Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture
... Une circularité ou une mise en abime qui traduit cette frénésie médiatique pour l'invisible et l'enserre (l'enferme?) dans l'écosystème des écrans. Ces ites spécialisés, émissions de TV relatives au "paranormal" et les équipes de chasseurs de fantômes ne sont pas que des représentants d'une culture populaire mondialisée émanant d'Amérique du Nord (pourvoyeuse, d'ailleurs, de contenus et de technologies médiatiques teintés de spiritualité) (Chidester 2005). ...
... Bien qu'elles ne donnent pas beaucoup d'information qualitative sur la forme, la nature et les conditions d'expérience des dits fantômes, ces statistiques forment l'écume informationnelle d'un mouvement historique vers un retour de visibilité des fantômes et spectres dans la vie culturelle des sociétés modernes: non qu'ils en aient totalement disparu, mais leur trajectoire historique les avait relégué au domaine du folklore et de la culture populaire. Sauf que, loin d'être écrasée par l'avancée de la modernité, la culture populaire, dont le versant de croyances était en particulier supposé de dissoudre dans le progrès, prend une revanche dans le cadre de ma mondialisation des médias et des techniques (Chidester 2005). ...
This paper explores the new forms assumed by ghost apparitions, through the screens of new communication and information technologies. It analyses the diversity of the manifestations and the channels through which these new ghosts circulate. It opens up a reflection on the continuities and ruptures of the relationships between technologies and spectres. Moreover, the paper ends up in a discussion on the status of the "spectre" in the context of hyper-mediatised societies. keywords: ghosts ; screens ; hauntologie ; spectrality ; ontology C'est un fait déjà bien établi et documenté que le développement extrêmement rapide des technologies de la communication et de l'information a généré une réorganisation plus ou moins profonde, toutefois, des systèmes de pensée et d'action sur le monde qu'en anthropologie il est coutume d'appeler "cultures" (Escobar 1994). Dans un monde où les écrans ont colonisé les agencements matériels dans lesquels vivent et s'expriment les humains, où les formes culturelles sont recalibrées par la multitude des technologies qui opèrent désormais dans tous les compartiments de l'existence au point qu'on a évoqué la révolution numérique comme une rupture anthropologique majeure pour l'humanité (Rieffel 2014). Laissant ici de côté l'immense domaine des transformations enregistrées et étudiées dans le domaine de l'impact de ce processus sur les formes culturelles, l'organisation économique ou les dynamiques sociales, c'est sous l'angle de l'anthropologie toutefois qu'il sera ici question d'un domaine en pleine effervescence et émergent: celui des rapports entre technologies digitales et apparitions spectrales-aussi intégré dans le paradigme de l'hauntology. Que les avancées technologiques ont donné lieu à des adaptations dans le domaine des religions établies, le fait est désormais bien documenté et continue de l'être: les grandes organisations religieuses comme les nouvelles mouvances spirituelles ou "ectaires" se sont en effet largement approprié la vaste gamme de technologies d'information et les nouveaux circuits médiatiques. Les ajustements, mutatis mutandis, à ces nouvelles contraintes matérielles et communicationnelles forment un domaine d'étude assez bien documenté à ce jour (voir les volumineux travaux de Heidi Campbell, aux Etats-Unis). De la même manière, mais avec une étape supplémentaire vers ce qui fera le coeur de cet article, les formes les plus évanescentes cependant particulièrement signifiantes en contexte de digitalisation avancée comme le sont nos sociétés, la magie (surnaturelle) sous ses différentes formes (traditionnelle ou réinventée) a aussi trouvé sa voie (ambivalente, car elle peut être véhiculée par les technologies ou générée par elles…) au sein de l'écosystème des médias et des technologies digitales (Obadia 2020). Pour autant, dans la multitude des images qui se déploient dans cet écosystème sociotechnique, il en est certaines qui intéressent anthropologues et technologues, pour des raisons identiques, qui relèvent également d'une certaine approche par les croyances, mais qui s'inscrivent dans un univers de perceptions et de conceptions encore plus nébuleux: cet univers se construit autour des images "fantômes" (ghost images) qui sont autant d'apparitions fugaces, troubles et troublantes, parce qu'elles ne ressortissent pas à l'idée d'une mécanique bien huilée des technologies digitales, dont sont vantées l'efficacité et les ouvrent la voie à des processus de
... Fake cults can be viewed as role-playing games, satire, or identity experiments (Obadia 2015). Chidester (2005) claims that some fake cultists treat their beliefs very seriously, undermining accepted ways of distinguishing "real" religions from those considered to be jokes or parodies. Chidester describes the struggle of the Discordianism fake cult to be listed in the "Religion and Faith" section of the Yahoo directory, not in the "Religious Parodies" section (Chidester 2005, p. 199). ...
... However, fake cults can be seen as a kind of new religious movements (see Chidester 2005). These also make up the innovative religion, but are much more "serious", and often also controversial. ...
Today, it is challenging to separate online and offline spaces and activities, and this is also true of digital religion as online and offline religious spaces become blended or blurred. With this background, the article explores the need for new typologies of what is religious on the Internet and proposes a conceptual framework for mapping digital religion. Four types of that which is religious on the Internet are presented based on influential classification by Helland. He introduced (1) religion online (sites that provide information without interactivity) and (2) online religion (interactivity and participation). Helland’s concept is developed by, among others, adding two types: (3) innovative religion (new religious movements, cults, etc.) and (4) traditional religion (e.g., Christianity or Islam). Each type is illustrated by selected examples and these are a result of a larger project. The examples are grouped into three areas: (1) religious influencers, (2) online rituals and (3) cyber-religions (parody religions). Additionally, the visual frame for mapping digital religion is presented including the examples mentioned. The presented framework attempts to improve Helland’s classification by considering a more dynamic nature of digital religion. The model is just one possible way for mapping digital religion and thus should be developed further. These and other future research threads are characterized.
... В своей уже ставшей классической статье 75 Веррипс утверждает, что понимание художественных произведений может значительно расшириться, если вернуться к идее Аристотеля о том, что прикосновение является фундаментальным способом восприятия. Он полагает, что другие модусы, которые мы научились различать, расставлять в определенном иерархическом порядке и ассоциировать с телом (эмоциями) и разумом (рациональным мышлением) -это особые разновидности тактильности 76 . ...
