tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/sacred-spaces-32870/articlesSacred spaces – The Conversation2024-01-17T13:06:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191222024-01-17T13:06:07Z2024-01-17T13:06:07Z3D scanning: we recreated a sacred South African site in a way that captures its spirit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563302/original/file-20231204-19-z5jfbg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 3D rendering of Ga-Mohana Hill in South Africa, a sacred and important heritage site.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Wessels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These days, if you want to visit remarkable archaeological sites such as <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364/">Great Zimbabwe</a> or <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/326/">Petra</a> in Jordan you don’t even need to leave your house. </p>
<p>3D scanning technology has improved in leaps and bounds in the last two decades and become much more affordable. This has led to numerous archaeological and heritage sites appearing on online interactive 3D platforms such as <a href="https://sketchfab.com">Sketchfab</a>. Unlike still images and videos, 3D models offer enhanced interaction, enabling users to navigate and perceive a place from various perspectives. </p>
<p>But while technology has raced ahead, there is a noticeable lag in the establishment of best practice guidelines within the field.</p>
<p>We are a multidisciplinary team made up of a geomatician, an architect, and two archaeologists. In <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11759-022-09460-3">a recent article</a> we examined the implications of current scanning technology and sought to answer the question: can people avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when digitising cultural locations? </p>
<p>One criticism of current 3D models of archaeological sites is that they are devoid of human traces and history. The pursuit of objectivity in scientific endeavours is the norm. But, in using 3D technology – making decisions about site boundaries, what is cleaned from the model, and the chosen level of detail – a subjective filter is introduced. The omission of human usage and cultural traces renders these representations static and sterile. This inadvertently strips sites of the very culture they aim to preserve.</p>
<p>In our research we sought to offer an alternative approach: one which aligns with indigenous archaeology, where indigenous knowledge and scientific methods are blended. To do so, we undertook a case study by <a href="https://rockartportal.org/Ga-Mohana.html">digitising a site</a> in South Africa that is of profound cultural and spiritual importance to many who live in that area. The results highlighted that, with considered approaches, researchers can help keep the vibrant culture of meaningful places alive even when they’re brought into the digital world. </p>
<h2>A place with potency</h2>
<p>Ga-Mohana Hill is situated close to a small town called Kuruman in a semi-arid region in the north of South Africa. We chose the site as our case study because of its rich cultural and archaeological significance. It has two significant rock shelters, Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter, facing north-west, and Ga-Mohana Hill South Rockshelter, facing south-east, which are located at opposite sides of the hill. </p>
<p>The south rockshelter preserves rock art and archaeological traces from the Later Stone Age. In the north shelter, archaeologists have <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-eggshells-and-a-hoard-of-crystals-reveal-early-human-innovation-and-ritual-in-the-kalahari-154191">recovered material</a> dating to 105,000 years ago, including ostrich eggshell fragments, stone tools, and a cache of calcite crystals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-eggshells-and-a-hoard-of-crystals-reveal-early-human-innovation-and-ritual-in-the-kalahari-154191">Ancient eggshells and a hoard of crystals reveal early human innovation and ritual in the Kalahari</a>
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<p>Today Ga-Mohana Hill holds profound cultural significance for the local community. While this cultural heritage endures, its prominence has been diminishing due to various socio-political factors. One of us, Sechaba Maape, grew up in the area, and has actively worked to restore Ga-Mohana as a meaningful place from a cultural perspective. <a href="https://www.thesitemagazine.com/read/drawing-creepy-places">Reflecting on his youth</a>, he recounts tales of Noga ya Metsi, the Great Snake, residing in the rockshelters and engaging in abductions and supernatural activities that unsettled the community. </p>
<p>These narratives contributed to the places acquiring a frightening reputation. Interestingly, the secrecy surrounding the locations dissuades many in the community from visiting them, though the sites have been used for various initiation rituals. And, today, the landscapes at Ga-Mohana Hill are used by church groups and other community members for spiritual communion and prayer sessions. Traditional healers and <a href="https://theworkshopkokasi.co.za/">tourists</a> also visit Ga-Mohana.</p>
<p>These multiple uses and its rich archaeological heritage mean that Ga-Mohana is a place of deep meaning and can be considered a living heritage site. We therefore wanted to create an online, interactive 3D digital replica that represented its multiple uses. Ultimately, our aim was to manifest the potency that this place holds within the 3D model, rather than merely representing its archaeological and scientific value.</p>
<h2>A new approach to 3D models</h2>
<p>Our approach was to focus on three elements. First, the agency – the ability to act upon people to give and receive meaning – that this place holds. Second, the proximity the 3D model gives to the physical site and to past and present people and their cultures and, third, the multivocal nature of the site – that is, telling the different stories of this place so all relevant voices can be heard.</p>
<p>To achieve this, we conducted a 3D scan of Ga-Mohana Hill and its shelters by acquiring photogrammetric images by drone and hand-held cameras. The images were processed to produce an optimised 3D model suitable for web-based applications. The <a href="https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/ga-mohana-hill-and-rock-shelters-f260e92d749045a1b4896a30f96a09a5">3D model</a> was then augmented with a number of visual devices, along with customised text in the form of rotating signboards. </p>
<p>The Great Snake is represented as a moving shadow on the shelter wall. Candles were placed in the 3D version of the shelter to symbolise the site’s ongoing religious aspects. </p>
<p>To represent the archaeology, a number of artefacts that were excavated were 3D scanned and then digitally placed into the 3D model to show where they were found, thus in a sense returning them to their original context. Other visual devices include a hearth, flowing tufas (ancient waterfalls), enhanced rock art and animated engravings. All the visual devices were designed to be moving to animate the place and show its vitality.</p>
<p>We also created <a href="https://rockartportal.org/Ga-Mohana.html">a website</a> to contextualise and introduce the 3D model and warn people who may not want to visit the model for cultural reasons and because of its ritual potency.</p>
<h2>What we’ve learned</h2>
<p>Based on what we’ve learned from this project, we proposed an approach that prioritises the digitisation of place – with all its meanings and vitality, over space – simply inert geometry – emphasising agency, proximity and multivocality.</p>
<p>A shift is needed from a purely objective approach to 3D documentation, towards representing the space as a meaningful place to a public audience. This involves acknowledging and portraying cultural, social and political contexts. By avoiding the privileging of one voice over others, our aim is to subvert dominant viewpoints and promote inclusivity. </p>
<p>The study also underscores the significance of archaeological visualisation in reshaping perceptions of the past and contributing to the formation of present identities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Schoville receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jayne Wilkins receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Griffith University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sechaba Maape and Stephen Wessels do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One criticism of current 3D models of archaeological sites is that they are presented devoid of human traces and history.Stephen Wessels, PhD candidate, University of Cape TownBenjamin Schoville, Senior Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandJayne Wilkins, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, Griffith UniversitySechaba Maape, Senior Lecturer, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2174622023-11-10T16:34:34Z2023-11-10T16:34:34ZPalestine march: some opponents are politicising the Cenotaph to sow divisions – and it could work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558828/original/file-20231110-15-auyr0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Poppy wreaths placed around the Cenotaph on Whitehall.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/poppies-cenotaph-london-20472367">David Burrows|Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The pro-Palestine protest planned to take place in London on Armistice Day has <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/alex-chalk-armistice-palestine-protest-row-b2442956.html">met</a> with <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/united-kingdom-london-pro-palestine-rally-thats-dividing-britain/">opposition</a> from <a href="https://theconversation.com/suella-braverman-why-the-home-secretary-cant-force-the-police-to-cancel-a-pro-palestine-march-217399">politicians</a> and media pundits alike. </p>
<p>Organisers of the Armistice Day protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/organisers-of-pro-palestine-marches-fear-ban-on-saturdays-protest-in-london">have said</a> the march will not go near the Cenotaph on Whitehall. Opponents, meanwhile, have argued that it nonetheless poses a “threat” to the national war memorial.
