Tag Archives: spiritualities

Postcolonial and Subaltern Rethinking of Critical Religion

17 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by in Critical Religion, University of Groningen

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The early 20th century formulations of Indian identity involved using the constructions of specific understandings of religion, and gender. Critical Religion (CR) has provided a crucial methodology to understand the workings of these ideological operators in identity formation within such colonial contexts. In this line, CR has rightly shown that constructions of religion/secular, sacred/profane dichotomies enabled the legitimisation of hegemonic colonial discourses. It is crucial for us to look at the question of ‘how’ these appropriations were carried out by the colonised.

Historical archives show conflicting and complex narratives on the indigenous understandings and usage of religion both as an ideological category and as a term. For instance, the archives show that South Indian nationalists often used the terms religion, sacred, secular, science, and profane in their discourses on Hindu/Indian identity. Much as these terms were appropriated, they were not necessarily used as the colonial narratives intended. Thus, whilst secular was criticised as modern, modern here meant materialistic — that is pertaining to materiality such as corporeality (sex), objects (wealth), etc., and therefore, profane). Science was often seen as a ‘Western value’ that potentially contributed to materiality when it was not thoroughly grounded in spirituality as Hindu philosophy was. Sometimes, science was cast aside as ‘not Indian’ . This understanding shifted when science was used to define Hinduism as superior to Western society. Science when grounded in Hindu philosophy was understood as a body of knowledge. Other times nationalists quoted medical knowledge from the ancient texts (for example, Ayurveda and the Vedas) to show that science was embedded in Hindu philosophy.

Thus, Indian nationalistic discourses used the language (terms and categories) of the colonisers to beat them at their own game, as it were. For CR, semantics are important for our understandings of these discourses, but nationalists’ mere use of these terms should not be seen as their adoption of a colonial, Christian understanding of these categories. The nationalists indeed used these terms religion, secular, science, and materialism in some instances that pointed to a colonial understanding of these categories. However, there were other complex ways in which these terms were used. As we can see from the examples give above, these terms had multiple meanings depending on the contexts within which they were used. These also transformed depending on who the discourses were aimed at, whether the colonisers or the subaltern groups. For instance, the regional linguistic nationalism that was a subaltern counter-movement to the hegemonic Indian nationalist movements in South India often advocated the importance of rejection of religion, and embracing science as the objective method of understanding human nature. Strongly grounded in Enlightenment values, these movements, whilst rejecting ‘Hinduism’ as a brahmanical religion, did not reject other faiths because their primarily objective was to hoist a counter-argument to what they saw as brahmanical hegemony. Arguably, the agenda of these movements swayed the way these ideological terms and categories were used.

This emphasizes the fact that we cannot assume that appropriation of the colonial categories were homogenous. We must delve deeper into these movements to provide a contextualized understanding of identity formations. Deconstructing ideological categories and to do away with them might clear the discourses of modernity clouding our understandings of historical, colonial developments. But it does not fully provide a postcolonial subaltern understanding of historical indigenous discourses. To put it simply, the question should not only be whether the term religion was used, and where they learned the term, it is to also ask how the term was used. To not take that into account is to make the mistake of succumbing to the orientalist discourse of a pre-Christian indigenous era when religion and secular were one and the same, and a Christian/colonial indigenous era where these distinctions were introduced, which the nationalists appropriated. This, then, would be a good example of Aditya Nigam argues as a postcoloniality that is an echo of modernity. If we look at the regional anti-colonial discourses, it is obvious that the indigenous nationalists had more agency than that. Subaltern Studies stands as a testimony to it. Perhaps, I should make a point very clear: I am not suggesting that we should abandon Critical Religion (and given the space this blog post is published in, that would be rather ironic!). But, if we are to provide a historical postcolonial subaltern understanding of religion, then we must move beyond (as in, add to) the scope of Critical Religion to listen when the said subaltern speaks. We now have two issues at hand: a) how do we understand the heterogeneity of anti-colonial, and nationalistic discourses; b) how do we listen when the subaltern engages with these heterogenous anti-colonial, and nationalist discourses?

