand, 1972). Hence, almost the entire lower caste was subjected to the most grievous oppression. Despite many uprisings by small and the landless peasants against landlords during the colonial era, little was done to reform the landholding structure (Nedumpara, 2004). Notwithstanding the euphoria of independence, uprisings against the upper caste landowners continued in the post-independent India (Brass, 1994). At the time of India’s independence, inequitable landholding therefore was one of the most critical issues. Under auspices of the 2

In 1793, the East India Company granted legal ownership of the land of large numbers of small farmers to a group of zamindars (landowners) in order to streamline the land tax collection. Such arrangements were to last forever, hence called permanent settlement (Dutt, 2001, pp. 81-96).

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Sarvodaya Samaj, Vinoba embarked on a series of reformist movements to address it. Bhoodan was independent India’s first mass movement along Gandhian ideologies of ahimsa (non-violence) and swaraj (self-rule) (S. K., 1958).

Bhoodan: Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam Based Voluntary Land Transfer Movement In 1951, in response to growing peasant revolutions all around India, especially the one by the Communist party of India in Telangana, he launched Bhoodan to empower the landless peasants through landownerships (Wolpert, 2001). Vinoba, with fellow Gandhians, walked through villages, persuading landlords and big landowners to donate land for the landless (Wolpert, 2001). According to Mishra and Narayanasamy (2009, p. 252), he argued in favor of Bhoodan in the following way. “In a just and equitable order of society, land must belong to all. That is why we [Vinoba Bhave and the Sarvodaya Samaj] do not beg for gifts, but demand a share to which the poor are rightly entitled.”

In other words, Vinoba was convinced that world as one family, hence the poor suffering from social and economic maladjustments arising from inequitable landholdings should get justice. The mission of the Bhoodan was “to bring about a Sarvodaya social order – Gandhi’s vision of a stateless society devoted to the welfare of all and founded on non-violence, equality and decentralization” (Church, 1975, p. 94). According to Tennyson (1955, p. 71), to encourage land donations, he used to appeal to the landowners in the following manner: “Like air and water, land belongs to God. To claim it for oneself alone is to oppose the very will of God. And who can be happy if they oppose His will?” To show solidarity with the landless and to assuage their pain, he used to say, “We are all members of a single human family” (Time, 1953). His sole aim was to spread the spirit of giving among the masses. Vinoba

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was not interested in the size of the land donation but “the right spirit … to produce a new atmosphere … and shame the rich into giving more generously” (S. K., 1958, p. 493). For example, he not only accepted 100,000 acres from a maharajah (king), but also a patch of one fortieth of an acre of land donated by a Telangana peasant who owned only one acre himself (Time, 1953). Thus, based on universal brotherhood, he engaged the common man as well as their erstwhile rulers together—an instance of extended stakeholder management. Land was donated voluntarily and was distributed according to need (Figueroa, 1997). Along with Bhoodan, Vinoba spearheaded many other movements with the sole purpose of “rejuvenating Indian rural society” by making it free from barriers between people (S. K., 1958, p. 488). In 1954, Vinoba launched the Gramdan (village-gift) movement, wherein entire villages pledged to transfer land ownership rights and equitably redistribute land among fellow villagers (Wolpert, 2001). In 1958, he began Jivandan (gift of life), i.e., dedicating one’s life toward various socio-economic causes by sharing friendship, love, and solidarity (Wolpert, 2001). Many of India’s influential social and political figures pledged their lives for their fellow underprivileged countrymen. Other notable movements led by Vinoba were Sampatti-Dan (gift of wealth), Shramdan (gift of labor), Shanti Sena (army for peace), and Sarvodaya-Patra (the pot where every household gives handful of grain daily for the entire village) (Wolpert, 2001). Vinoba’s main goal was to create prosperity through solidarity. According to the Time magazine (1958): “His destination: all India. His hope: a saintly communism, achieved through love and non-violence.”

Vinoba quested to accomplish Gandhi’s Ram Rajya through sarvodaya. Bhoodan was an attempt to collect bhūmi (land) for the landless who was as much part of the larger family called vasudhā (the world) as the landlords. Hence, Bhoodan was deeply rooted in the concept of vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam.

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Socio-Economic Impacts of Bhoodan By 1967, when Vinoba withdrew himself from Bhoodan, 4.27 million acres of land were donated; 1.19 million acres were distributed, 1.73 million acres were barren, and 1.34 million acres remained undistributed (which included disputed land) (NCAS, 2005, p. 6). Although the land obtained and distributed were far less than the target of 50 million acres, they were far more than what the government had done to address inequitable landholdings (NCAS, 2005). Bhoodan influenced the national policy-making sphere too. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, acknowledged that land belonged to all and sought Vinoba’s help “to find for India a way of raising food production and the peasant standard of living” (Time, 1958). According to Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, Bhoodan gave “a vision of the [sarvodaya] social order that Mahatma Gandhi envisaged” (Bharathi, 1991, p. 88). Under the direct and indirect influence of the Bhoodan Movement, Many land reform legislations were promulgated—most notably Zamindari Abolition Act. Under this Act, intermediaries between the State and actual tillers were removed, thereby bringing nearly 20 million cultivators into direct contact with the government and distributing some 5.77 million hectares of land (NCAS, 2005). Many tenancy reforms were initiated to address security of land tenure, rent regulation and right of ownership, revising land ceiling limits, etc. (NCAS, 2005). Bhoodan also created multiplier effects by influencing many socio-economic developmental programs in Asia and Africa, especially the Sri Lankan sarvodaya movement which empowered grassroots in Sri Lanka (Melkote & Steeves, 2001, pp. 305-315). The hallmark of Bhoodan was to enable people to see each other as parts of one family. It contained violence through non-violence and maintained peace between the erstwhile exploiters (landlords) and exploited (landless) (Wolpert, 2001). In Vinoba’s words, Bhoodan was effective “in bringing about [changes] in [landlords’] attitudes through [their] feelings of guilt” (Weber, 2001, p. 154). Voluntary transfer of land ensued from Vinoba’s bottom-up spiritual approach. His idea was to

