Etnografia desenhada sobre o autonhecimento nas práticas terapêuticas na nova era no circuito pelotense

Abstract

In this ethnographic study, I present my immersion in the self-cultivation learning practices of the Escola do Ser, located in the city of Pelotas (RS), a space for holistic practices of the broad spectrum of New Age cosmologies. Field research was mostly carried out remotely, due to the social isolation necessary to control the Covid-19 pandemic. At this time, I joined as an anthropologist in self-cultivation and meditation teaching activities, following the course A Arte de Estar no Agora, during the period 2020 and 2021. In a second moment, the research was carried out in person, at the headquarters of the School do Ser, and in the company of the regulars of the space. Taking into account the technological advances and the new modes of interaction provided by Internet 2.0, I adopted both types of incursion, in-person and remote, as face-to-face field research; I therefore considered the different perspectives arising from the pandemic and post-pandemic context, for the development of anthropological research at the interface between Anthropology of New Spiritualities, Anthropology of Therapies, Visual Anthropology and Urban Anthropology. In this universe of research, I contemplate the diffusion and popularization of the New Age ethos (BATESON, 2018; GUERRIERO et al., 2016; GUERRIERO AND STERN, 2019), to observe the creation, based on people's practices and narratives, the creation and assimilation of a habitus (BOURDIEU; 1983; ELIAS, 1994) “spiritual”, of social transformations in the current context of urban life, understanding that New Age cosmologies are established as a lifestyle (BOURDIEU, 1983; MAGNANI, 1999). I seek to present the narratives about the quantum therapeutic techniques performed by the users of the Escola do Ser, observing their practices by monitoring the interlocutors both in the remote environment and in the neo-esoteric circuit of Pelotas, in the light of the quantum worldview, as a way of apprehending the understanding of the notion of self-cultivation and understanding of the individual's relational process of spiritualization. Associated with this general objective, attentive to another experimental aspect of the research related to the production and mediation of drawing along the epistemological path that accompanies the work, from interactions in the field - remote and in person - to the exposure and circulation of scientific knowledge, insofar as it carries sensations and discursive, argumentative and narrative meanings regarding the apprehension of self-cultivation in the forms of meditation in the New Age context