The article examines the contemporary art exhibitions in twenty‑first‑century Russia that sparked accusations of “blasphemy” and extensive public debate and prompted law enforcement interventions. In the first part of the article, I retrospectively illustrate the history of the most prominent “blasphemous” contemporary art exhibitions in Russia, leading to the application of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code against the artists. These incidents, which followed the “Pussy Riot” case, resulted in the amendments to the Criminal Code that tightened the penalties for offending religious sentiments. Consequently, religious and radical nationalist movements were empowered to approach law enforcement agencies to initiate investigations and hold artists and activists accountable. In the second part of the article, I delve into two exhibitions held in one of the most conservative Russian state art museums, the State Hermitage Museum. These exhibitions are the 2012 Chapman Brothers’ “The End of Fun” and the 2016 “Jan Fabre: Knight of Despair — Warrior of Beauty.” Employing the concept proposed by the Dutch anthropologist Jojada Verrips, I aim to explore how the critics of the exhibitions conceptualized their outrage and offended sensibilities. Additionally, I analyze how various stakeholders, including Hermitage staff, Orthodox believers, and the prosecution, contested and justified the “blasphemous” nature of the exhibitions.
... As the prayer moves from the khata to the xylograph, the sensorial experience of the contact relic, of the touch of silk, is lost as well as that individual, personal experience of being in the presence of the Jowo, which the last colophon recommends. David Chidester described this process as the intersection of human subjectivity with social collectivity and "the genesis of religious experiences as a process in which the personal and the social are co-constitutive" (Chidester 2005). By focusing on body contact between a devotee and the Jowo as the genesis of these prayers, we see how sensational forms are naturalized as conveyors of truth. ...
Following the re-opening of the Rasa Trulnang Tsuklhakhang, the central temple in Lhasa, all of the new images of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and famous lamas were placed behind glass except for those in the sancta sanctorum, the “Jokhang”. When a pilgrim approaches the central figure, the Jowo Śākyamuni, she climbs a ladder on his right side, lays a ceremonial scarf across his lap, and then lays her head there, like a child seeking solace from her mother. A wealthy pilgrim might return in the late afternoon, when the temple is closed to visitors, to sponsor a regilding ceremony, in which the sponsor can spend up to an hour nearly alone with the Jowo watching his whole body be repainted in gold. Based on participant observation, pilgrimage guides, and verses of praise offered to the Jowo, this paper considers how the cult of the Jowo uses moments of private intimacy to bridge the distance, both physically and historically, between a devotee and the Buddha.
... The classification of witchcraft condemns many Africans to a feeling of being second class world citizens. Even today, when 'alternative healing' would in quite a number of cases be a more appropriate concept for such practices, only New Age 'neo-shamanism' and Harry Potter seem to allow some Africans a chance to debunk the myth of European exceptionality (see Cochrane 2020: 176-181;Chidester 2005). ...
We live in stressful times, as any academic actor can affirm. The number of students that come to me complaining about how stressed out they are has exploded since more and more neoliberal measures (such as the conversion of student grants into loans, and increasing competition and pressure to finish on time) took effect during the past decade. In my own cohort (who earned their PhDs in the 1990s) as well as later ones, cases of (near) burnout have multiplied since at least 2010, as student numbers and work pressure have increased while government funding has continued to stall. Yet, the more stressed out we become, the more our academic understanding of stress seems to improve, not least because new questions about the relationships between nature and nurture-between our physical responses to stress, and the extent to which social and cultural factors interfere with them-have been and can be posed. For this essay, I was inspired by a novel and potentially game-changing theory about the interaction between human culture, psychology and biology: the generalised unsafety theory of stress (guts). It argues that-contrary to the common perception that (coping with) stress is triggered by stressors-our embodied response to stress is always 'on', unless we perceive indicators of safety that may inhibit it (Brosschot, Verkuijl and Thayer 2018). To me, this theory resonates with the recent upsurge of interest in an anthropology of the future (reviewed in Pels 2015): both recognise that the decisive, but more often than not neglected, factor in studying the social and natural causes of stress is time. This is not, however, the superficial, modern capitalist
... 14 Chidester (2012:xii) traces back his academic study of religion through Smith and Charles Long 'ultimately to Emile Durkheim's sociology of the sacred, all refracted, however, by my experience of living and working since 1984 in South Africa during a world-historical transition from oppression to liberation'. 15 The argument that popular culture behaves like a religion is the focus of Chidester's Authentic fakes: Religion and American popular culture (Chidester 2005). essary categories of thought in modern epistemological debates, but on the content that can be given to these concepts for critical analysis to produce new knowledge about religion. ...
This article addresses the fundamental question of how knowledge about religion is acquired in the academic study of religion. It does so by means of a comparison of the answers to the question by Emile Durkheim and David Chidester. Durkheim, in engaging with the conventional distinction between rationalist and empiricist theories of knowledge of his time, as well as their combination by Kant, argues that categories of thought (such as space, time, causality, number, and classifications) are not mere abstract conditions of understanding, but are to be conceptualized as constructs of particular societies. This social-anthropological shift in the theory of knowledge has been of decisive influence since the beginning of the 20th century, among others on the late 20th-century and beginning of the 21st-century South African scholar of religion, David Chidester. From a comparison of Durkheim's epistemology with that of Chidester it is, however, clear that the latter brings new insights to the epistemological question by insisting on a postcolonial and material approach to the study of religion. The comparison of the two episte-mologies that I provide here should give substance to this point by comparing ways in which they deal with a selection of categories and concepts in their study of religion.
... 10. See, for instance work such as Chidester (2005), which examines the construction of authenticity as a source of religious creativity in American life, or open, multi-valent, socially constructed picture of Mother Earth as the result of scholarship has no role to play in illuminating the work of the courts. There her authenticity will solely be a question about standards of evidence. ...
I can understand that Gill’s commitment to the academic study of religion would lead him to make a strong distinction between the scholarly search for truth and political advocacy—a point he emphasized in his 1997 JAAR debate with Chris Jocks (Gill 1997; Jocks 1997). At the same time, however, scholarly searches for truth in contentious areas might best lead those scholars to acknowledge how their searches fit in with and affect the surrounding contests of the political world, if only to ensure that their work is not appropriated in ways that misconstrue their conclusions.
