The « Heedful Partnership » of Icelandic Cosmology, Dead Part in Genomic and Spiritualist Events
This paper confronts three Icelandic fieldworks : deCode Genetics’ program for collecting Icelanders’ DNA at the end of 20th century, the rise of Icelandic Spiritualism early in the same century and the channeling rituals of contemporary New Agers’ groups. All three testify a “heedful parternship” between the Dead and the Living as a common symbolic worldview. This pattern operates each time Icelanders build their own cosmology, figure themselves in the world and create their own identity and the Other. Studying this symbolic pattern, the author focuses on two main topics : On the one hand the controversy surrounding the well-known genomic project, on the other hand the contemporary Icelandic religious movements which must be understood through an historical tradition of exchange with the Dead.