American Academy of Religion: Oxford University Press

American Academy of Religion
Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks Author(s): Stephen D. O'Leary Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 64, No. 4, Thematic Issue on "Religion and American Popular Culture" (Winter, 1996), pp. 781-808 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465622 . Accessed: 07/02/2014 18:34
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Journal of the American Academy of ReligionLXIV/4
PAR
as Cyberspace
Space: Religion on Communicating Computer Networks
Sacred
Stephen D. O'Leary
OF the contemporary communicationscene can fail to NO OBSERVER have noticed the phenomenallyrapid growth of the Internet,which has expanded in a few years from an elite core of academic and scientific expertsto a global networkwith millions of users, as well as the development of a number of private network services gatewayedto the global Internet, including Compuserve,AmericaOnLine, Prodigy,and others. Those who have learned to navigate through the vast reaches of cyberspace, masteringthe elementarytechnologyof Usenet newsreading,Web browsers,and Listservs,find on the Net an astonishingvarietyof conversationstakingplace daily,a tropicalgreenhouseof discoursecommunities in bloom, a laboratory of extended conversationsand social experiments around everyconceivabletopic or intereston mattersscientific, organized philosophical,political, and social, fromAestheticsto Zoology The increasingcoverage in the print media of the exploding use of computer networks as a social phenomenon, such as the column on in the LosAngeles Times and the regularpages now devoted to "Cyburbia" in Time "Netwatching" magazine, provide furtherevidence that we are witnessing the growth of a new form of sociability.Computernetworks have been hailed as sites for the revivalof democraticpublic culture,and
Stephen D. O'Learyis an Associate Professorin the AnnenbergSchool for Communicationat the Universityof SouthernCalifornia,Los Angeles, CA 90089.
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a best-selling book has celebratedthe utopian possibilities affordedby TheVirtual Community (Rheingold).If the Internetis truly forminga culture, or a complex of cultures, that both reflects and differs from the largertechnologicaland political culturein which it is housed, it should not surpriseanyone that as more people come to spend more and more of theirtime online, they have begun to devise ways to fulfillthe religious needs and identitiesthat formsuch an importantpartof the fabricof our society. It would indeed be an anomaly if a culturalforce of this magnitude were not to find expressionin the newly developingworld of computer networks. Readersof this journal hardlyneed to be persuadedthat religionis a powerfulforcein human culture.However,they may not be accustomed to seeing manifestationsof this force on their computer screens; and it may take some convincing to establish the credibilityof the thesis that our conceptions of spiritualityand of community are undergoing profound and permanenttransformations in the era of computer-mediated communication.No less an authoritythan Pope John Paul II has recognized the crucialimportanceof this topic. In a 1990 addresstitled "The ChurchMust Learnto Cope with ComputerCulture,"the pontiff noted the revolutionary impact of contemporarydevelopmentsin communication: "[O]neno longerthinks or speaksof social communications as mere instrumentsor technologies. Ratherthey are now seen as part of a still unfolding culture whose full implications are as yet imperfectlyunderstood and whose potentialities remain for the moment only partially exploited." These implications and potentialities are the focus of this essay.While the pope appearsto celebratethe technologicalrevolution, declaring that "Withthe advent of computer telecommunicationsand what areknown as computerparticipation systems,the Churchis offered furthermeans for fulfilling her mission," my purpose is to qualify the optimism of technology advocates by exploring potentially troubling questionsabout the futureof religiousinstitutionsin an era of computermediatedcommunication. Recentpopularand scholarlyliterature has noted that computerlinkages presentlyprovidenew forumsand new tools for the public advocacy of faith and for participationin public acts of ritualcommunicationthat constitutenew, virtualcongregations(see Kellner;O'Leary and Brasher). This paper seeks not to provide a comprehensivemap of religious landscapes in cyberspace, nor an in-depth analysis of the communicative practicesof any particular religiouscommunity,but only to speculateon the transformation of religiousbeliefs and practicesas these are mediated by new technologies. The examples and texts offeredhere may or may not be typical of current trends in cyber-religion;they were chosen
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because they raise significantissues about the status of religion on computer networks and, more generally,about the evolution of religion in what some choose to call a "postmodern" age. My intention is to raise rather than to answer these questions them; but in so doing, I will profor the claim that something revolutionary is vide qualified support while a to see how religious peering "through glass darkly" taking place, institutions and practices may be affectedby the transformationof our communicationsmedia. The theoreticalframeworkfor this inquiryis drawnfromthe work of Walter J. Ong. No one studyingthe impacton religionof the evolution of communicationtechnologiescan affordto ignorethe provocative insights of this seminal thinker,who, in a series of brilliantbooks, has developed an evolutionarytheory of culture that focuses attentionon the modes of consciousness and forms of communality enabled and promoted by communicationtechnologies and practices, from oral speech to written discourseto printing,radio, television, and computer-mediated communication. While it is the last of these developments that is my primary focus here, I believe that a full understandingof religionin the era of the electronicword is best accomplishedby attendingto historicalcontexts and comparisons.Hence, my study of contemporary religiousdiscourses will begin with an excursus into historicalnarrative.After a brief exposition of an Ongian view of communication and culture, I turn to an extended discussion of one of Ong'sprimaryexamples of how religious practices may be transformedby a revolution in communication-the Reformation.By investigating the links between changing concepts of the natureand functionsof word and symbol in Christianliturgyand the advent of print culture, I hope to demonstratethat contemporaryelectronic culture can be expected to effect a similar transformation of reliand The with beliefs closes an examination of some gious practices. essay unusual religioustexts that illustratethis transformation, a series of neopagan rituals conducted online in the electronic "conferencerooms"of the Compuservenetwork. AN ONGIAN FRAMEWORKFOR THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUSCOMMUNICATION The most succinct theoreticalexposition of Ong'sevolutionarytheory of communicationand cultureis found in his Orality and Literacy. In less than two hundred pages this book tracesthe development of communication technology through a series of stages from preliteracy,or in his terms, "primary orality," throughthe eras of chirographic writing, print-