In an article soon to be published by Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory, I have attempted to answer the first question using Dipesh Chakrabarty’s now famous theorisation of histories. Chakrabarty theorises History 1 as the ‘universal history of capital’ that abstracts labor as a function that is removed from its contexts, and Histor(ies) 2(s) as ‘numerous other tendencies . . . intimately intertwined with History 1 . . . to arrest the thrust of capital’s universal history and help it find a local ground’. At the outset, History 1 and Histor(ies) 2(s) can be seen as polar opposites that History 1 is the secular capital and Histor(ies) 2(s) are the indigenous traditions, i.e., religion. However, as Chakrabarty has shown, Histor(ies) 2(s) are present in History 1 in order for the capital to function; rituals invoking the divine, such as worshipping tools for weaving, etc. Thus, within these indigenous contexts, religion/secular categories, with the emergence of capitalism, does not function dichotomously. Rather the ‘religious’ is embedded in the secular to prevent a total takeover of the secular. However, this theorisation provides tools to understand only certain nationalistic discourses. For example, it points to the phenomenological aspects of orthopraxy. There are such multitude of hegemonic nationalistic discourses that need to be acknowledged to understand how colonial categories were appropriated. Moreover, we must also look at how subaltern groups engaged with these hegemonic discourses – both of the nationalists and the colonisers. After all, it is rather evident that the methodological tools used to understand the hegemonic nationalist discourses cannot be used to understand the engagement between the hegemonic and subaltern groups.

Michael Marten’s theorising of ‘religious alterity’ helps us to provide a better understanding of these discourses.* Discussing the missionary narratives in the Middle East in the early 20th century, Marten argues that the Protestant missionaries’ understood the native practices and faiths as an Otherness, an ‘alterity’, that was somehow ‘religious’ in a way. In other words, Protestant missionaries encountered practices and faiths that they saw as definitely ‘religious’, but understood them as an alterity, by Othering these native practices. Christian missionaries in the colonies were by no means postcolonial or subaltern. Nor were their understandings of indigenous faiths and beliefs. But as Marten argues, it is important to understand moments of Othering ‘whilst . . . hearing and respecting the language used by the individuals being discussed’. How does this work pertaining to the discourses of South Indian nationalists, and the subaltern groups? In using the colonial categories, South Indian nationalists were involved in two forms of Othering – a) towards the colonisers through consistent differentiation between their ‘superior Hinduism’, and the colonial ‘Western values’; b) towards the subaltern groups that challenged their hegemony — here the distinction was drawn between their version of Hinduism and that of the ‘degenerative’ versions of the Others. Within these forms of alterity, the nationalists used ‘religious’ in multitudinous ways some of which have been describe above. I acknowledge the risk of arguing that the nationalist discourses involved Othering the colonisers. At a fundamental level, this would be akin to making a case for ‘occidentalism’. That is certainly not what I am trying to do here. Rather, I am pointing to the indigenous nationalistic discourses that used similar, if not the same, language of alterity used by the colonisers (and the missionaries) to assert their position and agency in the domain of colonial politics. In doing so, they certainly indulged in ‘religious alterity’ with the subaltern groups. Acknowledging this would enable us listen to the language of the nationalists, and accept that they had more agency than what we admitted that they did. Acknowledging this would also provide us with a new methodology to listen to the ways in which subaltern groups responded to such alterity.

* Marten, Michael. “Missionary Interaction as Implicit Religion”. Presented at Implicit Religion conference, Salisbury, 2016. The author kindly shared this with me; I understand it is being prepared for publication.

Contextualizing yoga: modern practices in a western world

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Critical Religion, Erasmus University of Rotterdam

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For many people across the world yoga is a way of ensuring a healthy life away from sedentary habits, a way of decreasing stress and increasing general wellbeing. However, the religious or spiritual element present in the practice of yoga may scare people who are concerned about religious purity or the integrity of their beliefs. Some might believe that yoga contradicts their religion, others might think of it as devil’s work. But is modern yoga a form of spiritual or religious practice?