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persuade “the landed to gift their land to their less fortunate compatriots, rather in the same way that Gandhi had favoured ideas of trusteeship and fraternity as means of reform, rather than legislations” (Brown, 2003, pp. 166-167). In short, Bhoodan is a holistic stakeholder management approach that highlights the effectiveness of Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam to address the pressing problems of our times. Table 1 The SWOT Analysis of Bhoodan. Strengths 1. Futuristic vision and time-bound objective mission 2. Organizational strength, resource mobilization, creative strategy, and passionate involvement (of all) 3. Apt timing and launching 4. Stakeholder diversity 5. Direct, personal and face-to-face interaction 6. Inclusive form of governance and management Opportunities 1. Futuristic vision led sustainability and objective mission led short-term success accomplishment 2. The evolution of the ‘sprit of volunteering’ among Indians

Weaknesses 1. Overambitious goals 2. Absence of clarity regarding the objective 3. Mostly a one-man show and taken-forgranted personal beliefs of the leader 4. Being operational in a society overcrowded with too many problems 5. Initial success led complacency 6. Ran into many other programs 7. Operating under more emotional beliefs, and less rational thoughts 8. Non-existence of a Plan B Threats 1. Goal waywardness and difficulties in impact assessment due to overcrowding of programs 2. Absence of a Plan B and hence project’s weaker self-adjustment possibility

There were also many shortcomings in Bhoodan. Its goals were set in a manner that were over ambitious. For instance, 50 million acres of land donation by 1957 was a very high target that was one sixth of the total cultivable area in 1951 (Tandon, 1984). This led to the absense of a clear objective regaring how to obtain such a large quantity of land. Up to threefourths of the collected land was due to the personal influence of Vinoba; Bhoodan got a serious jolt when Vinoba withdrew from the movement in 1967 (Kumar, 2002). Landlords mostly donated unproductive land and thereby not only evaded the land ceiling regulations but also betrayed the cause of Bhoodan, especially in the state of Bihar (Nedumpara, 2004). Bhoodan was financed by the governments of some Indian states, namely

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Bihar, in order to frustrate the peasant demands (Nedumpara, 2004). The distribution of Bhoodan land was often lengthy and intricate (Linton, 1972). Many less-land holders gave away land under Bhoodan, and expected land under Gramdan, which defeated the very purpose of the land-gift movement (Church, 1975). In many cases, the relationship between the landowners and landless was far from cordial; thus, removal of caste and class systems, fostering community living and cooperative farming, as envisaged, mostly did not occur (Nanekar & Khandewale, 1973). In the absence of financial assistance for cultivating the allotted land, the poor peasants were exploited by the traditional money lenders (Nanekar & Khandewale, 1973). Bhoodan had a diverse stakeholder profile. However, to be successful, a movement should have support from fairly homogeneous groups (Oommen, 1972). Some of the prominent Bhoodan leaders used their clout to launch anti-governmental activities, thereby distracting the movement from its original goal (Nedumpara, 2004). Bhoodan became a “system maintaining device,” i.e., served the feudal interests of the rich (landlords), because the land that were donated became government land under Zamindari Abolition Act and hence could not be distributed under the Bhoodan (Nedumpara, 2004, p. 3). Vinoba also acknowledged that Bhoodan’s appeal towards the rich instead of the poor was a fundamental flaw in the movement, because the rich did almost everything to defeat its purpose (Bhave, 2009). Thus, Bhoodan did not lead anywhere near to achieving social and economic justice (Nedumpara, 2004). This chiefly led to the “second awakening of peasant movement” or the Naxalite movement in the 1980s, when peasants, in organised manner, demanded for the implementation of agrarian (and land) reforms that still is continuing in India, mainly through armed struggles (Nedumpara, 2004). Furthermore, the landlords also created their own armed gangs, in some cases with the support of the government, which are still operational, in order to counter these uprisings (Nedumpara, 2004). Thus, the aim of Bhoodan in creating an ambience of peaceful coexistence between the landlords and the landless has been gravely jeopardised. Statistically, the objectives of Bhoodan in giving justice to the landless still have not been achieved if we refer to the Tenth

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Five Year Plan3 (2002-2007) that reveals that sizeable percentage of land, in some states up to forty percent of land, is still operated under concealed tenancy, raising serious doubts about the effectiveness of the various national and regional land reform measures (NCAS, 2005). Nevertheless, Bhoodan was an extraordinary and unprecedented socio-economic developmental endeavour in recorded history to create ‘land reform’ and contain violence through non-violence (Wolpert, 2001). Thus, it is considered as “one of the most significant [events] in India’s history” (Figueroa (1997, p. 44). (Table 1 enumerates Bhoodan’s SWOT analysis.)

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN INDIA IN THE PAST AND INDIA AT PRESENT: A TIME TO REINVENT BHOODAN During independence, India was predominantly an agrarian society. Ellis (1993, p. 8) notes that in such a society “land is more than just another factor of production …. [I]t is the long term security of the family against the hazards of life, and it is part of the social status of the family within village or community.” Inequitable landholding in India was one of the major social problems that led to unrests and uprisings across India. Notably, Champaran and Kheda satyagraha in Bihar and Gujrat respectively, Moplah rebellion in Kerala, and Kisan Sabha movement in Bihar took place during the colonial period; Tebhaga movement in Bengal and Pardi Ghasia satyagraha in Gujarat during independence (Shah, 2004). One of the most widespread, fierce, and long lived peasant movements was led by the communists during 1946-51 in the Telangana region of the erstwhile Hyderabad state. It was ruthlessly suppressed by the state government of Andhra Pradesh, the Indian Army, and landlords (Brass, 1994). Post-independence, India was under grave social turbulence arising out of lack of trust between the haves and have-nots. Launching Bhoodan in the Telangana region was symbolic for mainly two reasons (Brass, 1994). It was an attempt to share the pain of the downtrodden and show 3

The Indian national economy is based in part on planning through Five Year Plans.

