Cultpunk Kumaré documents American filmmaker Vikram Ghandi’s self-reinvention as the guru Kumaré, in an attempt to explore and expose the guru/disciple dynamic in the cultic milieu. Growing out his hair and beard, dressing like a holy man and imitating his grandmother’s voice, Gandhi invented his own yoga and other rituals on the fly, gathering a devoted … Read more“Kumaré: the True Story of a False Prophet” (2011)
The first instance of Cultpunk at a generational scale occurred during the late 1960s and ’70s, when utopian counterculturalists – mostly on America’s west coast – began inventing new religions under the neo-Pagan banner. These pioneers notably included Frederick Adams (himself a very early outlier, having founded his goddess-oriented religion during the late 1950s) and … Read more“… a religion of atmosphere instead of faith …”
The Lost Tribe enact the sacred ritual of the Tell in this mesmerizing scene from the third Mad Max movie.
American journalist William Weston – the first foreign reporter to be allowed into the country of Ecotopia (formerly the American region encompassing Northern California, Oregon, and Washington) offers his first impression of Ecotopian religion: This got very exciting. Eyes shining, she leapt out of tub and ran out the door, dripping. I looked after her, … Read more“… a goddamn druid or something …”
Writing for Emerge, Euvie Ivanova argues that the present age of compounding crises may be met by new psychotechnologies: Collective Sapience must include and integrate the practices that: a. Restore wholeness of body and mind, a wholeness of selfb. Restore wholeness of self and other, a collective intimacyc. Restore wholeness of self and world, an … Read more“Psychotechnologies for the Age of Collapse”
Karan Johnson writes for the BBC on the psychological benefits of ritual: A ritual is defined by psychologists as “a predefined sequence of symbolic actions often characterised by formality and repetition that lacks direct instrumental purpose”. Research identifies three elements of a ritual. First, it consists of behaviours that occur in fixed succession – one after another – … Read more“The surprising power of daily rituals”
Daniel Böttger’s Seven Secular Sermons project offers poetic introductions to/meditations upon seven fields of knowledge – Astrophysics, Molecular Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Cognitive Science and Philosophy. Here, Daniel performs an excerpt from the first Sermon, Adrift in Space and Time:
The Assemblage of Areté promotes: (…) a new, humanist religion focused on developing personal and communal areté (ahr-uh-tay), or human greatness. While we encourage skepticism of religions, we define the word ‘religion’ to mean a cohesive set of philosophies and rituals, requiring active participation; and Aretéanism is exactly that. Unlike many religions however, Aretéanism specifically rejects … Read moreAretéanism
BBC Africa profiles several women who are reviving aspects of pre-Colonial spiritual practice.