Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe [1. Aufl.] 9783839426135

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Judith Schlehe, Evamaria Sandkühler (eds.) Religion, Tradition and the Popular

Historische Lebenswelten in populären Wissenskulturen History in Popular Cultures | Volume 12

Editorial The series Historische Lebenswelten in populären Wissenskulturen | History in Popular Cultures provides analyses of popular representations of history from specific and interdisciplinary perspectives (history, literature and media studies, social anthropology, and sociology). The studies focus on the contents, media, genres, as well as functions of contemporary and past historical cultures. The series is edited by Barbara Korte and Sylvia Paletschek (executives), HansJoachim Gehrke, Wolfgang Hochbruck, Sven Kommer and Judith Schlehe.

Judith Schlehe, Evamaria Sandkühler (eds.)

Religion, Tradition and the Popular Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2014 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover concept: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Cover illustration: Front: Evamaria Sandkühler, Semarang (Indonesien), 2012. Back: Anna-Katharina Höpflinger, Kyburg (Schweiz), 2012. Typeset: Moritz Heck, Freiburg Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar ISBN 978-3-8376-2613-1

Contents

Introduction: Religion, Tradition and the Popular in Asia and Europe | 7

Judith Schlehe and Evamaria Sandkühler

P ART I: HISTORIES AND CONCEPTS OF P OPULAR (ISED) RELIGIONS The Communicative Construction of Transcendence: a New Approach to Popular Religion | 29 

Hubert Knoblauch

Religion in Early Modern Southeast Asia: Synthesising Global and Local | 51 

Anthony Reid Who Defines “the Popular”? Post-colonial Discourses on National Identity and Popular Christianity in the Philippines | 75 

Peter J. Bräunlein

P ART II: P OPULAR (ISED ) RELIGIONS IN ASIA Concepts of (Protestant) Christian Identity in Chinese Microblogs | 115 

Kristin Shi-Kupfer



The Cinematic Contest of Popular Post-Islamism | 139 



Ariel Heryanto Popularisation of Religious Traditions in Indonesia – Historical Communication of a Chinese Indonesian Place of Worship | 157

Evamaria Sandkühler

Translating Traditions and Transcendence: Popularised Religiosity and the Paranormal Practitioners’ Position in Indonesia | 185 

Judith Schlehe

P ART III: P OPULAR(ISED ) RELIGIONS IN E UROPE A Sprout of Doubt. The Debate on the Medium’s Agency in Mediumism, Media Studies, and Anthropology | 205 

Ehler Voss

“Tomorrow, Christ on the Cross Will be Selling Socks”. References to Christianity in Contemporary Advertising Campaigns | 225 

Anna-Katharina Höpflinger Germanic Neo-Paganism – A Nordic Art-Religion? | 243 

Stefanie v. Schnurbein

st

Neo-pagan Traditions in the 21 Century: Re-inventing Polytheism in a Polyvalent World-Culture | 261 

René Gründer

List of Contributors | 283 

Introduction: Religion, Tradition and the Popular in Asia and Europe J UDITH S CHLEHE AND E VAMARIA S ANDKÜHLER

This volume offers fresh approaches to the understanding of the growing significance of religion, tradition and the popular in Asia and Europe. An upsurge in religiosity in public and private life has been the focus of much recent scholarly literature. Yet most considerations have been devoted to the so-called world religions. The articles in this volume examine popular religions and their references to the past. Both popularised, mediatised aspects of world religions, as well as local and “folk” beliefs will be taken into consideration. The contributions will also contain an analysis of new figurations of non-official, uninstitutionalised beliefs and practices, as well as New Religious Movements such as Western Neo-Paganism. A pluralisation of religious orientations is also related to their respective (at times globally circulating) representations. Like all religious phenomena, popular religions and religious traditions are sites of ideological contestation. A reassessment of the somehow nebulous dimensions of “religion”, “tradition” and “the popular”, as we want to undertake here, goes hand in hand with a question of critical appraisal: If we embrace a positive outlook on popular religions, we may focus on individual agency, emotional, spiritual experience or entertainment. This should also include the popular religions’ hybrid, pluralistic, permeable, and at times even subversive (regarding their opposition and resistance to fundamentalism) features. Moreover, popular religion often provides space for women and brings different groups together with the potential to transcend class distinctions. Emphasising a more disparaging view may reveal aspects of commodification, marketability and connections to neoliberal forces and – at times even right-wing – political goals. Certainly, the case studies in this volume from Southeast Asia and China as well as some parts of Europe provide evidence for both evaluations. Moreover, they demonstrate

8 | I NTRODUCTION

manifold entanglements of traditions in new cultural constellations and religious arenas in contemporary Asia and Europe. Yet, it should also be underlined that we do not wish to contribute to dichotomising projects. This volume strives to move beyond a polarisation such as the binary opposition of “East” and “West”. It does not consider Asia and Europe as antithetical blocs or monolithic terms. We seek to embrace a more globalised view on the contemporary world and the fluidity of its interconnections. Thus, we propose to pursue a relational approach by stressing the transnational dimensions and global flows of contemporary popular religions in a deeply interlinked world. Yet, this cannot be done without taking empirical realities on the ground and local historical conditions, under which the popularisation of religions have evolved, into account. These conditions are marked by the particular socio-religious fields in which they are embedded and by specific power relationships. At the same time they are shaped by micro-level discourse and practice. Thus, it is a goal of this volume to re-examine and understand popular religious trends from new angles engendered by transcultural and multidisciplinary perspectives which can provide a unique window into the dynamic entanglement of religion, tradition and the popular in global Asia and Europe.1 What follows is an outline of our understanding of the key terms and concepts.