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solidarity with them. At the same time, it sent a strong message to the government and landlords about their atrocities against humanity. Hence, during independence, the dominant issue was inequitable landownership caused trust deficits between the landless peasants and, the government and landlords. Since independence, India’s aspiration is to become a developed country. The present Indian government emphasizes urbanization and industrialization as the means of growth (New York Times, 2015a). Availability of land is vital for economic growth (Bardhan, 2011; Nielsen, 2015). However, land acquisition—an eminent domain—is emerging as one of “India’s ‘biggest problem’” (Chakravorty, 2016, p. 49). In densely populated countries like India, “this has now become a major bone of contention between farmers and those who need land for commercial [purpose]; … sometimes leading to social unrest and violence” (Bardhan, 2011, p, 55). Be it Greenpeace being targeted by the Indian government for exposing the unsustainable land acquisition activities of its major donor the Adani Group (BBC, 2015), Amnesty International India (2016) criticizing the government for bulldozing the homes and hearts of tribal population in the name of mining, Tata Motors pulling out from its Nano car factory project in Singur due to fierce agitations by farmers who were forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands (Fernandes, 2007), farmers protesting government excesses to acquire more land to build urban clusters along the Yamuna Expressway project in Uttar Pradesh (Business Today, 2011); the issue of land acquisition is awash with instances of human rights violations, political apathy, corporate irresponsibility, and lost business opportunities. Land- owners and users are still distrustful of the government and companies, and their intentions to acquire land due to past abuses. Instances of reckless land acquisition have led to many sustainability challenges. Land related impasses had led to the “second awakening of peasant movement”—the Naxalite movement—in the late 1960s, which still is continuing, on many occasions with the direct involvement of the tribal people, mainly through armed struggles (Hardiman, 2003, p. 207-210). At present, there are trust deficits between the land- owners and users, and the government and corporations. Hence,

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there is a striking similarity between India at the time of independence and now—trust deficits related to land. After independence, under the auspices of Sarvodaya Samaj, Vinoba lunched Bhoodan—grounded in vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam—to bring all the stakeholders (landless peasants, landlords, and the government) together and urged the landlords and policy-makers to solve the inequitable landholding problem. At present, availability of land is vital for economic growth, but existing political leadership and laws are insufficient to motivate voluntary land transfer. To increase GDP growth rate, the government forcibly acquires land using eminent domain (Dias, 2009; Nielsen, 2015). As discussed, this has led to serious sustainability challenges and can affect long-term growth (World Bank, 2016b; see also Nielsen, 2015). It is also said that “unless the standoff over the land acquisition is sorted … [the Indian government] cannot go through with … [its] ambitious economic reforms agenda for India” (Forbes, 2015). Hence, it becomes an imperative for land- owners and users to transfer land to business to stimulate the holistic development of India. At the heart of both the scenarios lies the trust deficit between the land- owners and users, and the land-seekers. This situation beckons reinventing Bhoodan— Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition—under the auspices of the UN Global Compact.

Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam Based Land Acquisition Trust deficit between the stakeholders needs to be improved to enable voluntary transfer of land. We are emphasizing on voluntary land transfer because, in addition to bringing down transaction costs, it helps creating social harmony, protecting local history and cultures, and mitigating sustainability challenges (Nielsen, 2015). We identify corporations, the government, civil society organizations (CSOs) and, land- owners and users as the salient stakeholders based on their power, legitimacy, and sense of urgency to streamline land acquisition (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997) or core stakeholders (Freeman et al., 2004). To be effective,

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Bhoodan like initiatives ought to be appealing to all the stakeholders. It is already mentioned that Bhoodan’s appeal towards the rich instead of the poor was a grave shortcoming (Bhave, 2005). Moreover, Bhoodan’s overreliance on Vinoba as the leader also often led to top-down than bottom-up decision-making (see Table 1). Hence, we propose a decentralised, stakeholder centric structural and functional mechanism to address the current land acquisition related impasses by reinventing Bhoodan.

Figure 1. Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition business ethics conceptualization: Spiritual and holistic stakeholder management to enable voluntary land transfer based on Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam to create sarvodaya.

At present, business and the government wield enormous power and influence of in the issue of land transfer acquisition. We assume that the power of the land- owners and users comes from the ensuing sustainability challenges. In addition to loss of GDP, this could invite censures from multilateral bodies leading to loss of image and credibility of India. CSOs, like Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Greenpeace, are already involved

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in advocacy and research activities concerning the sustainability challenges arising from forcible land acquisition (Chakravorty, 2016; Fernandes, 2009). They also enjoy more trust from public than the government or business (Edelman, 2009). Hence, their presence in the stakeholder profile would balance competing interests and help building trust. Nevertheless, we recognize the potential of unceremonious alliance formation between some of these stakeholders, e.g., between the government and corporations as in the case of crony capitalism. We plan to mitigate it by adding a fifth salient stakeholder: the UN Global Compact (UNGC). A change program often involves unethical aspects arising out of, say, power and politics (Burnes, 2009). It usually being a top-down process, the people at the top impose their own agendas at the cost of the interest of the less powerful, defeating the very purpose of the program (Burnes, 2009). This is problematic in the context of moral dimension of stakeholder management (Freeman et al., 2004). It is argued that the diffusion of democratic participation into society is important to resolve social conflicts, particularly matters related to social injustice and improving human conditions (e.g., Lewin, 1948, pp. 201-220). In this regard, we include UNGC in the stakeholder profile. The rationale behind involving UNGC is fivefold. One, the United Nations bodies are taken seriously worldwide, including in India, because they champion democratic values. Second, UNGC is world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative. Three, its participants comprise both corporations and CSOs. Four, UNGC has more than 12500 participants from nearly 170 countries, many of whom are operating in India. Hence, UNGC is a salient stakeholder because of its power, legitimacy, and sense of urgency to streamline land acquisition. Before we enumerate the fifth, it is imperative to mention that approximately three-fourths of the Bhoodan land was collected due to the personal influence of Vinoba. Bhoodan got a serious jolt when Vinoba withdrew from the movement in 1967 (Kumar, 2002). Hence, being led by an organization like UNGC rather than an individual can make voluntary land transfer sustainable. Succinctly, the role of UNGC in reinventing Bhoodan is akin to Sarvodaya Samaj in the case of Bhoodan of the 1950’s. Finally, the immediate goal of this coalition,

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comprising corporations, the government, CSOs, land- owners and users, and UNGC, is to raise trust levels among them through the propagation of the right thought—the entire earth is one family. This can lead to better stakeholder relations, holistic stakeholder management, and voluntary transfer of land—Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition. The details of its structural and functional mechanism are depicted in Figure 1. This, we suppose, can be the beginning of the sustainable (spiritual) business.

