“The decentralized subject” in the context of the history of European religiosity

The postmodernist interpretation of the subject decentralizes it, replacing essential definitions with existential ones, centering on periphery, normative unity of the individual with the unconscious and “desire machines,” and the subject’s identity with a multitude of narratives that interact in what we call consciousness. The sciences of religion and cultural anthropology provide an interesting parallel with the understanding of personality/subject in antiquity. We refer to the concept of divine/ demonic forces that inhabit a person and compete with each other. Rejected in ancient consciousness as contradictory to the identity of the “inner/authentic person” (soul), this concept, however, resurfaced in various late ancient phenomena (gnosticism - hermeticism - Manichaeism) and in later mysticalesoteric movements. These “anthropologies” - archaic and hermetic on one hand and postmodern on the other - share the notion of external sources of power and will for human beings and their selfawareness (subjectivity). In our view, the theme of the similarities between these discourses requires further careful consideration.