The journalist Matt Ridley <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/any-protest-which-threatens-the-cenotaph-is-a-travesty/">has said</a> that “any protest which threatens the Cenotaph is a travesty”. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has echoed this sentiment, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67305535">saying</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is a clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated, something that would be an affront to the British public and the values we stand for. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Cenotaph was first dedicated after the first world war and was later re-dedicated after the second world war. Each November, it is the focal point of official Armistice commemorations. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/53180?language=en">research explores</a> how war memorials in Britain and elsewhere are visible - and sometimes contested - sites of political and civic ritual. They are valued specifically because they usher sacred sentiment into public discourse. And as a result, they can on occasion find themselves at the centre of highly public disputes.</p>
<h2>Sacred shrines of the secular age</h2>
<p>For some, fears of memorial desecration have already been borne out. On November 6 2023, “Free Palestine” graffiti was <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/rochdale-cenotaph-manchester-palestine-protest-b2443611.html">daubed</a> on the war memorial in Rochdale, Lancashire, and poppy wreaths damaged.</p>
<p>Similar fears have been voiced before. Back in 2016, the producers of the BBC’s Top Gear were <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/top-gear-cenotaph-stunt-sparks-fury-as-show-bosses-defend-matt-le-blanc-scenes-a6929806.html">criticised in the press</a> when a video emerged of car stunts being filmed within sight of the Cenotaph. Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp, <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/652363/Top-Gear-bosses-slammed-war-veteran-filming-scenes-near-memorial-London-Matt-LeBlanc">reportedly characterised this</a> as “a shocking desecration of one of our most sacred sites”</p>
<p>Such comments show the deep and sometimes complicated relationship the British public has with monuments and memorials commemorating 20th-century war. For many people, these are the sacred national shrines of an increasingly secular age. </p>
<p>Dedicated to the dead, they are solemn sites of remembrance re-sanctified in ceremony and ritual each November 11. Many have their origins in the 1920s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An archival photograph in colour London's Cenotaph war memorial on Whitehall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558820/original/file-20231110-17-gecnu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Cenotaph in 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/cars-parked-on-side-of-the-road-near-building-during-daytime-ZfS2wDzfI6A">Annie Spratt|Unsplash</a></span>
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<p>Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the Cenotaph was unveiled on November 11 1920 in a ceremony of national remembrance <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/the-cenotaph/history/">led by King George V</a>. The word comes from the Greek <em>kenotaphion</em>, which means “empty tomb”. It is as such that Lutyens conceived of his paired down monument, a symbolic form deliberately chosen as non-denominational.</p>
<p>It was first built as a temporary structure of wood and plaster for the Victory Parade of <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembrance-day-the-enduring-nature-of-the-first-two-minute-silence-126698">July 1919</a>. Around a million people made a pilgrimage to it in the week after the parade. </p>
<p>This outpouring of public grief was crucial to the establishment of a permanent Cenotaph, the following year, with the monument rebuilt in <a href="https://theconversation.com/portland-stone-how-a-creamy-british-limestone-became-a-symbol-of-empire-and-elitism-163763">Portland stone</a>. This fact is central to understanding the monument’s powerful place in modern British culture.</p>
<p>For many contemporaries, it was not simply an imposition from government but something which had been established as a result of collective and communal grief. In other words, it was the work of the people, not just of politicians. </p>
<p>Communal grief, albeit it on a smaller scale, was seen at many other locations across the country. In the towns and villages of Britain and its empire, <a href="https://www.ukwarmemorials.org/index.html">local communities</a> undertook the work of commemoration.</p>
<p>Historian Thomas Laqueur <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691029252/commemorations">has suggested</a> that these commemorative activities were part of the “democracy of death” because the war memorials of the 1920s carried the names of the <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/151162682.pdf">“common soldier”</a> – that is, ordinary people. </p>
<p>They were a feature of a new era of democratisation which saw new legislation introduced, including the <a href="https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/the-representation-of-the-people-act-1918-a-democratic-milestone-in-the-uk-and-ireland/">Representation of the People Act</a> (1918), which extended the right to vote specifically to women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification and to all men over the age of 21. </p>
<p>As such, these structures have come to play an important role in the civic life of many communities. </p>
<p>Any thing perceived as in some way encroaching upon them thus risks becoming seen as a “threat”. This might be an activity (car stunts) that causes noise and disturbance nearby. Or it might be an event (such as a protest) that has the potential to disrupt a time-honoured ritual. </p>
<p>The route of the planned pro-Palestine march will not take protestors anywhere near the Cenotaph. And yet, despite the Western Front Association, which organises Armistice Day commemorations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/08/organiser-of-armistice-day-event-at-cenotaph-hopes-pro-palestine-protest-can-go-ahead">saying</a> the march should be allowed to go ahead, it clearly remains an emotive issue for many. </p>
<p>This public sentiment is precisely why politicians invoke the Cenotaph – those wishing to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/braverman-palestine-protest-armistice-far-right-b2444454.html">stoke divisions</a> know it will be a successful gambit. Ultimately, the ongoing debate over the protest shows that even the nation’s war memorials can become drawn into the increasingly fractious politics of post-Brexit Britain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC, the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the US Army Military History Institute, and the US Naval War College. Sam is a Trustee of Sulgrave Manor (Northamptonshire) and The American Library (Norwich). </span></em></p>Politicians wishing to stoke divisions invoke the Cenotaph knowing it will be a successful gambit because so many find solace in its meaning.Sam Edwards, Reader in Modern Political History, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749242022-02-09T13:19:01Z2022-02-09T13:19:01ZJapan’s Shinto religion is going global and attracting online followers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445197/original/file-20220208-24-3zxrlw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C2%2C743%2C493&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Shinto priest performs a ritual at an altar.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/52182314@N00/3732812367">Leo Laporte/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American Kit Cox, 35, works as an electrical engineer and enjoys biking and playing piano. But what some might consider surprising about Cox, who was raised as Methodist, is that she practices the Japanese religion known as Shinto.</p>
<p>While Cox’s interest in Shinto was originally sparked by her love for Japanese popular culture and media, Shinto practice is not just a phase or fad for her.
For over 15 years, she has venerated Inari Ookami, a Shinto deity or “kami” connected to agriculture, industry, prosperity and success. </p>
<p>After several years of study, Cox received a great honor from <a href="http://inari.jp/en/">Fushimi Inari Taisha</a>, one of Japan’s most popular Shinto shrines. She was entrusted with a “<a href="http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2014/03/29/inari-okami-in-the-us/">wakemitama</a>,” a physical portion of Inari Ookami’s spirit, which is now housed in a sacred box and enshrined in her home altar.</p>
<p>What’s more, <a href="http://www.greenshinto.com/wp/2014/05/27/international-inari/">Cox has emerged as a leader</a> within a relatively small but growing community of Shinto practitioners scattered around the world. Her goal: to help Japan’s “indigenous” religion go global.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://eastasian.ucsb.edu/people/students/kaitlyn-ugoretz/">anthropologist of Japanese religion</a> studying the spread of Shinto around the world, I met Cox where most non-Japanese people interested in Shinto do – online. Over several years of studying social media posts, participating in livestreams and conducting surveys and interviews, I’ve heard many people’s stories of what draws them to practice Shinto and how they navigate the difficulties of doing so outside of Japan.</p>
<h2>What is Shinto?</h2>
<p>Shinto has many faces. For some, it is a <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/enduring-identities-the-guise-of-shinto-in-contemporary-japan/">reservoir of local community traditions</a> and a way of ritually marking milestones <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295975009/a-year-in-the-life-of-a-shinto-shrine/">throughout the year</a> and in one’s life. For others, it is an institution that attests to the Japanese <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/shinto-9780190621711?cc=us&lang=en&">emperor’s divine status</a> as a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu or <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/shinto-nature-and-ideology-in-contemporary-japan-9781474289948/">a life-affirming nature religion</a>.</p>
<p>But at its core, Shinto is about the ritual veneration of kami.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C1024%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fox statue standing against background of Shinto shrine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C1024%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442118/original/file-20220124-21-6sfni3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of a fox messenger at the Grand Shrine of Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/89054436@N02/15782888772">WKC/flicker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These myriad deities can take different forms. Many are associated with features of the natural world, like lightning and the sun, while others look after human concerns, from marital relationships to acing one’s college exams.</p>
<p>One of Shinto’s primary concerns is the management of spiritual impurities through ritual purification. <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/shinto-the-way-home/">According to Shinto thought</a>, impurities accumulate simply as a product of living in this world, as well as through contact with sources of impurity, such as death or disease, and committing inappropriate acts. Because spiritual impurities offend the kami and are capable of threatening social order and people’s well-being, Shinto priests must purify them regularly through ritual.</p>
<p>Besides purification, Shinto also provides what contemporary Japanese religion experts <a href="https://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/persons/ian-reader/">Ian Reader</a> and <a href="https://www.thehawaiiherald.com/2020/05/05/honoring-the-legacy-george-tanabe-jr/">George Tanabe Jr.</a> call “<a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/practically-religious-worldly-benefits-and-the-common-religion-of-japan/">practical benefits</a>.” These innumerable benefits include good health, prosperity and safety. </p>
<p>At Shinto shrines and in other sacred spaces, both priests and regular folks from all walks of life perform rituals to express gratitude for the deities’ protection and pray for their continued blessings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Small wooden boards hanging on red threads with messages to deities written on them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444187/original/file-20220203-25-xiqlgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Petitioners write messages to the Shinto deities on wooden prayer boards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/t4PkYWVjD40">Jelleke Vanooteghem/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why do people choose Shinto?</h2>
<p>While Shinto is often characterized as the “indigenous” religion of Japan, it is not limited by geography, nationality or ethnicity.</p>
<p>Non-Japanese people have received certification as Shinto priests, and Shinto shrines can be found <a href="https://www.digitalshinto.com/mapping-project">around the world</a>, including in the United States, Brazil, the Netherlands and the Republic of San Marino.</p>
<p>Global practitioners stress that, unlike many organized religions, Shinto has “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shinto">no founder, doctrine, or sacred texts</a>.” The majority identify as “spiritual but not religious,” a growing category of people who define spirituality as “<a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931002.001.0001/acprof-9780199931002">personal, heart-felt, and authentic</a>,” as opposed to the hierarchy and dogma of institutional religion.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hu1q3QYBulE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Shinto shrine outside Seattle. Researched by Kaitlyn Ugoretz and co-written by Ugoretz and Andrew Mark Henry.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2019.1592816">For people of Japanese descent</a>, Shinto rituals often provide a way of maintaining relationships with ancestors and a connection with their cultural heritage. As I found during my field research, non-Japanese practitioners find Shinto particularly appealing for a number of reasons. </p>
<p>First, Shinto reflects their values: a positive perspective on life, a focus on gratitude and harmony, care for the environment and compatibility with other traditions. Members find the community welcoming to people of diverse gender identities, sexual orientations and abilities.</p>