Yoga as encountered in the West, is foremost based on Hatha Yoga and as such places emphasis foremost on bodily postures, breathing exercises and meditation. Indeed ‘yoga, as it appears today, is a recent interpretation of an ancient practice’ (Hoyez 2007: 114) which originates from the Indian subcontinent. Because of its origins yoga has often been thought as ‘hindu’, a term that is in itself very broad.

Mik365

Image © M.T. Vaczi

Yoga stems from the Vedas, the holy texts composed around 1900BC, which also form the basis of three major religions: Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutras’, dating from approximately 2000 years ago is considered the first text that distinguishes Yoga from other systems of thought and religious practice. In his book Patanjali advocates a complete and complex way of life and not only a set of physical exercises. His ‘eight limbs’ of yoga, which still inform practice today, include abstentions (development of compassion), observances (awareness of ourselves and others), bodily postures (chanelling energy), breathing practices (controlling life force), abstraction (managing the senses), concentration (focusing) and meditation (total absorption) (Alter 2005). Each school of Yoga builds upon these elements, combining and interpreting them in a specific manner.

Often thought as an elaborate form of gymnastics, modern western yoga has lost most of its original philosophical underpinnings and has taken distance from most of its religious roots. Yoga has become a western practice whose popularity has been made possible by the process of individualization and its formation of ‘new-age’ spirituality, but also by the commodification of urban wellbeing. After becoming global, yoga has become increasingly decentralized and the Indian influence has been gradually lost. We live in a time of ‘indigenous yogas’ with a baffling diversity of styles and types, often adapted to specific local circumstances (Hoyez 2007) that highlight foremost wellbeing, health and internal peace. Furthermore, emphasis is placed foremost on its physical aspects while its spiritual or religious parts are contrived, if present at all. The specific combination of these factors makes modern yoga resemble more a therapeutic practice (Hoyez 2007) than a spiritual or religious one.

However, modern yoga is a therapeutic system of bodily exercises that also voices philosophical, cultural or political concerns. Furthermore, it is experienced as an active form of changing one’s life to the better. It emphasizes on self-realization (Alter 2004, De Michelis 2004). As such, modern yoga has constructed an alternative form of being religious or spiritual which creatively picks up and repackages a few elements of the Indian traditions while combining them with specific global and local concerns. For example, in yoga discourse, the consumption of raw- and super-foods is connected as much to the formation of a healthy body, to maintaining a good world energy, contributing to fair trade and to sustaining ecological system. These concerns are both extremely varied and tailored to specific audiences: yoga games targeting children require players to perform postures imitating animals while yoga for older adults yoga will make use of props for attaining some bodily postures (Patel el al. 2011). While children yoga will ‘play’ with the ‘inner child’, older adult yoga allows one to ‘find the right energetic balance’ and ‘age youthfully’. Furthermore, yoga can be practiced as a form of union with the ‘universe’, ‘God’, ‘nature’ or ‘oneself’, depending on the inclinations and beliefs of its practitioners. Some yoga classes use a borrowed religious imaginary: the yoga mat becomes a prayer mat while some postures recall prayer. Some classes include the chanting of Hindu sutras, others refer to a ‘life force’ or ‘energy’. A session may include a greeting of ‘namaste’ or a gesture of prayer. There might be a moment of meditation or time for chanting the ‘Om’ considered as the primordial sound by both Hindus and Buddhists. While these might be considered spiritual activities, they do not come to the fore in every yoga practice. Some classes and schools of yoga may make no overt reference to spirituality at all.

Nevertheless, modern yoga makes both physical and inner, ‘spiritual’ transformation possible, as yoga practitioners explained to me. Modern yoga, they highlighted, works through the effort of the body and ends in a general feeling of ‘feeling good about myself’. Yoga practices create an awareness of the self and a possibility of directly ‘improving’ one’s life. One realizes that ‘there is something bigger out there’. One ‘learns’ what are one’s possibilities, and through repeated exercise, learns also to ‘deal with that terrible pain’ and ‘overcome one’s limits’. Yoga offers its practitioners a permission to be happy ‘as I did the best I could for myself’ but also creates the feeling of ‘being in control’ and being in touch with ‘something bigger’. However, some of the practitioners I have been talking to have not described their experience as necessarily religious or spiritual, rather as an encounter with the ‘real self’ that requires no belief, but ‘just happens’.

