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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 mid1990s. 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 19051914, Historiallisia tutkimuksia 167. 1992. + 329 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 329 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:27
