Build Your Own Body Realise Yourself: Physical Culture As A Spiritual Practice

Since the early 2000s, an increasing number of bodybuilders and strength athletes have adopted yogic practices and lifestyles, and referred to Jungian and post-Jungian vocabulary regularly. This seems to defy the conventional distinction between ʻbodyʼ, ʻmindʼ and ʻspiritʼ, which regards strength sports as more closely related to the former two than the latter one.

This presentation has a twofold aim: to reconstruct the history of Jungian and post-Jungian reception within physical culture (most notably through the ʻNew Ageʼ movement), and to investigate in what measure physical culture relates toʻself-actualisationʼ, by understanding what ʻself-actualisationʼ means in this context.

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