Religion and atheism from a gender perspective

In August 2010 the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, summarising the results of the World Values 2005 survey, released them under the headline ‘Religion is a women’s issue’. Is atheism and secularity then, by contrast, an issue for men? It is tempting to answer the question positively when one looks at the names of the new atheist bestselling authors, or the names in the index lists in the back pages of books with reference to atheism, as well as the names of the researchers into atheism and secularity: they tend to be male much more often than female. In this paper I will examine the ways in which both religiosity and non-religiosity and atheism are gendered phenomena. I also look at feminists’ views on religion by pointing out in which ways they intersect with the opinions of the new atheist texts. Because both (second wave) feminists and atheists consider religion from a relatively narrow point of view, I’ll bring out the ways in which the contemporary study of religion defines, sees and studies religion and religiousness, while it takes the concept of gender seriously. I also discuss the seemingly indisputable fact which the stat­istics point to; namely that women tend to be more religious than men and men tend to be more often atheist than women (my examples are mostly from the Finnish context). I also present some models of explanation which scholars have applied to these problems

Esoteric and occult Sweden

Review of Per Faxneld's Det ockulta sekelskiftet. Esoteriska strömningar i Hilma af Klints tid (Stockholm: Volante, 2020)

A relation of Swedenborgianism and anthroposophy: The case of the Finnish author Kersti Bergroth and her novel The Living and the Dead

My article discusses the influence of Emanuel- Swedenborg on a Finnish female author, Kersti Bergroth (1886–1975) through one of Bergroth’s novels Eläviä ja kuolleita (‘The Living and the Dead’, 1945). Bergroth was a prolific author with an anthroposophical bent, and an admirer of German idealism. In this particular novel Bergroth refers explicitly to Swedenborg and the story discloses a number of Swedenborgian themes: the doctrine of correspondences; a world divided into material, spiritual, and divine realms; and communication with the spirits of the dead. As Bergroth was an active member of the anthroposophical movement, I will also consider the route, spread, and place of Swedenborg’s ideas within anthroposophy and theosophy in the twentieth century

Editorial Note

Editorial Not

Editorial Note

Editorial Not

Remarks on Swedenborgian Elements in the Literary Production of Johan Ludvig Runeberg

This article sets out to trace possible influences of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish theosophist and spirit-seer, in the production of the Finnish national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. We argue that the influence of Swedenborgianism on nineteenth-century culture in Finland was greater than has generally been suggested by literary scholars. The first part of the article provides a historical background of Swedenborgianism in the country. The latter part indicates a larger epistemic and religious accord between Swedenborg and Runeberg, to be accounted for in greater detail in terms of influence. Both authors subscribed to an emblematic worldview within the Classical discourse of nature as a book, ultimately supported by a framework of logocentrism and theism. Runeberg’s discussion of words and things,and his use of the metaphor of light, places him within a mainstream nineteenth-century spirituality, which may be juxtaposed, in addition to general Romantic views, also with Swedenborgian sources

Editorial Note

Editorial Note of the 50:th Anniversary Volume of Temenos