Prof. Per Faxneld (Södertorn University, Stockholm): A Touch of Zen - Spirituality in Japanese Martial Arts in Sweden

The talk presents the first full-scale study of spirituality in Japanese martial arts (Budo) in the West. Taking Sweden as its case study, it will be argued that Budo can be framed as part of the international holistic-alternative milieu. Whereas the latter is traditionally seen as dominated by women, around 74% of Swedish Budo practitioners are male. By including Budo under the holistic heading, the project interrogates the claimed gender imbalance of said milieu and looks at ideals of spiritual masculinity in Budo containing a critique of hegemonic, secular Western masculinity. The talk will moreover propose that "Budo spirituality" is the product of multidirectional cultural transfers between “East” and “West”, involving, e.g., esoteric teachings like Theosophy as a bridge. It will also demonstrate how attention to such long-term intercultural entanglement lets us better understand the role of concepts like ki (a form of subtle energy), meditation, and selfdevelopment, as well as the strong perennialist-tinged focus on lineages in Budo as practised in Sweden. Analyzing Swedish Budo practitioners’ negotiations of the tension between secularity and spirituality (for example regarding ki as a spiritual, scientific, or entirely symbolic phenomenon), the project moreover deepens the understanding of the secular condition in today’s Sweden. The investigation encompasses discourse analysis of a large corpus of Swedish Budo texts from ca. 1900–2020, a survey, participant observation, and ca. 20 interviews. A discussion of this methodological approach will form the core of the talk.