This baffling inner diversity of practices points out that yoga is far from being a unitary phenomenon. Although most forms of yoga have their roots in the Indian subcontinent, each different school and group works with a specific interpretation of what yoga is, tailored to the more immediate concerns of western practitioners. The religious or spiritual content of yoga classes does not only depend on each yoga school’s approach, but also on the personal aspirations and capabilities of yoga practitioners. As such, western yoga practices have a different view of spirituality and make different use of religious elements then ‘Indian’ yoga, where the ultimate goal is moksha or liberation. Furthermore, western yoga can mainly be considered as a form of physical exercise that increases general wellbeing. In order to ensure and expand the state of wellbeing and relaxation, spiritual and religious practices may be used or hinted at. However, in the context of western modernity, yoga’s goal of ultimate liberation transforms foremost into the celebration and glorification of the self.

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Alter, J. S. 2005. Modern medical yoga: struggling with a history of magic, alchemy and sex. Leiden: Brill.

De Michelis, E. 2005. A history of modern yoga. London: Continuum.

Hoyez, A.-C. 2007. The ‘world of yoga’: The production and reproduction of therapeutic landscapes. Social Science & Medicine. 65 (1): 112-124.

Patel, N. K., S. Akkihebbalu, S. E. Espinoza, and L. K. Chiodo. 2011. Perceptions of a Community-Based Yoga Intervention for Older Adults. Activities, Adaptation & Aging. 35 (2): 151-163.

Strauss, S. 2005. Positioning yoga balancing acts across cultures. Oxford: Berg.

Approaching contemporary Christian faith in the Western academy

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Critical Religion, University of Stirling

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Our general efforts of bridging the gap between our own socio-cultural parameters in research of other faith traditions no doubt has developed its own tradition and its own ethics of interdisciplinarity. It might then be necessary to reflect on the fact that aside from phenomena such as New Age or so-called sectarian fringe groups in society, it is also important to take stock of the course taken by once dominant and normative traditions, notably the Christian churches. In many ways their practices continue to be pervasive to many formative choices in constructing a symbolic imaginary – be that consciously in affirmation or rejection, subconsciously in modi of repression, or pre-consciously, i.e. without a prior awareness that elements adopted within a socio-cultural or political symbolic have had Christian “religious” origins. This is in part what the Critical Religion project is seeking to address.

The bold declaration of a “post-Christian secular” West, as has been elaborated across various fields and disciplines, has changed the influence and public emphasis ascribed to the institution of the Church (I mean this at a conceptual level, where denominational differences merely amount to a diverging implementation of its institutional character). Heralded almost as a revolutionary struggle to destabilise the institution(s) and its (their) insidious hierarchies, secularisation ushered in an era of research in alternative forms of spirituality (itself a crucial buzz-word), that was to displace the institutional, traditional religiosity of a former age. The phrase “I’m not religious, but…”, to my mind, stems from this particular antagonism between a view of traditional Christianity as naive and ritualistic, and the emergence of a popular, deregulated “spiritual search” which aims to find a relationship to “something sacred” in life, free-from disciplinary boundaries, a peculiar form of religious diet. Our postmodern sensibilities thrive on this kind of absolved freedom that does not need to submit to the regulation of the norm, does not have to answer to the need of the many. “I’m not religious, but…” is an idiom that identifies the wish for spiritual liberation without the risk of material relationship. In other words, each to their own!, even if that means rendering personal spirituality in splendid isolation, both from society and the demands of the public, as well as ultimately from an encounter with oneself as another. ‘I positively feel, in my hideous modern way that I can’t get into touch with my mind’ (as Katherine Mansfield wrote in her Journal (ed John Middleton Murray, NY: McGraw-Hill 1964 repr., p82).  There is no encounter with an o/Other, only a reflection of one’s own urge of spiritual transcendence into nothingness.

