This paper highlights the importance of the secret level of rnam thars– accounts of visionary experiences and miraculous events as a sign of realisation in life stories of Tibetan Buddhist masters – based on existing research. The focus is mainly on visionary experiences. This paper contributes to this field by providing an annotated translation, analysis, and edition of a so-far untranslated section of the rnam thar of the Seventh Karma pa from the Chos ’byung mkhas pa’i dga’ ston.

According to traditional Buddhist narratives and popular beliefs, Tibetans are a people chosen by Avalokiteśvara. Therefore, his worship and multitude, as well as diversity of his images, are quite common both in temples and public areas. Unlike the widespread analyses where the Bodhisattva has been treated as a peaceful tutelary deity, and classifications of its images have been based on morphological features, or artistic styles and techniques, this paper proposes another approach by grounding images in Tantric Buddhism models used locally, e.g. outer, inner and secret forms of the Three Jewels or the Three Refuges, popular in Tantric Buddhism. The second part of this paper focuses on images of Avalokiteśvara as a meditational deity and a Dharma protector, which corresponds to the last two out of the three inner aspects of the Three Jewels. Using the method developed by Erwin Panofsky and the analysis of primary Tibetan text are partly used as convenient tools for the description and exegesis of images.

The article presents a sociological analysis of two films by Korean director Bong Joon-ho: Snowpiercer(2013) and Parasite(2019). The theoretical background is founded on two terms: social class and class struggle by Karl Marx, redefined by Max Weber and reinterpreted by Pierre Bourdieu. Also the terms of Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser are applied. All those terms form a theoretical frame within which the architectural space of Bong’s films reside. The director situates the protagonists within closed spaces and class struggle, where they have to fight for survival or social advancement. By applying means of spacial description, such as density, area, orderliness, and daylight access, the director defines the protagonists’ social position and their motivation.

Scientific articles often start with the phrase: “The purpose of this article is to examine facts related to…” The content of this paper does not stem from an attempt to render afresh freely available, irrefutable data. Its purpose is to present a new interpretation of specific motifs present in the Indian epic tradition – based mainly on data obtained from reconstructions or facts in potentia. The following paragraphs delineate the unfolding of work undertaken long ago, started but not yet finished.

The conclusions presented in this paper are in their nature preliminary. They form hypothetical assumptions and, as such, should be treated as research postulates.

The article discusses the issues of religious radicalisation and de-radicalisation in contemporary Islam. Its authors present complex phenomena of ideological, historical, cultural and political contexts of radicalisation processes, investigate the distribution of radical propagandist materials among various Muslim communities around the world and analyse the consequences of ideological transformation of Islamic fundamentalism in selected European countries. The authors conclude that radicalisation propaganda has a global appeal due to the fact it has adopted a carefully selected group of globally recognised ideologues (Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Abul A’la Maududi, Sayyid Qutb), but the recommended de-radicalisation processes should be rooted locally or regionally. The article proposes a constructive theoretical framework, a working hypothesis that should be constantly revised and modified in the changing socio-political environment.

* This publication in English is a modified and updated version of the paper originally published in Polish „O koncepcji ideologicznej kontrnarracji wobec przesłania fundamentalizmu islamskiego: analiza wybranych przykładów radykalizacji i deradykalizacji w Europie, Azji Południowej i na Bliskim Wschodzie,” „Sprawy Międzynarodowe,” vol. 72, No 1, 2019.

This paper has two main purposes: to outline the methodology underlying the tag ontology utilised in the Elyonim veTachtonim inventory and to demonstrate the system of topic tags used to designate recurring subjects recognised in the accounts involving supernatural entities.

* This paper was written as a part of the project The Supernatural Entities and Their Relationships with Humans according to the Babylonian Talmud from the Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives financed by the National Science Centre, Poland (SONATA 14; Registration number: 2018/31/D/HS1/00513).

The research problem presented in this text is the negotiation of transcultural identity as exemplified by foreigners enrolled in flamenco dance schools in Seville who are or aspire to be professional flamenco dancers and compete on the Spanish labour market in the flamenco industry. Foreigners are a definite majority at Seville’s dance schools, whose existence depends on them. By deciding to spend a prolonged period of time in Seville, they enter a field of transcultural exchange and become involved in power relations of subordination and domination. Being a subordinate group, foreigners need to negotiate their place in the flamenco community on an ongoing basis. Their situation and relations developing in Seville are well-described through the categories of transculturation/transculturality and transcultural identity. Foreigners wishing to engage in the professional world of flamenco in Seville or, more broadly, in Spain, construct their identity by negotiating its individual elements. Three of them are discussed in the text: expression, movement and body. They are self-defining factors and elements that determine the exclusion and/or “discrimination” of indigenous people and foreign viewers.

The text analyses Sukhāvatī – Amitābha’s purified buddha field, also known as the Pure Land. The vision of Sukhāvatī became immensely popular in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, and in East Asia it started a new Buddhist tradition. Some of its features – at least on the surface – differ from standard ideas about what Buddhism is. The descriptions of the activity of the Buddha Amitābha, who brings salvation to all beings, by enabling them to be reborn and live a blissful and virtually endless existence in his paradise land of Sukhāvatī, where achieving the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is quick and easy, led to attempts at showing the structural similarities of this tradition with, for example, Christianity. There were also attempts at proving direct borrowings from other religions and cultures, which was supposed to explain the source of the name, location and characteristics of this land. These characteristics, however, can be more convincingly explained by analysing the process of evolution of Buddhism itself, which is the main focus of this work. Due to its volume, the text is divided in two parts. The first part defends the assumption about the intra-Buddhist origins of Sukhāvatī and the justification for this choice in the context of various other theories about the origin of that land. Then the evolution of the Buddhist cosmological vision that eventually led to the concept of purified buddha fields, including Sukhāvatī, will be discussed. The second part will be devoted to an analysis of the characteristics of this land in the light of the Shortand Long Sukhāvatīvyūhasutras, and in the context of other Buddhist texts, to show that Sukhāvatī combines the following Buddhist themes: (a) in the visual layer, the presentation of a paradise, an ideal land that lacks any existential ills, (b) in the non-material aspect, the activity of nirvāṇa, (c) in the dimension of the Buddhist path, the easy practices that characterise the conditions of rebirth for the lower heavens.