Monastic blessings: Deconstructing and reconstructing the self

This paper explores the development and maintenance of the self among members of an Orthodox Christian monastery. The principal communicative resource by which members effect their unique social order, the blessing sequence, is interpreted as a spiritual technology for altering processes of reality construction, especially those associated with agency and selfhood. The deconstruction and reconstruction of the monastic self is essential to their membership in the community and a necessary preparation for the achievement of their shared objective: immediate experience of Ultimate Reality. This study demonstrates the interdependence of communicative practice and psychological experience and suggests that specific interactive routines may be identified and enacted in order to secure desirable psyche-social outcomes.