What does and what can a critical view on the Christian tradition reveal standing outside of its institutional hierarchy, if not altogether outside its disciplinary conceptions? The history connecting the two institutions, academy and church, is long, and fraught with its own struggles of independence from theology and divinity faculties. The disciplinary differentiation between, for example, theology and (what has become known as) “religious studies”, was seen to follow the trend implicit in the secularisation of the academy that would posit critical rigour and scientific validation of varying research perspectives into competition with each other. The plurality of methods in the field of religious studies amplifies the problematic (and capitalist) ideological assumptions that become apparent when researching questions of institutional power, so tangible in matters ecclesial. Whereas the former is free to identify its self-interest in the hermeneutical horizon that focalises on the church and aspects of Christian living, faith and doctrine, religious studies, in an attempt to question not only the very assumptions of what constitutes any of these elements in interaction with other socio-political and geo-economic concerns, it also has to reflect on its own validatory methods drawn from a range of fields outwith the parameters of classical theology. Thus, its perspectives often drive at a philosophy, psychology, sociology or anthropology in deconstruction of “religion”, instead of organising and constructing frameworks by which to orientate a religious ethics in view of a Christian conception of divinity.

The emphasis I put onto the ethical dimension of disciplinarity here is crucial to the way I rationalise the critical capacity and impact for research into Christian institutional life in the West at present. Ethics, with its emphasis on right relations, on the means of such relationship and the modalities of their interactions offers a sufficient model for conceptualising interdisciplinary inquiry at the level of the text and its metanarrative discourse. Not by chance did discussions on “secular theology” popularised in the works of, for example, John A. T. Robinson (Honest to God, 1963), Paul Tillich (Theology of Culture, 1964) and Dorothee Sölle (Christ the Representative, 1967) tie themselves to a discussion of the ethics of incarnation, establishing theological enquiry at the intersection between anthropology and sociology on the one hand and the political and ideological impact of the institution of doctrine on the other. Whereas philosophy of religion has paved a way for the inquiry into the role of doctrine, and much has been written within and outside of the theological faculty to consider the psychology of worship, I want to suggest that the route to situating the current state of the churches, as institutions and as instituting bodies to the life of participating believers, can be helpfully illuminated by a focus on liturgy, conceptually and practically. In its multidimensional engagement, liturgy can be understood to intersect with every aspect of Christian living, inside and outside strictly ecclesial spaces (Peter Cornehl offers an argument to this effect in Die Welt ist voll von Liturgie, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005). To be reading liturgy outside of a strictly theological concern, I suggest, not only allows investigation of crossing points between spiritual concern and physical embodiment, between individual participation and collective identity, and between a faithful repetition and innovative response to tradition, conceptualising liturgy also allows for a critical assessment from outside the institution that it perpetuates, and invigorates. Liturgy is an invitation to shift disciplinary emphases.

Blurring the boundaries – punk rock and religion

03 Monday Dec 2012

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Ever walked into a music shop? What do you find? Shelves or boxes – depending upon your predilection for large stores or small independents – which are labelled with the music ‘type’ found within. Metal, jazz, country, rock, pop, opera, classical and everything in-between. Why? On the simple premise that it makes it easier to find the type of music you want and so increase the likelihood of expenditure on your part. What is the danger of presenting music in this manner? It makes discovery much harder and exploration much less likely. You go straight to the genre you like, find what you want, have a quick look around for anything else in that genre and then head straight to the tills. Potentially missing out on undiscovered gems in other genres, classics that influenced the music you liked or even simply misfiled music.

Rock and roll has always inspired tribalism, the music genres being one manifestation of this. On a larger scale there were the mods versus the rockers, the bikers versus the hippies and the punks versus basically everything and anything! Despite its love and promotion of various notions of anarchy, punk itself is replete with labels. Terms such as crusty punk, surfer punk, skater punk, street punk, hardcore punk, 77 punk, and straight edge punk and so on are rife. Why? To delineate borders, to define identities, and to attempt to create order and control in a world which can all too easily be wrested from them by profit focused companies.  What is the danger of presenting identity in this manner? It assumes that identity, behaviour and presentation is rigid and definable, it assumes a shared understanding and therefore tradition of these identity labels, it creates a necessary ‘other’ within a subculture and finally it actually results in co-option and control being easier to obtain for large companies.