<p>Second, they appreciate Shinto’s focus on ritual. Cox jokes that if she were to be a Christian, she would probably be a Catholic for the rituals. Shinto practitioners describe rituals as an opportunity to reflect, reconnect with the divine and renew or refresh their own spirit.</p>
<p>Third, Shinto provides a way to engage more deeply with Japanese culture. Many practitioners first encountered Shinto through anime, video games, martial arts or tourism. Some Shinto priests even use popular culture as a teaching tool, performing rituals and giving lectures at cultural events and fan conventions.</p>
<h2>What does the online Shinto community look like?</h2>
<p>Much to my surprise when I began my digital research, I found that online Shinto communities have existed since the birth of the internet as we know it today.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/the-bloomsbury-handbook-of-japanese-religions/case-study-4">In 2000</a>, the “Shinto Mailing List” was created on Yahoo Groups (now defunct) as a space for over 1,000 people to discuss Shinto with like-minded individuals. Fast-forward 20 years, and Shinto communities include some six to 10,000 members hosted across several Facebook groups, other social media platforms and even <a href="https://www.digitalshinto.com/post/shinto-second-life">virtual worlds</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/the-bloomsbury-handbook-of-japanese-religions/case-study-4">As my research shows</a>, Shinto priests and lay practitioners use social media to talk about their experiences and ask questions. The most frequently posed questions by new members are “Is it okay to practice Shinto as a non-Japanese person?” and “How exactly do we practice Shinto outside Japan?” They also create and share resources, such as guides for ritual practice at home, recommended books and other media, and instructions on how to contact and support Shinto shrines.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic showing a Shinto priest in religious attire on a laptop screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444202/original/file-20220203-27-krpsq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some Shinto priests are very active on social media.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.irasutoya.com/">Kaitlyn Ugoretz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While internet-based religion is considered taboo by the majority of Shinto shrines in Japan, some overseas shrines, such as <a href="https://tsubakishrine.org/">Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America</a> and <a href="https://shintoinari.org/">Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari in America</a>, have created their own vibrant online shrine communities. They share news on upcoming events and livestream monthly and yearly rituals and festivals. They both have active social media presences, and Shinto Shrine of Shusse Inari in America is even exploring alternative forms of fundraising via <a href="https://www.patreon.com/ShintoInari/">crowdfunding sites like Patreon</a>.</p>
<h2>A day in the life</h2>
<p>Since most practitioners outside of Japan do not live near a Shinto shrine, their everyday ritual practice focuses on venerating the Shinto deities in their home at an altar called a kamidana or “kami shelf.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic showing a Shinto altar that consists of a small cupboard on which are displayed articles of veneration." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442120/original/file-20220124-27-k5278v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration of a typical Shinto home altar (kamidana).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">https://www.irasutoya.com/</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the morning, Cox greets Inari Ookami with a series of deep bows and claps. She recites prayers called “norito” and puts out traditional offerings of rice, water and salt in gratitude for the kami’s blessings.</p>
<p>In the evening, she removes the offerings and consumes them. This practice is meant to bring humans and divinities closer together by sharing the same meal. It’s also a great way to avoid wasting food.</p>
<p>Some offerings can be <a href="https://classicalideaspodcast.libsyn.com/ep-215-transnational-online-shintoism-and-educational-youtube-wkaitlyn-ugoretz">hard to come by outside Japan</a>. In these cases, Shinto practitioners may offer similar, local substitutes, such as oats instead of rice. They may also make creative additions to their altars, personalizing the space and their relationship with the kami.</p>
<p>Others have difficulty sourcing the materials required to set up a Shinto altar, especially the sacred “ofuda” talisman, which must be received from a shrine. They may build their own altars or pay their respects at <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kamidana/id1231920500">a digital altar in an app</a>.</p>
<p>What’s most important, according to Cox, is respect for tradition and the sincerity of one’s intentions and actions. Slowly but surely, as <a href="https://religiondatabase.org/browse/1071/#/">Shinto spreads around the world</a>, practitioners are making it their own.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kaitlyn Ugoretz received support for her dissertation research on the globalization of Shinto in 2021 from the Social Science Research Council's International Dissertation Research Fellowship, with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p>An anthropologist of Japanese religion met followers of Shinto religion online and found how they were building a community and sharing instructions on practice.Kaitlyn Ugoretz, PhD Candidate, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1353462020-04-06T16:17:11Z2020-04-06T16:17:11ZChristians face an online Easter, preparing to share the gospel without sharing the virus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325439/original/file-20200404-74235-71im9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C0%2C6649%2C4446&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At St. Paul's Methodist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., technician Joseph Stoute, left, prepares for a livestream broadcast with Rev. Janet Cox, a deacon, below right, March 22, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/places-worship-world-shut-coronavirus-200320135906275.html">global religious leaders</a> have been advised or compelled to shut the doors of their places of worship. In many places, public worship has come to a halt for the first time since <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2020/03/influenza-pandemic-1918-churches/">the 1918 influenza pandemic</a> — although even then, <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/first-world-war/spanish-flu-britain-how-many-died-quarantine-corona-virus-deaths-pandemic/">some cities</a> insisted that churches needed to stay open.</p>
<p>While some Christian priests and pastors <a href="https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/12682/orthodox-virus-response-mixes-observance-with-defiance">have insisted on meeting</a> in <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-31/coronavirus-megachurches-meeting-pastors">their churches</a>, many churches and <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/march/bsf-coronavirus-covid-19-bible-study-fellowship-online-asia.html">other Christian groups</a> globally are looking to build <a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/04/01/religious-leaders-work-to-respond-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic/">some form of</a> online presence to <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en/special/2020/settimanasanta2020.html">share the gospel</a> without <a href="https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/covid-19">spreading the virus</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325440/original/file-20200404-74216-1qy31q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rev. Janet Cox, a deacon at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., delivers her sermon from an empty church to home-bound congregants by a livestream broadcast, March 22, 2020, in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Jews, Christians and Muslims, COVID-19 hit at an especially hard time. <a href="https://www.islamicfinder.org/special-islamic-days/ramadan-2020/">Ramadan</a>, <a href="https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/671901/jewish/When-Is-Passover-in-2020-2021-2022-2023-2024-and-2025.htm">Passover</a> <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8836859/easter-2020-when-date-holiday-good-friday/">and Easter</a> are coming soon. For members of these communities, these are among the holiest seasons of the year.</p>
<p>Whether it <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/new-brunswick-mulism-community-covid-friday-prayer-1.5519510">will be Muslims</a> <a href="https://wearesocial.com/uk/blog/2019/06/ramadan-on-social-considerations-for-brands">breaking the Ramadan fast</a> over WhatsApp, Jewish families <a href="https://forward.com/culture/442256/passover-coronavirus-seder-haggadah-2020/">sharing a Seder on Skype</a> or Christians <a href="https://easternsynod.org/story/april-03-2020-pastoral-letter-entering-holy-week">typing “Jesus is risen indeed!”</a> in an Easter morning Zoom chat, the pandemic promises to make <a href="https://eu.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/27/religion-and-coronavirus-cincinnati-jewish-muslim-easter-passover-mass-catholic-faith-church/2898644001/">this religious season a first</a>. </p>
<h2>Virtual religion is ancient</h2>
<p>Virtual religion, however, is not new. It’s actually pre-internet, even pre-electricity. Medieval cloistered nuns and monks took <a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/pilgrimlibraries/2018/02/02/beebe/">pilgrimages by reading </a>travellers’ accounts and pacing the distance to Bethlehem or Rome in their cells. The differently abled have <a href="https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/when-church-members-become-homebound">long participated in their communities of worship</a> through radio, television, audio recordings and the telephone.</p>
<p>Among the first reports of Christians praying and worshipping online were some whose experiments were also driven by tragedy. The very oldest act of online Christian worship <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jCElDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=creating%20church%20online&pg=PA234#v=snippet&q=challenger&f=false">might well be a Presbyterian memorial to the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986</a>. Death and grief are powerful engines of religious change, and have often provoked the emergence of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/17/untangling-web-aleks-krotoski-religion">new spiritual attitudes to media and technology</a>. </p>
<p>Since those early experiments, online church communities have flourished, including livestreams, chatrooms and virtual worlds. In 2004, <a href="https://www.methodist.org.uk/about-us/the-methodist-conference/methodist-council/">the Methodist Council in the U.K.</a> funded <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnUZ4ubcUIw">Church of Fools</a>, an avatars-in-church project that <a href="http://www.stpixels.com/">transitioned into St. Pixel’s</a> website, and then a same-named Facebook group and network. The same year <a href="https://i-church.org/gatehouse/">i-church</a> launched, as “an experimental online community” that is part of <a href="https://www.churchofengland.org/">the Church of England</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325453/original/file-20200405-74255-z2toxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lutheran Church of the Cross, Victoria, B.C., shows a sign reading ‘Thanks to frontline workers. Worship with us online,’ next to a rainbow showing it’s a ‘queer-affirming’ church.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Matthew Robert Anderson)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s a lot of talk about online religion being “<a href="https://churchofscotland.org.uk/news-and-events/news/2020/stay-connected-with-the-church-of-scotland">unprecedented</a>.” It’s not. What is unprecedented is religious groups all over the world all doing it at the same time.</p>
<p>Here are six proposals about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfPQEQTBSAA">digital religion</a> from a theologian and a sociologist, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Creating-Church-Online-Ritual-Community-and-New-Media/Hutchings/p/book/9780415536936">who has written a book about online churches</a>: </p>
<p><strong><em>1. People return to online spaces that give them experiences worth repeating.</em></strong></p>
<p>This might mean world-class preaching or music. But it’s more likely to mean community, friendship, a place to feel valued and the chance to get meaningfully involved. If an online church <a href="https://www.pastortheologians.com/articles/2020/3/25/the-thing-about-online-church">doesn’t find a way to help visitors feel they are part of a community, it won’t work</a>.</p>
<p><strong><em>2. Going online means new opportunities to be more accessible and open.</em></strong></p>
<p>In their now-shuttered physical places of gathering, traditional faith groups struggled with being welcoming and inclusive. Many of the pioneers of online faith communities <a href="http://anordinaryoffice.org.uk">challenged religious exclusivity</a>, providing a home for Christians who felt they did not belong elsewhere. </p>
<p>Online churches have attracted Christians with diverse theologies and sexualities, neuroatypical and disabled Christians and people who had rejected — or been rejected by — local churches. The COVID-19 crisis presents an unparalleled opportunity for all churches to be more accessible and open to groups historically excluded from their pews, while taking care to accommodate and consider people’s varied levels of digital literacy. </p>
<p><strong><em>3. Online diversity needs protection.</em></strong></p>
<p>Online communities and networks also make space for hate and harassment, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/03/30/zoombombing-epidemic-comes-for-houses-of-worship/">as some communities now rushing into livestreaming have begun to discover</a>. Secure software, responsible codes of conduct and watchful moderators are essential, even if finding them takes time. </p>
<p><strong><em>4. Reproducing “normal” worship isn’t a bad start.</em></strong></p>
<p>Despite the wide-open visual possibilities of virtual design before them, the first Christian congregations to form in virtual worlds still <a href="https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/11298/">created recognizable cathedrals and medieval-looking church spires</a>. </p>