(D ECENTRING ) R ELIGION Religions are not merely cultural systems (Geertz 1983) and projects connected to moral and social order. They relate to individual spiritual experiences, which need to be emotional and bodily authentic (Knoblauch, this volume). Religions are continually subjected to reconstruction, and, most important for the present situation, they become increasingly disconnected from the cultures in which they

1

This volume is mainly based on an international conference (“Religion, Tradition and the Popular in Asia and Europe”) at the University of Freiburg in November 2012 (for a conference report see Nohejl 2013). We are very grateful for the generous financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). We also thank our research assistants who have contributed in various ways to the many technical chores to be executed before such a volume can go to print. In particular, we would like to express our gratitude to Moritz Heck who beared the main responsibility in this respect, and to Sophia Hornbacher-Schönleber and Matthias Roeskens. Last, but not least, we thank Julian Topf for his competent proof-reading.

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have been embedded. Hence, this volume also deals with global reconfigurations of religion and their diverse manifestations in European and Asian everyday lifeworlds. Two issues in particular feature in recent discussions within religious studies, history, and sociology. One is, following Talal Asad (1993), the challenge and deconstruction of the very concept of religion due to its origin in Western, and first of all Christian, contexts and its inappropriate generalisation and universalisation.2 This also led to the notion of “world religion”, which emerged in the 19th century. In line with this critical reassessment, we want to de-centre the issue of religion from its supposed Western origins, in which true religion was considered as opposite to localised religions or “mere tradition” (Picard 2011). The latter has often been associated with superstition and backwardness – not only in Europe but in the cultural politics of many post-colonial Asian countries of the 20th century (Endres/Lauser 2011: 2). Only very recently do we find studies on spiritual potencies, witchcraft and similar phenomena in connection to modern developments of new forms of power and wealth or in relation to migration (for Africa cf. Geschiere 1997, for Southeast Asia cf. Hüwelmeier /Krause 2010; Endres/Lauser 2011). These studies reveal that not only institutionalised, official religions, but also many kinds of invisible forces have become important factors in modern politics, business and individual life. Therefore, we search for new ways of conceptualising popular religion as a cultural process connected to contemporary values and relations of power. We would also like to overcome Max Weber’s developmental interpretation, in which, in the words of his critics “the West appears to be secular, while the East seems to continue to be religiously inspired” (Abaza/Stauth 1990: 213). A second, closely related issue is that modernisation does not necessarily lead to the privatisation of religion, or secularisation. There is an abundance of new studies on the worldwide “return of the religious” or the massive resurgence of religion that can be observed around the world (also in highly industrialised societies) apart from Western Europe.3 Religion should not necessarily be regarded as in opposition to modernity, but rather as closely intertwined in many 2

The category “religion” is a peculiar Western construction. In Asad’s words: “there cannot be a universal definition of religion, not only because its constituent elements and relationships are historically specific, but because that definition itself is the historical product of discursive processes.” (Asad 1993: 29).

3

There are also remarkable new studies on the variations of secularisation and the multiple forms of secularism (e.g. Calhoun et al. 2011). As for the case of Western Europe, the picture also changes slightly if we take non-institutionalised beliefs into account as the third part of this volume will demonstrate.

10 | I NTRODUCTION

cases. Somewhat surprisingly to anthropologists, several recent studies on postsecularisation and multiple modernities deal firstly with institutionalised religions such as Islam and Christianity, and their affiliated sects and movements. Popular religions are often relegated to the realm of cultural studies whereas local and folk religions are seen as a matter for anthropology. The editors of this volume intend to pursue a more inclusive approach, integrating many figurations of spiritual experiences, beliefs and practices. As such, the volume seeks to reframe the discussions on religion by drawing attention to the issue of “the popular” and the construction and use of “traditions”. In this context, it is of the utmost importance to overcome categorical divides between established, so-called world religions, local cosmologies and ritual practices, as well as popular and alternative religions.4 World religions have always interacted with local religious traditions and popular, hybrid forms have emerged everywhere and at all times. Furthermore, if we look at concrete actors, religion means different things to different people in particular situations, and, last but not least, many people can and do participate in diverse religious cultures. This also holds true for boundaries between religious and non-religious realms. The blurring of those divides and boundaries is a crucial aspect of popular religion. Yet, talking about the blurring of scientific categories should not prevent us from perceiving and analysing empirical dissociation and conflict. As Reuter and Horstmann recently argued: “in many cases, cultural and religious boundaries are becoming more pronounced […] especially where different religious traditions compete with each other” (2013: 8). It should also be mentioned that dominant religious narratives often repress popular religiosity. Thus, although we plea for an overcoming of fixed, dichotomous categories, we certainly see a need for careful and critical examination of empirical realities and (power) struggles on the ground. Reading the contributions of this volume, it becomes clear that the authors use the concept “popular religion” in manifold ways, as is often the case due to the vagueness of the term “popular”. Nevertheless, apart from the already mentioned characteristics, we want to emphasise a particular aspect, which might stimulate further theoretical reflection in the future: When religion becomes incorporated into everyday lifeworlds and lifestyle by providing strategies for everyday living, it undergoes a process of popularisation. At present, modern mass media, the economic market, as well as popular representations and performances are closely connected to a pluralisation of popular religious orientations. The 4

Therefore we think that Edwin Jurriëns’ question whether popular religion is in opposition or alternative to institutionalised religion is not really appropriate (Jurriëns 2011).

