No abstract

Liberations through the senses are the soteriological practices of the Tibetan Buddhists, a counterpart to and an elaboration on what in Europe is occasionally described, somewhat contemptuously, as "rattling off one's prayers". Linked with folk beliefs and rituals and labelled "naive sensualism" in European ethnographic terminology, Tibetan "liberation through senses" are all those religious behaviours (as well as related sacred objects) - such as listening to and repeating mantras, circumambulation of stūpas, looking at sacred images, tasting relics, smelling and touching sacred substances - which are accompanied by a belief that sensual contact with a sacred object (sculpted figure, painting, mandala, stūpa, holy man, tree, mount, book, substance, etc.) can give one hope and even certainty of achieving liberation. This study argues against ethnological conclusion, classifying such a kind of behaviour as a typical example of non-reflective folk-religiousness. The text is concerned with an in-depth interpretation of "liberations through the senses." The soteriological idea of endless repetition, associated with the process of destroying the discursive consciousness, is projected on the background of comparative religion. Subsequently, the full soteriological cycle, beginning with rattling off prayers and ending with "a borderline experience," is traced in the Tibetan and other religious materials.

Irena Grudzińska-Gross: Pierwszy temat, który zawsze mi odradzano, to druga wojna światowa. Dlatego, że "to takie okropne", a należy unikać makabry. Drugi -związany z pierwszym -to historia rodzinna. Trzeci, którego nikt mi co prawda wprost nie odradzał, ale sam język nie pozwalał o tym mówić, jakoś się mówieniu o tym sprzeciwiał, to tzw. temat żydowski. Połączenie wojny, tematyki rodzinnej i żydowskiej spowodowało, że poszłam na studia romanistyczne, zajęłam się XIX w. i na dodatek zawsze zajmowałam się piszącymi mężczyznami, nigdy kobietami. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir: Czy kobiety także Ci odradzano?Nie było potrzeby. Sama wiedziałam, że zajmowanie się nimi jest "niepoważne". Wystarczyło, że badałam literaturę francuską. To także uważano za dosyć damskie zajęcie, więc na wszelki wypadek zajęłam się "bardzo poważnymi mężczyznami". Miłoszem?Miłoszem zajmuję się teraz, wtenczas był to Custine i Tocqueville. Paradoksalnie oni pozwolili mi wrócić do odradzanych tematów, tyle że drogą okrężną. Pisali przecież o polityce, o Rosji, totalitaryzmie, demokracji, autorytaryzmie.Ilustracja: Natalia Kulka

The Figure of the Bloodsucker in Polish Religious, National and Left-Wing Discourse, 1945/1946: A Historical Anthropology StudyDespite the fact that after 1945 all anti-Jewish pogroms in Poland (except one) involved a blood libel – a rumor about Jewish murderers of Polish children – this fact has not attracted the attention of historians until recently. Conspiracy theories, however, were a lot more popular and noted that the pogroms had been provoked by “Soviet advisers” or “Zionists”. The author of this essay argues that participants of anti-Semitic violence, the assailants as well as policemen, prosecutors, and judges involved in controlling the events – though they represented a variety of different political approaches – were all united by a common socio-mental formation, and remained united by a figure of the Jew as bloodsucker (this mystic figure is described here according to Mary Douglas). Many of them, security and secret services functionaries included, succumbed to a suggested blood libel. Moreover, some traces of blood libel are still present in Poland, not only as folk beliefs (cf. the research conducted under the present author’s direction in Sandomierz).The essay’s aim is to present a structural background of slowly growing “Polish national socialism” on the one hand and old anti-Jewish resentments on the other, as both were a ground for a specific anti-Jewish alliance in the first period after World War II. Thus, the author claims that a synthesis of religious anti-Semitism (“Jew-kidnapper-bloodsucker”), modern anti-Semitism (“Jew-capitalist-bloodsucker”) and the “Judeo-communists” occurred in Poland, which crippled a healthy body of the nation and the communist party.The essay is based on, inter alia, letters intercepted by the censorship in 1946, the reports made by some anti-communist underground fighters, a number of memories and documents of communist secret services officers, as well as documents accumulated in the course of investigations held by the authorities after the pogroms of 1945 and 1946.