... It begins, of course, with Gill's new article, after which Greg Johnson, Matthey Glass, Olle Sundström, Bjørn Ola Tafjord, and Joseph A. P. Wilson (who was my collaborator in orchestrating and editing this issue) provide their responses. We asked others as well but, as is often the case, while hoping to pitch in, 4. As David Chidester (2005) has argued, even 'fake' religions do real religious work; I would simply replace 'fake' with 'recently invented' to put the idea less provocatively. ...
Introduction to a special issue
... In Chp. 1, Miller offers a historical review of the study of material culture. Scholars in the field of material religious studies include Colleen McDannell (1995), David Chidester (2005), and David Morgan (2005), as well as the more recent elaborations by Manuel Vásquez (2011), Carolyn Walker Bynum (2011), and Brent Plate (2015. 4 (Fleming and Mann 2018, pp. ...
Based on fieldwork and the analysis of the historical literature, this article studies the development of material culture in the cult of popular goddess Mazu, exploring in particular the materialization mechanisms and strategies deployed by various actors in her worship nowadays. Through the ages, people in China have expressed their religious feelings and experiences in the objects they display, worship, and exchange, as well as in the spaces that they build and inhabit. In this process, religious beliefs are externalized in forms of material culture, including symbols, texts, relics, music, and temples. As a result, these artifacts and places carry individual and collective memories and affects that allow believers to experience religion not only at special events like festivals and pilgrimages, but in everyday life. In modern China, the connotations and forms of material carriers have diversified. The rise of souvenirs and other forms of cultural consumption have transformed the materialization of religiosity. In the worship of Mazu, the relationship between pilgrimage, tourism, entertainment, and the production and circulation of commodities has become increasingly tight, changing the cult’s beliefs and their physical expression. That connection also brings social and economic sustenance to the local community. Taking the Mazu Temple in Meizhou as a case, this paper adopts a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to examine the pilgrimage–tourism–commerce nexus, as well as other contemporary forms of the materialization of her cult.
... Viimeksi kuluneiden parin vuosikymmenen aikana uskonnon ja kansainvälisesti levinneen massamedioidun populaarikulttuurin suhteen tutkiminen on hiljalleen alkanut kehittyä eriytyneeksi itsenäiseksi tutkimusalakseen uskontotieteen ja vähitellen myös uskontososiologian piirissä. Alan tieteellisen kirjallisuuden määrä kasvaa, ja siihen kuuluu sekä antologioita, joissa esitellään alan monimuotoisuutta ja sen sovellusmahdollisuuksia (Forbes ja Mahan 2000;Stout ja Buddenbaum 2001;Clark 2007;Lynch 2007b;Partridge ja Moberg 2017), että tutkimuksia, joissa perustellaan, miksi tietyt lähestymistavat ja tulkinnalliset viitekehykset olisivat hedelmällisiä (Clark 2003;Partridge 2004;Lynch 2005;Possamai 2005;Chidester 2005). ...
... Culturally, this pictures thus fits perfectly into the tradition of "genuine" or "authentic fakes" (Chidester, 2005) that has followed every religious tradition, and Christianity's and Catholicism's in particular. ...
This paper presents an exploratory examination of video-mediated classroom interaction in School and University settings, a modality of teaching and learning which has recently experienced a rapid growth as a consequence of the COVID-19 emergency. Based on a corpus of audio and video recorded virtual classes, we analyze how instructors and students cope with the challenges of not being physically co-present and lacking direct visual contact in the virtual enviroment, and discuss how fundamental mechanisms of face-to-face classroom interaction –participants’ mutual orientation in the opening phase, speakers’ identification and recognition, as well as instructors’ actions like comprehension checks, solicitations for questions/comments, questions and evaluations– are partially modified in the virtual environment, making it more complex, for instructors, to enhance students’ active participation. Final considerations are devoted to the possible implications of these preliminary findings.
... The identity-preserving and sacred programmes equally use (invent, re-invent, re-enact) symbolic forms and set of magical or pseudo-magical acts from times past. However, not in their original form, but as authentic fakes (Chidester 2005) or folkloresque (Foster and Tolbert 2016) that seem to be authentic components from the past. In spite of their false authenticity these festivals-as Chidester wrote on authentic fake religious phenomena-"[are] doing real religious work in forging community, focusing desire, and facilitating exchange in ways that looks just like religion" (Chidester 2005: viii). ...
Burning Man is an annual participatory arts event and temporary city co-created in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Also known as Black Rock City, it has spawned a global movement with over 100 “regional events” (or “burns”) worldwide. Conveying qualitative findings from surveys targeted at European Burning Man participants (or “Burners”) and triangulating these findings with ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in Germany, the chapter explores the complexities of Burning Man’s stature as a transformational event prototype. We recognise burns—Black Rock City and its worldwide progeny events—as experimental heterotopia, or “counter spaces,” that enable a proliferation of ritualesque and carnivalesque performance modes. By addressing Burner values and motivations, we discuss the appeal of burns, notably their multiplex potential for personal and cultural innovation. As this chapter illustrates, the performative/transformative logic of Black Rock City, the complexity of which is mirrored and mutated in progeny events, inheres in an ethos known as the Ten Principles. Part of a larger project addressing the transformative innovation of Burning Man, the multi-methodological investigation of this event culture focuses on the principles of Gifting and Leaving No Trace highlighted in German Burner initiatives.
... Not limiting the term religion to the belief in supernatural beings, Chidester (1991) would agree with Durkheim that the modern nation state with its sacred stories, rituals and institutions serves the same function as conventional religions in uniting a group, applying the insight to the apartheid system as well as to the construction of a post-apartheid South Africa. Chidester (2005Chidester ( , 2012 would, furthermore, also 'play with' Durkheim's understanding of religion by applying it to forms of popular culture that behave like conventional religions, such as Coca-Cola, Tupperware, Disney, Rock 'n' Roll and the World Cup in South Africa. ...
The purpose of this research study was to compare the analyses of the anthropologist Edward Tylor’s animist theory of religion in the work of two major scholars of religion. At the beginning of the 20th century, Durkheim refuted Tylor’s classical explanation of the origin of religion, before he would proceed to develop his own sociological explanation. At the turn of the 21st century, from a postcolonial South African location, David Chidester offered a critical analysis of the triple mediation under colonial and imperial conditions that made Tylor’s evolutionary theory possible. By foregrounding definitions, making arguments explicit and comparing these two assessments, the two analyses shed light on each other as well as allowed us to view the issue of animism in a new light. This article concluded by highlighting points that emerged and need continuing attention in the academic study of religion.