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ing, and electronicmedia ("secondaryorality")and offers a provocative analysis of the cultural impacts of technological change. Ong'sthesis is that each of the forms of communicationutilizes a differentcomplex of the senses and that the particularcomplex peculiarto the materialpractices of communicationin each culture-the "sensorium"-has profound impacton the formationof individualand culturalidentity For example, sound will play a largerrole in the life world of a preliterateculturerelying on oral speech for all communicationthan it does for people whose communication is dominated by print media. It is therefore not surprising that we find speech figuringprominentlyin the myths and religious practices of primarily oral cultures, which often attach magical significanceto the spoken word, or that, lackingthe concept of the written record, such cultures rely on expanded powers of memory to preserve their mythic heritageand a record of past events. As chirographic literacyspreadthroughWesternculture, sight and textualitywere privileged over sound and speech, and the compositionof sacredbooks transformed ancient oral narrativesby fixing them into a text that could be consulted and interpreted in a way that was not possible before the invention of writing.Accordingto Ong, "writing restructures consciousness" (1982: 78) by divorcing the production of a communicative act from its reception.This made it possible to addressaudiences remote in time and space, and turned communicationfrom a public act requiring the presence of others into a private, solipsistic activity of writing and reading. As Ong puts it, writing "makespossible increasinglyarticulate introspectivity, opening the psyche as never beforenot only to the external objectiveworld distinct fromitself but also to the interiorself against whom the objectiveworld is set"(1982: 105). The religiousimplications of this insight areprofound;for,if we accept Ong'sargumentthat writing generated a new, interior awarenessof the self and a subsequent alienation of this self fromthe externalworld, then we may see religions that offer solutions to this alienationas, to some degree, an after-effect of the psychologicalchangeswroughtby literacy. Since literacy skills were slow to spread in the millennia between the introductionof writing and the invention of the printingpress, recitation and memorizationstill retaineda significantrole, and the written word could not completelydivorce itself fromits social contexts or from sounds and images. The communicationpracticesof Westernculture in this stage can thus be characterized as a hybrid of differentformswhich differ to the social However,the might according position of participants. invention of printing privileged sight still more, acceleratingthe alienation of the word from its auralbasis, and narrowingthe sensorium by focusing on the abstractsymbols of typographyas the predominantcar-
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riers of informationand meaning. The consequences of these developments were immense. Among the phenomena that Ong links to the dominance of printing technology are the standardization of vernacular and the subsequentmove away fromLatinas the lingua franca grammars of Westerncultureand the rise of science, since printingenabledthe repwordeddescriptionsof carelicabilityand wide disseminationof "exactly fully observed complex objects and processes"(1982: 127). The impact on religion was no less fundamental. In the chirographic culture of manuscriptwriting the Bible could be controlled by clerics, who preserved the roots of the Wordin speech by mediatingthe sacredwritings in public recitationsconnected with ritual;but the wide distributionof vernacularprinted Bibles effectivelyended the interpetivemonopoly of the institutionalchurchand enabledthe reformers to circumventecclesiasticalauthorityby proclaimingsola scriptura as the ultimatetouchstone for authoritative claims. Ultimately,the culture of print gave birth to the unique sensibilityof modernism,which bore fruitsboth in science and in the developmentof literarygenressuch as the novel. The dominanceof electronicmedia in the twentiethcenturybringsus to the present stage of culturalevolution in Ong'sscheme, that of "secIn this stage the sensoriumexpands againto include first ondaryorality." sound and voice (with the advent of radio), and then image and gesture (with film and television). Though print culture is based in the primary sense of sight, its emphasis on typographydevalues icons and images in favorof the printedword. The visual emphasisof print is fundamentally different from that of television and film; as any contemporarycollege instructorwill testify,it is extremelydifficultto trainstudentssaturatedin modern visual media to accept the discourse conventions and abstractions of print literacy.Film and television restorethe prominenceof the visual sense in its full glory and createa much richerfeast for the senses than printed text; few of today'sstudents will willingly give up this feast and returnto the restrictedsensoriumof typographicculture.Some critics, such as JacquesEllul (1985), view the devaluationof the printedand spoken word in favorof the image with alarm,seeing in it a temptation towardthe idolatryof consumer culture.Whetherwe celebratethe revitalizationof image and icon (Taylorand Saarinen)or arenostalgicfor the old days of print literacy,there can be little doubt that this development will have profoundconsequencesfor religiousbelief and practice. The term "secondaryorality"refersto the fact that in the new electronicmedia the divorcebetween word and imagebegun by print culture is reversed,so that the total sensorium again includes sight and sound, voice, image, and music. This stage "hasstriking resemblanceto the old oralcultures]in its participatory [primary mystique,its fosteringof a com-
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munalsense, its concentrationon the presentmoment, and even its use of it differsfrom the old in that it "generates a sense for groups formulas"; immeasurably larger than those of primary oral culture-McLuhan's 'globalvillage"'(Ong 1982: 136). Modem electronic media change our senses of time and of communityby againenablingspeech to be sharedin the immediacyof realtime;but they also retainthe self-awareness of print culture,since in most casesmediamessages,whetherpoliticalspeechesor still originatewith an act of writing. If, as McLuhan has it, entertainment, televisioncreatedthe globalvillage,this mediumwas still a one-waychannel fromthe broadcaster to the audience.In computernetworksthe global has found its village public square (the analogy to London'sHyde Park be fromvegetative"couch may apt), wherebymediausersaretransformed to active in potatoes" participants dialoguesperformedbeforepotentially vast publics, linked not by geographybut by technology and interests alone.With this new medium,aspectsof oralityand literacyarecombined into a new, hybrid form of communicationthat, in the words of one networker, "is both talking and writing yet isn't completely either one. It's talking by writing. It'swriting because you type it on a keyboard and people readit. Butbecauseof the ephemeralnatureof luminescentletters on a screen, and because it has such a quick-sometimes instant-turnaround,it'smore like talking" (Coate). I will presentlyaddressthe implicationsfor religiousdiscourseof this newest shift in communicationtechnology.At this stage of the inquiry, however, some caveats are in order.Any short summary of a theory of this complexitywill inevitablydiminish its impact, and I do not pretend to do Ong'sworkjustice here. Readerswho wish furtherelaborationand defence of these ideas, and a much more nuanced interpretationof the history of religious communication in particular,are invited to explore In anticiOng'swork for themselves, especially ThePresence of theWord. pation of possible objections, it is worth noting that the evolutionary model of culture that Ong proposes is neither deterministicnor strictly linear.While the thesis that technology-and especiallycommunication technology-restructures consciousness and thus the whole of human cultureis amplysupportedin Ong'swork, he never proposesa simplistic cause-and-effectmechanism by which this is accomplished but rather views technology as both a cause and an effect of the transformation of the human spirit. Further,humans do not abandon earliertechnologies when new ones are discovered or invented; culture grows by accretion, so that speech remainsan essentialand indispensablemeans of communication that supplements writing, printing, and electronic media as options for human communication.In this accretiveprocessthe development of new technologies alters our use of old media by changing the social value accordedto each medium and by fundamentally alteringthe