<p>Especially in times of crisis we tend to prefer what feels familiar and authoritative. In the first weeks of the pandemic, it is no surprise that many religious groups chose to livestream bare-bones versions of their regular activities, featuring music, a speech and readings one could follow at home. </p>
<p><strong><em>5. “Normal” will change.</em></strong></p>
<p>Tim followed a small group of online churches for more than a decade. He learned that the most successful survive because they are willing to experiment. Each of those churches started with something familiar, then built the confidence to adapt to their new medium. </p>
<p>The term virtual sometimes implies “less-than” — but digital faith communities insist their online experiences are <a href="https://iamthetruevine.blogspot.com/2020/04/mediated-worship-and-spirituality-media.html">more than just a simulation</a> of what happens in a local church. New ideas, new worship practices and the new theological interpretations supporting them take time to mature.</p>
<p>For example, for Christians whose regular gatherings are centred around <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/christianity/christianity-general/communion">shared communion</a>, online-only gatherings have provoked <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/march-web-only/online-communion-can-still-be-sacramental.html">debates about its meaning</a>. For many, communion is a moment when bread and wine are consecrated and understood <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/philosophy-and-religion/christianity/roman-catholic-and-orthodox-churches-general-terms-and-concepts/sacraments">as a “sacrament,”</a> where Christ is present. Christians are now wrestling with <a href="https://wp.stolaf.edu/lutherancenter/2020/03/christ-is-really-present-virtually-a-proposal-for-virtual-communion/">what it means for that presence to be encountered online</a>. </p>
<p>Arguments about <a href="https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/17770/reimagining-the-eucharist">the meaning of communion</a> are as old as Christianity itself, and discussions about digital communion <a href="https://j.hn/digital-communion-summary-of-theology-practices/">have been underway for decades</a>. Amid the new normal of the pandemic, at least one <a href="https://www.pcusa.org/news/2020/3/25/virtual-communion-church-leaders-say-it-can-be-don/">major Christian institution</a> has suggested that online communion might be acceptable after all. </p>
<p><strong><em>6. Experience is out there.</em></strong></p>
<p>In almost every religious community, there are those who have spent decades <a href="https://churchsupport.online">exploring the possibilities of virtual religion</a> but they will often not be found in denominational headquarters. Churches can find these experts, and learn from them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325424/original/file-20200404-74202-1os8hrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rev. Christian Rauch, priest at St. Andreas Catholic Church in Lampertheim, Germany, stands in front of photos with parishioners on April 4, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Michael Probst</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Promise and peril</h2>
<p>A memorable image from the first week <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/03/as-coronavirus-empties-churches-italian-priest-fills-pews-with-photos-of-parishioners/">of enforced distanced worship</a> was of a Catholic priest in Italy who printed colour photographs of his congregation and taped them to chairs in the church sanctuary. He stood, arms stretched wide in prayer, before all these faces. Around the world, other churches rushed to copy that extraordinary gesture.</p>
<p>As inspiring as this act was, it was immediately turned into a Twitter meme that picked up on petty politics in church communities to joke that someone “<a href="https://twitter.com/ChruchSecretary/status/1240651983255715842">complained another person’s photo was in their spot</a>.” The priest and his heckler show both the promise, and the peril, of the digital transformations. </p>
<p>Will digital worship become a chance <a href="https://stillvoicing.wordpress.com/2020/03/29/corona-and-communion/">to radically rethink</a> what it means to be both <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/praying-at-home-during-this-coronavirus-holy-week/12118">faithful and in community</a>? Or in the rush to the web will it simply be the same-old institutional thinking wrapped in a new format? Only time will tell. As the first online Easter for so many of the faithful quickly approaches, Christians are about to find out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Robert Anderson receives funding from the Concordia University Part-Time Faculty Association</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Hutchings received funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council for the initial stage of his research into online churches (2007-2009). </span></em></p>Because of COVID-19, observing religious feasts online, such as Easter, is mainstream this year. A theologian and a sociologist offer six considerations for digital religion.Matthew Robert Anderson, Affiliate Professor, Theological Studies, Loyola College for Diversity & Sustainability; Honorary Research Associate, University of Nottingham UK, Concordia UniversityTim Hutchings, Assistant Professor in Religious Ethics, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875782018-01-03T11:20:01Z2018-01-03T11:20:01ZAs you travel, pause and take a look at airport chapels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200584/original/file-20180102-26145-1kfr93u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our Lady of the Airways Chapel, Logan Airport, Boston.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://armorfoto.com/">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Flying home? It is very likely there is a chapel or meditation room tucked away somewhere in one of the airports you’ll pass through. <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/06/most-of-the-busiest-u-s-airports-have-dedicated-chapels/">Sixteen of the country’s 20 largest airports</a> have chapels, as do many more around the world. </p>
<p>I am a <a href="http://www.wendycadge.com/">sociologist</a> of contemporary American religion and have written <a href="http://www.wendycadge.com/publications/airport-chapels-and-chaplains/">two recent articles</a> about airport chaplains and chapels. My interest in airport chapels started as simple curiosity – why do airports have chapels and who uses them? After visiting a few – including the chapel at Logan, my home airport here in Boston – I have concluded that they reflect broader changing norms around American religion.</p>
<h2>How airports came to have chapels</h2>
<p>The country’s first airport chapels were intended for staff rather than passengers and were established by Catholic leaders in the 1950s and 1960s to make sure their parishioners could attend mass. </p>
<p>The first one in the U.S., Our Lady of the Airways, was built by Boston Archbishop Richard J. Cushing at Logan airport in 1951 and it was explicitly meant for people working at the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx025">airport</a>. A neon light pointed to the chapel and souvenir cards handed out at the dedication read, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We fly to thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us away from all dangers, O glorious and blessed virgin.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200580/original/file-20180102-26142-1upt0ja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dedication of Our Lady of the Airways Chapel, in its first location at Logan airport, in Boston.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archive, Archdiocese of Boston</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our Lady of the Airways inspired the building of the country’s second airport chapel, Our Lady of the Skies at what was then Idlewild – and is today John F. Kennedy airport in New York City. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200581/original/file-20180102-26163-18emwyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blueprints for the original Our Lady of the Airways Chapel. This chapel was moved in 1965 to its current location to allow for airport expansion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archives, Archdiocese of Boston</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Protestant chapels came later. The first was in New York – again at JFK. It was designed in the shape of a Latin cross and was joined by a Jewish synagogue in the 1960s. These chapels were located at a distance from the terminals: Passengers wishing to visit them had to go outside. They were <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Exploring_Interfaith_Space.html?id=on5YNwAACAA">later razed</a> and rebuilt in different area of JFK.</p>
<p>In the 1970s and 1980s, Protestant chapels opened in Atlanta, and in several terminals of the Dallas airport in Texas.</p>
<h2>Becoming more inclusive</h2>
<p>By the 1990s and 2000s, single faith chapels had become a <a href="http://www.tciarchive.org/4534.article">“dying breed.”</a> Most started to welcome people from all religions. And many were transformed into spaces for reflection, or meditation for weary travelers.</p>
<p>The chapel at San Francisco International Airport, for example, known as the <a href="https://www.flysfo.com/content/berman-reflection-room-0">Berman Reflection Room</a> for Jewish philanthropist Henry Berman who was a former president of the San Francisco Airport Commission, looks like a quiet waiting room filled with plants and lines of connected chairs. A small enclosed space without any religious symbols or obvious connections to things religious or spiritual is available for services.</p>
<p>The scene at the <a href="http://www.atlchapel.org/">Atlanta</a> airport chapel is similar, with only a few chairs and clear glass entrances, to provide space for quiet reflection.</p>
<p>Some airports, such as JFK, continue with their “Our Lady” names, indicating their faith-based origins. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200586/original/file-20180102-26169-15xfzi4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The entrance to Our Lady of the Airways Chapel at Logan International Airport today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://armorfoto.com/">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others include religious symbols and objects from a range of religious traditions. The chapel in <a href="https://cltairportchapel.org/">Charlotte</a>, North Carolina, for example, has multiple religious texts alongside prayer rugs, rosary beads and artistically rendered quotes from the world’s major religions. </p>
<p>Pamphlets on topics ranging from grief to forgiveness are available for visitors to take with them at the Charlotte airport. </p>
<h2>Different airports, different rules</h2>
<p>As these examples show, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx025">no two airports</a> have negotiated chapel space in the same way. What is permissible in one city is often not in another. Often, it is local, historical and demographic factors, including the religious composition of the region, that influence decisions. These could even be based on who started the chapel, or how much interreligious cooperation there is in a city. </p>
<p>Certain airports such as Chicago’s <a href="http://www.airportchapels.org/">O'Hare</a> have strict rules regarding impromptu religious gatherings whether inside the chapel or out. Some use their public address systems to announce religious services. Others prohibit such announcements and do not even allow airport chaplains to put out any signs that could indicate a religious space. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200595/original/file-20180102-26148-1o43mrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pittsburgh International Airport’s interfaith reflection room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeff Inglis</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If they are included in airport maps, chapels tend to be designated by the symbol of a person bent in prayer. But even then, they can be difficult to spot. About half of the existing chapels are on the pre-security side of the airport and the other half accessible only after passengers pass through security. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx025">Only four large American airports</a> – Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York’s LaGuardia – do not have chapel spaces, although opening such a space is under consideration. In the interim, at LaGuardia, a Catholic chaplain holds mass in a conference room.</p>
<h2>What’s the future?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200583/original/file-20180102-26151-10chenh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Exterior sign of Our Lady of the Airways Chapel, at Logan International Airport.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://armorfoto.com/">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reasons for these spaces and their variations are idiosyncratic and intensely local. These chapels reveal a range of approaches to contemporary American religion and spirituality. </p>
<p>So on your travels, keep an eye out for these chapels. Note their similarities and differences and recognize how important local histories are to how church-state issues are resolved – at airports and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund For Faculty Research and Creative Projects at Brandeis University.</span></em></p>We often rush by without looking, but America’s rich spiritual and religious life is reflected in these sanctuaries.Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/866062017-11-01T22:37:17Z2017-11-01T22:37:17ZCrop circles blur science, paranormal in X-Files culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192709/original/file-20171031-18693-14unifg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An intricate crop circle spans a diameter of more than 45 metres in a barley field close to Barbury Castle near Wroughton, England, about 130 kilometres west of London, in 2008. The circle is noteworthy for its complexity, representing the first 10 digits of the mathematical constant pi, or 3.141592654.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucy_Pringle_Aerial_Shot_of_Pi_Crop_Circle_-_panoramio.jpg">Lucy Pringle</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Crop circles are some of the most beautiful, mysterious and controversial landscape phenomena in the contemporary world. They are found around the globe, appearing in countries with large areas of agricultural land. They are also central to a shift in culture with investigative approaches that mimic science and increasingly make the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicaalexander/13-episodes-of-the-x-files-to-watch-this-hallowe-1030w">paranormal mainstream</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike UFOs, ghosts and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sasquatch-court-bc-1.4375801">sasquatches</a>, crop circles are tangible — people can touch and walk into them. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/12/surge-crop-circles-caused-drone-users-police-say/">At least 30 appeared in England last summer</a>. In British Columbia, crop circle formations appeared in Vanderhoof, about 100 kilometres west of Prince George, in 1998 and 2001. </p>