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role of the individual actor and ideas of spiritual autonomy seem to have become increasingly important, which also induces a stress on direct unmediated subjective experiences (Frisk 2009:11). Similar phenomena and concepts of spiritual experiences exist not only in Western esotericism and occultism (cf. Zinser 2009), but also in global esoteric discourses that circulate freely in the global cultural marketplace. They do not only apply to deep religiosity and spirituality, as well as the healing of body and soul, but also to material prosperity, popular contexts, and lifestyle. 5 A crucial question remains: Is this related to individualisation? Ulrich Beck sees in the devotion to “A God of One’s Own” (2010) in Euro-American culture, some hope for a polytheistic cosmopolitan individualisation and a potential to lessen the religious disputes (Beck 2006). From a transcultural and comparative perspective, it can be said that the figure of the “enterprising self” seeking individual success and the related “spiritual economies” are gaining worldwide importance.6 But it remains an open question whether this leads to a cosmopolitan individualisation or just to commercialisation and consumerism. The fact that popular religions are most often embedded in so-called traditions could be considered a counter-argument to such a claim. Clearly, connecting the local past to the present, and thereby adhering to the authority of tradition constitutes an ongoing, and crucial legitimisation process of all forms of religion.

(P OLITICISING ) T RADITION Legitimacy and authority are vital elements of tradition. Yet tradition by its very nature, essentialises an imagined past by connecting people to an imaginary origin. This aspect of tradition is a crucial ingredient of nationalism or even racism. A similar analysis concerns religion: “modern religiosity is often interpreted as a way of making the reference to past and the authority of tradition sacred” (Galland/Lemel 2008: 116). Therefore, religious communities and movements always deal with the (re)construction of traditions.

5

In the same vein, Annette Hill (2011) has observed “a paranormal turn in popular culture” in contemporary Western societies. Magic as entertainment – e.g. through paranormal media – is very popular, both in the East and West.

6

See, for an account of religious commodifications across Asia’s diverse religious traditions, Kitiarsa (2008); for Indonesia Rudnyckyj (2010); for Germany Spörrle (2012).

12 | I NTRODUCTION

At the same time the popular imagery of (and engagement with) the past can also satisfy a need for emotional and aesthetic experiences. Folklore and the arts as such become vehicles for conceiving the past and keeping it alive (von Schnurbein, this volume). Tradition implies a fascination with the authentic (c.f. Pirker et al. 2010). But there is no doubt “that there is no essential, bounded tradition; tradition is a model of the past and is inseparable from the interpretation of tradition in the present” (Handler/Linnekin 1984: 275). This, in turn, has to do with the constructions of identities within representations and with what has been called “invented traditions”: “a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past” (Hobsbawm 1983: 1). Invention of tradition thus points at the re-appropriation of selected elements from the past and their recontextualisation within contemporary modernity. Accordingly, in recent decades many scholars have emphasised that there exists no dichotomy or fundamental opposition between tradition and modernity (cf. Schlehe/Rehbein 2008; Basu 2013: 383). Without being able to go into the details of the debates stipulated by Ranger and Hobsbawm (1983), it should be stressed that they have led to much critical thinking on a deliberate mythologising of the past, respectively on the essentialising of an imagined and idealised past (Abaza/Stauth 1990: 226), or the recovery of romanticised, authentic pre-colonial conditions. For instance, contemporary neo-traditionalist movements in the Global South are often connected to such selective appropriations of the past and sometimes even to fundamentalisms. Furthermore, the notion of “invented tradition” has led to an increased awareness of instrumentalisation and with it the study of gender and class differences. It is generally accepted in the scholarly world that tradition is politically important. Nevertheless, as the anthropologist Karl-Heinz Kohl suggests: “it would be useless to differentiate between pristine or ‘true’ and false or ‘invented’ tradition, because traditions are always in flow.” (Kohl 2006: 99). (It could be added that this also holds true for the older distinction between Great and Little tradition which has long been deconstructed.) Accordingly, Handler and Linnekin (1984) advocate the perception that tradition can neither be categorically divided into “genuine” or “spurious” categories, nor in general “be defined in terms of boundedness, givenness, or essence” (ibid. 273). They state:

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“[W]e can no longer speak of tradition in terms of approximate identity of some objective thing that changes while remaining the same. Instead, we must understand tradition as a symbolic process that both presupposes past symbolisms and creatively reinterprets them. In other words, tradition is not a bounded entity made up of bounded constituent parts, but a process of interpretation, attributing meaning in the present through making reference to the past.” (Handler/Linnekin 1984: 287)