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context, the lifeworld, in which communicationoccurs. We will always have speeches, but mass-mediated oratory can never recapture the electricexcitementof the crowd in the days beforemicrophonesand television. Similarly, writing will never be entirelysupplantedby television, but the skills of print literacymay become increasinglythose of a knowledge elite, necessary for the acquisition of wealth and social status although increasinglyopaque to the operatorof the cash registerat the who only knows how to chargecustomersfor a meal fast-foodrestaurant, by pushing buttons with picturesof a Big Mac, Coke, and fries. The most significant issue for an inquiry into the implications of computer-mediatedreligion raised by Ong'stheorizing is the potential comparisonbetween the communicationrevolutionthat took place concurrentlywith the Reformationand our currenttransitioninto a digital age. Contemporary scholarshiphas exhaustivelydocumentedthe crucial role that printingplayed in the Reformation, the most significantpolitical and religious movement of post-medieval Western culture (see Eisenwe may reasonablyanticipatethat the digitalrevolution stein; Edwards); will be accompaniedby similarlymassive upheavalsin the social sphere in generaland in religionin particular. In orderto develop this comparison further,it will be useful to linger on an example that Ong uses as paridgmatic of the changes in Christian thought and communicative practicethat accompaniedthe onset of print technology:the evolution of liturgy,the formsand ceremoniesof Christian worship, duringthe Reformation era. Discussion of Protestantliturgicalreformis germaneto this argument for two reasons: first as an example of the way theories and practicesof languageand ritualmay be profoundlyalteredby technological change;and second because this particularepisode in the history of the Christiantraditionilluminatesthe context of contemporary, mediated ritualpractice.The fundamentalproblem of religiouscommunicationis how best to representand mediate the sacred. By studying the Reformation battles and controversiesover this question, over the nature and properfunctionsof word and image,we may find some historicalroots of the ethics and the aestheticsof communicationin the culturesinfluenced and therebycome to a deeperunderstandingof the sigby Protestantism nificanceof ritualin premodern,modern, and postmoderncultures. LITURGYAND LANGUAGEIN THE PROTESTANTREFORMATION Consider the difference between Catholic and Protestantritual in termsof Ong'ssensorium.It is clearthe religiousaestheticand sacramental theology of the Roman Catholic church has always appealed to the auraland tactileimaginationas well as the visual. In the CatholicMassthe
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spoken word retainsthe magicalefficacyof languagethat Ong finds characteristicof an earlierstage of primaryorality,and ritual action directs attention outward toward the exteriormanifestationof the Word in the Eucharist.By contrast,the liturgicaland culturalforms of Protestantism directattentioninward;the preachingof the Word,conceivedand embodied textuallyratherthan sacramentally, was meantto to induce an interior convictionof sin thatwas prerequisite to the experienceof grace.Believing that the sole legitimatefunctions of languagewere education and exhortation,by which membersof the congregationwere to be taughtthe message of the Gospel and urged to improve their lives, the Protestant reformersset out to strip away the incantatoryfunctions of languagein worship. The most radicalof the reformers,such as Zwingli,strippedthe churches bare of any ornamentation,banned the use of musical instruments, and banishedaltogetherthe whole panoply of ritualelements that had characterized the LatinMass-vestments, stainedglass, iconography of all kinds, incense. This had the deliberateeffect of focusing attention upon the purelytextualelementsof the Christian message. The differingnotions of the symbolic function of languageare most evidentin the controversy over the natureof the communionceremonythe fulcrumof the dispute between Protestantand Catholictheology.In the Catholic Mass, the communion comes to its symbolic climax in the the scriptural "wordsof institution," passagethatis recitedby the priestas he elevatesthe communionbread:
... and giving thanks to thee, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his THIS IS MY BODY. disciples, saying:Take,all of you, and eat of this, FOR (Thompson:75)
On the daybefore he suffered death,he tookbreadintohis. ... hands,
What is importantto stresshere is the theoryof languagethatunderlies this ritual. For believers, the words of institution, "thisis my body," authorized and commanded by Christ himself, were (and are) literally true:when performedby a duly ordainedpriest,they effectedthe miracle of transubstantiation by which the bread and wine served as vehicles of the Real Presence. In the terms of J.L. Austin (1970a), the founder of a speech act utterance," speech act theory,we can call this a "performative that effectswhat it describes.Likemarriage vows and oaths of office, the words of institution belong to a class of communicative"actsin which saying the words does not merelydescribean existing state of things, but rathercreatesa new relationship,social arrangement,or entitlement.In speech act terms, these are instanceswhen saying is doing"(Danet). The formulaused in Catholictheology to describe this mode of ritualaction is to say that the sacramentsucceeds ex opereoperato,that is, that the words (when voiced by the duly ordained,in the rightsituation,with the
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right intention) are themselves efficacious as a vehicle of divine grace. Modem speech act theoristsdescribethis efficacyin terms of the "illocuforceof the utterance(Austin 1970b). tionary" In Catholic theology the visible elements of the sacramentare not sacrisigns of the thing, the spiritualrealityof salvationthrough Christ's fice;once transformed by the illocutionaryforceof the speech act, they are the thing, the bread and wine becoming the body and blood of God's saving Word through the power of the words of the liturgy,words that functionas the bridgebetween the visible objectsand the spiritualreality, theoryof language unitingthem in a single identity.Thus, the sacramental affirmsthe essentialunity of signifier and signified. This theory is hierarchical;the ritualcan only be enactedby a duly ordainedpriest. During the sixteenth centuryand up until the second Vaticancouncil, the ritual was conducted in Latin,ensuringthat the uneducatedmasses could only apprehendit on the formaland aestheticlevels;and the churchhierarchy interpretation. jealouslyguardedtheirmonopoly on scriptural When Lutherand the printingpresswere able to breakthis monopoly become the prerogaby publishing the firstGermanbible, interpretation tive of every believer, and the institutionalauthorityof the church was weakened.Protestant undercutthe authorityof the priestliturgiesfurther hood by divesting the liturgy of its mysterious elements. The liturgies devised by Calvin,Zwingli, and other reformersenacted a theory of language that differed radically from the Roman Catholic conception of the relationshipof Word and sacrament;they reach their climax, their symbolic payoff,not in the communion, but in the sermon, a discourse which is deliveredorallybut which lacks the supernatural efficacyof the Catholicpriest'sspeech over the eucharisticelements. In contrastto the Catholic,the Protestant liturgywas enacted in the vernacular tongues;in its most austereforms, it eschewed ornamentand visual representation and minimizedall sensoryinput thatmight lead to idolatry;it focused on the sermonand the words of scriptureto the exclusion of othermessages; and it denied the performativecharacterof liturgicalspeech-acts altothe ritualaction of the priest as, in Calvin's words, gether,characterizing in the manner of sorcerers" and (quoted in "murmuring gesticulating 192). Thompson: To minimize the risk of idolatry,Calvin'scommunion liturgyplaced, immediatelypriorto the distributionof communionelements,the minister'sverbal directive to the congregationon how to interpretthe sacrament: elements which Letus notbe fascinated andcorruptible by theseearthly we see with our eyes and touchwith our handsseekingHim thereas in thebread orwine.Thenonlyshalloursouls thoughHewereenclosed
790