Identities are not static, but fluid as cultural theorists John Storey and Dan Laughey and sociologist of religion Gordon Lynch have argued. The boundaries between cultural and/or subcultural affiliation have become significantly less rigid and defined. It is now quite common, almost expected, that individuals will merge one or more – sometimes disparate – identities within their overall sense of self.  The multi-faceted sense of self and identity formation is partly a feature of the consumerist, choice based West, partly a feature of the rise in significance of the self/individual and partly as a result of globalisation.

This has forced a re-think on what do we mean, understand and intend in utilising terms such as ‘world religions’, ‘religion’, ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’. In conducting my own interviews amongst straight edge punks in the UK and the USA (2009 – 2011) the issue of what we mean by these terms was repeatedly raised, discussed in depth and featured prominently in graffiti, tattoos, flyers and band imagery.

As much as punks utilise labels they are carefully chosen and carry a deep significance. Each denotes an important political or musical derivation that enables deviance and recognition in addition to the more negative connotations outlined above. For example, surfer punk was the term attached to the punks who came from the Huntington Beach area of Orange Country and were involved with the sport. It denoted the difficulty and danger of surfing that particular area of the California coast. The ultra-aggressive stance of these punks demonstrated this new culture of physical extremism, which they rode as one would a wave. Would the same careful labelling be applied to terms and concepts such as ‘religion’?

Overwhelmingly, a sharp distinction was expressed by between ‘religion’ and ‘faith’ (UK) or ‘spirituality’ (USA). This is perhaps unsurprising given punks’ stance of rejection of tradition – both real and imagined – in favour of creating something new. ‘Religion’ was applied when interviewees were referring to traditional religious institutions, texts, authority figures and evangelising individuals. In contrast ‘faith’ and ‘spirituality’ were used to describe the individual believer(s), specific practises which did not fall under one religion or another, personal beliefs and really interestingly, punk rock itself!

Punk clubs were spoken of as sacred spaces and attendees got agitated with those whose behaviour desecrated that, in their opinion, or disrespected it. Bands, specific musicians and other individuals important to the local scenes were spoken of with reverence and defended vehemently. Punk rock itself became a form of desacralised salvation for many interviewees. A form of salvation that is essentially a secular yet sacred good that has both personal and collective benefits and ramifications. A result of refusing a strong delineation between sacred and profane, religious (or spiritual) and secular; it relies on muddying the waters so to speak, blurring the boundaries.

Naturally punks would not achieve this in isolation, it is not even a stated goal of theirs. Instead they are feeding off and into a long history in the West which Charles Taylor identifies as moving from a position of belief in a specific god being the only option to a belief in any god (or none at all) as one option among many. The individual becomes the centre rather than a divine being or a numinous spirituality. Concurrently society has continuously removed authority from the divine or the ineffable and simultaneously wrested it from the hands of the institutions that function under the auspices of the divine, placing it instead in secular institutions and communities.

Consequently religion as the interviewed punks define it – practices, rituals, authority figures and to an extent ideology, can no longer be assumed to be succinctly definable or corralled into a specific notion. Instead we now face a vast range of human practices which are overlapping and do not function as religious or secular solely or discreetly. And so much like a growing subculture or indeed music shop, we have to ask, are new labels now needed, or can we do away with labels once and for all? The punk ethos of “question everything, accept nothing” seems somewhat apt here!

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Laughey Dan. Music and Youth Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006

Lynch Gordon. After Religion. London: Darton-Longman-Todd, 2002

Storey John. An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Essex: Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997

Taylor Charles. A Secular Age. Harvard: Belknap Press, 2007

On Theory and Practice in Religious Studies

14 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by in Critical Religion, University of Stirling

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This is the first time I have ever ‘blogged’. In fact the latter word was so new to my PC that I had to add it to the dictionary in the software. In the course of the past two decade I have, however, both made field notes and kept a personal journal as I moved between two very different academic contexts and I draw upon these resources in the following observations.