Contribution: This article, as part of a collection on re-readings of major theorists of religion, offers a comparison of Durkheim and Chidester’s analyses of Tylor’s classical animist theory of religion. By comparison, the analyses shed light on each other and on the theory of animism itself, highlighting critical issues that deserve the continuing focus of students of religion.
The article engages in the undisciplining of the study of religion and proposes two central concepts/approaches for how to do so: the pluriverse and materiality. But what is undisciplining? And is it needed? To frame the undisciplining of the study of religion and render visible how I conceive of it as a needed practice, the article discusses the relationship between knowledge, materiality, power, and transformation. This relationship is concretized by prioritizing critical decolonial perspectives from the South African context. Here, I center materiality and the material effects of colonial discourse and epistemology as critical entry points. I also highlight the importance of embodied approaches to knowledge, illustrated through decolonial feminist engagements with post-qualitative methodologies. Informed by these critical insights, I unpack the concept of the pluriverse and highlight its epistemic and methodological relevance for the undisciplining of the study of religion. (Re-)turning to materiality, I foreground materiality as a creative and critical knowledge framework and argue for the varying ways it may function for rethinking and undisciplining the study of religion.
Engaging David Chidester’s argument that takes up ideas from Marx and Benjamin, the article argues that the academic study of religion can make a contribution to understand the economy by conceptualising it as functioning like a religion. This is achieved by using theorised concepts of myth (sacred stories), rituals and institutions that serve not only to unite adherents, but also to establish, maintain or challenge power relations. The thesis is tentatively illustrated with reference to the Chinese economy that needs to be compared with other economic systems that function like a religion.
Over the course of the last century (1923–2023), the Walt Disney Company has both catalyzed and reflected dizzying changes in the American cultural landscape—including religious ones. Scholars of Disney and religion often take one of three tactics to analyze this pairing: 1) Disney as religion 2) Disney depicting religion, or 3) Disney as influenced by religion. But all three of these ways of writing posit two separate, solid things called “Disney” and “religion; ” phenomena that meet and perhaps collide but remain distinct. This essay briefly reviews those methods, but it also thinks about the religious study of Disney through three other fluid, thematic approaches to the field: 1) Rituals, Spaces, Magic 2) Cultural Narratives, and 3) Corporate Forms and Disney Desires. In addition to summarizing prior research that is explicitly about Disney, I suggest how adjacent advances in religious studies can leads us to a nuanced study of what I will call the “Disney/religion nexus.” My goal is to expand, rather than reduce, the ways we think at this crossroads. This nexus fascinates precisely because it is not just Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam, nor is it Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, or Tesla. It has aspects of all these things, but it is something more. Disney is an assemblage of stories, people, places, and objects that don't fit into a traditional box, combining the religious flows people bring with them to Disney with the routinization and meaning making of this cultural titan.
У статті досліджено феномен появи та функціонування штучної релігії матрицизму, що виникла у фан-спільноті фільму «Матриця», розглянуто постмодерний «текучий» спосіб буття цієї релігії та досліджено паралелі з джедайством. Але коли джедайство було адаптацією до реальності штучної релігії, вигаданої для сюжету фільму «Зоряні війни», та поширилося у великих фан-спільнотах, то матрицизм натомість уникає масовізації. Проаналізовано догматику матрицизму – першої штучної релігії на основі кінематографічного сюжету, яка спробувала стати езотеричною і якій, схоже, це вдалося, навіть враховуючи складності для приховування своєї діяльності у сучасному мережевому суспільстві. Першою з релігій, що постали з популярного кінематографу, матрицизм проголошує таїнством вживання психоделіків, які подосі зостаються забороненими в більшості країн, і вже цим суттєво вирізняється серед штучних релігій. Висунуто гіпотезу про створення матрицизму дискордіанцями, чи, принаймні, людьми, які добре знають цю релігію, оскільки глибше порівняння цих двох штучних релігій показує багато спільних рис, постулатів, збіжність аксіологічних настанов. Серед іншого, відзначено попит на якісно розроблені та максимально реалістичні релігії з боку кінематографу, що, на нашу думку, призведе до створення подібних продуманих і якісних релігій у майбутньому. У матрицизмі виразно простежується зв’язок з важливими буддистськими, індуїстськими ідеями, зокрема з концепцією майї як ілюзії, яка стає на заваді пізнанню реальності, яка, в суто постмодерністському баченні сприймається як багатошарова. У філософсько-релігійний синтез матрицизму увійшли ідеї гностицизму, зокрема його бачення Творця як обмеженого та недосконалого, та віри бахаї, у якій матрицисти знаходять першу згадку концепції матриці. В сюжетах фільмів «Матриці» для увиразнення цієї концепції використано потужні можливості, які з’явилися в комп’ютерну епоху, досягнення технокультури. Мотив самопізнання тут також має буддистсько-гностичне підґрунтя. Як і більшість шкіл буддизму, матрицизм не прагне поширювати своє вчення, та претендує на езотеричність. Функціонування штучної релігії кінематографічного, тобто поп-культурного походження, яка прокламує езотеричну онтологію є новим для релігій такого походження. Наголошено деякі теоретичні проблеми, які цей рух, як і ряд подібних, постулюють для релігієзнавства вже самим фактом свого існування. Зокрема, важливо розуміти підстави, з огляду на які дискримінують подібні феномени. Складною є і проблема рецепції таких явищ дослідниками-релігієзнавцями. Адже тут кінофільм, явище масової культури, жанр переважно розважальний, використовується як сакральний текст. Для пояснення феномену варто залучати концепцію гіперреальності та гіпертексту, тим більш що сама релігія має виразно текстове походження. Очевидним видається вплив філософії, аксіології та естетики постмодернізму з його релятивізмом та відмовою від ієрархізації й пошуку єдино правильної абсолютної істини. Для матрицизму має значення саме прагнення до трансценденції та пошуку вищих смислів. Матрицизм підтверджує розвиток явища, яке пов’язували насамперед із джедайством: штучні релігії, створені кінематографом, можуть продовжувати функціонувати у реальному світі. Тож секуляризація може інтерпретуватися не як зникнення релігій, а як видозміна виявів релігійності у світі, де різношаровість і відносність реальності має все більше значення. Для всебічного осмислення таких процесів потрібна співпраця релігієзнавців із культурологами та мистецтвознавцями.