DISCUSSION, CONTRIBUTIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS India’s current land acquisition ordeal is rooted in its history. Both millennia old caste system and centuries long colonial rule have accentuated it further. The issue of land acquisition is stained by sustainability challenges. As many findings suggest, doing business as usual—involving the traditional stakeholders, like the government, judiciary, and financers—employing political, legal, and financial means— has not done much to improve the situation. In this context, there are arguments for bottom-up participatory forms of land acquisition in which land- owners and users are directly involved, i.e., holistic stakeholder management. However, trust deficit between the public and, the government and business due to past land acquisition related abuses is seriously hindering voluntary transfer of land for commercial use. This illustrates the complexity of stakeholder management vis-à-vis sustainable (spiritual) business in the context of land acquisition. It is argued that true sustainability is rooted in spirituality and religion. In the spiritual realm, we all are interconnected, i.e., the oneness of the entire creation. Premising on this holistic view and borrowing ideas from a historical event Bhoodan, we propose a bottom-up spiritual and holistic stakeholder management means: Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition. The reinvented Bhoodan’s stakeholder profile involves UNGC, corporations, the

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government, CSOs and, land- owners and users. Its guiding mantra is Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam. Reinvented Bhoodan will enable better stakeholder relations and voluntary land transfers; hence mitigate sustainability challenges arising from forcible land acquisition. Although Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 was an attempt to enhance justice and rights aspects of land acquisition (Chakravorty, 2016), it was seen as anti-business and subsequently amended as Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Amendment Bill 2015. As mentioned, the latter removed provisions that were vital to protect the interests of land- owners and users, which deprived them of natural rights and justice. Moreover, the existing compensation based on market price is not an indicator of social justice because land acquisition on many occasions entails lost livelihoods (Ghatak & Ghosh, 2011). Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition can contribute to the rights and justice aspects of stakeholder management.

Theoretical Contributions The stakeholders generally are located in their original position, i.e., “behind a Rawls-like veil of ignorance,” so that “they do not know what stake each will have when the veil is lifted” (Freeman, 1994, p. 417). In this condition, it is rational for them to act in the best interest of everyone (Rawls, 1971). This ideally should be based on the two principles of justice, i.e., principle of equal liberty and difference principle—justice as fairness (Rawls, 1971); see also Freeman, 1994). Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition, under the auspices of the UNGC, is an endeavor in this regard. Rawls’s (1971, p. 3) argues that “each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” At present, the Indian government, abetted by business, is trying to justify smaller losses caused to farmers as necessary evils to achieve greater economic progress. These utilitarian approaches to development are unsustainable (see Mann & Bonanomi, 2016; Wisborg,

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2014). By stressing on the entire world as one family, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition would bestow basic rights and liberty—i.e., human dignity—to the land- owners and users. This state of equal liberty is vital to enhance their dignity, build trust between them and the government and companies, and enable greater voluntary participation in the land acquisition process (Michael & Baumann, 2016). In the process, the land- owners and users realize the importance of land for the economic development of India. Importantly, they also understand that to get benefitted from greater industrialization tomorrow, they today need to transfer land. As development is an ongoing process, it is rational for the government and companies to reciprocate genuinely. The presence of UNGC and CSOs ensures that the system has inbuilt checks and balances. (See: Figure 1 for the structural and functional aspects of voluntary land transfer.) Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition Hence, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition attempts fair social and economic inequalities among the stakeholders, with varying bargaining powers at different times. Vinoba also was not averse to social and economic inequalities because all he aimed at was sarvodaya (well-being of all), not samanwaya (equality of all). It fulfills Rawls’ (1971) difference principle. In this way, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition satisfies Rawls’ (1971) emphasis on the lexical ordering of two principles. In line with justice as fairness, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition is an attempt to manage stakeholders through normative form of solidarity. In this setting, “men agree to share one another’s fate” (Rawls, 1971, p. 102). This has clear similarities with Vinoba’s expectations from Bhoodan, who used to say, “All my activities have the sole purpose of achieving a union of hearts” (Shepard, 1987, p. 11). By highlighting the importance of multiple worldviews, including the landowners’ and users’, we acknowledge the positive view of human nature highlighting their genuine concern toward and mutual respect for each other. This is in line with Rawls’ (1993, p. xxiv) notion of “reasonable pluralism” and Rorty’s (1989, p. 196) call for creating a “more expansive sense of solidarity than we presently have.” Freeman and colleagues (1994,

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2002, 2003) endorses them as strategic for today’s stakeholder management. A Rawlsian “realistic utopia” as proposed in Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition presupposes the existence of a plurality of centers of decision-making (Mouffe, 2005, p. 231). Considering that the Indian society is hierarchical, importing Rawls’ western liberal model into the Indian context could be challenging. However, by enabling “greater participation in decision making” for the land-owners and users, we anticipate “an increase in the perceived fairness of the outcomes” (Phillips, Freeman, & Wicks, 2003, p. 487). Moreover, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition stresses voluntary transfer of land. Hence, it can address the libertarian challenge toward the difference principle which argues that entitlement of social and economic goods are justified only if their ownerships are just acquisitions (Nozick, 2013 [1974]). In a nutshell, increase in perceived fairness and voluntary transactions can ultimately create obligations among the stakeholders and ongoing interactions among them (Phillips, 1997, p. 63).

