This essay is an attempt to study some post-modern theological positions with regard to their growing interest in the use of Mystical theology and mysticism in theological research in the academic post-modern world, and to see if the 19th century theologian Albert Schweitzer couldprove a resource for this understanding of Mystical theology. This position is known in the essay as ?the Mystical turn.?To present the background and understanding of this post-modern view of Mystical theology the essay presents three theologians, namely: Andrew Louth, Mark A. McIntosh and Sarah Coakley.These three theologians argue for the use of a contemplative and transforming mysticism as a postmodern epistemology in relation to theological research, with growing concern of the status of theology in the secular and post-modern world. Having made clear the views of these three theologians the essay then presents Albert Schweitzer's view on the mysticism of Paul.

The use of hallucinogenic plants has throughout human history been used for religiouspurposes, in order to induce Mystical states of mind, often interpreted as meeting with godsand spirits. In recent years, this practice has been taken up by people interested in theexploration of their psyche and spiritual side. This group of people, referred to as?psychonauts?, communicate with each other through internet based forum, where theyshare their experiences in so called ?trip reports?. The aim of this study was to see whatrole psychedelic drugs can play when used in a spiritual/religious context, and whetherthese sorts of Mystical states of mind could tell us about more traditional Mysticalexperiences.

Animal art is one of the more Mystical aspects of Scandinavian Iron Age culture. It has foremost been regarded in the light of art and style history. Interpretation has also ? mainly from the 1990s and onwards ? been made through iconographic analysis. But the problem here is that iconography requires textual analogy, something that the Scandinavian Iron Age lacks.The purpose of this paper is to lift some of the ?Mystical fog? that engulfs the scandinavian animal art, by developing a method for interpretation of pre-historic images that evades the flaws in the iconographic method.

ThisthesisisananalysisofSt.JohnoftheCross?treatiseTheDarkNightoftheSoulfromanEasternOrthodoxperspective,focusingonelementsofclassicaltheologyofthéosisandliminalitywithinthetext.UsingVladimirLossky?sviewonOrthodoxMysticaltheologyaswellasritualtheoryandtheoriesofliminalityfromVictorTurnerandArnoldvanGennepthestudyexamineswhetherornotitispossibletospeakaboutthéosisinWesternMysticalteachingsandpractises,andifDarkNightcanbeviewedasanexampleofsuchateaching.Thisthesisthusseekstoanswertwomainquestions,namelywhetherStJohnoftheCross?treatisecanbesaidtobeanexampleofthéosistheologywritteninWesternform,andifthetrialsoftheDarkNightcanbesaidtobeaformofsocio-­?ontologicalprocessofchange,eitherpartiallyorcompletely.ThemethodusedintheworkisamodifiedversionofthetextualanalysisdescribedinCarl-­?HenricGrenholm?sbookAttförståreligion:metoderförteologiskforskning,focusingoncentralthemesandideas,andkeywordsrelatedtothéosis.ThetheoreticalperspectiveforthethesishasbeenbasedinEasternOrthodoxMysticaltheology,andthecentralaimhasbeentoofferaresponsetoVladimirLossky?scritiqueoftheWesternChurchashavingforgottenitsMysticalroots.KeyfindingsarethattheDarkNightasaprocesshasstrongelementsofbothliminalityandsocio-­?ontologicaltransformation,andthatthelanguageofSt.JohnisverysimilartothatofearlyOrthodoxtheologians,withclearapophaticterminology..

In some postmodern philosophy and theology, the view of God has returned to the centre of the discussion. God is seen as a living reality beyond human conception. Some of the contemporary philosophers even relate to the negative or apofatic theology. They often do this as a contrast to the positive theology. The view of God in postmodern theology and philosophy is beyond our rational knowledge.

The purpose of this essay is to shed light upon the ecumenical work that has been done between the Church of Sweden and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. The recent years of work have led to a recommendation for a certain degree of fellowship to be established between those churches. This proposal as well as other documents are analysed in the essay from an ecclesio-logical point of view, to find out how the Church of Sweden looks upon itself in meeting another church.To structure the material, the essay has been subdivided into seven parts that is related to ecclesiology. In those seven chapters the positions of the Church of Sweden and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden are given individually as well as in common. Questions like the im-portance of dioceses, local congregations or parishes and the national level are described.

The purpose of this essay is to compare the works of Jalal ad-din Rumi and Fakhr al-dinAraqi to see which ideas of God the two writers want to convey. Rumi and Araqi weretwo actors in the Mystical dimension of Islam, who lived in the thirteenth century inwhat is today Turkey. Both were of Persian birth and their works were written inPersian.The material I have chosen to work with is Lama´at by Araqi and parts of theMasnavi by Rumi. Both of them have been translated into Swedish by Ashk Dahlén.The theoretical premiss is taken from Influence in art and literature by GöranHermerén. My method is to find images for God in the texts to see which ideas of Godthe two writers want to convey.My review shows that many of the images come from the Koran and speak ofpersonal qualities of God.