Deras are generally perceived as an alternative socio-religious space frequented mostly by lower castes and economically weaker sections of society. They promise to make a significant difference to the lives of such vulnerable sections of society by lending them much needed spiritual, moral, and social support. Within the sprawling premises of Deras, downtrodden find a welcoming ‘counter-public’ enriched with social capital, which offers them an egalitarian domain free from the afflictions of caste discriminations, social exclusion, and subtle indignities often faced by them within the mainstream religious spheres. The growth of Deras thus may be seen as an index of subaltern socio-cultural and syncretic religious realms generating a rich haul of social capital.
The present article addresses the question of the legitimacy of recent demands to treat the so-called invented religions on an equal footing with traditionally recognized religions, and – in consequence – as enjoying protection under the legal provisions on freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights in particular). The term “invented religions” refers to the phenomena in which the status of authoritative sources is granted to narratives that are not only intentionally fictional, but also rather openly presented as products of human imagination (e.g., Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster). A point of reference in the article is the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in pastafarian cases (De Wilde v. The Netherlands, Alm v. Austria, Sager and Others v. Austria) as well as opinions of religious studies scholars who deal with invented religions in their research (Carole M. Cusack, Markus Altena Davidsen). Taking into consideration also the view on the necessary protection of an individual’s integrity (Cécile Laborde), it is argued that the demands to treat invented religions as true religious phenomena have no justifications in their real nature. The protection regarding freedom of thought, conscience and religion should only cover beliefs that are deeply and sincerely held.
The study of religion arose as a tool of empire but also stands as a possible counterpoint to that colonizing project should technological progress ever lead to artificial general intelligence (AGI) in a machine. Not only will the existence of religion constitute a defining element in identifying AGI, but the lessons gleaned from analyzing religion among human communities can help guide the acceptance of machines into what Isaac Asimov called a C-Fe society, a community of human beings and intelligent machines. Drawing on the history of religion and twenty-first century inquiries into the religious implications of artificial intelligence, this article makes two fundamental contributions. First, it argues for the relevance, if not primacy, of religion in the recognition of AGI. Second, it reflects upon the need for humanity to overcome the self-serving techniques of imperial domination to welcome AGI, should such sophisticated technology arise.
Modern çağda yaşanan değişim ve dönüşümler dinî inanç ve pratiklere de yansımış ve din fenomeninin geleneksel sınırlarını aşarak kurumsal bir otorite olmaktan çıkıp daha ziyade bireysel deneyimleri merkeze alan bir yönde ilerlemesine neden olmuştur. Dinî söylemlerin çeşitlenmesine yol açan bu süreçle birlikte dinin, bireylerin yaşamlarını anlamlandırmada hâlâ önemli bir rol oynadığı, ancak bu rolün giderek daha esnek ve sorgulanabilir bir yapıya büründüğü görülmektedir. Benzer bir değişim sürecinin ateist düşüncede de yaşanması, bireysel inançsızlığı temsil eden klasik ateizm anlayışından uzaklaşılmasına ve geleneksel dinî inançları hedef alan yeni bir ateist akımın doğmasına yol açmıştır. ‘Yeni Ateizm’ olarak adlandırılan bu akım yalnızca tanrı inancını reddetmekle kalmayıp aynı zamanda geleneksel dinî kurumları, öğretileri ve uygulamaları katı bir tutum içerisinde eleştiren, dahası, bilimin ve rasyonalitenin dinin yerine geçmesi gerektiğini savunan bir yaklaşımı temsil etmektedir. Nitekim yeni ateizmin yükselişi, yüzyıllardan beri süregelen din ve ateizm arasındaki karşıtlığa yeni bir boyut kazandırarak bu iki olgu arasındaki geleneksel çatışmanın ötesine geçmiş, dinleri taklitleri aracılığıyla alaya alan ve ‘ateist din’ ya da ‘parodi din’ olarak adlandırılan yeni bir eleştiri biçiminin ortaya çıkmasına zemin hazırlamıştır. Bahsi geçen konu bağlamında bu makale çalışması, ateist düşüncenin mizahî bir yansıması olarak ortaya çıkan ‘parodi din’ kavramını ele almakta ve bu kavramı 2005’te ABD’de doğan Uçan Spagetti Canavarı Kilisesi örnekliğinde incelemektedir. Pastafaryanizm olarak da adlandırılan Uçan Spagetti Canavarı Kilisesi, dünyanın dört bir tarafında edindiği çok sayıdaki üyesi ve bu üyelerin, inançlarının yasal olarak tanınmasına yönelik başlattıkları hukukî girişimler sayesinde giderek popülerlik kazanmaktadır. Ülkemizde de ‘Türkiye Pastafaryan Cemaati’ adı altında toplanan çok sayıda Pastafaryan mevcuttur. Uluslararası literatürde din araştırmaları kapsamında pek çok açıdan incelemeye tabi tutulan Pastafaryanizm’i, kapsamlı bir biçimde ele alan Türkçe bir çalışmaya rastlanmamış olması, bu araştırmanın temel motivasyonunu oluşturmuştur. Literatürdeki eksikliğe katkı sağlayacağına inanılan bu çalışmanın temel tezi, parodi din kavramının oluşumuna ateist bir zemin üzerine inşa edilen kurgusal argümanların kaynaklık ettiği ve Uçan Spagetti Canavarı Kilisesi’ne ait temel öğretilerin bahsi geçen kurgusal argümanlarla benzer bir yapılanmaya sahip olduğudur. Bu bağlamda çalışmada öncelikle parodi din kavramının hangi etmenlere bağlı olarak ne zaman ortaya çıktığı, tam olarak neyi ifade ettiği, Russell, Sagan, Baggini ve Dawkins gibi ünlü ateistler tarafından öne sürülen kurgusal argümanların parodi dinlerin oluşumunda nasıl bir rol oynadığı gibi hususlar ele alınıp değerlendirilmiştir. Ardından günümüzün popüler parodi dinleri arasında yer alan Uçan Spagetti Canavarı Kilisesi’nin tarihî geçmişi, temel öğretileri, kutsal metinleri, ritüelleri ile din özgürlüğü bağlamında yasal bir din olarak kabul görmek için verdikleri hukukî mücadele örnekleri üzerinde durulmuştur. Böylelikle bahsi geçen ateist bilim adamlarına ait kurgusal argümanlarla Uçan Spagetti Canavarı Kilisesi’nin kurgusal öğretisi arasındaki uyum ve benzerliklerin ortaya konulması amaçlanmıştır. Çalışmanın amaçlarından bir diğeri, parodi dinlerin birey ve toplum üzerindeki etkilerinin anlaşılmasını sağlayabilecek saha araştırmalarına teorik bir zemin hazırlamaktır.