Contributions to Practitioners From the practitioners’ perspective, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition can help business leaders to enmesh business ethics of rights and justice tenets enshrined by Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam into decision-making process. This can raise operational efficacy and global performance (Webley & More, 2003). For, it can lead to the creating (longterm) shared value, i.e., enabling land-owners and users’ wellbeing that simultaneously can create a bottom-up land acquisition means, less land related legal litigations, peaceful business ecosystem, and sustainable value addition to business (see Porter & Kramer, 2011). Second, this can prove to be a significant step toward envisioning the sustainable business. For, it can facilitate the creation of “moralist corporate stakeholder culture” wherein managers will take into consideration the genuine concerns of stakeholders (Jones, Felps, & Bigley, 2007). Third, it can create a

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harmonious relationship between business and society (Mackey & Sisodia, 2013).

Shortcomings and Future Research Directions Change programs are often marred by unethical acts by powerful entities. Vinoba himself had acknowledged that Bhoodan’s orientation toward landlords was a monumental flaw because they did everything to defeat its purpose (Bhave, 2005). In case of Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition, CSOs can act like a “civil regulation” and balance competing interests (Zadek, 2007, pp. 76-89). Moreover, UNGC can help in diffusing democratic participation into society to resolve social conflicts related to social injustice and improving human conditions. From spirituality perspective, UNGC’s community and relationships orientation can infuse a sense of other-centeredness into Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition, mitigating free-riding tendencies. Nevertheless, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition will face considerable challenges because of its emphasis on a spiritual solution to a material problem. In line with De Roover & Balagangadhara’s (2008, p. 545) emphasis on exploring “how cultures other than the West have tackled and solved the problem of pluralism,” we have argued that Bhoodan can balance diverse interests of stakeholders in the context of land acquisition and create their wellbeing, spiritually (see also Jones et al., 2007). The present society however on many occasions ignores “the importance of particularistic resources in solving problems of modern society;” it instead emphasizes on economic resources (Foa, 1971, p. 345). However, both economic and particularistic resources are necessary for effective societal functioning (Foa, 1971). This is especially true in the context of land acquisition related sustainability challenges where stakeholders can “agree to share one another’s fate” (Rawls, 1971, p. 102).

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Thus, Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam is not merely a hoax at present but a societal necessity. Future research in this regard can be to generate a generative mechanism for Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition and operationalize various spiritual mechanisms and constructs to study voluntary land transfer programs (see Coleman, 1986). Lastly, let us discuss Daniels’ (1989) critique of Rawls’ two-principles. Principle of equal liberty facilitates socio-economic equality. However, equal liberty can lead to a state wherein people may find themselves having unequal resources due to say different levels of intelligence, endowment, socio-cultural norms and values, etc. This is why Rawls subsequently incorporates the difference principle as a check and balance mechanism that can ensure that socio-economic positions are open to all and accessible to the weakest sections of society. However, Daniels (1989, p. 254 ff) argues that principle of equal liberty and difference principle may be incompatible if equality facilitated by the former leads to a situation of inequality that is beyond the scope of the latter. What should be the size of the inequality allowed by difference principle and how much better off the least advantaged would be under it than under a strict equality principle are matters of debate (Allingham, 2014, p. 18). This can be a future research area. He further goes on to say that difference principle may be incompatible if inequalities allowed by the latter are large. Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam is silent about it because it assumes an egalitarian society. What should be the size of the inequalities allowed by difference principle and how much better off the least advantaged would be under it than under a strict equality principle are matters of debate (Allingham, 2014, p. 18). This can be a future research area. Furthermore, Rawls’ difference principle, in order to be effective, needs political authority, in addition to complex economic distribution mechanisms and adequate legal structures (Freeman, 2007). Future studies could explore how business could use the clout of multilateral bodies, like UNGC, to withstand pressure from corrupt governments, like India, and garner legitimacy in society (e.g., Whitehouse, 2003).

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CONCLUSION “Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies” (Stiglitz, 2006, p. 50). Yet, in the case of land acquisition, the plight of the community has been ignored by the government and business in the current top-down style of land acquisition. Economic, political, and legal measures have not been enough to improve the situation. Due to past abuses regarding compensation and rehabilitation, there are deep mistrust among the land- owners and users toward the government and business. Premising on the interconnection between stakeholder concept, spirituality and religion, and sustainability, we underline the importance of the concept Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam and its application Bhoodan in the context of land acquisition. In the process, we propose a bottom-up spiritual and holistic stakeholder management means—Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam based land acquisition—as a pro-active responsibility strategy (with business) to generate trust among stakeholders, enable voluntary land transfers, mitigate sustainability challenges, and create holistic development through sustainable (spiritual) business.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKTECH Siddharth Mohapatra Affiliation: Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode Education: PhD in business and management Research and Professional sustainability, motherly manager

Experience:

Professional

ethics,

Publications from the Last 3 Years: Mohapatra, S. & Verma, P. (2018). Sevā, Swarāj, and Digital India: Sustaining Digitalization for Good-Governance. South Asian Journal of Management, 25, 150-169. (ABDC listed). Mohapatra, S. & Verma, P. (2018). Tata as a sustainable enterprise: The causal role of spirituality. Journal of Human Values, 24, 153-165. (Scopus listed).

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Verma, P. & Mohapatra, S. (2017). The combined use of formal and informal ethics training in the Indian IT Companies. In S. Raghunath & E. Rose (Eds.), International business strategy: Perspectives on implementation in emerging markets: 357-384. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Verma, P., Mohapatra, S. & Löwstedt, J. (2016). Ethics training in the Indian IT sector: Formal, informal or both? Journal of Business Ethics, 133, 73-93. (FT 50 listed). Mohapatra, S. (2016). ‘Talking the walk’ and ‘taking the walk’ of responsibility: Sustainable development through core competency based business responsibility. Saarbrücken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing.

