ABSTRACT
The current approaches to syncretism are not so much concerned with defining the notion in relation to its problematic past in theology—instead, the three presentations in this part attempt to understand mechanisms behind the phenomenon/a that we refer to as syncretism. However, the task of defining the notion of syncretism was, all along, a search to free a controversial category from a troublesome essentialism and to replace it with a better explanation of the nature of religious transformations and innovations such as syncretistic formations. As such, there is good reason for wanting to define the nature or rather natures of syncretism without confusing it, or them, with a prejudiced essentialism, as was the case with the theologian use of the category. Reading the amount of work represented in this volume has not been an easy assignment, especially because the scholarly discourses have tended to form new issues from the various definitions, which are, then, in need of yet more definitions. This has been the difficult task for the contributors to this book: to find a way to describe the category syncretism as useful for the study of religion and anthropology through this cobweb of definitions. However, this has led the study of syncretism to some conclusions about the formation of religion in general. Moreover, in later years, the study has gained, from linguistics and cognitive studies, a theoretical background against which to explain various mechanisms that relate to the formation of religion. This is also the case with the work of the last three contributors to this volume. Timothy Light contributes his insight into linguistic and cognitive studies to the study of syncretism. He demonstrates how syncretistic formations are linked to the acquisition of religious categories from childhood. That may help us explain different attitudes toward syncretism without falling back on biased definitions. Panayotis Pachis, a historian of religions, relates a theory of cognition to an analysis, which includes power-issues, of the use of syncretism in contemporary Greece. He describes how the "golden age" of Antiquity is a construction of contemporary life and, as such, he invalidates the definition of syncretistic formations as being some kind of "survivals." Kirstine Munk, also a historian of religions, relates syncretism with the psychological redirection of the mind in contemporary Zulu rites of crisis. In her view, syncretistic formations are means to negotiation between the clashes of cultural as well as of social patterns on a personal basis in the Zulu tradition of today. Most interestingly, Munk relates the dynamics of syncretism to the individual maker of religion.
