Religion Online

Finding Faith on the Internet

Lorne L. Dawson, Douglas E. Cowan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135878726
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Religion Online provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to this burgeoning new religious reality, from cyberpilgrimages to neo-pagan chatroom communities. A substantial introduction by the editors presenting the main themes and issues is followed by sixteen chapters addressing core issues of concern such as youth, religion and the internet, new religious movements and recruitment, propaganda and the countercult, and religious tradition and innovation.

1
Introduction

LORNE L. DAWSON AND DOUGLAS E. COWAN

The Weird, the Wonderful, and What's Next

The Internet is changing the face of religion worldwide. This is a simple but very important claim, one that this book is beginning to document in part to urge others to pay closer attention in the future. The Internet has suffered from an excessively effusive press—it has been hyped and demonized in the popular media to a point where fewer and fewer people may care to pay attention. But the rapidly expanding social-scientific literature on the Internet is discovering the truth behind the hyperbole. Cyberspace is not quite as unusual a place as sometimes predicted. Life in cyberspace is in continuity with so-called “real life,” and this holds true for religion as well. People are doing online pretty much what they do offline, but they are doing it differently. Activity is being mediated electronically, and this mediation allows things to be done in ways that are somewhat new and sometimes entirely innovative. We are just beginning to grasp some of the consequences of these changes—which are often rather subtle— for the social life of users. The consequences for religion are as yet largely unknown. Will this new way of being religious make a difference in how religion is conceived and practiced in the future? A brief look at some instances of religion online helps indicate how the Internet is indeed making a difference.

In the rapidly expanding world of Neopagan belief and practice, people belong to covens, not churches, and the term “coven” has a very distinct meaning in this tradition. Gerald Gardner, considered by many the father of modern Wicca, declared that a model coven consisted of “six ‘perfect couples’ of men and women, plus a leader. Ideally, the couples would be married or be lovers, in order to produce the best harmony and results in magic” (Guiley 1999: 68). Janet and Stewart Farrar, whose own books have popularized Wicca far beyond the British Isles, concur, opining that larger covens tend to become too depersonalized (Farrar and Farrar 1984: 180). Among other popular writers on Wicca and Witchcraft, similar definitions obtain (e.g., Buckland 1987: 53; RavenWolf 1993: 20; Guiley 1999: 68). These definitions are marked by two important consistencies: (a) the small size of the group, which ideally leads to (b) a level of trust and intimacy usually possible only after extended interpersonal association (cf. Berger 1999).

Something mysterious happens, though, when covens go online—when they become “cybercovens.” Older, established definitions are traded in for newer, often less precise understandings of what a Wiccan working group is or can become. Traditionally led by a High Priestess initiated into a particular lineage and heir to the office by dint of long training and preparation, covens often carefully screen potential members, and participation is by invitation only. Online, however, the notion of a coven has become considerably more elastic. Lisa McSherry, for example, who as Lady Ma’at is High Priestess of the cybercoven JaguarMoon, defines a “cybercoven” simply as “a group of people of an earth-based religious faith or belief system who interact primarily, if not solely, through the Internet and/or the World Wide Web” (www.jaguarmoon.org/whatis.htm). Here, though, she says little about what that interaction entails or how large the group should be. Moonglade (www.angelfire.com/wizard/moonglade) also calls itself an online coven, though at this point it is comprised of only two members: the High Priestess, “Serenity,” a fifteen-year-old who has been practicing Wicca since she was thirteen, and “Amethyst Moon,” whose online profile is no longer active. The Coven of the Silver Unicorn (www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/5357) exists principally online but hopes to make the transition offline. “The coven accepts one & all,” its membership policy states, “regardless of background.” Finally, consider the Bella Luna Cyber Coven, which has operated as a discussion group through the Yahoo portal since March 2000 and at the time of this writing posts an average of just under sixty messages per month. At this point, Bella Luna has ninety-five members listed, the vast majority of whom, however (including Bella Luna herself, the list owner), have chosen to disclose no personal information beyond their gender in the available group profile folders. Indeed, nearly one quarter of Bella Luna members chose not to disclose even so much as their gender.

