Getting Straight with Meher Baba: A Study of Mysticism, Drug Rehabilitation and Postadolescent Role Conflict
There is a growing segregation of adult instrumental roles from the kind of expressive relationships associated with familial settings. Many modern adolescents therefore rebel at the prospect of participating in conventional adult occupations. A frequent reaction in recent years has been to drop out...
| Published in: | Journal for the scientific study of religion |
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| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[1972]
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| In: |
Journal for the scientific study of religion
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| Further subjects: | B
Communities
B Psychedelic drugs B Utopianism B Love B Hippie culture B Spiritual love B Bureaucracy B Hallucinogens B Youth Movements B Cults |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | There is a growing segregation of adult instrumental roles from the kind of expressive relationships associated with familial settings. Many modern adolescents therefore rebel at the prospect of participating in conventional adult occupations. A frequent reaction in recent years has been to drop out of career roles and to cultivate expressive, "loving" life-styles in "street scenes" and communes. But the hippie counterculture has generated problems of its own. In the early days of the movement it was widely believed that drug use would usher in a new era of spontaneity and universal affection, but many soon realized that drug use involved them in roles that contradicted the love ethic. Moreover, many soon found themselves ill at ease in a milieu so radically at odds with the traditional work ethic. By joining the Meher Baba cult, the subjects of this study rejected the counterculture in favor of a different way of fulfilling the need for postadolescent expressive relationships. The Meher Baba cult, which opposes drug use, legitimates expressive relationships by deriving them from converts' perceived affective relationship with Meher Baba, Who is seen as the personification of the latent identity of all persons and as quintessentially "loving." His immanence universalizes and thus legitimates loving relationships not only among Baba Lovers but among everyone. By enjoining "social service," Baba deprives the drop-out life-style of legitimacy, endows work with expressive meaning, and facilitates his followers' reassimilation into conventional work roles. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-5906 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the scientific study of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1384925 |