andvivified whentheyare to be nourished be disposed by Hissubstance let us be content to have liftedup aboveallearthly Therefore things the truth the breadandwineas signsand.... witnesses, seeking spiritually thatwe shallfind it. ("The Formof wherethe Wordof Godpromises Church 207) Prayers," The words of the ministerwere no longer a performative utterance;they With the aestheticand directed the attention of the congregation. simply formalelements in the liturgykept to an absolute minimum, this attention was less likely to rest upon externalrealityas apprehendedthrough the senses and would presumablyturn to an interiormeditationon salvation characterized by a high degree of abstraction.Whereasthe Catholic and re-presentedGod'sWord in a variety of sensual, liturgy presented aesthetic and formal, embodiments,the Wordin Protestant liturgyis dessicated, information-oriented, apprehendedthrough scriptureand sermon but most emphaticallynot in stained glass, statues, or the taste of breadupon the tongue. The theology that followed from the devaluationof ritual language, gesture, and performancein favor of preachingthus changed the communion ceremony from its former status as an actual vehicle of God's presenceand graceto a mere reminderor analogy.As Calvinwrote, "For while we refutetransubstantiation we hold this by othervalid arguments, one to be amply sufficient,that it destroysthe analogybetween the sign and the thing signified;for if there be not in the sacramenta visible and earthlysign correspondingto the spiritualgift, the natureof a sacrament is lost"(Calvin 1958: 467). In these statementsof Calvinwe can see the essentialidea of languagethat lay behind the reformliturgies.Againstthe concept of identitycreatedthroughsacramental languageCalvinasserted the centralityof the sacramentsolely as analogy;in his system words can only establishthe relationshipbetween the sign and the thing signified,a relationshipthat is analogical,not essential. Considerthe fact that these two conceptions of liturgywere a major cause of a controversy that dividedEuropefor centuries.Froman Ongian was thatit led to perspectivethe most significantresultof this controversy the formationof two communicativecultures,the Catholicand the Protestant.ExtendingOng'sinsight,I arguethatthe developmentof two competing cultures grounded in liturgical practice, supported by and elaboratedin a whole literature of polemicaldebateand theorizingabout the nature of symbolism and the interpretationand embodiment of the Word,was a significantpartof the context for the formationof Enlightenment theoriesof language.If the religiousritualsnow visible on computer networks seem absurd,bizzare,and entirelywithout efficacyto those of us in the academytoday,it may be because we have been so thoroughly
791
imbued with Lockean,Humean,and Cartesian skepticismthat the magical power of sacramental languageis entirelyforeignto us. AsJonathanZ. Smith notes, the absolute separation between signifier and signified, which was inauguratedby the liturgicalreformersand which became a no longer literallyand symbolicallyreal and true. The [subsequent] .... history of the imaginationof the categoriesmyth and ritualwas sharply divergent.To say myth was false was to recognizeit as havingcontent;to declareritualto be 'empty'was to deny the same"(101). Hence, we may measurethe progressof the Enlightenmentin terms of a gradualshrinking of the space in which the illocutionaryforce of ritual speech, supportedby the social authorityof the Church,held sway However, the old conception of the ritualistic power of symbolic action (a conceptionthat,whetherexplicit or implicit,consitutesa theory of language)is not dead;it surviveswithin the now limited domainof the Church and has a new home in the global communication network. Beforeturningto an exampleof the revivalof ritualand performativity on computernetworks, one more point regardingthe influence of Catholic and Protestantcommunication theories seems appropriate.For those who wonder what this notion may have to do with today'sworld of considerthe followingapplicationby the Italianscholar microcomputers, UmbertoEco: Insufficient consideration has beengivento the new underground relithemodern world..... Thefactis thatthe giouswarwhichis modifying worldis divided between usersof the Macintosh andusersof computer MS-DOS I am of the that compatible computers. firmly opinion theMacintoshis Catholic andthatDOSis Protestant. is Indeed,the Macintosh counter-reformist andhasbeeninfluenced studiorum' of the by the'ratio it tellsthe faithful how they Jesuits.It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, mustproceed to reach-if not the of Heaven-the stepby step Kingdom in whichtheirdocument moment is printed. Itis catechistic: theessence of revelation is dealtwith via simpleformulae and sumptuous icons. hasa rightto salvation. Everyone DOSis Protestant, or evenCalvinistic. It allowsfreeinterpretation of demands difficult a subtlehermedecisions, scripture, personal imposes neuticsupon the user,and takesfor granted the idea thatnot all can reach salvation. Tomakethesystemworkyou needto interpret theproa longwayfromthebaroque of revellers, the gram yourself: community useris closedwithinthe loneliness of his owninnertorment.'
' "Ecoon Microcomputers." Firstpublished in the ItalianmagazineL'Espresso, this text was widely distributed over the Internet in 1994. Eco continues: "Youmay object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist toleranceof the Macintosh.It'strue:Windows representsan Anglican-styleschism, big ceremoniesin the cathe-
hallmark of Enlightenment thought, meant that "myth or ritual ... was
792
Eco'spoint is a humorousone: but thereis surelya significantunderlying issue here. Thoughsecularculturehas long since denied or ignored the claims of Christiandogma, the old traditionsare not so easily abandoned; they survive in the communicative cultures to which they gave and "Protestant" with birth, which may still fairlybe labeledas "Catholic" regardto theiraestheticconventionsand conceptionsof languageif not to the substantivecontent of their beliefs. Clearly, innovationis not accomplished only throughnewly invented formsbut by bricolage,as fragments of the old systems are incorporatedinto the new culturalmosaic. If the will have culturalconpastis any guide, the new mediaof communication that we can let alone barelyimagine, predict;nevertheless,it is sequences to this watch of transformation at work and to see alreadypossible process how the old forms are taken up into the new. As the introductionof the printingpress profoundlyalteredthe symbolicworld of Westerncultures and foreverchanged the course of Christianhistory,so too religiousdiscoursewill have to reinventitselfto keep pace with modem technology. As one exampleof this reinvention,here is a recenttext culled froma flood of offeringson the Internet,the "Cyberpunk's Prayer": OurSysop, WhoartOn-Line, level. Highbe thyclearance ThySystem up, executed ThyProgram Off-line as it is on-line. Giveus thislogonourdatabase, Andallowourrants, Aswe allowthosewho flameagainst us. Anddo not accessus to garbage, Butdeliver us fromoutage. Forthineis the System andthe Software andthePassword forever.2 However ludicrous or parodic this prayermay seem, it was apparently intended by its author as an expression of sincere devotion. Condral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordancewith bizarredecisions;when it comes down to it, you can decide to allow women and gays to be ministers if you want to... . And machinecode, which lies beneathboth systems(or environments, if you prefer)?Ah, that is to do with the Old Testament,and is talmudicand cabalistic.. ." 2 Quoted with of Austin, Texas.In privatee-mail correpermissionof the author,Bill Scarborough wrote:"Ihad seen a renditionof The Lord's spondence to this author,Mr.Scarborough Prayerin the Standard a few years back. It was done in sports dialect, it could be witnessed in comTexasBaptist is not copyrighted.Anyoneis freeto quote, repost,or reprint puterdialect."TheCyberpunk's Prayer" all or partof it.. "
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sider the implications of this symbolic transformationin terms of the of deity:as male, as female, political and social impact of representations as mother-and benevolent earth as patriarchal now, as Sysop (Sysking, tems Operator).The divine plan is compared to a computer program cyberspaceitself is equated programexecuted"); ("thywill be done"="thy line as it is online");the with heaven ("on earth as it is in heaven"="off soul'snourishmentis equatedwith information,the breadof the information age ("giveus this logon our database").Steeringa course between those who might regardthis poem as blasphemy and those who would dismiss it as inconsequentialhumor, let us take the "Cyberpunk's Prayer" as a sign of the process of culturalinvention and adaptationthat is currentlyunderwayand ask what this example portendsfor the future. As ancient religious formulae are translated into contemporary idioms, their meaningwill be profoundlyalteredalong with the mode of their reception.The old symbols will find new functionalequivalentsin the idioms of technological culture, and some of these will be unrecognizable to today'saudiences. We must anticipate that the propositional formof religionin the electroniccommunities content and presentational of the futurewill differas greatlyfrom its contemporaryincarnationsas the teachingsof Jesus differfrom the dialecticaltheology of the medieval Scholastics or as the eucharistic ceremonies of the earliest Christians differ from the Latin High Mass. With the perspective affordedby an Ongian view of communicationand culture, we can be sensitive to true novelty while at the same time retainingawarenessof the continuity of tradition,of the manifoldways in which it adapts,mutates,and survives to prosperin a new communicativeenvironment. RELIGIOUSRITUALON COMPUTERNETWORKS: PROBLEMSOF VIRTUALETHNOGRAPHY In 1992 a student who knew of my interestin religiouscommunication brought me a file of messages exchanged in a religion discussion group on the Prodigycomputernetwork. I was intriguedenough to sign up for an email account throughmy universitybut went no furtherthan exchanging electronic messages with colleagues. In the spring of 1993 I received a promotional package in the mail that included a free trial account with the Compuservenetwork. I took the bait and signed on, and spent months readingand occasionallyposting to the various message boardsin the ReligionForum.Most of the trafficthat I observedwas fairlyconventional in nature:there were argumentsabout the meaning of scriptures, debates over homosexuality in the various denominations, and occasional requests for prayersfrom Forum participants.As