Thus, tradition becomes inseparable from the process of interpretation in the present, therefore representing both continuity and discontinuity (ibid. 273, 276). The example of early modern Southeast Asia and the discontinuities described by Anthony Reid (in this volume) illustrate that tradition – contested as it always is – may refer to very different (even contradictory) backgrounds. The assumptions of Handler, Linnekin, and Kohl already indicate that the dynamics of traditions do not simply represent instrumentalisations, but also offer an opportunity for self-determination and regained self-esteem. In some instances, local traditions are reinvented as counter-movements, in effect becoming counter-hegemonic discourses to globalisation or western historical conceptions and representations of the indigenous “other”, or to “westernisation” in general – often equated with capitalism and feelings of alienation. They may be seen as indigenous systems of knowledge and they can add to the agency and visibility of marginalised groups and simultaneously add to the profit of local and global players (Brosius/Polit 2011: 10). Hence, what is accepted as tradition becomes economically relevant, especially when applied to issues of ownership. But not just local traditions are reinvented. In the context of globalisation, there exist myriad examples of the appropriation of “other” traditions stemming from worldwide resources. Furthermore, as is vividly demonstrated in the contributions of von Schnurbein and Gründer (this volume), we encounter neotraditional popular religious phenomena not only in Asia or in the Global South, but in Western and Northern Europe as well. In the context of this volume, the long history of the circulation of ideas between Asia and Europe, including the dynamic interaction of religious revival and popularisation, as well as the hybridisation of manifold popular religious traditions deserve special attention.

(U N - DIFFERENTIATING ) THE P OPULAR The signification of the term “popular” oscillates between two prominent meanings, both of which correspond to a differentiation in the German scholarly language between the notions of:

14 | I NTRODUCTION

1.) “popular” (dt.), which is sometimes translated as “popular” but with a strong “folk” connotation, often identified with “little tradition”, syncretistic practices in non-industrial societies, regional or local or ethnic culture, and/or lower social strata; 2.) “populär” (dt.) translatable as “popular” or “popularised”, implying a modern, marketised and consumption-oriented state of being, often identified with commercialisation, eclecticism, mediatisation, entertainment, branding, bodily, sensory and emotional aspects, most often associated with the middle class, urbanised societies and the global world but at times – eg. in the context of “popularised religiosity” – also characterised by a blurring of boundaries between social classes.7 What interests us in this book is to permeate such a distinction and intertwine concepts by overcoming the boundaries between “folk” and “elite” (Jurriëns 2011). We believe this becomes possible by focusing on both popular and popularised, nonofficial religions beyond national societies and cultural areas, as well as considering them as inconsistent, heterogeneous, and changeable. Before we further elaborate on this deliberate un-discrimination, we would like to briefly mention another related notion, namely 3.) “populist”, which is often used in a pejorative way and connected to demagogy. Yet, it shares some characteristics with the popular as it also entails a connotation of empathising with the public and “the people”. While populism is most frequently understood as the embodiment of power in the person of a charismatic leader, it can also be a salient dimension of grass-roots mobilisation (Comaroff 2009: 5) or religious renewal movements (for instance, the Christian Renewal movement, which incorporates Pentecostal, Charismatic and neocharismatic churches).8 Nonetheless, it needs to be stated clearly that populism is based on the simplification, reduction of complexities and dichotomous schemes and stereotypes which support the drawing of simple lines between the populace and its enemies. Therefore, our suggestion to overcome the discrimination between populär and popular is not extended to the notion of the populist – although there exist certain similarities between these tropes and each of them requires careful, critical analysis and reflection on the effects of their use. This volume finds that significant interrelations exist regarding the decentring and politicising of religion and tradition. Popular cultural practices and products and popular forms of entertainment are often laden with religious ide7

Bräunlein elaborates on the political history of the peculiar German vocabulary of “popular”, “folk” and “the people” (see his contribution in this volume).

8

For an example of a careful analysis of populist religion in Southeast Asia see Kessler and Rüland (2008).