This illustration of the shift from the offline world to the online indicates two very important social consequences of the Internet: a crisis of authority and a crisis of authenticity (cf. Cowan forthcoming; Dawson 2000: 43–44; Dawson 2001: 6–7). First, because there is no mechanism by which information posted to or claims made on the Internet may be vetted beforehand, the World Wide Web produces what some have either lauded or deplored as the phenomenon of “instant experts” (cf. Berger and Ezzy, this volume; Hadden and Cowan 2000b; Wright 2000). One wonders, for example, just how a fifteen-year-old girl with only two years experience in the Craft could legitimately promote herself as a High Priestess. Second, has the meaning of the concept not been irretrievably compromised if in the online world a “coven” can be created by anyone regardless of experience, can include as many people as wish to join, regardless of the interpersonal dynamics that emerge in covens offline, and can exist (in many cases) as little more than chatty discussion lists rather than serious religious working groups? If a coven can mean anything its online users want it to mean, has it not ceased to mean anything at all? While we are not suggesting that this is a necessary consequence of religious participation on the Internet, this shift in sensibilities happened online because of unique features of the Internet as a way of bringing people together. The existence, nature, and use of the medium made a difference.

The substitution of a cyberspace for a real place, of a virtual community for a physically present one, often has a strange leveling effect on religions (Beaudoin 1998: 56–58). The obviously constructed and pluralistic character of religious expressions online tends to have a relativizing effect on the truth claims of any one religion or its authorities. Rather than appearing unreal, with enough exposure to the Internet religious people may come “to doubt the absolute claims of sacredness and permanence that a religious site can make in the ‘real world’” in light of the obvious “ephemerality and heightened access [to] religion in cyberspace” (Beaudoin 1998: 58) Moreover, the easy coexistence of so many different and openly heterodox views in cyberspace exposes the Net surfer to a more fluid doctrinal environment, one that has the potential to encourage individual religious and spiritual experimentation. Ironically, it would appear, this holds equally true for religious traditions like contemporary Neopaganism, which is only a few decades old, as it does for traditions that have flourished for millennia. A few other examples of the new face of religion/spirituality in cyberspace will help to indicate other aspects of the quiet revolution in religious sensibilities that may be taking place with the aid of the Internet.

In India, when a woman is warned of impending bad luck by an astrologer, she seeks, as is common in her culture, to avert the cruel fate by appealing to the gods. “In the old days, [she] might have taken her astrologer’s advice literally and made the 1,450 kilometer (900 mile) journey to a temple on the southern tip of India to pay respects to Shani—the Hindu god she was said to have angered” (Srinivasan 2002). Today she turns to the Web page www.prarthana.com, where, with the click of a mouse and a credit card charge, she can choose from a list of four hundred temples and arrange for an appropriate puja (ceremony) to be performed on her behalf. In this way, millions of Hindus living in diaspora outside India can arrange for various religious rites: marking a birth or a death, help in securing a job, or aid in averting illness. In return they receive a package in the mail from the temple, certifying that the ceremony has been performed and providing a sample of the food blessed and placed on the altar as a sacrifice to the god or gods. Likewise, the devotees of different gurus, temples, and religious organizations in India can go online to participate virtually in a variety of festivities and rites. When traveling they can even continue a lively discourse with their guru, meditate, or experience satsang (a group meeting for guidance and support) through the use of e-mail, Internet Relay Chat, and Webcasts (The Times of India 2003).

What are we to make of these new possibilities? Is the Hindu tradition being trivialized or strengthened by such cyber-rites and services? We should not scoff and rush to judge these developments. Seeing them and other cyber-religious acts for what they are will require a careful consideration of the nature and history of the traditions involved and an assessment of the thoughts and feelings of those using such services. Indirectly, the Internet may be changing many of the basic religious/spiritual sensibilities of users, but sometimes in ways that actually mark a return to an historically earlier understanding of religious experiences and life (see O’Leary, this volume; and Dawson, this volume). While there are changes, more often than not there are also important continuities with traditional practices—if these practices are fairly and honestly perceived.

