This paper aims to examine the development of discourse on Korean shamanism as an intangible cultural property, with an emphasis on the exclusion of shamanism's religious aspect. The system referred to as “national intangible cultural property” started in the 1960s in South Korea and has been recognized to have contributed to the revival of traditional culture in Korea through its acknowledgement of values of shamanic rituals and music. In this regard, questions such as what is designated as cultural property of shamanism and what is the logic behind embracing its cultural aspect―excluding its religious aspect―have scarcely been researched thus far. Therefore, in this paper, I show the specific aspects―the artistry and function to bring order to the community found in shamanism―that are evaluated as ethnic culture. With respect to the discourse that describes shamanism as an intangible cultural property, we can verify that it negatively regards shamanism's fortune-telling function, rituals, and faith shared by the mudan (shaman) and followers, as low of value. The exclusion of shamanism's religious aspect from the discourse on an intangible cultural property also describes shamanism's history that has only been allowed to discuss its “cultural” aspect and has also been excluded from the category of “religion.”

Liber de duobus Principiis (The Book of Two Principles), written by an anonymous Cathar, is characterized by absolute dualism and the negation of free will. However, the argument made in the text regarding free will, illustrated by the fall of the angels, is established only in the context of timeless beings and fundamentally fails because of its inapplicability to temporal human beings.

However, for the purpose of exploring the concept of will in Liber de duobus Principiis, if we hypothetically apply this anti-free will theory to human beings in the temporal world, then an action that is an effect can be interpreted as the accomplishment of a disposition implanted in advance by either the principle Good or the principle Evil. The will, in the sense of the appetites and the capacity to suppress desire, is derived not from oneself but from one of these principles, that is, it is the fulfilment of either a Good or Evil disposition.

It follows from this that Cathar morality regards the discrimination of Good from Evil to be necessary only in cases in which an effect is caused by an action that has no relation to the will but is instead caused by an external principle.

Le but principal de cet article est de donner un aperçu des aspects variés de la notion de foi mystique au XVII^e siècle en France, et d'ouvrir une perspective des différentes conséquences. La discussion s'articule autour de la doctrine johannicrucienne de la «nuit obscure», en prêtant attention aux tensions internes repérables dans le langage de la mystique moderne, mises en évidence par les recherches récentes. Tout d'abord on constate l'ambiguïté de la doctrine de Jean de la Croix elle-même, puis l'accentuation de la tendance vers l'aspect négatif de l'«obscurité» de la foi dans les interprétations postérieures en France. C'est surtout en examinant les discours anti-mystiques et les interprétations de la nuit chez Jean-Pierre Camus et Pierre Nicole qu'on met en lumière un parallélisme entre la disambiguation de la doctrine de la nuit et l'effondrement du langage mystique qui a progressé à travers le XVII^e siècle. D'autre part, comme exemple d'une autre interprétation du début de l'époque moderne, on traite finalement de celle de Surin, qui hérite et apporte une variation à la foi ambiguë de Jean de la Croix qui parlait de la «vive flamme d'amour» brûlant dans la nuit obscure.

When trying to understand the characteristic of modern Catholicism as a religion, it is important to see how the positive aspects of religious practice, including Church institutions, were placed and had significance in shaping religious truth. In this paper, I consider the three letters of Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875), Benedictine and abbot of Solesmes Abbey, addressed to the Bishop of Orléans in the context of the “Liturgical War” that arose in the confrontation between Ultramontanism and Gallicanism in nineteenthcentury France. In particular, I examine how the liturgy (with its positive nature) was defined and given a position in the religion and how Catholicism itself was re-framed through those arguments. In contrast to the bishop, who only emphasized internal matters as elements of religion, Guéranger connected external and concrete matters concerning the Church in the world with the domain of matters essential to religion, making their existence itself an essential element in Christian salvation. Further, these discussions led to rethinking the structure of the Christian truth and the nature of Catholicism as a religion. Beyond their specific context, however, Guéranger's discussions would also refer to the general tension in the relationship between absolute religious truth and the concreteness that religions must have in the first place.