Pratima Verma Affiliation: Alliance University Education: PhD in business and management Research and Professional Experience: OB and HR management, business ethics Publications from the Last 3 Years: Mohapatra, S. & Verma, P. (2018). Sevā, Swarāj, and Digital India: Sustaining Digitalization for Good-Governance. South Asian Journal of Management, 25, 150-169. (ABDC listed). Mohapatra, S. & Verma, P. (2018). Tata as a sustainable enterprise: The causal role of spirituality. Journal of Human Values, 24, 153-165. (Scopus listed). Verma, P. & Mohapatra, S. (2017). The combined use of formal and informal ethics training in the Indian IT Companies. In S. Raghunath & E. Rose (Eds.), International business strategy: Perspectives on

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207

implementation in emerging markets, 357-384. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Verma, P., Mohapatra, S. & Löwstedt, J. (2016). Ethics training in the Indian IT sector: Formal, informal or both? Journal of Business Ethics, 133, 73-93. (FT 50 listed).

INDEX A acquisitions, 166, 170, 190, 196 actuality, 125, 145, 153 African American religious beliefs on death, 84 African Americans, ix, 84, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 108, 111, 113 age, viii, ix, 2, 52, 62, 63, 64, 67, 71, 84, 89, 92, 94, 95, 98, 132, 151 alternative medicine, 14, 16, 19, 35, 41 analysis of variance, 67 annihilation, x, 116, 124, 127, 134, 136 anthropocentrism, 153 anthropological discipline, 34 anthropology, vii, viii, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 12, 17, 20, 35, 36, 44, 48, 96 anxiety, 23, 57, 59, 61, 72, 98, 107, 108, 126, 134 atheists, vii, viii, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73 attitudes, viii, ix, 2, 10, 34, 37, 44, 84, 86, 92, 96, 98, 102, 103, 179 authenticity, 17, 54, 133

awareness, ix, 5, 14, 17, 84, 105, 121, 125, 148, 150

B background noise, 147 barriers, 46, 89, 90, 105, 178 behaviors, 6, 89, 98, 106 belief systems, 3, 7, 17, 99 believer, 38, 42, 130 benefits, 55, 58, 61, 94, 105, 170, 172 benevolence, 166 Bhoodan, viii, xi, 160, 163, 164, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 191, 193, 194, 195, 200, 201, 204 Bible, 2, 25, 46, 98, 100 biographical method, xi, 160, 165, 194 biomedical knowledge, 19 blood, 29, 45, 131, 133, 134 bottom-up, 173, 174, 179, 185, 187, 190, 193 Buddhism, 117, 118, 120, 128, 133, 136, 138 business, vi, xi, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 167, 168, 171, 172, 183, 184, 185, 187,

210

Index

188, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 199, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 business ethics, 185, 190, 204, 206 business strategy, 206

C cancer, 8, 43, 44, 85, 87, 95, 114 capitalism, 186, 199, 204 categorization, viii, x, 51, 60, 140, 144, 152 causality, 32, 120, 121, 130, 136 certainty, viii, 51, 60, 61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 133, 135 challenges, 90, 161, 164, 171, 183, 184, 185, 187, 191, 193, 200, 201, 202, 203 checks and balances, 189 childhood, ix, 95, 116, 130, 174 children, 23, 95, 105, 108 Christianity, 37, 42, 43, 48, 97, 98, 101 Christians, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 97 cities, 28, 29, 172, 201 citizenship, 195, 199, 203 civil rights, 101 civil society, 184, 203 civil society organization, 184 clarity, 120, 148, 180 classification, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 19, 63, 67 cognitive dimension, 65 cognitive process, 105 collective unconscious, 9 commercial, xi, 159, 161, 164, 183, 187 communication, 3, 4, 17, 22, 24, 32, 37, 41, 86, 101 community, vii, ix, 4, 12, 36, 53, 57, 61, 83, 94, 96, 97, 98, 101, 103, 106, 160, 161, 164, 169, 170, 174, 181, 182, 191, 193, 198 compensation, 162, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 173, 188, 193, 196 competing interests, 186, 191 conflict, 13, 19, 90, 162, 195, 200, 204

consciousness, 3, 6, 14, 34, 97, 100, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 129, 132, 134, 135, 136, 163 consensus, 16, 162, 170, 171, 173 construction, 18, 22, 54, 171 consumption, 15, 23, 205 cost, 93, 162, 168, 169, 186 criminal justice system, 102 crosstabulation, 68 cultural differences, 9, 88 cultural norms, 192 cultural transformation, 6 culture, 5, 6, 9, 10, 20, 21, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 46, 53, 54, 85, 88, 96, 107, 108, 134, 156, 169, 174, 190, 199, 203

D dark objects, x, 140, 144, 147, 151, 154 darkness, 132, 141, 143, 145, 147, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 157 death, vii, ix, 4, 14, 15, 17, 18, 34, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 141, 155, 156, 175 death and dying, 84, 95, 96, 97 decision-making process, 190 delusion, 126, 128, 133 depression, 45, 57, 72 developing countries, 194 developmental process, 48 directives, 86, 88, 91, 101 discrimination, 91, 92, 106, 114, 175 diseases, viii, 1, 3, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 41, 43, 85 displacement, 196, 199, 202, 203 diversity, 9, 94, 105, 106, 180 doctors, 8, 24, 25, 33, 88, 90, 103 donations, 8, 15, 166, 177

Index dream, 4, 103, 116, 120, 121, 130, 175

E economic development, 179, 182, 189 economic goods, 190 economic growth, 162, 167, 183, 184, 194 economic policy, 193 economic progress, 172, 188 economic reform, 184 economic resources, 191, 197 ecosystem, 162, 174, 190 education, 63, 89, 105 emerging markets, 206, 207 eminent domain, 169, 171, 172, 183, 184, 196 emotional experience, 12 emotional state, 65, 71 end of life care, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 entrepreneurs, 194, 196, 197, 199 entrepreneurship, 200, 201 environment, 3, 7, 53, 94, 103, 105, 106, 162, 167 epistemology, 149, 151, 154 equality, 123, 177, 189, 192 ethics, xi, 118, 120, 123, 128, 136, 160, 205, 206 ethnic groups, 93 evidence, 17, 18, 23, 32, 34, 35, 36, 48, 57, 58, 72, 88, 90, 97, 148 evidence-based validation, 17 evil, 23, 28, 37, 40, 118, 119, 120, 122, 132, 135, 153 exclusion, x, 11, 19, 33, 34, 46, 140, 143, 145, 150 existentialism, 123, 128 extinction, 119, 126, 127, 134, 135, 136, 156 extraction, 120, 132, 142