This chapter explores sophisticated imaginative processes from a kinetic perspective. Specifically, I show how the pulsatile imaginary and disimagination offer nuanced theoretical frameworks for interpreting dance writing and dance iconography in premodernity. For my purposes, the pulsatile imaginary expresses and encodes the rhythmic, dynamic, and mobile texture of Western dance. I employ theologian Meister Eckhart’s (d. c. 1328) term “disimagination” to examine how the imagination activates the agency of the image through dispossession and de-representation (as opposed to likeness and mimesis). I examine the interrelationship between premodern dance, pulsatility, and disimagination within four distinct discussions: the rhythmic structure of dance (specifically the French carole), the aesthetic of enchantment in dance, the pulsatile in peasant dance, and disenchantment in early modern dance. This chapter shows how premodern dance—with its poetic, spiritual, and social valences—offers a unique opportunity to rethink the modalities of representation in European culture.
According to some cognitive and neuroscientific theories, religion is not an evolved adaptation but rather an artifact, one that may lead to adaptive behaviors. Here I relate (a) an empathetic theory of religion with (b) a functional theory of musicality to clarify religion’s adaptive features. This theory contributes to previous research by explaining the link between spirituality and music and makes the nontrivial prediction that increasing numbers of people who are disaffected by traditional religious institutions will find modes of meaning-making and fellow-feeling in contemporary festival and live music scenes.
Force est de reconnaître qu’on observe aujourd’hui en Afrique comme ailleurs dans le monde postcolonial au sens large un renouveau religieux se traduisant par l’expansion des divers mouvements de « retour aux sources » qui possèdent, à la lumière de la conférence de cette année, un certain nombre de points communs. L’étude systématique de ces points et des convergences parfois insoupçonnées entre les discours et les pratiques néopaïens rencontrés au sud du Sahara, ailleurs dans le Sud global et dans les contextes post-communistes asiatiques ou européens contribue à la fois à la meilleure compréhension du New Age et du lien entre religion et nationalisme en général.
QAnon has emerged as the defining conspiracy group of our times, and its far-right conspiracies are extraordinary for their breadth and extremity. Bringing together scholars from psychology, sociology, communications, and political science, this cutting-edge volume uses social science theory to investigate aspects of QAnon. Following an introduction to the 'who, what, and why' of QAnon, Part I focuses on the psychological characteristics of QAnon followers and the group's methods for recruiting and maintaining these followers. Part II includes chapters at the intersection of QAnon and society, arguing that society has constructed QAnon as a threat and the social need to belong motivates its followers. Part III discusses the role of communication in promoting and limiting QAnon support, while Part IV concludes by considering the future of QAnon. The Social Science of QAnon is vital reading for scholars and students across the social sciences, and for legal and policy professionals.
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ABSTRACT
A Cabal of Outsiders: Negotiating the (Virtual) Boundaries of the Church of Satan
Cimminnee Holt, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2022
This dissertation is a qualitative digital ethnography about members of the Church of
Satan (CoS) and how they negotiate the boundaries of modern religious Satanism in public
virtual landscapes. The Church of Satan emerges from 1960s American countercultural
movements within the social and political turbulence of second-wave feminism and the sexual
revolution, the civil rights movement, anti-war protests, hippies, and the so-called witch revival.
The founder of the Church of Satan, Anton Szandor LaVey (née Howard Stanton Levy 1928-
1997), developed a codified religion best understood as emerging from and responding to the
popular discourses of his time, embracing the infamous symbol of rebellion—Satan—and
positioning his new religion of Satanism in calculated tension with both the ubiquitous Protestant
ethos of American society and its radical counterculture.
Throughout this thesis, highlighted claims from LaVey, the Church of Satan, and its
members are presented in terms of their respective social and historical contexts to demonstrate that, despite the CoS Administration’s claim to being apolitical and somewhat indifferent to modern concerns, the body of the Church of Satan viewed via the lens of its members’ lives online is deeply political, heavily invested in social discourses, with CoS members re/negotiating a Satanic identity via the demands of the modern world. The tripartite model is organized by delineating between: LaVey’s authored texts and interviews; the Church of Satan Administration’s official statements and policies; and the body of the membership in their own words expressed via their published works, public online content, and supplemented with data from a circulated questionnaire.
This thesis examines modern religious Satanism as a highly individualistic religion that exalts the notion of a “true self” to reveal that each member of the Church of Satan absorbs Satanic literature and official policies and doctrines, and interprets them according to their own idiosyncratic experience, extending their identities as Satanists outward into their respective virtual spaces. The variety of Satanic interpretations can and often do conflict with one another, which this thesis argues is a deliberately constructed tension to avoid homogeny within internal CoS culture.
Pehmeitä kumouksia – Uskonto, media, nykyaika käsittelee uskontoa ja sen tutkimista nykyajan mediavetoisessa kulttuurissa. Teoksessa analysoidaan media- ja populaarikulttuurin uskonnollisuutta ja siihen vaikuttavia laajempia yhteiskunnallisia prosesseja sekä pohditaan, millaisia uusia menetelmällisiä ratkaisuja uskonnontutkimus voisi hyödyntää vastatakseen nykypäivän tarpeisiin. Teos hahmottaa kriittisiä kulttuurintutkimuksellisia ja uskontososiologisia lähestymistapoja yhdistellen pehmeitä kumouksia uskontotieteen tutkimusperinteisiin ja -kohteisiin. Sen mukaan uskontotiede on kiinnostunut enenevässä määrin nykypäivän mediakulttuurista, mikä vaatii uutta tieteidenvälistä ja kriittistä pohdintaa siitä, millainen asema uskonnolla on yhteiskunnassa.
