TY - JOUR AU - Swartz, Karen AU - Hammer, Olav PY - 2022/06/14 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Soft charisma as an impediment to fundamentalist discourse: The case of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden JF - Approaching Religion JA - AR VL - 12 IS - 2 SE - Articles DO - 10.30664/ar.113383 UR - https://journal.fi/ar/article/view/113383 SP - 18-37 AB - <p class="p1">The Anthroposophical Society in Sweden is, in the view of many of its members, going through tough times. Times of crisis and the search for a collective identity often inspire the formation of ideological rifts within a larger religious community. One way of responding to challenges is by turning to doctrines and texts stemming from a purportedly pristine past for guidance – in other words, by developing a fundamentalist discourse. A striking fact about the Anthroposophical Society, in Sweden as well as internationally, is that such returns to a set of canonical texts by the founder of the movement appear to be self-defeating. There are deeply rooted structural features within the Anthroposophical Society as an institution that impede any one voice from gaining significant traction and imposing a collective identity upon the movement. This article uses the example of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden and the conundrum it repeatedly faces when addressing a perceived crisis in order to formulate a model of charismatic leadership that more generally accounts for the lack of success of fundamentalist discourses in religious movements with certain types of organisational culture.</p> ER -