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with the networkgrew,I began to discovergroupsmeeting my familiarity at preordainedtimes in electronic"conference rooms"to engagein scripture study and prayer.A conferenceor chat room (as they are known on AmericaOnLine)is a real-timeconnection in which everyonewho enters the "room" may post a messagethat will be seen immediatelyby all who occupy that particularcorner of cyberspace.What intrigued me about this type of connection to the network was that it allowed for group interactionof a sort not possible through basic email; people were not merelyexchangingletterswith each otherbut actuallyengagedin collective devotion, much as they would at church or in a Bible study group. For some regularparticipantsthis activitywas a significantpart of their spirituallife. My curiositywas piqued. I explored the network further,looking for the ways in which the new medium was being used by less traditional were using religiousgroups,and found that groupsstigmatizedas "cults" of nonthe networkto presenta differentface to the public. Practitioners traditionalreligions can run a considerable risk by publicly declaring their allegiancesin communities hostile to non-Christians;the network affordedan opportunityto meet with like-minded others and engage in religiousactivitywithout ever leaving one'shome or alertingone'sneighbors to one'snonconformity. Aftersome months monitoringmessagesin the New Age section of the Religion Forum, I saw an announcementof an online full moon ritualto be held in a Compuserveconferenceroom. The announcement was distributed by the leader of the ritual, a neopaganpriestesswho happens to be a registerednurse in Philadelphia;it included a briefstatementthat the ritualwould featurea rite of initiation into the path of Goddessworship for those who desired. I was fascinated by the idea that a virtual gathering could be an opportunitynot just for religiousdiscussion but for an actualrite of pasI had other committmentsfor the time of the ritual sage; unfortunately, and so was unable to observe. A few days afterward,the group leader posted a message indicating that a full transcriptof the ritual was available for downloading from the Forum archives. Immediately,I went searchingfor the documentand found not only the one text of the ritualI had missed but dozens of others that had taken place in Compuserve conferencerooms over an extended period of time. I downloaded them all and began to study them. From the transcriptsit was evident that many of the people whose conversationsI had been observingon the network shareda more intimateconnection than I had realized.They constituted something close to an actualneopagancongregation,a community of people who gatheredregularlyto worship even though they had never seen each other face to face. Though I was convinced that I had stumbled
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upon somethingthat was both novel and significant,I was unsurehow to study or write about the phenomenon;the conventionalmethods of academic researchin religiousethnographyseemed of little use in this case. One Lammasritual that took place in a CompuserveNew Age Forum conferenceroom on July 25, 1990 typifiesthe geographicspreadof these rituals and the consequent problems of studying them: participants entered in from New York,Los Angeles, Illinois, New Haven, Houston, Michigan,Louisiana,and Virginia.How is it possible to understandthe of religiouspracticesof people one has not met and, even more strikingly, a groupwhose participants have not even met each other? Conventional ethnographic approaches assume that physical presence is prerequisiteto study and culturalinteraction;in short, that there is no substitute for fieldwork. As Barbara are Myerhoffputs it, "Rituals conspicuously physiological: witness their behavioralbasis, the use of repetitionand the involvement of the entire human sensorium through dramatic presentations employing costumes, masks, colors, textures, odors, foods, beverages, songs, dances, props, settings, and so forth" (199). If scholarsmaintainthis understandingof ritual,they can only be led to the conclusion that ritualsin cyberspaceare simply "unreal," that their significance never transcends the virtual plane. However, one should be cautious of such an easy dismissal. Certainly, importantelements of traditional ritualarelost without physicalpresence;but perhaps we should invert the question. Ratherthan assuming preemptivelythat the loss of physical presence produces a ritual that is unreal or "empty," we might ask what ritual gains in the virtual environment and what meanings the participantsare able to derive from these practices, such that they will gather again and again to perform cyber-ritualstogether while payinga premiumfee for theirconnect time. Further, some historical and contemporaryparallelsindicate that the validity of a ritual may not be so easily linked to physicalpresenceor the mode of mediation. Consider the following: the leader of the Roman Catholic Church celebratesa solemn pontificalmass which is broadcaston television and announces a plenary indulgence to the faithful who observe the live broadcastfromaroundthe world; or a couple decides to get marriedand arrangesa legally valid wedding in which the participantsare at remote locationsand the vows are typed in via computerkeyboards.These ritual events are not fancifulpredictionsof what is to come; they have already taken place. They are no more or less "unreal" than than the neopagan gatheringson Compuserve,insofar as the criterion is considered to be and consequences(whether physicalpresence;but theirvalidity,efficacy, spiritualor legal) have the stamp of institutionalapproval.In fact, these are not the first instances of new technologies sparking a change in
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notions of ritualefficacy.In an essay entitled "Speech,Writing,and PerAn EvolutionaryView of the History of Constituve Ritual," formativity: of performativity fromspeech BrendaDanetbrilliantlytraces"thetransfer in periodswhen writingwas in the processof becominginstito writing," tutionalized,and applies the speech-act theories of Austin and Searleto documents such as Anglo-Saxonwills and modern wills on video, demonstrating yet again that technology can drive changes in our use of languageand our concepts of symbolic action. If the creationof a written document can have the illocutionaryforce of a speech act, then it is not unreasonableto think that this forcecan be extended to cyber-communication;and, if considerableresourcesin softwareand system design have alreadybeen devoted to making commercialtransactions possible on the who is to that cannot be Internet, spiritual goods say peddled there as well? If the argumentbased on the "unreality" of virtualrealityis set aside, discomforting questions still remain. Anyone who has studied ritual is likely to through conventional ethnographicparticipant-observation ask how ritualcriticism(see Grimes)can be performedon a transcript. In response, I would arguethat a departurefrom traditionalethnographyis necessitatedby the new technologicalenvironmentin which these rituals occur. A transcriptwould certainlybe insufficientevidence to support conclusions about a CatholicMass or a Hopi kachinadance;lacking the dimensionsof intonation,music, image, and gesture,the student of these rituals would clearly be unable to interpretthem adequately However, the rituals in this particularcase never had these dimensions to begin with: they are thoroughly and completely textual. The study of cyberritualsmust thus begin with the texts they generate.Ultimately, however, I do believe that academicstudy of these ritualswill requirean attemptto interviewpeople in the off-lineworld to see how they interactwith their computersin the materialrealm. It may seem absurdto compare these ritualsto the CatholicMass or to Protestant worship services;but such objectionsare likely to rest more on the prestigeand influence of establishedchurchesthan on any objective scholarlyconsiderations.If we recallthat the neopaganmovementis largeand expanding,with regulargatheringsin almost every state of the U.S. and all over Europe, some of which have brought suit in Federal court againstlocal ordinanceswhich allegedlydiscriminateagainsttheir religiouspractices,and also that many,if not most, of the participantsin these online rituals are active members of local groups which practice these rituals(or similarones) outdoors in real time, we may be inclined to take them more seriously.My purposein makingthis comparisonis to conclude an earliertrain of thought regardingthe effect of communica-