The English word “celebrity” is derived from Latin “celeber,” which meant frequented or honored. The modern phenomenon of celebrity has been traced to the mid‐eighteenth century, when it emerged from a confluence of material consumption, the invention of the fashion industry, and the mass‐circulation newspaper. Celebrity entwined with spectacle to separate the image of the famed person from their real existence, and by the twenty‐first century the mediatization of celebrity ensured its global dominance. Yet this origin point is disputable, with the cult of the saints in the high Middle Ages being a strong contender for the beginning of celebrity culture. Celebrity interacts with religion in multiple ways: celebrities are like saints in medieval Christianity, functioning as role models for the faithful; some celebrities more closely resemble deities, avatars, and bodhisattvas; and fans and fandoms can be understood as worshippers and nascent churches. Many scholars reject these parallels as superficial; an alternative is that celebrity is a form of disposable polytheism, saturated in object fetishism and powered by erotomania. In the twenty‐first century, it is arguable that “celebrity culture” is a form of “world religion.”
This chapter begins with a set of definitions, raising the questions of: What is religion? What is communication? What is media, and how are we to understand the processes of mediation? Some scholarship on communication, media, and religion takes established religious organizations and affiliations as a starting point for analysis and some continues to theorize the role of media in social change in relation to processes of secularization and sacralization. The emergence of feminist theory, queer and critical race theories had shaped studies of both media and religion beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. The material turn invited understanding across various religious traditions and deeper connections between religions and how they are created, practiced, communicated, and re‐mediated. Scholarship in media, religion, and communication is turning to the ways that fears surrounding immigration, mass shootings, pandemics, masks, and vaccines are inflamed by social media sharing, pushing online conversations into in‐person spaces with near‐religious fervor.
This article examines the lack of transparent labeling for Genetically Modified ( gm ) foods to show how the marketing of biotechnology obscures the relationship between the production and consumption of industrial agriculture. On the side of production, biotech corporations directly market gm seeds to farmers, to promote brand loyalty and protect proprietary claims. On the side of consumption, however, the biotech industry resists labeling gm ingredients of food products. The article argues that the producer/consumer split in gm food marketing is part of a broader American secularism that circulates a hidden religion of industrial biotechnology within cultural symbols of consumer freedom, personal choice, and moral goodness.
ABSTRACT
Metamodern Mysticisms: Narrative Encounters with Contemporary Western Secular Spiritualities
by
Linda C. Ceriello
The phenomenon of secular spirituality has grown increasingly visible in the contemporary Western world in the past two decades. From oral or written narratives of life-altering realizations that unchurched individuals describe using spiritual vernacular, to the plethora of encounters with the supernatural and paranormal depicted in popular culture, broad interest in and even comfort with mystical and non-ordinary experience is found more than ever in contexts not considered traditionally religious. The spiritual but not religious (SBNR) identity as a Western contemporary idiom in some sense curates this secular-spiritual space in the current cultural landscape. This project seeks to ask how, why now, and to what effect.
To do so, I examine the SBNR and popular cultural instances of lay spiritual encounters that I am calling secondhand mysticism. Looking at how contemporary individuals encounter the mystical and non-ordinary will help shed light on the phenomenon of decontextualized, secular mystical experiences themselves, and will help consider new frameworks for viewing some of the central debates within mysticism studies. These types of encounters trouble the well-trodden perennialism-constructivism binary, and will consequently be a rich inroad to illuminating the larger epistemic terrain that undergirds the SBNR that I refer to as metamodernism.
This project seeks to add to two types of recent efforts that have forged new theoretical bases for interdisciplinary scholarship in the twenty-first century: The first is the scholarly engagement with mysticisms as a “gnostic” enterprise. I will explore the idea that a gnostic scholarly perspective, one that neither negates nor endorses any individual’s particular truth claims but instead generates third positions, has the possibility of accessing, performing, and/or even, at its most extreme, producing a secondhand mystical moment of “Aha!”
The second current interdisciplinary project is the theorizing of metamodernism. Previous studies of the SBNR, of popular culture mysticism, and indeed of this gnostic position, I will argue here, have yet to account for and situate the emergence of this secular-spiritual sensibility within recent shifts in the contemporary Western cultural episteme (a term I borrow from the Foucauldian schema). Whereas the debate dominating mysticism studies that has for decades hinged on a central bifurcation pitting universalism against contextualism is, arguably, the product of modern and postmodern views colliding, I will take the position that the SBNR and the gnostic approach to viewing secular mystical phenomena are something else. That something else, I assert here, is the product and/or producer of a so-called metamodern shift, in which the Western cultural frame enacts a kind of collective emergence out from under the thumb of hyper-relativization and irony, among other postmodern ideas.
Metamodernism factors into my study of secondhand mysticisms as a theoretical tool in three senses: as an instrument of historical contextualization or periodization; as an emerging narrative container in the figuring of the SBNR that gives contour to the secular and spiritual bridges and to the Western encounter with “the East”; and as a way of accounting for specific types of content that secular popular culture brings to the exploration of mysticisms.
To examine the theoretical work metamodernism can do, I first locate the SBNR in currents of American spiritualities by identifying some of its major narratives as metamodern. I illustrate the intersection of these in chapters two and four by looking at instances of Neo-Advaita Vedanta spirituality as performed through the figure of Russell Brand and other contemporary expositors. In chapter three, I use popular culture depictions of monsters such as those in Joss Whedon’s cult television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to show how metamodern monsters have shifted narratives of the monstrous Other in a manner that highlights social shifts toward pluralism and inclusivism. Other ethical considerations related to this post-postmodern epistemic shift will be discussed in chapter five. There I also continue to make my case for the efficacy of theorization of a new episteme—in simple terms, to say why and when the signifier postmodernism needs replacing and what doing so will accomplish for the academic study of religion.
Each chapter includes analysis of different types of mystical narratives: In chapter two, an anonymous account from a contemporary “ordinary mystic”, in chapter three, those of fictional television characters, and in chapter four, from a highly visible celebrity—each for how they convey personal transformation and understanding of the secular-spiritual qualities such as I identify here and also for how they illuminate a metamodern immanent soteriology, giving transformational power to the viewer/reader, who becomes, in effect, a secondhand mystic.
