From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage - Hardcover

Altglas, V�ronique

9780199997626: From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199997624 ISBN 13: 9780199997626

Publisher: OUP USA, 2014

The popularization of yoga and meditation, public curiosity about shamanism, and the recent craze for kabbalah all demonstrate the rising appeal of these religious resources in western contemporary societies. What is it about them that fascinates the Westerns who take the classes and join the centers? Religious exoticism implies a deeply ambivalent relationship to otherness and to religion itself: traditional religious teachings are uprooted and fragmented in order to be appropriated as practical methods for personal growth. As a consequence, religious exoticism tells us as much about the ways in which religious resources are disseminated globally as it does about the construction of the self in contemporary societies.

From Yoga to Kabbalah explores how these "exotic" religious resources cross cultural boundaries and become global, what makes them appealing in western societies, and how they are instrumentalized and for what purposes. V�ronique Altglas uses the two case studies of the Hindu-based movements in France and Britain since the mid-1990s, and the Kabbalah Centre in France, Britain, Brazil and Israel. She draws upon major qualitative and cross-cultural empirical investigations to conceptualize religious exoticism and offer a nuanced and in-depth understanding of its contemporary significance. Ultimately, the book enhances understanding of the globalization of religion (how religions are disseminated transnationally), syncretism and bricolage (how religions are modified through cultural encounters), and of religious life in neoliberal societies (how contemporary forms of religiosity reflects core features of contemporary social life).

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Review:

This book is pioneering, important, critical, and timely. It shows that Kabbalah Centres in four different countries and neo-Hindu movements in France and Britain raise some fascinating theoretical questions which challenge conventional thinking about bricolage, religious exoticism, and psychological self-realization. The combination of lively ethnographic detail and conceptual precision is truly impressive and will appeal to all readers with interests in social, religious, and cultural logics. (James A. Beckford, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Warwick)

Altglass work is impressive both as an ethnographic study and as a theoretical exploration of religious bricolage and exoticism. Indeed, the fact that it manages to be successful on both of these fronts is no small feat and demonstrates an astounding achievement in scholarship. (Anna Pokazanyeva, Religions of South Asia (2015))

About the Author:

V�ronique Altglas is Lecturer in Sociology at Queen's University Belfast. She has conducted research on the transnational expansion of neo-Hindu movements, the management of minority religions in France and Britain, and anti-Semitism.

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