The First Church of David Bowie, Phonomancer is definitely either a metamodern religion disguised as a shamanic role-playing game or a shamanic role-playing game disguised as a metamodern religion: The Discotheque at the End of the Universe! is part of a live-action role-playing game called Phonomancer™ . You can play Phonomancer™ alone, or with up … Read moreThe First Church of David Bowie, Phonomancer
From the publisher’s blurb: To the casual observer, similarities between fan communities and religious believers are difficult to find. Religion is traditional, institutional, and serious; whereas fandom is contemporary, individualistic, and fun. Can the robes of nuns and priests be compared to cosplay outfits of Jedi Knights and anime characters? Can travelling to fan conventions … Read more“The Sacred in Fantastic Fandom: Essays on the Intersection of Religion and Pop Culture”
Philosophy professor Philip Goff writes for Psyche on the perspectives of practicing agnosticism and religious fictionalism: It is common to assume that religion is all about belief. Religious people are ‘believers’. Muslims believe that God revealed the Quran to Muhammad; Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead; Buddhists believe in cyclical rebirth and the non-existence … Read more“Why religion without belief can still make perfect sense”
In this video adaptation of the first chapter of his book Emergentism: a Religion of Complexity for the Metamodern World, Brendan Graham Dempsey asks – and begins to answer – whether we can/should reinvent religion to meet the Meaning Crisis.
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”