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tion technologies on the conceptions of symbolic action that are illustratedand exemplifiedin religiousperformances. Just as Protestantconand influenced the culture of printing,reformed reformers, gregations by the liturgyin ways that priviligedtextualityover gestureand performance as the vehicle of symbolicmeaning,so too modem religiouspractitioners rebel against current religious orthodoxy by devising new rituals that employ new technologyto reassertthe power of languageas performative utterance. A recentarticlein Wired magazine,a periodicalthat attemptsto keep with the pace cutting edge of cyber-communication,dubs these ritual as (a descriptionthat they seem to embrace practitioners "Technopagans" and notes that "astartlingnumber of Paganswork and play in willingly) technical fields, as sysops, computer programmers,and network engiworshipers who embrace the Apollonian artifice of logical machines" (Davis:128). Refusingto accept any simple dichotomies of natureversus view the Internetas a theaterof the imagitechnology,these practitioners nation. The Technopagancommunity comes to life with the creationof performativerituals that create their virtual reality through text, their participantsinteractingwith keyboards,screens, and modems. This is certainlyodd for those who conceive ritual strictly in terms of situated action,as a dramainvolving chant, gesture, and props such as chalices, bread, wine, incense, etc.; yet in the online experience as revealed in archive files at least, such elements are replacedby textual simulations. The ritual objects of fire, bread, salt, and knife are embodied in the words: 'fire,''bread,''salt,'and 'knife.'As one Technopaganritualleader puts it, "Bothcyberspaceand magical space are purely manifest in the imagination. ... Both spaces are entirely constructedby your thoughts and beliefs"(Davis: 128). Here is an example from an undated ritualtranscriptavailablein the archivesof the CompuserveReligionForum, Pagan/Occultsection. In a neopaganparallelto the Christianeucharist,the group leaderdirectsthe assemblyin the breakingof bread: ITakea moment to thank the Moon.. I for all she/he means to you ... I Connect deep within the heartof who she/he isIhonored by so many,many cultures. ITakenow your bread,muffin, or grain.... I (if you don'thave such in frontof you, Ivirtualbreadis okay) I Take it, and split it in half.
neers. . . . embody[ing] quite a contradiction: they are Dionysian nature
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IHold one half in your hands ... I Think of the intuitivehealing that comes
our Ithrough
I markingof time, one month to the next ... IThink of the phases, the changesshe/he takes Ius through.. I the mysteries. IThis half of breadwill be libatedafter I ritualoutside. Ivisualizeyour thanksinto it. I Placeit aside. I Takeup the remaininghalf. I See it, study it, sniff it, taste it. IEatof it, and think of healing. (RITUAL.TXT) the transcriptis equivocal on the question of whether Interestingly, the bread needs to exist on the physical plane at all. It seems that some practitionersdo enact the ritual at home in front of their computers, chantingat the directionof the online leaderor high priestess, manipulating the ritualobjects of bread,salt, candles,wands, with gesturesthat arelearnedoff-linein "real time"; nevertheless,the ritualdoes not require the physical presence of the elements to be effective. Similarly, another ritualcalled for the placementof three candles in a triangularformation will do fine."In a final example particibut added that "cyber-candles in a 1994 full moon ritual kindled a cyber-flamein order to May pants an electronic dedicate conferenceroom on Compuservefor permanently of neopaganworship. Observehow the introductionto the performance the transcript,authored by the leader of this ritual, characterizesthe actionperformedas using virtualfireto sacralizea portionof cyberspace: A needfora placeof healing, andinspiration wasidentipurification fiedby several of Section15. Tomeetthisneed,we decided members to callfortha Sacred Flame similar to thosein manyHolyTemples of the Pastand the Present. This flamewas to be raisedin Conference Room9, Earth of the New AgeForumon Compuserve. It Religions, wasto remain as a siteforworkings of the Spirit andof Aidforfuture usersof theroom.Itwasto be maintained theLoveandDuty through of thosethatwouldseekits Majesty andexperience its Touchwithin them. Manywerein attendance this night to do this Work.Many frommanyPaths withinthe flames. Someof these Magicks converged led to otherrealms andothertimes.TheMagick of the evepathways thatfollowTheFlame that ningis stillherein the pagesof transcript wasraised stillburns! TheCircle livesin its people.It is the Spiritof ourcombined Will!(MYFM94.TRN)
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The evidence of these transcripts indicatesthat the actualperformance of ritualacts using objectsin realspace is possible but unnecessary:the textual realityof a candle as described on the screen is sufficient to ensure ritual efficacy,while the cyber-flameraised in the electronic conference room has no embodimentexcept in text. Signifierand signifiedare fused in the textualsimulationof off-linesensory experiences. A useful perspectiveon these activitiesmay be gained fromthe work of one of our most noted theorists of ritual,Jonathan Z. Smith. In his book ToTake Place:Toward in RitualSmith emphasizesthe imporTheory tance of geographyand landscape in the history of religion and argues against the traditionalview (as articulatedby Eliade and others) that myth providesthe script that is enactedin ritual.Smith claims that ritual cannot be understoodas a mere dramatization of a mythic script;rather, it must be understood on its own terms, as a mode of enactment that is geographicallysituated in communal space and landscape.With this in mind, what can we say about rituals in cyberspace-a place that is no place, a place that transcendsgeographyin the conventionalsense?What is the landscape of this strange world, and how has religion sacralized this landscape? Cyberspaceis without geographicfeaturesin the ordinarysense. But there is a kind of geographyhere, a landscapecomposed of sites, nodes, systems, and channels between systems. The topography of this landscape is representedby a variety of graphic interfaces that help orient those who explore it; and, as in the "real" world, this landscape has memories attached to it. Electronic archives and librariesstore documents and recordtransactions; threadsof conversationspersistin groups and in the minds of individual participants;new users are routinely referredto the FAQ(frequentlyasked questionslist). Then, too, the lack of ordinaryphysicalfeaturesseems to inspirean attemptto recreatethese featurestextually.This qualityof spatialimaginationis highly evident in the ritualsexcerptedhere. (Iuna)To all who have gathered,and to the HarvestKing, (Iuna) I offerand dedicatethe cyber HarvestHome, (Iuna) a Realplace in the Virtual, (for the home of the Time Lords). (Iuna) Named Gallifrey (Iuna)The HarvestHome rests near the center of our touch, (Iuna) the place of CompuServe.... (Iuna)This is a magic place ... (Iuna) and it will serve to link us, (Iuna)virtualto real, (Iuna) cyber to the plenty. As Smith notes,