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ology (Clark 2012: 1), then spread by mass media and corporate advertising (melting religion and marketing), all of which thematise religion in manifold ways (Schofield Clark 2007; cf. also Höpflinger, Heryanto in this volume). Yet, every religion features certain popular manifestations. In this way popular culture does not only inform and structure, but becomes in manifold ways intertwined with religious discourse and practices spanning differing social, cultural, and historical contexts. In Southeast Asia Beng-Lan Goh (forthcoming) observes the expansion (she even speaks of a “collapse”) of religion into popular culture. This is also characterised by an overcoming of the faith in “originals” of tradition, roots, and identity. However, as the significations of “popular” are similarly numerous as in the case of “religion” and “tradition”, what is meant by “popular” in general, and what it comes to denote in the context of this book, requires further clarification. Amongst the various definitions of “popular”, the only common consensus seems to be that a true definition remains elusive. Nevertheless, differing approaches can help to give an impression of the spectrum of denotations. In the broadest “classical” sense, according to Williams (in Storey 2001: 5 f.), “popular” can assume four common meanings: 1. “well liked by many people”, 2. “inferior kinds of works”, 3. “work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people” and 4. “culture actually made by the people for themselves”. In combination with the notion of “culture” the popular might further been associated with “[...] culture which is left over after we have decided what is high culture” (Storey 2001: 6): commercial or folk culture; and a political tool of suppression used by dominant cultures (Storey 2001: 6-12). Popular culture in the contemporary world is often considered to have a “mass cultural” form, connected to mass communication, industrial mass production, rational organization and economisation (Knoblauch in this volume). Thereby, it becomes associated with the negative connotations of standardisation, commoditisation, ideological manipulation, and uncritical consumption (Hall 1981; Storey 2001). Furthermore, it is frequently considered profane and superficial instead of sacred and profound (cf. Stausberg 2010: 13 f.). Disagreeing with the focus on “the people” and the associated power struggle between the outdated (cf. Korte/Paletschek 2009: 14-15) dichotomous associations of the subordinate with popular culture, and the elite with the so-called high culture as formulated by Hall and Storey in the field of cultural studies, Hügel (2003: 1) argues that a common interpretation of “popular culture” designates that it equates pleasure, fun, or amusement (“Vergnügen”). Bodily, sensory and emotional aspects are definitely an important ingredient of “the popular”. As Korte and Paletschek (2012: 8) write, popular forms of presentation aim to

16 | I NTRODUCTION

“[…] satisfy the need for emotional and aesthetic experience and for adventure, for a risk-free encounter with what is strange, different or “other” and, finally, for relaxation and diversion.” This quest for extraordinary experiences and fun is met by an increased “eventisation” as a central part of the popularisation process. Such events offer emotional and mental involvement. The subsequent interactivity implies a transcendental experience, and subsequently the promise of manifold possibilities of identification (Korte/Paletschek 2009: 15; Hitzler 2011: 1114). Popular displays (of religion and other phenomena) strive for general accessibility as well as comprehensibility. Therefore, notwithstanding, the “power struggle” put forward by cultural studies often represents a useful heuristic category, as the implications of the popular reach far beyond simple means of entertainment and/or mass culture. As Stuart Hall (1981: 239) states, popular culture features a power struggle in an “arena of consent and resistance”. Empirical examples show that popular culture offers the opportunity for negotiating identities, including officially under-represented groups (e.g. women, the youth, suppressed ethnic groups or political opposition) (cf. Heryanto 2008: 1-35). Hence, the concept also provides space to acknowledge differences within the ranks of the people, such as inequalities in terms of power, wealth, sexuality and culture. In any case it is important to consider “whichever conceptual category is deployed as popular culture’s absent/present other, [as] it will always powerfully affect the connotations brought into play when we use the term “popular culture” (Storey 2001: 1). Corresponding with the abovementioned possible denotations of “popular culture”, Hügel stresses that in different contexts the term can assume the meaning of “cultural industry”, “consumer culture”, “the trivial”, “folk culture”, “subculture”, “youth culture”, “everyday culture”, “leisure culture”, “event culture”, and “media culture” (ibid. 14). The sum of these enumerations gives an impression of the wide spectrum on which the popular and popular cultures operate. But as Hügel (2003: 14) specifies, the abovementioned associations with popular culture represent mere approximations of the notion “popular”, without offering a concrete definition. Additionally, it seems important to not only consider the described spectrum as not fully definitive, but to further enhance it with findings from the field. If we approach “the popular” inductively and focus on the question of how, and by whom it is used, and for what purpose it engages with the praxis of life, it loses its inherent definitional vagueness by virtue of being bound to particular contexts and concrete sets of meaning. As already mentioned by Storey (2001: 1), one should pay attention to what is implicitly or explicitly considered as its antagonistic “other”. By means of such an approach it becomes

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possible to reach a central characteristic as formulated by Storey (2001: 12-15) and Hügel (2003: 1) without offering any definitive solution: to overcome categorical differentiations between so-called high and low culture and to avoid judgmental evaluations and connotations – without, as we would like to add, abandoning the claim to analyse in a critical manner its various manifestations. The popular can be considered as a diachronic phenomenon – not in the sense that it is perpetually static and that former occurrences of popular culture are congenial to recent appearances – but in the sense that we can presuppose that the popular has always existed in one form or another within different contexts of reception. Contrarily, this means that the popular should not be considered as something genuinely new, but as always developing new characteristics and specificities as well as new media (in the broadest sense of expression). As a tentative conclusion, it could be proposed that a common designation of all different accentuations of the popular that does not stand in contrast with the here suggested inductive approach, can only be characterised by its connection to concrete lifeworlds. Such modes of connection should be further specified in their respective contexts. As such, this volume seeks to locate comparative and transcultural perspectives so vital to the identification of new relevant contexts in the contemporary, globalising world.