In Canada a young, ordinary boy named Adam has discovered an extraordinary talent. He can heal people at a distance using the Internet (Gill 2003). People with inoperable or untreatable terminal illnesses contact his Web site at www.distanthealing.com. If they are selected for help, he requests a color picture of them. Then a time is arranged for both parties to sit quietly in their homes, whether across the country or just blocks away. At these times, Adam concentrates on the picture and claims that he can see, layer by layer, into the very physical being of the sick person. He sees more as well: “I can see a physical layer: the heart beating, guts moving, that sort of stuff. Then there’s a layer that’s just like a hollow image of the person and there are green dots where there are problems—or green bulges, depending on the problem” (Gill 2003: F7). As though he were wearing a set of virtual-reality goggles, he claims he can see the illnesses and by bombarding them with “energy” can destroy them. Sometimes he moves his hands—as in a virtual-reality game—to split or pop cancerous tumors.

The story is incredible, but tales of such miraculous healings are common to religious traditions from around the world and throughout history. Following the example of Jesus, they are frequently part of the grounds for declaring someone a saint in the Catholic Church. But the use of the Internet, while seemingly not essential to the result, allows it to happen much more easily, free from the scrutiny of churches, the state, the medical profession, and simply other people. Moreover, as Adam’s parents stress, the Internet allows the healings to happen at all, since they are intent on protecting his identity and his right to live the life of an ordinary teenager. It makes this unusual combination of extraordinary, direct access and nearly complete anonymity possible. With the imitation by others that is sure to come, such so-called “faith healing” is likely to become an increasingly common phenomenon online, precisely because it can be electronically mediated. Of course, some American televangelists have been trying for years to reach out and cure the ills of their TV audiences, crying out through the screen and sending the healing love of God to those afflicted in some way. But television as a broadcast medium lacks the personal touch of the Internet at its best.

In ways illustrated by these few examples and many others raised in the essays collected in this book, the Internet is adding an interesting and important twist to the religious life of a growing number of people. It is intensifying changes already afoot in society and it is broaching entirely new possibilities. But it is also fomenting change simply by helping religious groups to do what they have always done better. It is allowing more people to reach out to more others, in more ways, to a greater extent than ever before in history. The diffusion and clash of religious worldviews has taken a quantum leap forward, but so, it is hoped, has our ability to learn about and from each other and develop ways to live in harmony.

The Internet, Society, and Religion

It has become something of a commonplace in Internet studies, religious or otherwise, to comment on the recent birth and remarkable growth of the computer technology that makes the Internet and its sweeping cultural impact upon us possible. We will not rehash these claims here and urge readers who are interested to consult some of the excellent works on the subject (e.g., Castells 2001; Gillies and Cailliau 2000; Rheingold 1993; Slevin 2000; Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002). But a few points are in order. First, it is important to note that while the Internet has existed technically since the early 1960s, the application by which it is best known—the World Wide Web—is little more than a decade old. The speed and extent to which the Internet has been embraced by a wide diversity of people in such a short period of time are unparalleled in human history. The rate of growth is staggering. Worldwide, the number of Internet users is estimated to have been 16 million in 1995, 378 million in 2000 (Castells 2001: 260), and more than 500 million in 2002 (Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002: 11). If for no other reason, this phenomenal rate of growth assures the importance of continued research into the Internet and its effects on society.

Second, and somewhat paradoxically, it is equally important to realize that the Internet has not grown everywhere. Despite the industry rhetoric and commercial hyperbole about “global connectivity” and the “universalization” of access and meaningful participation, the statistics reveal that a very real “digital divide” exists in the world (cf. Castells 2001; Norris 2001). Any informed discussion of the Internet and its relationship to culture and society must give serious consideration to the division between the Internet haves and have-nots. As Castells points out, for example, “London has more Internet domains than the whole of Africa” (2001: 264) and less than 1 percent of Africa’s population are Internet users (2001: 260). This divide, he continues, exists in terms of both access to Internet technology (i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Cyberfaith: How Americans Pursue Religion Online
• Part I: Being Religious in Cyberspace
• Part II: Mainstream Religions in Cyberspace
• Part III: New Religions in Cyberspace
• Part IV: Religious Quests and Contests in Cyberspace
• Contributors
• Index