Practice, Aesthetics and Semantics of the Neo-Sannyas Movement in the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1970s and 1980s

从1970年代中期开始，巴格旺的新桑尼亚运动是西德所谓的青年宗教中最重要和最具创新性的宗教之一。有时有多达40,000名奉献者和多达380名成员的公社。与其他任何运动不同，它的实践、美学和语义体现了旧联邦共和国对宗教的重新谈判。它是制度化的宗教和个人认同形成以及对幸福的追求之间的混合现象。尽管它从根本上批评了任何一种制度化的宗教，但它本身就构成了一场新印度教古鲁运动。它培养了沉思的精神，同时也是一家现代服务企业。最重要的是，这场运动将对宗教意义和指导的追求与促进自力更生和幸福的治疗结合在一起。因此，它借鉴了20世纪60年代在德国变得越来越流行的治疗话语，并以一种创新的方式将其与宗教话语融为一体。首先，该项目将通过研究其提供的冥想、治疗和进一步服务以及它向公众发表的特别活动来分析该运动的实践。然后，它将探索该运动如何组织其日常生活，以及围绕出生、进入运动、结婚和死亡的节日和通过仪式。这场运动在多大程度上留下了资产阶级和基督教对时间和生活的安排，在哪里有相似之处和延续的传统？性别角色是如何定义的，沟通是如何组织的？其次，该项目分析了身体、空间和时间的美学：选择了什么从属符号？哪些美学被用来表达连通性，哪些被拒绝了？例如，它们在多大程度上因性别或从属关系的不同而不同？审美东方主义有什么外延和功能？第三，这些项目研究了整个1970年代和1980年代的这场运动的语言。它探讨了它的主要概念，传统上在宗教话语中使用的术语的语义使用以及语义回避策略。对巴格旺运动的这三个方面的分析将确定它在联邦共和国文化中的地位和重要性。这将允许与旧的嬉皮士和公社运动进行比较，新桑尼亚运动建立在与之有很大重叠的另类左翼环境，以及后来的另类文化形式，如自我发现、深奥、瑜伽和健康运动，所有这些在很大程度上都是由巴格旺运动塑造的。在很大程度上，该项目是基于私人的，未发表的书面来源，照片和电影素材。

From the the mid-1970s Neo-Sannyas Movement of Bhagwan was one of the most important and innovative of the so-called youth religions in West Germany. At times there were up to 40,000 devotees and communes with up to 380 members. Like no other movement its practice, aesthetics and semantics embody the renegotiation of religion in the old Federal Republic. It was a hybrid phenomenon between institutionalised religion and individual identify forming and the persuit of happiness. Though it fundamentally criticised any kind of institutionalized religion, it constituted a neo-Hindu guru movement itself. It cultivated meditative contemplation and was a modern service enterprise at the same time. Most importantly, the movement combined the quest for religious meaning and guidance with therapies fostering self-reliance and well-being. Thereby, it drew on a discourse of therapy that had become increasingly popular in Germany during the 1960s and, in an innovative way, melted it with the discourse of religion. Firstly, this project shall analyse the practice of the movement by studying its offers of meditation, therapies and further services as well as the extraordinary activities with which it addressed the public. Then, it shall explore how the movement organised its day-to-day life, its festivals and rites of passage around birth, admission into the movement, marriage and death. To what extend did the movement leave behind the bourgeois and Christian arrangements of time and life and where were there similarities and continued traditions? How were gender roles defined and communication organised? Secondly, the project analyses the aesthetics of body, space and time: What symbols of affiliation where chosen? Which aesthetics were adopted to express connectivity which ones were rejected? To what extent did they differ according to gender or levels of affiliation, for instance? What extend and which function did the aesthetic orientalism have? Thirdly, the projects studies the language of the movement throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It explores its main concepts, the semantic use of terms traditionally used in the religious discourse and for semantic avoidance strategies. This threefold analysis of the Bhagwan movement will define its place in, and importance for, the culture of the Federal Republic. This will allow for comparison with the older hippie and commune movements on which the Neo-Sannyasis built, with the alternative leftist milieu with which there was much overlap, and with later forms of alternative culture such as the self-discovery, esotericism, yoga and wellness movements, all of which were shaped to a large extent by the Bhagwan movement. For the most part, the project is based on private, unpublished written sources, photographies and film footage.