O UTLINE

OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS

The contributions contained within this volume, stemming from anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, history, media studies, sinology and Scandinavian studies, engage in meaningful and nuanced ways with different conceptualisations of popular religion in relation to different lifeworlds, histories, and constructions of traditions. The first part consists of exemplary historical and conceptual approaches. Hubert Knoblauch’s paper titled “The Communicative Construction of Transcendence: a New Approach to Popular Religion” features a debate of theoretical issues mainly focusing on current transformations of the religious field in Europe. He interprets religion as based on communicatively constructed transcendence, whereby meaning is generated through social action and intersubjectivity. This communicative quality of religious meaning is, according to Knoblauch, best described as popular religion. For this all-embracing concept he suggests the term “populär”, as derived from the German language. According to Knoblauch popu-

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lar/populäre religion, transcendence, and spirituality are all linked by their communicative constructivism. Through the communicative approach it hence becomes possible to grasp the multiple, sometimes diverging ideas that are inherent to popular/populäre religion. By questioning at what points, how, and by whom boundaries are contested, negotiated or marked, he aims to achieve an understanding of religion as a specific historical construction. Anthony Reid’s contribution can be seen as an immediate exemplification and application of such an approach. Reid turns to “Religion in Early Modern Southeast Asia: Synthesizing Global and Local” and gives a detailed historical overview over the cosmopolitanising and vernacularising processes connected to the conversion of Southeast Asia to its three modern global faiths (Islam, Christianity and Theravada Buddhism) between the 16th and 18th century. The “religious revolution” of the long 16th century – labelled as “Age of Commerce” – was characterised by a new (rival) universalism of ideas and a quest for cosmopolis whereas the long 18th century brought religious syncretism, vernacularisation and popularisation of the new religions to wide parts of society. There may be lessons to learn for the presence from Reid’s analysis that when hard lines were drawn around the new faith it often created hostile rejection, whereas successes involved the incorporation of local sanctities, leaders and habits into the new system. Also Peter J. Bräunlein’s paper “Who Defines ‘the Popular’? Post-colonial Discourses on National Identity and Popular Christianity in the Philippines” thematises global and local factors. He connects Johann Gottfried von Herder’s romantic ideas on “folk” and “the people” with Filipino scholarly debates on tradition, authenticity, identity and popular Christianity. Thus, Bräunlein refers to the political history of the term popular in the European 19th century setting and traces the European notion of nation in nationalist discourses on Filipino history and Philippine Christianity, which since the independence (1946) local academics consider “folk Catholicism”. Discourses on popular religion, tradition and an authentically Filipino Christianity are along these lines analysed as being part of the project of nation building. The second part of this volume provides four case studies of popular and popularised religions in contemporary Asia.Yet one important paper that was presented at the above-mentioned conference is missing here. Pattana Kitiarsa delivered one of his very last public talks on popular Buddhism: “Of Weber and the Real Religion of the Masses: The Making of Modern Popular Buddhism in Contemporary Thailand”. Tragically only two months later, and much too young, he passed away. As there was no time left for him to provide a written version of

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his paper, we can only stress his immensely valuable role in the scholarly debates on popular Buddhism. In his work Kitiarsa genuinely focused on the agency of people making their own religiosity to meet their everyday needs. He described popular Buddhism in Thailand today as being not “less serious, less rigorous, or further from the ideals of Buddhist moral perfection and selftransformation than traditional Theravada Buddhism” (Kitiarsa 2012a: 1). Revisiting Max Weber’s conception of popular religion, he reconstructed certain social forces and processes underlying the rise of popular Buddhism in contemporary Thailand, namely, deification, commodification, and media-saturation, to explain how and why Thai popular Buddhism has become the “real religion of the masses in everyday life in contemporary Thailand and elsewhere.” (Kitiarsa 2012b)9 The second part of this volume commences with two contributions regarding modern mass media. Kristin Kupfer examines the “Concepts of (Protestant) Christian Identity in Chinese Microblogs”. She investigates mediatisation and popularisation of Christianity within the Chinese society and how Chinese “netizens” adopt Christianity to shape and communicate their own virtual identity. First she presents an overview of the presence of Christianity within the context of microblogging services. Then, taking a closer look at a microblog platform called Sina Weibo, she describes functional elements by which users state their identity. By examining a sample of microblog users, different concepts of Christian identity are identified and analysed. Next, we find three contributions focusing on Indonesia. As this is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world it suggests itself to begin with popularised forms of Islam. One notion which has provoked some debate lately is the new concept of a post-Islamist turn.10 Ariel Heryanto’s paper titled “The Cinematic Contest of Popular Post-Islamism” deals with ideological contests over contemporary Indonesian popular culture. He examines the contestation of different variants of Islamic piety in so-called Islamic films, which enjoy tremendous popularity these days. Drawing on the concept of “post-Islamism” Heryanto discusses a modified version: newly emerging forms of religious piety, popular cultural practices and everyday lifestyle among the urban Muslim youth. He considers the political context of Indonesia’s Islamisation in order to high9

For his theoretical approach see Kitiarsa 2009, for ethnographic examples of spirit mediums, magic monks, the lottery fever, the amulet craze and cults of wealth in contemporary Thailand see Kitiarsa 2012a.