<p>Crop circles and what people do with them represent one aspect of <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/geography/news-and-events/news-archives/news-2015/20151113-paul-kingsbury-sshrc-grant-awarded.html">my ongoing four-year research project</a>, which explores the recent growth of beliefs, practices and experiences related to the paranormal. My fieldwork studies investigative paranormal groups in the Vancouver area and paranormal conferences across North America and England.</p>
<p>Recent literature in the social sciences on <a href="http://www.paranormalculturesresearch.com">paranormal cultures</a> argues that despite the rise of a secular, post-religious society, paranormal discourses are becoming increasingly significant in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Co-habiting-with-Ghosts-Knowledge-Experience-Belief-and-the-Domestic/Lipman/p/book/9781409467724">people’s lives</a> in the West.</p>
<p>Because the <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/paranormal">paranormal</a> refers to “events or phenomena… that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding,” researchers have long acknowledged that the paranormal intersects with “normal” everyday life. </p>
<p>Recently, however, as a result of a paranormal influence in popular culture, the rise of new spiritualities and commodities associated with them — such as cauldrons, healing crystals and online psychic services — researchers have begun to question describing interest in the paranormal as subcultural or countercultural, rather than mainstream. </p>
<h2>Paranormal goes mainstream and scientific</h2>
<p>Investigative organizations and international conferences that mobilize paranormal feelings, knowledge and practices are central to the merger between the paranormal and the mainstream. </p>
<p>Drawing on the models and techniques that mimic conventional science, these conferences and organizations are open to the public and have led to the democratization of paranormal investigation and availability of paranormal experiences.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IRdrt8nPyy8?wmode=transparent&start=12" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The 1990s TV series, <em>The X-Files</em>, which followed FBI agents investigating strange phenomena, has regained popularity and returned to production amid rising interest in the paranormal.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Researchers — especially in the humanities — acknowledge the relevance of the paranormal. Yet enduring skepticism in the social sciences about the legitimacy of the claims about paranormal phenomena and experiences has resulted in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-07-26/scientific-crop-circle-research-held-back-by-ufo-links/7660712">a lack of critical studies</a> on how people are actually engaging with the paranormal.</p>
<p>Academic research has already acknowledged the importance of local paranormal groups and international conferences that engage paranormal phenomena — in particular ghosts, UFOs and <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cryptid">cryptids</a> such as sasquatch. Yet we know very little about the relationships between these groups and conferences, as well as why and how they shape people’s everyday lives.</p>
<p>My study helps explain how paranormal organizations and conferences are contributing to these sociocultural changes. </p>
<h2>Rationality conflicts with crop circles’ mystery</h2>
<p>Crop circle research or “cereology” exemplifies the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary.</p>
<p>No matter what one understands to be the cause of crop circles, whether they are all human-made or involve aquifers, ley lines, divine feminine energy, ancient sacred sites, ball lightning or even UFOs, crop circles bring to the fore a mysterious disconnection between language and the visible, as described in Jean-François Lyotard’s book <em><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8468070-discourse-figure">Discourse, Figure</a></em>. </p>
<p>The French philosopher argues there is an unstable relationship between linguistic meaning and units of signification, that is, the visible patterns of words, dreams, symbols and visual art. Because there is no inherent meaning in any given signifier (meaning always relies on another word and a wider context), and art and symbols are conceptually opaque by default, they necessarily defy easy rational understanding.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192744/original/file-20171031-18700-13qz7po.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A crop circle enthusiast from Dublin lies on the ground to connect with what he believes are sacred energies in a crop circle in Wiltshire, England, in July.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Paul Kingsbury)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Case in point: Events at the <a href="http://temporarytemples.co.uk/event/summer-lectures-crop-circle-conference-2017">2017 Summer Lectures Crop Circle Conference</a> in Devizes, England, illustrated the difficulty of researching crop circles.</p>
<p>One day during the conference, I went to visit a crop circle with fellow researchers only to find a sign on a gate to the property: “Crop circle closed.” The person representing an organization that liaises between farmers and crop-circle researchers was not present. Because we could not proceed without trespassing, we got back into the car.</p>
<p>Back at the conference, an argument erupted over the behaviour of some researchers who had ignored the “Crop circle closed” sign, climbed over the fence and walked to the crop circle. </p>
<p>For one researcher, this transgression was troubling because it exhibited the crass consumption of what he believed was a sacred phenomenon. Another researcher, who had ignored the sign, replied that he respected this opinion, but felt the crop circle was “calling out” to him and that it would be more disrespectful to ignore the pull of the sacred. </p>
<p>The researchers had differing views on whether a “Crop circle closed” sign, which demarcated a boundary, should be obeyed or whether it was an inappropriate obstacle to the “call” of the crop circle.</p>
<p>The tension between the appearances and meanings of crop circles also informed the tricky patience demanded in a <a href="http://web.mit.edu/4.299/Students/diop/relevant.html">sacred geometry</a> workshop. As participants drew lines with compasses and protractors, they struggled to accurately reproduce the complex patterns of crop circles, losing small pieces of pencil lead and struggling to keep their compasses from slipping on the paper. Conference organizer Karen Alexander said the exercise gave the participants a better appreciation and intimate understanding of crop circles. </p>
<h2>Interpreting paranormal cultures</h2>
<p>As a part of my work, I explore the tensions between the visual and language, focusing on the complexity of crop-circle landscapes where enthusiasts struggle to navigate toward, inside and away from crop circles. </p>
<p>Lyotard aligns these events with “figural space” — elusive elements that disrupt and exceed the capture of language. Crucial here is how crop circles — unlike ghosts, UFOs and sasquatches — are highly tangible signs. But what they mean and what they are remains a mystery. </p>
<p>Despite claims by “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/crop-circles-the-art-of-the-hoax-2524283/">circle-makers</a>” that they are <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10217151/Crop-circles-demystified-how-the-patterns-are-created.html">human-made</a>, the sheer size and complexity of the circles belies a 100 per cent human-made explanation. </p>
<p>According to researchers at the conference, hoaxers, when questioned about how they were able to make 80 or so perfectly round circles without breaking or snapping cereal stalks, are unable to reproduce the patterns and ignore the researchers’ questions.</p>
<p>Furthermore, finding and getting to the <a href="https://www.livescience.com/26540-crop-circles.html">crop circles</a> — navigating narrow and winding English countryside roads and locating their exact whereabouts in large fields of wheat or barley — is no small feat.</p>
<p>Like all the other paranormal investigation cultures I have studied so far, crop circle research blurs the distinction between the everyday and the extraordinary. Beyond this, one cannot discount the importance of geography in the micro-spaces of fields and conference venues. The regional nature and extent to which crop circles are landscape phenomena incites many people’s desire to shape their encounters with the sublime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Kingsbury receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Crop circles are global phenomena gaining attention as paranormal culture becomes mainstream, along with a hybrid approach that emulates scientific investigation.Paul Kingsbury, Professor, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799742017-07-12T00:38:48Z2017-07-12T00:38:48ZOn land or ship, port chaplains offer comfort to seafarers of the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177732/original/file-20170711-14452-1sjdde3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Port chaplains provide much-needed services for those who make their living at sea.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Boston celebrated its maritime heritage in June by welcoming tall ships from around the world into Boston Harbor for the celebratory event, <a href="http://www.sailboston.com/">Sail Boston</a>. Thousands of people visited the magnificent vessels at anchor to learn about Boston’s rich maritime history.</p>
<p>I saw the tall ships with representatives from the <a href="http://neseafarers.org/">New England Seafarers Mission</a> (NESM). Founded in the 1880s by the Swedish Covenant Church, the NESM today serves seafarers in Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts. In Boston, chaplains are connected to the NESM and the <a href="http://www.seafarersfriend.org/">Seafarer’s Friend</a>, a second nonprofit organization that brings support and assistance to thousands of seafarers on the ships that pass through the port every day. </p>
<p>Seafarers, or those who work on container ships, tankers and other large commercial vessels, come from all the world – with the <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719095535/">largest numbers</a> from China, India and the Philippines. Most seafarers work nine months a year at sea, returning home for a short period between contracts.</p>
<p>As a scholar, I have been interested in the history of port chaplains and the work they do with seafarers around the globe. I have interviewed and shadowed many of them in recent years while conducting ongoing research about their work across the United States. I am also working on a <a href="https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/792030-the-religious-lives-of-international-seafarers">larger project</a> on port chaplains that started recently in the U.K. </p>
<p>Most of us barely have contact with the men and women who transport the goods we use every day by ships. Port chaplains provide much-needed services for those who make their living at sea.</p>
<p>Who are port chaplains and what do they do?</p>
<h2>A support system around ships</h2>
<p>I first learned about port chaplains in 2012 when interviewing chaplains in a range of settings in Boston as part of a broader project. I had never heard of their work and was intrigued as soon as I boarded a vessel and learned that they had been doing this work in Boston since the 1800s. I had heard much in the media and elsewhere about efforts to improve working conditions in garment factories abroad but had not given much thought to how goods get to us as consumers. </p>
<p>As author <a href="http://rosegeorge.com/site/">Rose George</a> argues in her book <a href="http://rosegeorge.com/site/books/ninety-percent-of-everything">“Ninety Percent of Everything,”</a> 90 percent of global goods come to us via the global shipping industry, a sector invisible to most of us. While the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs are concerned with the vessel and its cargo, port chaplains are the only people – in Boston and around the world – whose exclusive job it is to care for the crew. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177756/original/file-20170711-14423-1fb0na9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Across the room from the small chapel/prayer area is a workspace providing high-speed internet access and a map of the world pinned with locations of visiting seafarers from around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Boston, representatives from NESM operate from a building in the Boston Cruiseport Terminal. The seafarers served are mostly non-American workers from developing nations who staff the container ships, tankers, cruise ships and “ro-ros” (ships that cars roll on to and off of) that arrive in our ports every day. </p>
<p>Chaplains welcome seafarers to Boston and see if they need any assistance. They sell prepaid SIM cards for voice calling and broadband data (at almost no mark-up). They loan modems so crew can connect with home. They also offer local newspapers and items like puzzles, toiletries and books. </p>
<p>Chaplains at the NESM run a MoneyGram Terminal so seafarers can send paychecks home to loved ones and sell comfort food from around the world in their building adjacent to the cruise ship docks. </p>
<p>A fraction of workers every week are detained, meaning they do not have the visas required to leave their ships while in port. Port chaplains try especially to connect with these seafarers, some of whom go months without leaving their vessels. For those who do have visas, port chaplains take them to visit local malls.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177758/original/file-20170711-14423-1ejgvas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mission also provides Moneygram, mail, package and phone services to seafarers, and a well-stocked store sells toiletries, clothing, food and treats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps most importantly, port chaplains offer a confidential listening ear when a seafarer is ill or if there are problems on board or at home.</p>