211 F

faith, viii, 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 16, 18, 19, 22, 30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 100, 101, 102, 106 faith healings, 2, 41 fallenness, v, 115, 126, 127, 130, 134, 135, 136, 137, 147 family members, 86, 108 family relationships, 96 farmers, 166, 171, 176, 183, 188, 200, 202 fear, 12, 65, 97, 107, 116, 123, 127, 135, 155, 169 feelings, 56, 90, 148, 179 female, viii, 52, 63, 72 financial, 87, 161, 162, 172, 173, 181, 187 food production, 179 food security, 203 freedom, 44, 87, 123, 129, 157, 174

G gender differences, 73 gender identity, 150 God, viii, 3, 7, 10, 16, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 37, 39, 51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 72, 76, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 146, 177 government, 8, 30, 91, 162, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 192, 193, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203 growth, 54, 86, 162, 183, 184, 193, 194, 198, 205

H happiness, viii, 44, 52, 54, 55, 59, 62, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 105, 114

212

Index

healing, vii, viii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48 healings in the Bible, 2 health, 3, 4, 8, 18, 20, 21, 22, 33, 40, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 64, 72, 74, 84, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 114 health care, 33, 64, 86, 89, 91, 92, 94, 101, 102, 104, 105 health care system, 33, 91, 102 health disparities, 84, 89, 103, 109, 110, 114 health insurance, 92 health promotion, 53 health services, 44 health status, 40, 44, 89, 94 Heidegger, 9, 117, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 132, 134, 136, 137 hermeneutics, v, 1, 2, 5, 34 historical data, xi, 160, 165 history, 5, 30, 97, 173, 182, 184, 187 holistic stakeholder management, 159, 160, 163, 173, 180, 185, 187, 193 homelessness, 149, 152 hospice, 84, 86, 90, 92, 93, 94, 105, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114 human, ix, 2, 3, 5, 6, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 35, 37, 40, 53, 54, 74, 91, 97, 107, 108, 115, 116, 130, 142, 147, 149, 153, 161, 162, 166, 175, 177, 183, 186, 189, 191 human activity, 35 human behavior, 108 human condition, 186, 191 human dignity, 189 human existence, 2, 40 human experience, 5 human motivation, 108 human nature, 53, 74, 161, 189 human right, 162, 183 human virtue, 166 humanism, 153, 175

hypothesis, 62, 116, 152

I identification, 3, 4, 13, 19, 119 imagination, 17, 129 immune system, 45, 55 impact assessment, 170, 180 independence, 163, 167, 169, 173, 175, 176, 182, 183, 184, 193, 194, 195, 204 India, xi, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206 Indians, 13, 23, 31, 162, 167, 169, 173, 180 individuals, 3, 55, 56, 59, 61, 73, 86, 87, 95, 98, 161, 169 industrialization, 167, 183, 189 inevitability, 86, 124, 132 institutions, ix, 5, 11, 20, 84, 90, 92, 96, 106 integrity, 21, 36, 119 intermediaries, 179 internalization, 54, 90 intervention, 16, 38, 95 investment, 161, 170, 172 invitation to participate, 62 issues, 21, 34, 90, 107, 176, 202, 203

J judiciary, 173, 187 jurisdiction, 162, 171, 203 justice as fairness, 188, 189

K karma, 117, 118, 121, 122, 124, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 165

Index L land acquisition, vi, viii, xi, 159, 161, 162, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203 land tenure, 179 land-owners and users, xi, 159, 163, 190 Laruelle, v, vii, x, 139, 142, 145, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 157 laws, 6, 13, 15, 33, 91, 121, 162, 170, 184, 198, 202 leadership, 174, 193, 197, 199, 200, 202, 203, 204 liberty, 188, 192, 194, 195, 196 life expectancy, 45, 94 life satisfaction, 55, 58, 65 Lointain, v, x, 139, 140, 143, 152 love, 25, 137, 142, 143, 145, 147, 149, 153, 163, 178

M male, viii, 52, 72 management, xi, 96, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 166, 173, 174, 178, 180, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 193, 205, 206 Martin, 113, 117, 123, 136, 137, 174, 200 matter, 84, 87, 96, 118, 121, 162 meaning in life, 33, 55, 74 medical, vii, viii, ix, 1, 2, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 28, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 52, 84, 85, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 113 medical anthropology, vii, viii, 1, 2, 12, 17, 18, 20, 44, 47, 48 medical care, 89, 91, 92, 93, 104 Medicare, 92, 93, 94, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113

213

medicine, 3, 5, 7, 8, 16, 41, 42, 44, 85, 107 mental disorder, 57 mental health, 48, 49, 54, 57, 59, 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 110, 112 mental illness, 127 mental state, 148 Mishima, v, vii, ix, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138 models, viii, 1, 7, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 24, 32, 35, 45, 200, 201 morality, 44, 128, 133, 134 mortality, 44, 55, 64, 84, 107, 108, 125 multidimensional, 55 multinational companies, 161 multinational corporations, 203 multiple factors, 53 multiple realities, 2, 13, 14, 46

N natural resources, 161, 171, 174 natural science, 18, 36, 46 nihilism, 119, 133 non-believer, vii, viii, 51, 56, 59 nothingness, x, 116, 118, 125, 129, 135, 137, 151

O opportunities, xi, 105, 159, 175, 183, 203 ownership, viii, xii, 160, 165, 166, 169, 176, 178, 179

P pain, 85, 87, 103, 120, 142, 177, 182 palliative, 84, 86, 101, 126, 127 palliative care, 84, 86, 90, 101, 109