10 Müller (2013: 280) argues for Malaysia that there is rather a pop-Islamist than a postIslamist turn.

20 | I NTRODUCTION

light the specificities of the Indonesian case in relation to similar trends elsewhere. The following two contributions are grounded in empirical anthropological field research. Evamaria Sandkühler’s engaged ethnography on “Popularisation of Religious Traditions: Historical Communication of a Chinese Indonesian Place of Worship” describes and analyses the discourse specific to a multicultural, multireligious site, the Sam Poo Kong temple in Semarang. While the governmental popularisation of the temple is commonly accepted to be part of an increased touristification, nevertheless there remains considerable contestation in relation to its various interpretations of religion and tradition. Sandkühler designates such negotiations within certain contexts as “historical communication”. The contribution by Judith Schlehe “Translating Traditions and Transcendence: Popularised Religiosity and the Paranormal Practitioners’ Position in Indonesia” points towards the highly ambiguous position of modern magicalmystical experts (alternative healers) in Java. They provide an example of nonofficial, popular religious forms which exist parallel to the so-called world religions acknowledged by the Indonesian state. Paranormal practitioners mediate between traditions and modernities and they offer their services to anybody. They can thereby be considered as hybridising worldviews and transcending boundaries between religious, ethnic and other social groups. Schlehe analyses their position as oscillating between spiritual entrepreneurship and maintaining an open space for religious pluralism. The third part of this book addresses various case studies located in Europe. Ehler Voss sets out with “A Sprout of Doubt. The Debate on the Medium's Agency in Mediumism, Media Studies, and Anthropology”. He discusses the conceptualisation of the term medium and traces the question of the relationship between mediumship and authorship back to controversies in Spiritism/spiritualism in the 19th century. The conflict of the two positions – the medium either alters the message or does not – is still virulent, especially when it comes to current practices of mediumistic healing in Germany. Interestingly enough, Voss suggests an analogy with anthropology and media studies in respect to the controversy on the agency of technical media and human mediums. Corresponding to the global trend of commercial entertainment, now media and spirituality have become inseparable in the context of healing practices (Meyer/Moors 2006), and new media formats are constantly being introduced. Anna-Katharina Höpflinger’s paper “Tomorrow, Christ on the Cross Will be Selling Socks. References to Christianity in Contemporary Advertising Campaigns” stresses the reciprocal relationship between religious traditions and eco-

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nomic systems. She focuses on advertising campaigns that make use of religious contents, and analyses how visual religious semantics is used in order to communicate, create attention, and establish (new) worldviews, as well as to pursue commercial goals in a non-religious context. Thus, according to Höpflinger, commercial religion not only constructs new fields of religious knowledge, but also new fields of identification. The last two chapters refer to the growth of Western Europeans calling themselves Pagans, drawing on the revival of an eclectic mix of pre-Christian religious traditions and pantheistic worldviews. In “Germanic Neo-Paganism – A Nordic Art-Religion?” Stefanie von Schnurbein discusses contemporary NeoPagan religions, which tend to perceive their spirituality as a creative process and assign spiritual qualities to art, music, literature and performance. Von Schnurbein sheds a critical perspective on the discourse of Nordic art-religion, aesthetic expressions and religious movements derived from “Nordic myth”, which she sees as commonly connected to right-wing radicalism. They have also been frequently associated with obscure categories such as blood and soil, heritage and race. According to von Schnurbein, a general, disturbing conflation of religion, ethnicity and culture can be observed over the course of the previous decades. René Gründer paints a more positive image of Neo-Paganism. In his chapter on “Neopagan Traditions in the 21st Century: Re-inventing Polytheism in a Polyvalent World-Culture”, he explains the changes in contemporary constructions of alternative, polytheist and pre-Christian traditions of autochthonous European religions. Gründer stresses that he sees diversification and pluralisation in this field. Despite conceding that racist and folkish Neo-Pagan groups still exist, he also points towards new trends by which groups have emancipated themselves from such ideologies to now propagate universalism, individualist spirituality and a personalised pantheon. Together the contributions of this volume illustrate in meaningful and profound ways the multidimensional processes through which religion, the politics of tradition, and popular culture are intimately intertwined. Our hope is to gain a deeper understanding of such issues and stimulate further critical discussions on both the emancipatory potential of popular religion and the connected political economy in transcultural and global entanglements.

22 | I NTRODUCTION

R EFERENCES Abaza, Mona/Stauth, Georg (1990): “Occidental Reason, Orientalism, Islamic Fundamentalism: a Critique”, in: Martin Albrow/Elizabeth King (eds.), Globalization, Knowledge and Society, London: Sage, pp. 209-230. Asad, Talal (1993): Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Basu, Helene (2013): “Ethnologie und die Vervielfältigung von Modernität”, in: Ulrich Willems et al. (eds.), Moderne und Religion: Kontroversen um Modernität und Säkularisierung, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 379-414. Beck, Ulrich (2006): Cosmopolitan Vision (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, Ulrich (2010): A God of One’s Own: Religion’s Capacity for Peace and Potential for Violence, Malden: Polity Press. Brosius, Christiane/Polit, Karin M. (2011): “Introduction: Ritual, Heritage and Identity in a Globalised World”, in: Christiane Brosius/Karin M. Polit (eds.), Ritual, Heritage and Identity. The Politics of Culture and Performance in a Globalised World, London: Routledge, pp. 1-16. Calhoun, Craig/Juergensmeyer, Mark/VanAntwerpen, Jonathan (eds.) (2011): Rethinking Secularism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clark, Terry Ray (2012): “Introduction: What is religion? What is popular culture? How are they related?”, in: Terry Ray Clark/Dan W. Clanton Jr. (eds.), Understanding Religion and Popular Culture. Theories, Themes, Products and Practices, London/ New York: Routledge, pp. 1-12. Comaroff, Jean (2009): “Populism: The New Form of Radicalism?”, in: The Johannesburg Salon 1, pp. 4-8.(http://www.jwtc.org.za/resources/docs/Salon-1pdfs/Comaroff_Populism.pdf, last access 9-20-2013) Endres, Kirsten/ Lauser, Andrea (eds.) (2011): Engaging the Spirit World. Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Southeat Asia, New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books. Frisk, Liselotte (2009): “Globalization: A Key Factor in Contemporary Religious Change”, in: JASANAS: Journal of Alternative Spirituality and New Age studies 5 (http://www.asanas.org.uk/files/005Frisk.pdf; last access 9-202013). Galland, Olivier/Lemel, Yannick (2008): “Tradition vs. Modernity: The Continuing Dichotomy of Values in European Societies”, in: Revue française de sociologie 49.5, pp. 153-186. (http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_REVUE =RFS&ID_NUM PUBLIE=RFS_495&ID_ARTICLE=RFS_495_0153; last access 9-17-2013)