<h2>History of port chaplains</h2>
<p>Port chaplains are not new – they <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cFAP8LxhtLQC&pg=PR22&lpg=PR22&dq=Seamens+missions+ron&source=bl&ots=iOoP3S316I&sig=pBpTZ3EcPEY_1njE82m2XquXK0U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidp_qy6ffUAhWC14MKHSx3BkMQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=Seamens%20missions%20ron&f=false">date to the early 19th century</a> in the United States and the United Kingdom. </p>
<p>In Boston, Edward Thompson Taylor and other leaders of Bethel Churches <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Seamen_s_Missions.html?id=cFAP8LxhtLQC">built inns where sailors stayed between voyages</a>. They held educational programs, offered religious services in the sail loft over the arch on Central Wharf and provided religious libraries to departing vessels. </p>
<p>Initially focused on both proselytizing and social services, port chaplains today work across religious traditions through the <a href="http://www.namma.org/">North American Maritime Ministry Association</a>. They are not permitted to proselytize.</p>
<p>In Boston the work of port chaplains has <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Home_Away_from_Home.html?id=2hPcAAAAMAAJ">changed several times</a>, most recently in 1968 when facilities for container ships opened at Castle Island in South Boston and on the Mystic River in Charlestown. Containers allowed crews to be smaller and turnaround times shorter. Rather than bringing seafarers to their inns, port chaplains began to board vessels and connect with crew there. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177759/original/file-20170711-14468-18ert0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rev. Stephen Cushing distributing Christmas gifts to crew members.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Cushing / New England Seafarer’s Mission</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1986, when the port of Boston opened to cruise ships, hundreds more workers arrived regularly on these vessels. As Stephen Cushing, executive director of NESM and a senior chaplain himself, told me, port chaplains adapted again – initially offering rows of telephones just off the vessels and helping cruise ship workers send paychecks to their families back in their countries. </p>
<p>Port chaplains are active at the majority of large ports in the United States and the United Kingdom as well as in ports in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa.</p>
<h2>Everyday work of port chaplains</h2>
<p>As I shadowed port chaplains in Boston and interviewed chaplains in ports across the country, I saw them humanize ports and show foreign workers the United States at its most compassionate and hospitable. </p>
<p>I have seen chaplains use maps and even cookbooks with photos to act as conversation starters and bridge language barriers. They laugh and joke with crew members who have seen no one but each other for weeks at sea. Most of the time, I heard port chaplains talk with seafarers about families, children and the difficulty of being so far away for so long. I watched one chaplain celebrate with a seafarer from the Philippines when he met his newborn by Skype for the first time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177757/original/file-20170711-14488-1ljexeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chaplains offer comfort and solace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I have seen them provide support in many moments of crisis. I have seen them take seafarers to hospitals. And on occasions that seafarers are not able to continue with the vessel, I have seen how they help with their passage back home.</p>
<p>They are there with seafarers through moments of crisis or pain. I have listened to them provide words of comfort and solace when seafarers have died at sea. In the tragic event of a seafarer’s death at sea, they receive the body and conduct memorial services. </p>
<p>So, as the tall ships recently departed from Boston, I reflected on the importance of the invisible safety nets port chaplains offer as they welcome foreign workers on their brief pause from traveling around the globe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research at Brandeis University and the Louisville Institute.</span></em></p>With 90 percent of global goods coming to us by ship, who are the men and women who care for the crews?Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/740272017-04-27T01:53:00Z2017-04-27T01:53:00ZThe changing nature of sacred spaces<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166669/original/file-20170425-25594-mx284z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Multi-faith Chapel at Hebrew Senior Life / Newbridge On The Charles, Dedham, Massachusetts.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Congregational membership in the United States is <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/684202">slowly declining</a>. Data from the General Social Survey show that 17 percent of Americans attended a religious gathering weekly in the 1990s. By 2010, this number had dropped to 11 percent. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-changing-nature-of-americas-irreligious-explained-71066">changes</a> spark new questions about how people’s personal religious and spiritual beliefs are changing. They also raise questions about where, if at all, people experience the sacred. </p>
<p>With architectural historian <a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/art/faculty/friedman#cHwqCGCYOyM1KguP.97">Alice Friedman</a> and photographer <a href="http://armorfoto.com/">Randall Armor</a>, I located and documented more than 50 hidden sacred spaces in the greater Boston area alone.</p>
<p>Tucked around the edges in Boston – in hospital chapels, meditation rooms in universities, and prayer rooms in airports, nursing homes and a range of other institutions – these spaces are open to the public.</p>
<h2>Initial glimpses</h2>
<p>While <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo13963369.html">conducting research</a> for a book about religion and spirituality in health care, I visited many hospital chapels, meditation and prayer rooms. I began a conversation with Alice and architect Karla Johnson, who built an <a href="http://multifaithspaces.com/documents/TuftsU_InterfaithCenterCaseStudy.pdf">interfaith space</a> at Tufts, several years ago. We hoped to photograph and share these spaces with a broader audience as a next step in our conversation. Karla became ill and died in 2016, and Alice and I decided to continue these efforts in her memory.</p>
<p>As a first step, photographer Randy Armor and I started driving around the city last summer photographing as many chapels, meditation and prayer rooms as we could find in institutions focused on things other than religion and spirituality. In the past nine months we have located close to 80 such spaces and photographed just over 50. </p>
<p>Even as congregations decline, we learned, chapels, meditation and prayer rooms remain, and people are eager to talk with us about them. </p>
<h2>Evolving over time</h2>
<p>We found these spaces in hospitals, nursing homes, colleges and universities, the port, the airport, public parks, malls, state prisons, cemeteries and even a local museum. Some are standalone, while others are a part of larger buildings. Some were designed by well-known architects, while others were created informally by people desiring a small retreat. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166674/original/file-20170425-25594-1rxup81.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chapel at New England Seafarers Mission.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/massachusetts-institute-of-technology-chapel-cambridge/">chapel at MIT</a>, for example, was designed in 1955 by prominent architect Eero Saarinen and paired with his famous Kresge Auditorium nearby, intended to meet the religious and spiritual needs of everyone on the MIT campus. A small prayer space at the <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/new-england-seafarers-mission/">New England Seafarers Mission</a> in the port, in contrast, has been moved and changed several times. Today it consists of a cushion for someone in a kneeling position, behind a movable screen under a tapestry of the Last Supper.</p>
<p>While some of the spaces we found look much as they did when constructed, others have evolved over time to accommodate people from a range of religious traditions. At <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/brandeis-university/">Brandeis University</a>, for example, the original chapels were built in the early 1950s for Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Today there are spaces for Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other students in various areas across campus. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166675/original/file-20170425-12640-1v8mnu0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chapel at Northeastern University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/space-to-sweat-body-politic/">Northeastern University</a>, a sacred space, a reflection room and an area for ablution, private prayer and meditation were literally built on the ashes of the university’s tradition Bacon Memorial Chapel, which burned in the 1990s. Designed by architects Monica Ponce de Leon and Nader Tehrani and opened in 1998, the area was designed to be flexible and accessible to multiple religious practitioners.</p>
<h2>Negotiating religious differences</h2>
<p>Many of the spaces we located are utilized by diverse people and groups. Designers and users make a range of decisions to try to accommodate everyone. Flexibility is evident in many health care organizations where religious symbols have increasingly been removed from traditional chapels and furniture put on wheels to be as versatile as possible. </p>
<p>At <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/massachusetts-general-hospital/">Massachusetts General Hospital</a>, the original chapel, which opened in April 25, 1941, was created through the work of Rev. William Lawrence, retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. In the late 1930s, he sent more than 1,500 letters to friends of the hospital asking for support to build it. A cross in the early chapel was removed and symbols and objects added for practice in a broader range of religious traditions.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/massachusetts-general-hospital/">Muslim prayer room was opened</a> around the corner from the chapel in 1999 and a mihrab, or special niche that indicates the direction of Mecca, was added in 2005. Verses from the Koran in English and Arabic hang in the Muslim prayer room, which is used by visitors throughout the day. Friday prayers are held in a larger conference room nearby.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166672/original/file-20170425-27254-xrxrpx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chapel at Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Concord.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/massachusetts-correctional-institution-chapels-and-mosque-concord/">Prison chapels</a> in greater Boston have also expanded to include spaces for people from multiple religious traditions. Constructed in the 1970s, a sunken building housing the chapels sits at the center of Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Concord. A Catholic chapel, Protestant chapel and Muslim prayer room inside are staffed by full and part-time chaplains from Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Jewish backgrounds.</p>
<h2>Everyday uses</h2>
<p>While formal religious services continue to take place in a few of these settings – especially prison chapels – the majority are mostly often used as places of <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/beth-israel-deaconess-medical-center-chapels-boston/">quiet respite</a>. As we traveled around the city, we saw nurses stop into hospital chapels as their shifts change and family members use them as quiet places to cry. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166696/original/file-20170425-13411-4i6qum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chapel at Logan International Airport, Boston.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.armorfoto.com">Randall Armor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We saw <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/our-lady-of-the-airways-logan-airport-boston/">travelers at Logan Airport</a> sit in darkened pews, with eyes closed and a small suitcase nearby, before they hurried off to find their gates. And we saw many people come through the chapel in the <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/st-francis-chapel-at-the-prudential-center/">Prudential Center Mall</a> in the midst of their working days.</p>
<p>Some of these spaces are multi-faith, while others are Catholic. Some are mostly empty, while others – especially those in prisons – seem to often be full. Some, like <a href="http://www.hiddensacredspaces.org/#/cushing-chapel-framingham/">Cushing Memorial Chapel in Framingham</a>, tell stories about institutions shifting from care for veterans to the elderly to everyone – the chapel is now in a park, the rest of the institution having been demolished.</p>
<p>As a group, all of these spaces suggest that what makes spaces sacred in Boston and nationally is shifting from religious symbols alone to broader symbols of nature, light and air. Such spaces are used quietly by many people across the United States even as congregations decline. </p>
<p>We encourage people to notice them and the pause they encourage, often hidden from plain sight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Cadge receives funding from Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project is also made possible through grants provided by Brandeis University and Wellesley College, and through the generous support of The Theodore and Jane Norman Fund For Faculty Research and Creative Projects.</span></em></p>Even as congregations decline, chapels, meditation and prayer rooms are evolving as spaces of multi-faith worship and quiet reflection.Wendy Cadge, Professor of Sociology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731692017-02-16T20:32:25Z2017-02-16T20:32:25ZWhat makes a mountain, hill or prairie a ‘sacred’ place for Native Americans?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157179/original/image-20170216-9506-yb99hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman holds Pope Francis' head during his meeting with representatives of indigenous peoples at the Vatican on Feb. 15, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For several months Native American protesters and others have been opposing the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The plans for construction pass through sacred land for the Native American tribe, Standing Rock Sioux.</p>
