Andrzej Kasperek
Studia Religiologica, Volume 56 Issue 1, 2023, pp. 1 - 16
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.23.001.19223The article is an attempt to analyze The Willows by Algernon Blackwood in terms of the sociological concept of multiple realities. Trying to answer the question of how people experience reality, due attention will be paid to the literary description of the situation in which a human being is confronted with a reality that terrifies and disturbs. Literature in general, including horror literature, is treated here as an important, from the cognitive standpoint, platform for discussion about human experiences, which, following Sigmund Freud, can be described as uncanny. I treat Blackwood’s The Willows as a reconstruction of the dispute over the legitimacy of knowledge and the sources of cognition in the conditions of a specific epistemological (categorical) chaos in the face of experiencing the uncanny.
Andrzej Kasperek
Studia Religiologica, Volume 50 Issue 4, 2017, pp. 359 - 372
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.17.023.8757Andrzej Kasperek
Studia Religiologica, Volume 52, Issue 4, 2019, pp. 265 - 276
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844077SR.19.019.11626The article is aimed at presenting a particular way of developing sociological reflection upon the tradition of Western esotericism in the categories of counterculture. The author makes an attempt to indicate the significance of practicing this reflection within a separate sociological subdiscipline – the sociology of esotericism. The study consists of two parts: the first comprises a reconstruction of the sociological perspective in the research into Western esoteric tradition, while in the second, a certain way of practising sociology of esotericism is suggested, one focussing on the notions of visibility and recognition.