ABSTRACT
The vast majority of Icelanders are christened and confirmed members of the state Lutheran church. The theological cocktail that is typical of Icelandic ‘spirituality’, and the inconsistencies and contradictions that it represents, does not stop the national Lutheran religion from playing a significant part in the lives of most Icelanders. Singing as a manifestation of the Spiritual Self is directed at the construction and maintenance of both Social and Physical Self. In thinking about the spiritual, or what he calls the ‘transcendental’, Csikszentmihalyi considers spiritual skills and sees them as involving: The ability to control experience directly, by manipulating memes that increase harmony among people’s thoughts, emotions and wills. Singing constructs and maintains, embodies and signifies the persona, body and spirit – Social, Material and Spiritual Self. Women’s voices were essential to the new musical forms, and by the middle of the twentieth century every small church in the area had a four-part choir.
