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ENDURANCE RUNNING AS INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES
traditions, or to an expressive poetic image, but it can be considered in relation
to the African drumming practice of the author. And as we know from the
confessional chapter of his 2012 book Tietämättä uskon, Ehrnrooth once had
a profound mystical experience during a drumming performance in the mid¬
1990s. But that is another “textual moment” worth further engagement later.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Throughout human history, long-distance or endurance running has been
used for various purposes. Not only is it an effective means of improving
physical and mental health, but it has also been used as a method of mystical
initiation. In several of his works the contemporary Finnish philosopher,
writer and runner-athlete Jari Ehnrooth (b. 1959) describes how to go beyond
the everyday state of mind and experience the “unattainable Holy Absolute”
through endurance running. In Ehnrooth’s work it is also evident that the
process of writing and reading can be seen as part of the initiation. By
casting a heuristic view on running as mystical method in different traditions
throughout documented human history, as well as bringing the related works
of Jari Ehrnrooth under closer investigation, I intended in this study to show
how some literary works verbalize the experience and present the kinds
of references which are used to argue for endurance running as a possible
gateway to mystical initiation. As this investigation also demonstrates,
the idea of mysticism has been undergoing something of a revolution in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It has begun to break loose
from the structures of meaning which held it together for centuries, not least
of which is the framework of organized religion. Mapping the postmodern
mystical terrain in literary production is not a straightforward or simple
task. However, by examining Ehrnrooth’s synthesis of the physical, ethical,
aesthetic, and mystical, we can demonstrate the seriousness and openness
with which twenty-first century authors deal with this topic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BRAMBLE, Dennis — LIEBERMAN, Daniel, Endurance Running and the
Evolution of Homo, Nature 432, 2004, 345-52.
Davip-NEEL, Alexandra, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, London, Souvenir
Press, 1965.
EHRNROOTH, Jari, Sanan vallassa, vihan voimalla: sosialistiset
vallankumousopit ja niiden vaikutus Suomen työväenliikkeessä 1905¬
1914, Historiallisia tutkimuksia 167. 1992.
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