214

Index

participants, viii, 14, 52, 53, 61, 63, 64, 66, 73, 86, 90, 99, 131, 186 peace, 96, 174, 178, 179 physical health, 59, 61, 62, 64, 68, 69, 70 physicians, 24, 38, 39 physiological factors, 30 pluralism, vii, viii, 1, 16, 173, 189, 191 poetry, 9, 50, 134, 145 politics, 156, 186, 194, 197, 203 population, viii, 52, 59, 62, 73, 88, 89, 90, 98, 105, 106, 107, 162, 171, 175, 183 poverty, 39, 146, 194, 202 poverty reduction, 202 prayer, 3, 31, 32, 41, 42 primary caregivers, 93 principles, 15, 165, 188, 192 profit, 30, 141, 196, 197, 199 project, 64, 168, 171, 180, 183 proposition, 108, 116, 124, 156, 166 psychological well-being, v, vii, viii, ix, 44, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 79 psychology, 49, 53, 56, 62, 72, 74, 96 psychosomatic, 4, 13, 18, 24, 30, 32 public policy, 86, 89, 106, 200 purity, 19, 33, 121, 131, 133, 135 purpose in life, 54, 55, 57, 58, 74

R Rawls, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 200, 202 reality, ix, x, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 30, 31, 32, 36, 40, 44, 46, 55, 56, 60, 87, 116, 121, 124, 126, 130, 140, 141, 143, 161 recovery, viii, 2, 5, 22, 23, 29, 30, 32, 42 redemption, x, 116 rehabilitation, 162, 169, 193, 197, 202, 203 Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, 170, 171, 188

Rehabilitation and Resettlement Amendment Bill 2015, 170, 173, 188 rejection, 40, 123, 128, 134, 142, 157 religion, viii, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 40, 44, 48, 49, 50, 56, 57, 58, 63, 96, 97, 98, 106, 107, 111, 116, 145, 160, 161, 162, 187, 193 religiosity, 10, 44, 107 religious beliefs, 58, 84, 88, 101, 103 religious function, 7 religious interpretations, 2, 10 religious traditions, 59, 107 religiousness, 41, 98 resettlement, 169, 196, 197, 199, 202, 203 resources, 53, 59, 161, 169, 171, 191, 192, 197 response, 30, 100, 118, 177 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, 170, 171, 172, 188

S sacrifice, 14, 28, 30, 130, 133, 138 Sarvodaya, 175, 177, 178, 184, 186, 203 satisfaction with life, 53, 54, 65, 72, 75 school, 16, 25, 35, 63, 118, 165 science, 7, 42, 61, 76, 96 scientific method, 57 scientific observation, 157 scientific understanding, 18 secular, 58, 59, 73, 107 security, 168, 179, 182, 195 security guard, 168, 195 self-actualization, 54, 62, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72 services, ix, 13, 84, 85, 86, 89, 92, 93, 104, 105, 166, 205 shared value, 190, 202 signs, 2, 3, 4, 5, 27, 29, 30, 37 sociability, 149, 150, 152, 153, 157 social conflicts, 186, 191

Index social context, 33, 54 social justice, 56, 89, 169, 174, 188, 194 social life, 131, 153 social network, 58, 59 social order, 177, 179 social problems, 182 social psychology, 204 social reality, 15, 127 social relations, 54, 151 social responsibility, 200 social structure, 33, 97, 106 social support, 13, 45, 59 society, ix, x, xi, 8, 19, 20, 23, 33, 36, 53, 54, 84, 91, 97, 103, 105, 116, 120, 130, 134, 136, 141, 160, 164, 165, 166, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 182, 186, 188, 190, 191, 192, 199, 203 socioeconomic status, 85, 90 solidarity, 96, 177, 178, 183, 189 spiritual awakening, viii, 2 spirituality, v, vii, viii, ix, xi, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 16, 44, 48, 49, 51, 52, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 63, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84, 86, 95, 97, 104, 106, 115, 116, 117, 139, 159, 160, 161, 162, 173, 174, 175, 187, 191, 193,205, 206 spirituality of death, 84 stakeholder, vi, viii, xi, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 166, 170, 173, 178, 180, 181, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 193, 199 stakeholder concept, viii, xii, 160, 166, 193 stakeholder management, vi, xi, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 173, 178, 180, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 193 stress, 45, 57, 74, 107 structure, 6, 88, 101, 119, 141, 144, 171, 176 subjective well-being, 53, 62, 65, 68, 69, 71, 76, 78, 80 subjectivity, ix, 115, 121, 123, 128, 129, 142, 152

215

suicidal ideation, 45 suicide, x, 45, 118, 130, 131, 140, 143, 168 supernatural, 3, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 36, 38, 40 sustainability, 160, 161, 162, 164, 171, 180, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 193, 201, 205

T tax collection, 176 taxonomy, 19 technology, 85, 132, 163 theist, 16, 18, 63, 64, 68, 70 theoretical approach, 53 therapeutic change, 21 therapy, 3, 13, 41, 48 training, 106, 206, 207 transaction costs, 169, 184 transcendence, 5, 10, 11, 19, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45, 46, 123, 134, 144 treatment, 20, 41, 62, 86, 88, 94, 102, 103, 104, 107

U UN Global Compact, 184, 186 uncertainty, viii, 51, 52, 60, 61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 96, 147 undecided, v, vii, viii, 51, 52, 59, 61, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 United Nations, 186 United States, 84, 92, 106, 109, 110, 111 universe, 7, 15, 18, 55, 58, 141, 145, 147, 148, 152, 153, 154, 157, 175

216

Index V

Vasudhaiva Kuṭumbakam, viii, xi, 160, 163, 164, 165, 174, 177, 180, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193 Vinoba Bhave, 173, 174, 177, 204 violence, 91, 133, 153, 177, 178, 179, 182, 183 vision, 2, 121, 132, 137, 146, 148, 151, 163, 177, 179, 180, 199 visions, 40, 42, 195, 204 voiding, 15, 124, 129 voluntary land transfer, xi, 160, 164, 177, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 192, 193

W well-being, viii, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 106, 163, 189 well-being outcomes, 59, 73 worldview, 56, 58, 60, 61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 117, 133 worldwide, 3, 186

X Xuanzang, 120, 122, 125, 129, 138