Relationship with the Unseen — On the Nature of Rituals and Repetition
Every relationship has its quiet rituals. The same message sent before sleep. A cup placed on the same side of the table. A gesture repeated so often it starts to feel dangerous to stop. We don’t call these rituals — we call them love. So why does it become suspicious the moment we talk about a relationship with the unseen?
This talk approaches ritual not only in a spiritual context, but as human behaviour — an anthropological and psychological inquiry into why we repeat, discipline, and devote ourselves at all. Moving through rituals as something intimate and strangely practical, we’ll explore how repetition creates attachment, how discipline trains desire, and how practice often shapes relationships long before belief or meaning. Rooted in Hindu bhakti traditions yet drifting across psychology, philosophy, and spiritual practices from other cultures, the talk asks why ritual is not ornament but infrastructure: it organises time, marks thresholds, and quietly holds meaning in place. We’ll also touch on the risk inherent in ritual — how the same mechanisms that deepen intimacy can harden into rigidity or fanaticism.
We’ll listen to sound as a path to devotion — mantra and chanting — and look at seeing as an act that shapes reality and focuses attention in an age of distraction. This is not a lecture about faith, nor a defence of tradition. It is an exploration of how humans are wired to ritualise — to use repetition to regulate attention and build relationships with the unseen. At its heart, this is a talk about transcendental love not as belief, but as practice, sustained through repetition, even when we don’t fully understand what we’re loving, or why.
Speaker Bio:
Inna has a background in arts and cultural studies and over a decade of experience in cultural and educational programming. Her work focuses on exploring the shared threads that connect diverse traditions, cultural practices, and creative expressions. Through lectures and discussions, she has used art and culture as a common language to bridge differing perspectives, foster dialogue, and cultivate appreciation for diversity alongside a sense of unity. Inna is also an intercultural mediator, committed to navigating cultural differences and resolving disagreement through thoughtful, dialogue-based approaches.
Curated & Hosted By:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