Since time immemorial, nature has been conceived of as a female entity. This ancient concept is also a recurring element in contemporary Swedish horror fiction. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the feature of nature in the selected works of Anders Fager, Andreas Marklund and Frida Arwen Rosesund and in what ways these respective depictions rely on a tradition where nature is gendered female. The theoretical starting-point for this comparative study is ecocriticism and its subcategory ecofeminism, which are modes of literary criticism where the role of nature in general, and its female connotations in particular, are appreciated as significant literary features. For executing an analysis that goes beyond what is explicit, the exploration of these three writers? texts also adopts a psychoanalytical perspective.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine how the relationship between humans and nature is expressed in the imaginative literature. My aim is to identify ideological reproductions in the analyzed works. Therefore I have chosen one work from late 19th century and one from late 20th century. This makes it possible to examine the contextual anchorage of the found ideological expressions. The study?s theoretical framework is primarily based on ecocriticism, and especially on Greg Garrard?s and Kate Soper?s thoughts.

The Veiled Party: A Discourse Analysis of Sweden Democratic Texts aims to further the understanding of the underlying ideology of the Sweden Democratic party, by revealing whether or not there is any ideological content that include race, racialization, and racism in the party?s political texts. The study offers a background description of the discursive change in the social and political climate of debate in Sweden, which opened a policy window for xenophobic agenda setting. In addition, the study delivers a presentation of the public debate regarding the Sweden Democrats, as well as statements by party representatives.Through a social constructionist and discourse analytic framework, the study aims at understanding how the application of racial ideas are done and mapped. The core of the theoretical framework is a critical race and whiteness theoretical approach.

The Internet is a constant source of information about the world and has contributed to the globalization of texts and pictures. A part in the tourists process of consumption involves looking at pictures and read about places that create an image of places that they have never been to. Websites are therefore important as a first impression and it is here that places are being represented. Places are created on the Internet and the Australian outback is an example of this. The study is interesting because it can be used to understand the relationship between people and places.

Bildtraditioner, ämnesintegrering och elevperspektiv är viktiga ingredienser i denna C-uppsats. Undersökningen tar sin plats på en gymnasieskola som arbetar ämnesintegrerat, KF Gymnasiet, där jag själv är bild- och medielärare. Jag har valt att följa eleverna i en projektgrupp genom deras arbetsprocesser i ett ämnesintegrerat filmprojekt. Genom intervjuer och enkäter har eleverna fått berätta om sina uppfattningar om bildämnet; ett material som sedan bearbetas genom diskursanalytisk metod. Jag har arbetat med eleverna med både teckning och måleri, för att sedan ämnesintegrera bild med svenska och engelska i ett filmprojekt.

This essay examines the poetry of the Swedish writer Ivar Conradson (1885-1968). Itanalyzes his work in the context of the European literary scene of the late 19th century, inparticular symbolism and impressionism. Conradson has been considered a symbolist and amysticist by critics and scholars, who claim that his poetry expresses a strong religious ethos,influenced by biblical rhetoric as regards style.While this study does not refute the common view of Conradson, it argues that his earlyworks differ from his later works, where indeed religious and Mystical themes can be found.This difference can thus be seen both on stylistic and thematic levels. Using the structuralistmethod of Roman Jakobson and Jurij Lotman, and a phenomenological analysis based on thephilosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hannah Arendt, this study examines bothsymbolist and impressionist stylistic devices and themes in Conradson?s literary debutSkyarne (1906).

This essay examines the poetry of the Swedish writer Ivar Conradson (1885-1968). Itanalyzes his work in the context of the European literary scene of the late 19th century, inparticular symbolism and impressionism. Conradson has been considered a symbolist and amysticist by critics and scholars, who claim that his poetry expresses a strong religious ethos,influenced by biblical rhetoric as regards style.While this study does not refute the common view of Conradson, it argues that his earlyworks differ from his later works, where indeed religious and Mystical themes can be found.This difference can thus be seen both on stylistic and thematic levels. Using the structuralistmethod of Roman Jakobson and Jurij Lotman, and a phenomenological analysis based on thephilosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hannah Arendt, this study examines bothsymbolist and impressionist stylistic devices and themes in Conradson?s literary debutSkyarne (1906).

This essay aims at understanding the experience of the use of ayahuasca, and similarities and differences between interview protocols and socio-cultural identities. The work is based on field studies conducted in the Peruvian Andes, in the village of Pisac September to November 2009. What has emerged is that the experience does not seem to be dependent on cultural manifestations as much as it is dependent on general human cognition. Theories have been applied on an empirical phenomenological descriptive study. Various brain activities, along with mental mechanisms contribute to a deeper understanding of the findings in the descriptive analysis.It seems that the cultural differences, which I have classed as typological in the phenomenological study, mostly are expressions of meaning for the informants.