<p>But, within days of taking office, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum supporting the construction of the pipeline. Recently a U.S. federal judge denied a request by tribes to halt construction on the final link of the project.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, however, the protesters appeared to have received support from none other than Pope Francis, a long-time defender of indigenous people’s rights. The pope <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-pope-idUSKBN15U1VA">said</a> indigenous cultures have a right to defend “their ancestral relationship to the Earth.” <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-pope-idUSKBN15U1VA">He added</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Do not allow those that destroy the Earth, which destroy the environment and the ecological balance, and which end up destroying the wisdom of peoples.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are “sacred places” or “sacred sites.” </p>
<p>What makes a mountain, hill or prairie a “sacred” place?</p>
<h2>Meaning of sacred spaces</h2>
<p>I learned from my grandparents about the sacred areas within <a href="http://blackfeetnation.com/">Blackfeet tribal territory</a> in Montana and Alberta, which is not far from Lakota tribal territory in the Dakotas. </p>
<p>My grandparents said that sacred areas are places set aside from human presence. They identified two overarching types of sacred place: those set aside for the divine, such as a dwelling place, and those set aside for human remembrance, such as a burial or battle site.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Invisible-Reality,677467.aspx">forthcoming book “Invisible Reality,”</a> I contemplate those stories that my grandparents shared about Blackfeet religious concepts and the interconnectedness of the supernatural and natural realms. </p>
<p>My grandparents’ stories revealed that the Blackfeet believe in a universe where supernatural beings exist within the same time and space as humans and our natural world. The deities could simultaneously exist in both as visible and invisible reality. That is, they could live unseen, but known, within a physical place visible to humans.</p>
<p>One such place for the Blackfeet is Nínaiistáko, or Chief Mountain, in Glacier National Park. This mountain is the home of Ksiistsikomm, or Thunder, a primordial deity. My grandparents spoke of how this mountain is a liminal space, a place between two realms. </p>
<p>Blackfeet tribal citizens can go near this sacred place to perceive the divine, but they cannot go onto the mountain because it is the home of a deity. Elders of the Blackfeet tribe believe that human activity, or changing the physical landscape in these places, disrupts the lives of deities. They view this as sacrilegious and a desecration. </p>
<h2>A living text</h2>
<p>Sacred places, however, are not always set aside from humanity’s use. Some sacred places are meant for constant human interaction.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2013/08/in-memoriam-keith-h-basso-19402013.html">Anthropologist Keith Basso</a> argued in his seminal work <a href="http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=770">“Wisdom Sits in Places”</a> that one purpose of sacred places was to perfect the human mind. The Western Apache elders with whom Basso worked told him that when someone repeated the names and stories of their sacred places, they were understood as “repeating the speech of our ancestors.”</p>
<p>For these Apache elders, places were not just names and stories – their landscape itself was a living sacred text. As these elders traveled from place to place speaking the names and stories of their sacred text, they told Basso that their minds became more “resilient,” more “smooth” and able to withstand adversity. </p>
<h2>The sacredness of the pipeline site</h2>
<p>At different national and international venues, Lakota leader Dave Archambault Jr. has stated that the Lakota view the area near the potential construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline as both a “sacred place” and a “burial site,” or as both a place set aside from human presence and a place of human reverence.</p>
<p>Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">described the “sacred stones”</a> in North Dakota in his book “The World We Used to Live In” as having the ability of “forewarning of events to come.”</p>
<p>Deloria described how Lakota religious leaders went to these stones in the early morning to read their messages. Deloria shared the experiences of an Episcopal minister from 1919.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A rock of this kind was formerly on Medicine Hill near Cannon Ball Sub-station…. Old Indians came to me… and said that the lightning would strike someone in camp that day, for a picture (wowapi) on this holy rock indicated such an event…. And the lightning did strike a tent in camp and nearly killed a woman…. I have known several similar things, equally foretelling events to come, I can not account for it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">Deloria explained</a> that it was “birds, directed by the spirit of the place, [that] do the actual sketching of the pictures.” The Lakota named this area Ínyanwakagapi for the large stones that served as oracles for their people. The Americans renamed it Cannonball.</p>
<h2>Not just Dakota</h2>
<p>Historians, anthropologists and religious thinkers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Where_the_Lightning_Strikes.html?id=UpIMJdc29qoC">continue to learn and write</a> about Native American religious ideas of place. In so doing, they seek to analyze complex religious concepts of transformation and transcendence that these places evoke.</p>
<p>However, despite their contributions to the academic interpretation of religion, these understandings do not often translate into protection of Native American places for their religious significance. As <a href="https://www.aclu.org/bio/stephen-pevar">legal scholar Stephen Pevar</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rights-of-indians-and-tribes-9780199795352?cc=us&lang=en&">tells us,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“there is no federal statue that expressly protects Indian sacred sites…. in fact, the federal government knowingly desecrates sites.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past year we have seen protests over the potential <a href="https://www.hawaii.edu/offices/bor/regular/testimony/201504161130/4-14-2015_Toledo_TMT.pdf">desecration of sacred places</a> at Mauna Kea in Hawaii (over the construction of another telescope on a sacred volcano), <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/03/30/oak-flat-deal-violates-apache-rights-mining-best-practices">Oak Flats in Arizona</a> (over a potential copper mine on sacred land) and now at <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37834334">Standing Rock in North Dakota</a>. </p>
<h2>Lack of understanding of sacredness</h2>
<p><a href="http://hds.harvard.edu/people/william-graham">William Graham, a former dean</a> of the Harvard Divinity School, <a href="http://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/summerautumn2012/why-study-religion-twenty-first-century">wrote that</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Religion… will long continue to be a critical factor in individual, social, and political life around the world, and we need to understand it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The intimate connection between landscape and religion is at the center of Native American societies. It is the reason that thousands of Native Americans from across the United States and indigenous peoples from around the world have traveled to the windswept prairies of North Dakota.</p>
<p>But, despite our 200-plus years of contact, the United States has yet to begin to understand the uniqueness of Native American religions and ties to the land. And until this happens, there will continue to be conflicts over religious ideas of land and landscape, and what makes a place sacred.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published on Nov. 2, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73169/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pope Francis appears to have defended Native American protests on the North Dakota pipeline issue. Indigenous cultures have a right to defend ‘their ancestral relationship to the Earth,’ he said.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/726422017-02-10T04:15:26Z2017-02-10T04:15:26ZSongs of worship: Why we sing to the Lord<p>This Saturday, Feb. 11, many Jews will celebrate <a href="http://www.reformjudaism.org/shabbat-shirah">Shabbat Shirah</a>, the Sabbath of Singing, which commemorates one of the most vivid musical performances in the Hebrew Bible: the songs sung by Moses and his sister Miriam to celebrate the Israelite crossing of the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea) in their dramatic escape from bondage in Egypt.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZdSEsZ8bMo">Song of Miriam</a> exemplifies one dominant motivation for sacred music: collective celebration. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her, with timbrels and dancing. Miriam sang to them:
‘Sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
he has hurled into the sea.’” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a cultural historian, I have been studying the relationship between music and religious experience for two decades. Music has been crucial to religious experience across history and region.</p>
<p>Sacred music has a unique ability to engage both body and mind. It brings people together in expressing gratitude, praise, sorrow and even protest against injustice. </p>
<h2>Why religion needs sacred song</h2>
<p>More than three millennia after Miriam, singing continues to be a widely observed expression of thanksgiving and gratitude, whether or not couched in religious language or occurring in a sacred space. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156248/original/image-20170209-8651-3jf8d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singing bhajans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mayapur/2859198956/in/photolist-8i1NSm-8ntABt-3LMPAz-7qHzE5-ggBi2-7qweek-7MH6a-mtTnQc-fntnpo-faMKy7-rerPiN-5mE9eJ-341RwH-o3dY3-fppTRY-9mNSQB-4yAgLg-e773LX-bvFMeF-bL96WM-9muWHF-d7TLxN-bxepbb-6HVVtJ-5eUnsv-8LALsK-QaqJcU-5eUCyV-9t7wG">Vrindavan Lila</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jews and Christian sing psalms that celebrate the glory of creation and the god who created it; Muslims offer “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAuSeMxdR_c">na’t</a>” in honor of the Prophet Muhammad; and Hindus chant “bhajans” to express their devotion to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNXLiu_3rNg">Shiva</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56eNuoOVNQM">Krishna</a>. In many American evangelical churches, pop-influenced congregational singing, generally referred to as “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs7nJHlBLbs">praise music</a>,” <a href="http://uncpresswebserv.uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1907">has replaced old-school hymns</a>.</p>
<p>At the other end of the emotional spectrum, sacred music is the preferred medium for expressing mourning and lament. African-American churches commonly referred to such songs of trouble and grief as “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiJx1Hbn_KM">sorrow songs</a>,” in contrast to the more upbeat celebratory “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szhTtl6CuO8&list=PLIbP91CQtIvsj8-vjCIENFl705998yeYB&index=12">jubilee songs</a>.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the climactic final chapter of historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois’ classic collection, <a href="http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/give-me-liberty4/docs/WEBDuBois-Souls_of_Black_Folk-1903.pdf">The Souls of Black Folk</a>, is titled “Of the Sorrow Songs.” He offers an eloquent tribute to the power of the spiritual, when he says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“And so by fateful chance the Negro folk-song – the rhythmic cry of the slave – stands to-day not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many Hebrew psalms are classified as laments and have been sung by monastics and lay worshipers, Jewish and Christian, for 2,000 years. Islam has its own tradition of lamentation dirges, called “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69SxSJXp-fs&list=PL6g0uLE01O6KrgnJFW9Hwea__qu4Ztb3h">nauha</a>,” typically sung by Shiite Muslims in mourning for the martyrs of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Karbala">Battle of Karbala</a> in 680 AD, which initiated a bitter succession struggle that still resounds through the Muslim world.</p>
<p>The blues, which have so profoundly shaped American popular music – from jazz and rhythm & blues to soul – are regarded as a secular counterpart to the songs that arose out of conditions of chattel slavery, as the <a href="http://liberationtheology.org/people-organizations/james-h-cone/">theologian James Cone</a> memorably explores in his seminal study, <a href="http://www.orbisbooks.com/the-spirituals-and-the-blues.html">“The Spiritual and the Blues</a>.” </p>
<p>Just as the experiences of ecstasy and gratitude are heightened by giving vocal expression in collective singing, so the pain of injustice and uncertainty are relieved by vocal release through music.</p>
<p>Former President Barack Obama too broke into what seemed like a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/arts/obamas-eulogy-which-found-its-place-in-history.html">spontaneous rendition of “Amazing Grace”</a> at the eulogy he delivered at the historic church in Charleston, South Carolina, following the mass murder of nine church members by a white supremacist in 2015. </p>
<h2>Why should this be?</h2>
<p>Sacred song is one of the most social aspects of religious practice. But it is also an intimate embodied experience. The singer draws meaning from her or his core being: She feels the sound being produced as she hears it. </p>