Religion in Sixteenth-Century Mexico explores the development of religion as transferred from Spain to Tenochtitlan. The religious world of both Aztecs and Spanish Catholics at time of encounter was organized through large and small scale community, family, and personal devotions. Devotion expressed through cults was the single most salient aspect in the transfer of Catholicism to New World people. This book highlights the role that ideas such as afterlife, apocalypticism, iconoclasm, Marianism, resistance, and saints played in the emergence of Mexican Catholicism in the sixteenth century. The larger Atlantic world context, as seen in the regions of Iberia, Anahuac, and 'New Spain', or central Mexico from Zacatecas to Oaxaca, is explored in detail. Beginning with an extensive historical essay to contextualize the pre-contact period, the bulk of this volume contains 118 separate keywords each with three comparative essays examining Aztec and Catholic religious practices before and after contact.
The present reply offers some reflections on Leonardo Ambasciano’s commentary entitled Shamanism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow and included in this same issue of Journal of Cognitive Historiography. A particular point of contention is represented by the potential contribution that a post-structural approach could offer to a scientific re-description of shamanism as an analytical category in the contemporary academic field of Religious Studies.
The material turn in the study of religion\s has opened new methodological vistas, rejuvenating the notion of fetish. Scholars in Africa must acknowledge and share in the successes of the material approach. At the same time, they cannot help but recall that in colonial Africa the notion of fetish was, par excellence, the mirror of primitive religion and the denigration of Africans in the missionary enterprise. Fetish was not only the medium for the fall of African religions and the enforcement of colonial authority, but also and especially, the genesis of the theory of primitive religion\s. This paradox looms large when the material turn is re-read from southern perspectives as a call for a radical intra-cultural critique of the epistemological positions and subalternity of knowledge production in Africa.
This chapter investigates the neo-nationalist festival culture of Hungary through the example of the National Assembly of Hungarians (MOGY). MOGY is a three-day-long festival that has been organized far from all major settlements in the Great Hungarian Plain (Alföld) around the feast of Assumption of Mary in mid-August, since 2009. This festival, which emerged as a grassroots movement, offers an initiation in a “re-inventing” of national identity, accompanied by entertaining musical, literary and popular-scientific programs. The chapter discusses the steady increase and development in both the number and the importance of neo-nationalist festivals in Hungary. By receiving more and more media publicity and state support, these festivals constitute one of the most significant rituals of “banal neo-nationalism”, representing a melting pot of esoteric, ethno-pagan, pseudo-historical, neo-nationalist ideas and practices. This examination shows how the festival re-assembles and reinterprets significant segments of Hungarian culture and the concept of Hungarian authenticity and tradition.
Ann Taves’s argument about “special things” permits religion scholars to analyze secular texts fruitfully. Notably, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One speculates about humanity’s possible future and how technological advancement could reshape it. Although the narrative assumes an atheistic stance, its central, conceptual tensions are categorically religious. Cline’s imagined cyberworld sensorily immerses users into an alternative kind of space and allows them to inhabit bodies of their own choosing; this represents a kind of transhumanist, utopian impulse similar to shamanism. However, Ready Player One problematizes this created world ontologically and questions whether relationships formed in such a place can be authentically meaningful. Contrasting the book, the film adaptation, and fan fiction illustrates the controversial stakes at play.
One of the most unusual, influential, and overlooked figures in the early history of Buddhism in the United States was Swami Mazziniananda (pseudonym, unknown-1931), a former patent medicine salesman and quack doctor who became a spiritualist minister and fortune teller while claiming dubious credentials as a Buddhist bishop at the turn of the century. This article traces the rise of Mazziniananda and his connections to the Buddhist Mission of North America, as well as the circumstances surrounding their split and his final years. I suggest that the best way to understand the figure of Mazziniananda-his mixture of Buddhism and occultism, real engagement with other Buddhists and fabricated titles and rituals-is as a type of Buddhist "wandering bishop." Finally, I argue that in light of his close ties with the Japanese Buddhist establishment, the influence of his liturgy and hymnals, and the deep engagement with the occult by his contemporaries and the members of the Dharma Sangha of Buddha that preceded him, Swami Mazziniananda is best seen not as a marginal or atypical figure, but rather as central and emblematic of the Euro-American Buddhist converts of his time and the deep linkages between occultism and the history of Japanese Buddhism in America.
У статті розглядаються явища релігієтвору епохи постмодерну, які релігієзнавці намагаються окреслити за допомогою хмари термінів: квазірелігії та псевдорелігії, синтетичні або синкретичні релігії, штучні релігії, пародійні релігії, плинні релігії, гіпер-реальні релігії. Автор аналізує специфіку застосування та примінимість цих термінів до нових релігійних течій, що конструюються в епоху постмодерну, зокрема до течій, які виникли з артефактів художньої чи популярної культури (як от Церква всіх світів, джедайство, матрицизм), та течій, у віровченні чи практиці яких яскраво виражений іронічний чи тролінговий компонент (Церква Летючого Локшинного Монстра, Церква невидимого рожевого однорога, різноманітні атеїстичні церкви) абсурдизм (дискордіанство, Церква СубГенія), та ставить питання класифікації релігій, що поєднують у собі висміювання усталених релігій з цілком щирою релігійною практикою, релігійною свідомістю, віровченням, інституціями та бажаннями змінити себе та світ у кращий бік. Автор аналізує термінологію, яку різні автори у межах різних підходів намагаються застосувати до виявів постмодерного релігієтвору, звертає увагу на проблематичність побудови стійкої системи класифікації таких утворень за умов нерозв’язаності основоположного питання релігієзнавства – загальноприйнятного визначення релігії, яке в деяких країнах виражається в юридичній площині формулюваннями, вразливими для висміювання й пародіювання методами штучних релігій. Релігієзнавство ХХ століття не змогло виробити термінологічний апарат, який би зміг задовільно розв’язати проблему «релігія чи імітація релігії» та створити парадигму, яка б навела лад у розмитих постмодерном поняттях «релігія», «не-релігія», «імітація релігії», і навіть «імітація релігії, реалістичніша, ніж деякі релігії».
Однак вже початок ХХІ століття побачив конкуренцію трьох термінів: гіпер-реальні релігії А.Поссамая, плинні релігії Т.Тайри та штучні релігії К.Кьюзак. На думку автора, саме термін «штучні релігії» К.Кьюзак, (попри його певний імпліцитний редукціонізм з точки зору філософії релігії) найкраще задовольняє вимоги до терміну для опису сучасних придуманих, сконструйованих, виведених з інших явищ популярної культури явищ, що називають себе релігіями, і різною мірою задовольняють вимоги класичного релігієзнавства для визначення релігії.
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