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... [It]represents of difference. the creRitual is, aboveall,an assertion . .. of ordinary wherethevariables environment life ationof a controlled felt so be because are to be they may displaced precisely overwhelmingly Ritual is a meansof performing the way things presentand powerful. tensionwiththewaythingsare.(109) oughtto be in conscious This is made poignantlyclearin an exclamationrepeatedthroughout many of these rituals,a stock phrasein the neopaganlexicon; when participants pray for blessings or benefits, their utterancesare puncutated and given force by the ritual declaration,"so mote [must] it be!"This is perhaps too easily explained with referenceto Freud'stheory of religion as wish fulfillment.The speech act most characteristic of this assertionof differencein these rituals is not the declarationof wishes but the ritual setting apartof space within the network. OF THIS (Arianna) WE THEMEMBERS FULLMOON CIRCLE CLAIM THISSPACE. WE THEMEMBERS OF THIS FULLMOON CIRCLE CLAIM THISSPACE. A space set apart. A world between worlds. Our special place to meet with the Goddess, For the purpose of spiritualgrowth, To promoteand fellowship/sisterhood In the pagan community, and to witness the entranceof others into the Pathof the Goddess of the Craft.(APRIL.TXT) Afterthe space is claimed, the angelicpowers that inhabitthe four directions of North, South, East, and West are invoked, and a ritual circle is cast. Within this circle a variety of other ritual actions are performed: initiation, investiture,and so forth. But it is the initial declarativeact of setting the space apart that sacralizesthe acts within that space, which turns furtheruses of ordinarylanguageinto performative speech actsfor those who take the ritualseriously. If this all seems absurdand unrealto readers,recallagain the powerful performativelanguageof the CatholicMass-which in Westernculture virtuallyinvented "virtual a realitysupportedby a panoply reality," of sensoryimpressionsbut createdwholly throughlanguageand symbolism. From the perspectiveof the social science of religion Technopagan ritualsare no differentin principle,and no less worthy of study,than the belief system thatunderliesthe dailyutteranceof the ancient,fateful,and
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in churchesthroughoutthe endlesslycontestedwords, "Thisis My body," world. Nevertheless, there is a certain absurdistquality to these rituals: an aura of theatricalperformancethat calls to mind adolescent games such as "Dungeonsand Dragons."One notices, for example, the use of pastiche; ritual actors employ elements from many differentsources-poems, literature,songs, and textual fragments-in an eclectic mix of numerous religious and aesthetic traditions. The aesthetic of pastiche makes for an astonishing variety of moods, interactions that fluctuate and irreverence. Some parrapidlybetween reverence,pseudo-reverence, ticipants come preparedwith a text file and paste in quotations at particularpoints in the ritual.Prominentis the use of parodyand humor,as when one neopagan pranksterconcluded a Harvest ritual by virtually verses of a neopaganversion an old Christianhymn: "singing" (1-3,Willow) I would like to, while in this sacredspace, (1-3,Willow) thank the divine interventionof Aphrodite! (1-3,Willow) She introducedCraigand I (1-2,Shadow Hawk) Willow, do you know her verse in that great paganclassic, (1-2,Shadow Hawk) Gimme that Old Time Religion? (1-3,Willow) and, thankfully, my life will never be the same! (toast to Aprodite!) (1-2,Shadow Hawk) (raisingchalice to Aphrodite) (1-3,Willow) Can you hum a few bars?
(1-2,Shadow Hawk) Hmmmmmmmmmm ...
(1-2,Shadow Hawk)We will worship Aphrodite, (1-2,Shadow Hawk) Tho she seems a little flighty (1-3,Willow) oh, no (1-2,Shadow Hawk) Comingnaked in her Nightie, (1-2,Shadow Hawk)And that'sGood enough for me! (grin) (1-3,Willow) Oh, Gods! (1-2,Shadow Hawk)YesGoddess? (1-1,ManyBlue Sparks)Hee! (1-10, Dave) Tis a nice ryme there Shadow Hawk. (1-2,Shadow Hawk) (pouringmore Wine for everyone) (1-2,Shadow Hawk) Dave, there are about 200 or so verses ... (1-3,Willow) Hey,this may be a Springritual,but I'm engaged! (1-2,Shadow Hawk) my favoriteis the one that goes ... (1-2,Shadow Hawk)We will worship like the Druids (1-2,Shadow Hawk) Drinkingstrangefermentedfluids (1-2,Shadow Hawk) RunningNaked throughthe woods (1-2,Shadow Hawk) and that'sgood enough for me!
(1-2,Shadow Hawk) (Gimme that old time religion ....
(APRFMN.TXT)
) (g[rin])
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But lest we think that the whole thing was an elaborategame, something to take up the time of people who enjoy role-playing,who might otherwisedevelop an affinityfor Morrisdancingand the Society for Creconsiderthat the occult and neo-pagantraditionsthat ativeAnachronism, or spawned inspiredthese online ritualsare, perhaps,second cousins (in their attitudes toward the power of ritual speech if not in the lineage of their belief) to such New Age groups as the Orderof the SolarTemple, the previouslyobscure sect now notorious for its group murder/suicides in Switzerland, France,and Canada.This bringsme to the finalissue, the content of these rituals-which has implicationsfor considercognitive of the ing efficacy the speech acts, insofar as they fulfill or do not fulfill whatJohn Searlecalls the "sincerity condition."If we areto judge the illocutionaryforce of these verbalactions, the efficacyof the ritualsfor their it appearsthatwe must firstunderstandthe degreeto which participants, they actuallyexhibit sincerebelief in the gods they invoke. What is the actual cognitive status of belief in the Goddess or any pagan deity for those who participatein these rituals?When Technopagans invoke the angels of the four directions,when they declarethe circle to be cast so that the Goddess may manifest herself-do they actually in these entities in the same sense that Catholicsbelieve in the "believe" or in the Trinitarian miracleof transubstantiation formulaof the Nicene creed?If we turn to the participantsthemselvesfor answers,we find that the question as posed is rejectedaltogether.By the testimonyof some, at of the myth in least, the cognitive content of Goddess belief, the "truth" the conventional,empiricalsense of thatword, is irrelevant. What counts is the ritual act of invocation, which brings the deities into being or revivifiesthem. Some, at least, feel perfectlycomfortablein viewing the Goddess and the pantheon of pagan deities as projectionsof a Jungian collective unconsious-but arguethat this rendersthem no less worthy of worship. As Arianna,a leader of numerous online rituals,writes in a file availablein the Compuservearchives: What I'd like to say is that these deities are living and real.
They are as real as anything that has been created. . . . Just
as you created [the Goddess], men and women over the centuries have createdtheir deities, and these are realand living. These deities may be seen as friends,as sisters, and brothers. They are alive, they may grantrequests,if you so choose to call upon them. They are happy for all the love that you feel for them.... [A]nydeity that you choose will become strengthenedby the power that you give it. And many still have power, throughoutthe centuries.The collective
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unconscious of mankindstill recognizestheir beauty. They are aspects of the unconscious, but they also live and love. (PAGAN.TXT) The ritualis seen as primary; belief in the conventionalsense of that term in the ritualthe actorsinvoke is almostbeside the point. By participation a goddess who may well be seen as a collectivefiction,but who nevertheless providessome spiritualsustenanceand comfortto her followers.For those who take the ritualpracticeseriouslythe Goddess becomes as real as any other collectivefiction:certainlymorerealthan the old man sitting on a cloud that many have lost the abilityto believe in. What lessons can be drawnfromthe ritualtranscripts I have examined here?Though this question must awaitfullertreatment elsewhere,certain of apects computer-mediatedneopagan religious practice can be noted thatwill be of interestto scholarsand perhapsto religiouspractitioners. In almostall of these transcripts we witness an attemptto recreate or simulate realspace in virtualspace and to sanctifya portion of this space as a theatre in which spirit is manifested;an establishing of differencewith the world outside as well as with otherterritories of cyberspace; and an assertion of the power of languageto bring about wish fulfillmentthroughthe verbalact of declaringthe wish within the ritualcircle.Tothis extent, they appearas attemptsto fulfill authentic spiritualneeds now unmet by the to these majorinstitutionsof religioustradition.Yetthereis an irreverence discoursesthat some will find distasteful:they are ludic and playful,they revel in pastiche and parody,and they make few (if any) cognitive demands upon the participants.This conjunction of reverenceand irreverence seems to me to be in some way characteristic of the spiritualsituation of postmodernculture,which can neitherdismiss religionnor embraceit but which ultimatelyleads to its commodificationalong wholeheartedly, with every other productand projectof the past thatis not doomed to be discardedin the ash-heapof history. What, afterall, arewe to make of a religiousritualthat castsitself as a cybernetic reinvention of the ancient Samhainof pre-ChristianEurope but includes an invocationof the oreishas,the deities of Afro-Cuban and Vodouspirituality(whose devoteeshave theirown electronicforumsand messageboards)?Such practicesappearas the religiousequivalentof the recent marketingphenomenon of "World Music,"which gave us recordings of traditionalGaelicsinging againsta backdropof Africandrums or the music of the medieval mystic Hildegardof Bingen backed up by a jazz combo. The postmodern sensibility of these audiences floats like a hummingbirdover the flowersof the world'shistoricalarchive,extracting
