Cristianismo alternativo: relações entre protestantismo, neoesoterismo e rastafarianismo em Alto Paraíso de Goiás

Abstract

The rising of the New Age movement, from the countercultural movements of contestation that emerged in the 1960s, represented the emergence of a “new religious conscience” in the contemporary Western world. In Alto Paraíso de Goiás, place of new age convergence, this alternative religiosity continues to relate to the counterculture, especially under its hippie version. This environment becomes the stage for religious experimentations of alternative Christian groups, who, through elective affinities perceived between the neoesoteric world, which includes the rastafari group, and Christianity, make their negotiations of meaning towards a religious living capable of conjugating the Christian message with the alternative and neoesoteric style. The negotiations of meaning happen through the Christian presence in the boundary environment of Alto Paraíso and through the personal and daily contacts between the evangelical and neoesoteric groups. The ethnographic research aims to show how these negotiations are made between the evangelical and neoesoteric groups, as well as the ritual and aesthetic experiences which combine elements from these two cultural universes. The bricolage, in this case, is oriented by a sensibility which imposes limits to the possibilities of evangelical appropriation of the neoesoteric contents and symbolic elements.