As Professor of Divinity in Scotland’s most ancient university with its longstanding traditions of scholarly activity and golf (a searching pastime and form of outdoor freemasonry), I was participant observer in what was until fairly recently an exclusively male lineage saturated with explicit patriarchy. I then moved from a university that is about to celebrate the six hundredth anniversary of its foundation in 1411-12 to a Chair in Religious Studies at my alma mater, a wet and windswept concrete and brick sixties campus university in the northwest of England, a locale that in part inspired Malcolm Bradbury’s notorious novel, The History Man. It has to be said that the extraordinarily different genii loci of both contexts were very much alive, although the now omnipresent dead hand of bureaucratising British managerialism is successfully killing off and marginalising nearly all individuality as diamonds are relentlessly transmuted into glass.

When I survey a lifetime and a career spent shifting back and forth between ‘Religious Studies’ and ‘Theology’, I find much of the ideological polarisation erected between these ways of doing things less than helpful. This is above all the case in an era of ever-growing and multi-dimensional global crisis in which the identity-intensifying phenomena traditionally represented by the problematic Western category of ‘religion’ play an important, yet extremely ambiguous role.

Whilst I had the privilege of swinging between these seemingly antithetical academic contexts, for me the pendulum came to rest in a decade of subsistence on the periphery of academia as I explored the interface between burgeoning psychotherapies ranging from the banal repetitiveness of Rogerian counselling to the sudden and unexpected transpersonal insights of psychodrama – and the marketplace of once alternative (but now increasingly main-line) spiritualities. This borderland runs through contexts that extend from (e.g.) the milieu of casual power-clothing in organisational shamanism and transformational rituals in top-flight schools of management and leadership studies courses to primal screaming, firewalking, rebirthing, and running sky- and ash-clad over the sand dunes at initiatory men’s gatherings. Experienced in this way no-one could accuse Religious Studies of being boring.

At the same time as going on this journey I began, as Elizabeth Kübler-Ross puts it in her landmark book, On Death and Dying, the process of ‘learning from the dying’ through a series of workshops led by an Irish seabhéan Phyllida Anam-Aire (‘soul-mother’) who had trained with Kübler-Ross herself. This fieldwork confronted me with dimensions of human pain precipitated for the most part by childhood sexual abuse and rape of participants in relation to which it seemed to me well nigh impossible to maintain the epoche, the bracketing out of the researcher’s subjectivity. My entire self-understanding was called into question and my personal and intellectual identity had to expand and own realities largely new to me, that is if I were to be both true to myself and to the manifest needs of others.

As it happens, what began as participant observation turned out to be an essential preparation for supporting, caring for, nursing and the eventual ‘home death’ of Audrey, my wife and life-partner for over forty years. The decade of my immersion was for my wife a time of acute illness and then terminal cancer and this distressing reality caused me draw upon what I was learning in fieldwork. Here one re-learned that bodies are indeed all too real and intrinsic, and that they should not be regarded as merely empty signifiers upon which to project metaphors and meaning. Bodies are, of course, both; as touch replaces words body speaks silently in love to body in mutual surrender before the final relinquishment of the physical relationship in decathexis.

Much of the fieldwork I engaged in demanded degrees of confidentiality that has made publication extremely problematic. Nonetheless, any idea that I might, along with the radical secularisers within Religious Studies and the sociology of religion, regard what I experienced and then deployed as the trivial spiritual residue of a fading human pathology is both implausible and unacceptable.

The problem remains: how can one responsibly represent human experience as this is characterised by ritualisation and altered states of consciousness and as they manifest themselves today in late modernity through complex processes of differentiation, migration and surrogacy within a theoretical framework that needs to extend from the level of globalisation down through human communities to the individual, afflicted human body? How can we clarify this matrix in order, as I would hope, not merely to explain and facilitate comprehension, but also to make intelligently accessible ways of doing things that are as ancient and, I believe, as important to humankind as the making of music?