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nectar from the offeringsof folk culture and high culture alike without distinction, employing the language and the aesthetic conventions of a thousand traditionswith allegianceto none. If one defining aspect of the postmodern era is that it is an age when literallynothing is sacred, then the options for traditional organized religious bodies in the world of would seem to be limited. They can be dismissed as irrelecyber-religion vant or simply ignored;or they can offerthemselvesup in the new spiritual marketplace of virtualcultureas raw materialfor playfulcyborgs(see and Brasher)who cut-and-pasteat will Brasher,this issue; also O'Leary throughthe fragmentsof our traditions. I will conclude by invoking again my earliercomparison regarding the similarityof these rituals to those practiced by other esoteric New ReligiousMovementssuch as the Orderof the SolarTemple.We actually know very little about this particulargroup'sbeliefs and practices;there has been much speculation but little hard informationreported.But let us suppose a degree of similarity,at least in regardto the belief in the power of ritualistic language. The meeting rooms of the Solar Temple used architecture along with powerfulvispal and spatialimageryto evoke certain states of acceptance in followers; we may easily imagine ceremonies taking place in these spaces that resemble those enacted by the online pagans. What the online ritual lacks, in and of itself, is precisely the quality of physical presence that enables ritual actors to become so deeply embedded in the belief system that they will end up in an underground chamber,clutched with each other in a death embrace.By way of illustration,there is an exchange in an online Harvestritual where one participantis offered cybercakesand cyber-alein the virtual feast that concludes the ceremony.She complains about her diet and is reminded that cyber-foodhas no calories. To put the point somewhat more brutally:unlike the flames of Waco, the ritualflamesin these cyber-transactions cannot burn. Rooted in textuality,ritual action in cyberspaceis constantly faced with the evidence of its own quality as constructed, as arbitrary, and as a game playedwith no materialstakes or consequences;but the artificial, efficacy of ritual is affirmed,time and time again, even in the face of a As RonaldGrimesargues, full, self-consciousawarenessof its artificiality. "Allritual, whateverthe idiom, is addressedto human participantsand uses a technique which attemptsto re-structure and integratethe minds and emotions of the actors"(196). If this is the true aim of all ritual,online as it is off-line, then I believe we can say that these cyber-rituals do have efficacy,that they do perform a function of re-structuringand reintegratingthe minds and emotions of their participants.Towardwhat end is this restructuringundertaken?And will its integrationsbe dur-
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able?These are questions that must await furtherinvestigation,while we all wait to see the nature of the beast now slouching down the information highwayto be born. In a sense the discourses presentedhere are alreadyobsolete, in that they have been supersededby the superiorintegrationof texts, graphics, video, and even sound affordedto users of the WorldWide Web, the fastest growingsegmentof cyberspace. A clue to the futureof religiousexperiments in cyberspacemay be seen in a 1994 Samhainritualthat took place in real time on a Web page housed in San Francisco.The designers of the page used a programcalled Labyrinthto simulate an altarin threedimensional space, upon which ritual participantsplaced offerings of graphicdesigns and images (see Davis: 133, 178). As we move fromtextbased transmissions into an erawhere the graphicuser interfacebecomes the standard and new generationsof programs such as Netscapearedevelthat allow the transmission of and music along with words, oped images we can predict that online religion will become more "Catholic"in Umberto Eco'ssense, by which I mean that iconography,image, music, and sound-if not taste and smell-will again find a place in ceremony. Surelycomputerritualswill be devised that exploit the new technologies to maximumsymbolic effect. It does not seem too far-fetchedto think of as coming to playa majorrolein the spiritualsustecyber-communication nance of postmodem humans. The possibilitiesare endless. Online confessions? Eucharisticrituals, more weddings, seders, witches' sabbats? Therewill be many such experiments. The old rituals were enacted by social actors who had to deal with each other outside of the church, synagogue, and temple; by their very otherness they both constituted and affirmedthe social hierarchiesof their culture.In cyberspacewe areseeing relationshipsdevelop thathave no other embodimentbut in textualinterchange. The transitionto online ritual thus allows, even encourages,the self itself to be seen as a textual construction. Ethos is transformedby its appearancein virtual reality, with the assumptionof pseudonyms and the option of anonymityallowing a previously unknown freedom to construct an identity divorced from gender,age, or physical appearance(Turkle:178-180). This results in new hierarchiesthat may mirrorthose of the world off-line or depart from them in as yet unknowableways. It is too soon to tell what the fate of religious community in the digital age will be or, indeed, whether the idea of a "virtualcommunity"will prove to be sustainable.What paradigms will win out in the religious wars of the future we cannot tell; whether this will mean a revivalof the Earthreligions, or reformulation of ancient beliefs and practices in a new guise, or both, or neither, is anyone'sguess. It seems safe to predict,however,thatwe will continue to
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see old and new religionsjostling for attention in the cultural marketplace and using availabletechnology to reach new audiences. If current trendshold, computersand computernetworkswill play an increasingly significantrole in the religionsof the future.
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Journal of the American Academy of ReligionLXIV/4

Space: Religion on Communicating Computer Networks

Journalof the American Academy of Religion

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

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Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion

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Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

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Journalof the American Academy of Religion

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Journalof the American Academy of Religion

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Journalof the American Academy of Religion

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Journalof the American Academy of Religion

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Journalof the American Academy of Religion

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Journalof the American Academy of Religion

Admonition toJoachim Trans. Calvin, John "Last Westphal." by Henry

Ancient Church." Trans. In Liturgies by Bard Thompson.

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