Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hayes, Kelly E.

Titel

The High Magic of Jesus Christ: Materializing Secrets in Brazil's Valley of the Dawn

Ist Teil von

• The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy, 2022, Vol.1, p.243-257

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter describes the Valley of the Dawn (Vale do Amanhecer), the largest of the esoteric religious communities that have emerged in the federal district outside Brasília, Brazil's modernist capital city. While Brasília was built as a paean to rationality and the tenets of modernism, from the beginning it was invested with hidden meanings pointing to its mystical significance as a center of cosmic energies and the cradle of the New Age. I examine how esoteric interpretations of Brasília and modernist discourses converge in the case of the Valley of the Dawn,,. In particular, I analyze how the Valley promises universal access to secret wisdom, while working to preserve the powerful aura of the secret by obscuring it behind layers of bureaucratic hierarchies, specialized language, and baroque symbols.