Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The issue concerning the body is old and now as in the past, involving different fields and disciplines. As shown in the introduction and through brief historical highlights, we can notice in any culture, all over the world, the body is left as it is. No one seems to accept this aggregate organic as given at birth. By scarification, tattoo and so on, the body becomes a tabula to symbolically affect and characterize identity. Taking a cue from this, the following work tends to show the first results of a field study, a real work in progress, in which develop the hypothesis that self-flagellation constitutes a space for a reality, through the manipulation of the body (and blood), the need to transcend the limits inherent in the human condition. Also, the embodiment of self-flagellation leans on an orderly use and a modulation of the symbolic vocabulary made available by religious practice and by the mythical horizons that are connected, as well as the more general community “mentality”.