The Foundations of Zamolxiana New Religious Movement

In: S. Nemeti, D. Dana (eds.), The Dacians in the Roman Empire Provincial Constructions, Cluj-Napoca, 2019

TEOLOGIA, 2019

In his study The Romanians. A Historical Summary, Mircea Eliade makes reference to the material and spiritual culture of the Geto-Dacians and of the ancestors. Taking over the thesis of Vasile Pârvan, the Romanian historian of religions, believes that Zal-moxis and his cult will prepare the Daco-Romans for embracing Christianity. Characterizing the Romanian Christianity, M. Eliade shows that his specifi city is given by his presence on this teritory,by the Dacian-Roman heritage, by the serenity, naturalness and the absence of any excess. The Romanians are considered to be a faithful, human, natural, vigorous and optimistic people who disregard any sickening exaltation of the so-called "mysticism", having as a dominant feature the common sense, kindness, tolerance and hospitality, which they show through the long exercise of suffering during history, these being also considered characteristics of the Romanian spirituality. A fundamental feature of the Romanian Christianity in Eliade's vision is that of "the cosmic Christianity", which he mentions in an early writing: "The fi rst duty of man", he said, "is the fi rst parable of God: his cosmization" (Soliloquies, p. 20). For Eliade cosmization is the harmony of man with everything that is concrete and unique outside of him, the ordination and the matching of the human rhythm with the rhythms of nature, integrating into a hierarchy, cosmicizing all the chaotic experiences. Keywords Mircea Eliade, the Geto-Dacian religion, the spirituality of the Romanian people, the cosmic dimension of the Romanian Christianity TEOLOGIA 2 / 2019 43 STUDIES AND ARTICLES

Dao, 2017

With his 1998 publication Great Perfection: Religion and Ethnicity in a Chinese Millennial Kingdom (University of Hawaii Press) Terry Kleeman established himself as one of the leading scholarly voices on the important 2nd-3rd century Daoist movement known as the Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshidao 天師道). Now, this 2016 work extends and amplifies the author's place as the never-to-be-neglected source for information and interpretation of the movement born when the Most High Lord Lao (Taishang Laojun 太上老君) manifested himself on Cranecall Mountain (Hemingshan 鶴鳴山) in Sichuan 四川 province to ZHANG Ling 張陵 in 142. As the subtitle of the book anticipates, the material is divided into two main sections: history and ritual. The historical study focuses on the movement from its establishment in the mid-2nd century and ends with the beginning of the 7th century. This section falls into four parts. In the first, the author provides a detailed examination of accounts provided by outsiders of the founding and early years of the movement through the end of the Hanzhong 漢中 (southeastern Shaanxi 陝西 and northeastern Sichuan) period (c. 215). The second part of the historical section covers the same time period but makes use of sources internal to the movement. I am not aware of any extant primary source that is neglected in the author's analysis. Indeed, one of the many strengths of this work is the thoroughness of the research through the historical materials. In fact, this is the first time that many of these texts have been brought together in one place and made available to scholars and students alike. With respect to these first two sections, the author provides substantive critical correctives and suggestions for resolving apparent conflicts or confusions between the sources, especially those written by outsiders and those by insiders. The third part of the history section is based on three texts, all of which can be reliably dated to the 3rd century and are dramatic examples of exhortation after the fall Dao

The Dacians in the Roman Empire Provincial Constructions, 2019

Religions, 2022

Starting off by categorizing the specific means through which modernity manifests itself in the field of religion and utilizing an ethnography-based methodological strategy, the following paper documents the emergence of Zalmoxianism, a contemporary replica of the religion of the Dacians, which are considered the ancestors of Romanians; they used to inhabit areas around the Carpathians and the Lower Danube before the Roman Conquest (106 A.D.). While subscribing to the theoretical precepts meant to surpass the sociological prejudice according to which modernity exhausts a religiously transcendent view on the world, this paper closely analyzes the conceptual deconstruction of secularization as a total phenomenon while sat the same time isolating the social actor as a non-secularized segment.

2010

Zalmoxis" is a dramatic poem in which each character autonomously structures his own discursive lyric, expressing thus a variety of concepts over the spiritual foundation of the Dacians. The charm of each nuance in part relates in the last instance, the mode in which the author understands the proper structure of the actual dramatic perspective above the revolt of our non-Latin foundation. The new god is a vain and vengeful one. His emergence from the data of the natural condition of humanity tries the character who is both chthonic and Dyonisiac of the new religion. The solution to transform the prophet Zalmoxis into one of the gods of the traditional polytheistic religion appears rightfully inherent, the only compromise possible for a community unprepared and incapable of being initiated into monotheism. The Dacians would close their eyes to the teachings of the Blind One while in a spiritual night they are complacent, so evident because they cannot perceive the truth; they cannot live the religious revelation the way it is very possible to do. The Dacians were not Greek, but to catalogue their faith whether by the embodiment of the Dyonisiac, or the regimentation of the Apollonian means to denature the true spiritual dimensions that were impossible for them to define in the first place. The Dacians configured by Lucian Blaga in "Zalmoxis" have a heterogenous character in comparison with the concept of humanity. They are an imperfect construct, their community is undefined, and it is but an embryo of society. The interpretation in conformity with Dacians, who would have been more than men, is illusory; Dacians appear as something less than men. Their incapacity to frame within a specific divine project need not be viewed as a spiritual failure. Moreover, the Dacians were not yet ontologically completed and thus were unprepared for the revelation of the new faith of the Blind One. The original mystery of existence cannot be, therefore, overcome: you, as a man, endowed or not, to intuit, however incomplete, imperfect and partial, you are finally forced to let him subjugate you. To recognize oneself bound in the face of the mystery means, at most, to know it luciferically, meaning the guarantee of survival of the secret

Paper on the religions of Dvāravatī and Zhenla delivered at the Royal University of Fine Arts, Yosothor, Phnom Penh, Sept. 29, 2017. The lecture is open access here: http://www.yosothor.org/lectures/21.-Nicolas-Revire.html

China’s two great institutionalized religions, Daoism and Buddhism, were createdin opposition to the popular or common religion of the people and the state, which fo-cused on ancestors and deities that accepted blood sacrifice in return for blessings. Dur-ing the Song dynasty, a syncretic conception of this common sacred realm emerged, acosmos that is continuous and all-encompassing, incorporating all sorts of gods, tran-scendents, buddhas and demons in a ranked administrative hierarchy. In post-SongChina, this assured a respected place for the transcendent figures of the organized faithsin a pantheon that was not threatening and provided a continuing revenue stream for both through their specializations in Buddhist funeral and mourning services and Daoistrites of cosmic renewal that confirmed local gods in their positions. In this paper I firstsketch out the main characteristics of the common religion, then introduce the critiquesof this common religion that informed the rise of Daoism and Buddhism. I then consider various sorts of accommodations attempted by the two faiths, such as the incorporationof local deities as the door gods or temple guardians of Buddhist monasteries or the in-corporation of local notables into the lower echelons of the Daoist heavens. Turning tothe socio-economic and political changes of the Song, I relate these to religious innova-tion, such as the development of the “ritual master” (fashi) class of religious professionaland the hybrid Thunder Rites that proved so effective in dispelling the demons that plagued the men of the Song. Finally, I consider the amalgamation of Daoism and com-mon religion in the cults to the gods who would dominate the religious world of lateimperial China, like Wenchang, Guandi, and Mazu.