The appropriation of origin.: The construction of self and milieu in a western Sufi context

The present article is a result of an ethnographic and biographical case study in a western Sufimilieu. It deals with techniques of appropriation of pure origin (e. g. the sunna-oriented Life and the unio mystica with god). The author shows how biographical and interactive techniques of appropriation of pure origin intertwine in such a way that the construction of the self and the construction of the milieu go hand in hand. Further more he gives evidences that the western sufi-milieu is not an atavistic phenomenon but a modem social fact. The milieu shares structures of other modern milieus so as the globalized search for fundamentals to which Roland Robertson referred to. On the other hand, the author denies that those global meta-structures can completely reify the peculiar characteristics of the milieu.