<p>Creating musical tone in one’s chest and throat provides sensuous pleasure, amplified by what <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/emile-durkheim-9282252">sociologist Emile Durkheim</a> referred to as “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/2614103/The_Twenty-first-century_Study_of_Collective_Effervescence_Expanding_the_Context_of_Fieldwork">collective effervescence</a>” – the collective energy generated when groups come together in a shared purpose. This concept has been explored extensively by sociologist <a href="https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/r_collins">Randall Collins</a> in his work on <a href="http://www.thearda.com/rrh/papers/guidingpapers/Collins.pdf">interaction ritual chains</a>. </p>
<p>Personally, I have experienced this most intensely while singing <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2016/05/wood-street-psalm-137-sacred-harp-song/">shape-note music</a>, which might be described as the heavy metal of American roots music (with a Calvinist twist). </p>
<h2>Why communal singing is joyous</h2>
<p>Worth noting in the Miriam singing we began with is the way in which singing and dancing are conjoined.</p>
<p>Disembodied music of the sort we take for granted through MP3s and earbuds, or even sitting passively in a concert hall, is a recent historical development. The most intense experience of unity between body and music is called trance. “[<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=o9BKo4byevMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=becker+deep+listening&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ-6787IPSAhWm14MKHdwTDqkQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=becker%20deep%20listening&f=false">Trancing</a>]
is a profound mystery,” writes ethnomusicologist <a href="http://www.music.umich.edu/faculty_staff/bio.php?u=beckerj">Judith Becker</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You lose your strong sense of self, you lose the sense of time passing, and may feel transported out of quotidian space.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156251/original/image-20170209-8640-1bv0axz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Communal singing is more joyous.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/omnia_mutantur/4548177852/in/photolist-7VUAPw-LjWun-sC1a5k-72x2a9-hHYcEb-74JowS-74Joqs-74JoCm-hHXJXf-adBnLd-gqYJ5v-74JomN-74Joom-2ULvCA-8ocxkd-adywWP-adyx8P-adBogL-bnPG6z-9zRqLe-9zRsqc-9zUqVN-cT5mqL-adyxmi-adBnkW-fv2gwp-fv2fXg-adBnfu-cT5mBf-fj9Shr-dpRs5o-9snX8i-ajfmtP-cT5yXw-adyxfc-a9UWKg-adywHg-dpRfUy-3XSZD-dijdgK-cT5GuJ-b9ASWr-54763F-cT5ewm-9zUCPS-9zRN1g-ffPw1g-adywRv-fvwL15-bF2bAM">cristian</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ordinary worshipers often get at least a taste of this when they sing in community. Communal singing plays a role in the <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/story/acappella-comeback/">release of oxytocin</a>, the “cuddle hormone” instrumental in the pleasures of social bonding. </p>
<h2>Music, religion and political protest</h2>
<p>The Abrahamic faiths that trace their origins to the Hebrew Bible have a long history of linking sacred song to the struggle against injustice and oppression. This tradition comes out of the Hebrew prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos. Social protest is a strong thread in the psalms, which provided the central worship songs for Jews and Christians. </p>
<p>My most recent book studies just one text, <a href="http://www.davidwstowe.com/song-of-exile/">Psalm 137</a>, which includes the famous line, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a psalm that mourns the plight of Judeans held captive in Babylon after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 587 B.C. This has been used as a rallying cry for religious and political movements for many centuries.</p>
<p>And indeed it seems that music may play a part in the mass protests of the Trump era. Secular spirituals like “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/216482943/the-inspiring-force-of-we-shall-overcome">We Shall Overcome</a>,” with its roots in the black church, are always ready to be dusted off. But this time, Woody Guthrie’s “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2000/07/03/1076186/this-land-is-your-land">This Land Is Your Land</a>” has already been promoted by the political resistance as a reminder of the earlier, more inclusive vision of American nationhood. Lady Gaga even managed to take it into her Super Bowl halftime show <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/06/if-you-thought-lady-gagas-halftime-show-was-apolitical-consider-the-origin-of-this-land-is-your-land/?utm_term=.4df005d84a69">without raising alarms</a>. New versions of the Song of Miriam continue to be rewritten and sung, as songs that celebrate triumph over oppression or injustice.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=o9BKo4byevMC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=%22You+cannot+argue+with+a+song+sung+in+soaring+phrases,+with+drum+rhythms+you+are+feeling+in+your+bones,+surrounded+by+friends+and+family+who+are+all,+like+you,+structurally+coupled,+rhythmically+entrained.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=alfkqIPskr&sig=a0YVV7p9wEddvnIXiG9YvwIShW4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH4rXC7IPSAhWH24MKHUoLBdkQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22You%20cannot%20argue%20with%20a%20song%20sung%20in%20soaring%20phrases%2C%20with%20drum%20rhythms%20you%20are%20feeling%20in%20your%20bones%2C%20surrounded%20by%20friends%20and%20family%20who%20are%20all%2C%20like%20you%2C%20structurally%20coupled%2C%20rhythmically%20entrained.%E2%80%9D&f=false">Becker says,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You cannot argue with a song sung in soaring phrases, with drum rhythms you are feeling in your bones, surrounded by friends and family who are all, like you, structurally coupled, rhythmically entrained.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Editor’s note: the original version of this story inadvertently identified the Battle of Karbala as having taken place in 680 BC instead of 680 AD.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David W. Stowe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sacred music joins people in a collective expression - whether of joy, sorrow or protest.David W. Stowe, Professor of English and Religious Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/680322016-11-03T00:13:10Z2016-11-03T00:13:10ZWhy understanding Native American religion is important for resolving the Dakota Access Pipeline crisis<p>In recent weeks, protests against the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline across North Dakota have escalated. Native American elders, families and children have set up tipis and tents on a campsite near the pipeline’s path in the hope of stopping the pipeline’s construction.</p>
<p><a href="https://votedavearchambault.wordpress.com/about/">Dave Archambault Jr.,</a> the leader of the <a href="http://standingrock.org/">Standing Rock Sioux Tribe</a> that is leading the efforts to stop the pipeline, summed up what is at the heart of the issue. In a <a href="http://indianlaw.org/undrip/Standing-Rock-Sioux-Tribe-Takes-NODAPL-to-the-United-Nations">brief two-minute statement</a> before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, he said,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Oil companies are causing deliberate destruction of our sacred places.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are “sacred places” or “sacred sites.” </p>
<p>What makes a mountain, hill or prairie a “sacred” place?</p>
<h2>Meaning of sacred spaces</h2>
<p>I learned from my grandparents about the sacred areas within <a href="http://blackfeetnation.com/">Blackfeet tribal territory</a> in Montana and Alberta, which is not far from Lakota tribal territory in the Dakotas. </p>
<p>My grandparents said that sacred areas are places set aside from human presence. They identified two overarching types of sacred place: those set aside for the divine, such as a dwelling place, and those set aside for human remembrance, such as a burial or battle site.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Invisible-Reality,677467.aspx">forthcoming book “Invisible Reality,”</a> I contemplate those stories that my grandparents shared about Blackfeet religious concepts and the interconnectedness of the supernatural and natural realms. </p>
<p>My grandparents’ stories revealed that the Blackfeet believe in a universe where supernatural beings exist within the same time and space as humans and our natural world. The deities could simultaneously exist in both as visible and invisible reality. That is, they could live unseen, but known, within a physical place visible to humans.</p>
<p>One such place for the Blackfeet is Nínaiistáko or Chief Mountain in Glacier National Park. This mountain is the home of Ksiistsikomm or Thunder, a primordial deity. My grandparents spoke of how this mountain is a liminal space, a place between two realms. </p>
<p>Blackfeet tribal citizens can go near this sacred place to perceive the divine, but they cannot go onto the mountain because it is the home of a deity. Elders of the Blackfeet tribe believe that human activity, or changing the physical landscape in these places, disrupts the lives of deities. They view this as sacrilegious and a desecration. </p>
<h2>A living text</h2>
<p>Sacred places, however, are not always set aside from humanity’s use. Some sacred places are meant for constant human interaction.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2013/08/in-memoriam-keith-h-basso-19402013.html">Anthropologist Keith Basso</a> argued in his seminal work <a href="http://www.unmpress.com/books.php?ID=770">“Wisdom Sits in Places”</a> that one purpose of sacred places was to perfect the human mind. The Western Apache elders with whom Basso worked told him that when someone repeated the names and stories of their sacred places, they were understood as “repeating the speech of our ancestors.”</p>
<p>For these Apache elders, places were not just names and stories – their landscape itself was a living sacred text. As these elders traveled from place to place speaking the names and stories of their sacred text, they told Basso that their minds became more “resilient,” more “smooth” and able to withstand adversity. </p>
<h2>The sacredness of the pipeline site</h2>
<p>At different national and international venues, Lakota leader Dave Archambault Jr. has stated that the Lakota view the area near the potential construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline as both a “sacred place” and a “burial site,” or as both a place set aside from human presence and a place of human reverence.</p>
<p>Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">described the “sacred stones”</a> in North Dakota in his book “The World We Used to Live In” as having the ability of “forewarning of events to come.”</p>
<p>Deloria described how Lakota religious leaders went to these stones in the early morning to read their messages. Deloria shared the experiences of an Episcopal minister from 1919.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A rock of this kind was formerly on Medicine Hill near Cannon Ball Sub-station…. Old Indians came to me… and said that the lightning would strike someone in camp that day, for a picture (wowapi) on this holy rock indicated such an event…. And the lightning did strike a tent in camp and nearly killed a woman…. I have known several similar things, equally foretelling events to come, I can not account for it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_World_We_Used_to_Live_in.html?id=S6F7MKRoFS4C">Deloria explained</a> that it was “birds, directed by the spirit of the place, [that] do the actual sketching of the pictures.” The Lakota named this area Ínyanwakagapi for the large stones that served as oracles for their people. The Americans renamed it Cannonball.</p>
<h2>Not just Dakota</h2>
<p>Historians, anthropologists and religious thinkers <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Where_the_Lightning_Strikes.html?id=UpIMJdc29qoC">continue to learn and write</a> about Native American religious ideas of place. In so doing, they seek to analyze complex religious concepts of transformation and transcendence that these places evoke.</p>
<p>However, despite their contributions to the academic interpretation of religion, these understandings do not often translate into protection of Native American places for their religious significance. As <a href="https://www.aclu.org/bio/stephen-pevar">legal scholar Stephen Pevar</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rights-of-indians-and-tribes-9780199795352?cc=us&lang=en&">tells us,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“there is no federal statue that expressly protects Indian sacred sites…. in fact, the federal government knowingly desecrates sites.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the past year we have seen protests over the potential <a href="https://www.hawaii.edu/offices/bor/regular/testimony/201504161130/4-14-2015_Toledo_TMT.pdf">desecration of sacred places</a> at Mauna Kea in Hawaii (over the construction of another telescope on a sacred volcano), <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/03/30/oak-flat-deal-violates-apache-rights-mining-best-practices">Oak Flats in Arizona</a> (over a potential copper mine on sacred land) and now at <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37834334">Standing Rock in North Dakota</a>. </p>
<h2>Lack of understanding of sacredness</h2>
<p><a href="http://hds.harvard.edu/people/william-graham">William Graham, a former dean</a> of the Harvard Divinity School, <a href="http://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/summerautumn2012/why-study-religion-twenty-first-century">wrote that</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Religion… will long continue to be a critical factor in individual, social, and political life around the world, and we need to understand it.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The intimate connection between landscape and religion is at the center of Native American societies. It is the reason that thousands of Native Americans from across the United States and Indigenous peoples from around the world have traveled to the windswept prairies of North Dakota.</p>
<p>But, despite our 200-plus years of contact, the United States has yet to begin to understand the uniqueness of Native American religions and ties to the land. And until this happens, there will continue to be conflicts over religious ideas of land and landscape, and what makes a place sacred.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalyn R. LaPier receives funding from University of Montana. She is affiliated with Saokio Heritage. </span></em></p>A scholar explains what makes landscapes sacred in Native American religion and why there needs to be a better understanding of the ties to the land.Rosalyn R. LaPier, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.