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Geschiere, Peter (1997): The modernity of witchcraft : politics and the occult in postcolonial Africa, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Goh, Beng-Lan (forthcoming): “Moving Theory and Methods in Southeast Asian Studies”, in: Mikko Huotari/Jürgen Rüland/Judith Schlehe (eds.), Methodology and Research Practice in Southeast Asian Studies, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hall, Stuart (1981): “Notes on deconstructing ‘the popular’”, in: Raphael Samuel (ed.): People’s History and Socialist Theory, London: Routledge, pp. 227240. Handler, Richard/Linnekin, Jocelyn (1984): “Tradition, Genuine or Spurious”, in: The Journal of American Folklore Society 97 (385): pp. 273–290. Heryanto, Ariel (2008): “Pop culture and competing identities”, in: Ariel Heryanto (ed.), Popular Culture in Indonesia. Fluid identities in postauthoritarian politics (= Media Culture and Social Change in Asia, Vol. 15), London/New York: Routledge, pp. 1-35. Hill, Annette (2011): Paranormal Media. Audiences, Spirits and Magic in Popular Culture, London/New York: Routledge. Hitzler, Ronald (2011): Eventisierung: Drei Fallstudien zum marketingstrategischen Massenspaß, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Hobsbawm, Eric (1983): “Introduction: Inventing Traditions”, in: Eric Hobsbawm/Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-14. Hügel, Hans-Otto (2003): „Einführung“, in: Hans-Otto Hügel (ed.): Handbuch Populäre Kultur. Begriffe, Theorien und Diskussionen, Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, pp. 1-22. Hüwelmeier, Gertrud/Krause, Kristine (eds.) (2010): Traveling Spirits. Migrants, Markets and Mobilities (= Routledge Studies in Anthropology, Vol. 4), New York/London: Routledge. Jurriëns, Edwin (2011): “A call for Media Ecology. The study of Indonesian popular culture revisited”, in: Indonesia and the Malay World 39 (114), pp. 197–219. Kessler, Christl/Rüland, Jürgen (2008): Give Jesus a Hand! Charismatic Christians – Populist Religion and Politics in the Philippines, Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Kitiarsa, Pattana (ed.) (2008): Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods, London: Routledge. Kitiarsa, Pattana (2009): “Beyond the Weberian Trails: An Essay on the Anthropology of Southeast Asian Buddhism”, in: Religion Compass 3.2, pp. 200224.

24 | I NTRODUCTION

Kitiarsa, Pattana (2012a): Mediums, Monks and Amulets. Thai Popular Buddhism Today, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Kitiarsa, Pattana (2012b) Abstract for the Conference “Religion, Tradition and the Popular in Asia and Europe” 08.11.2012-10.11.2012, Freiburg (unpublished) Kohl, Karl-Heinz (2006): “Coming Back to One’s Own: What happens to Tradition in Neo-traditionalsit Movements?”, in: Richard Rottenburg/Burkhard Schnepel (eds.), The Making and Unmaking of Differences, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 97-106. Korte, Barbara/Paletschek, Sylvia (2009): “Geschichte in populären Medien und Genres. Vom historischen Roman zum Computerspiel”, in: Barbara Korte/Sylvia Paletschek (eds.), History goes Pop. Zur Repräsentation von Geschichte in populären Medien und Genres, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 9-60. Korte, Barbara/Paletschek, Sylvia (2012): “Popular History Now and Then. An Introduction”, in: Barbara Korte/Sylvia Paletschek (eds.), Popular History Now and Then. International Perspectives, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 7-11. Meyer, Birgit/Moors, Annelies (eds.) (2006): Religion, media, and the public sphere, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Müller, Dominik M. (2013): “Post-Islamism or Pop-Islamism? Ethnographic observations of Muslim youth politics in Malaysia”, in: Paideuma. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 59, pp. 261-284. Nohejl, Regine (2013): “Conference Report: Religion, Tradition and the Popular in Asia and Europe. 08.11.2012-10.11.2012, Freiburg”, in: H-Soz-u-Kult of 3-6-2013 (http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=4687; last access 9-10-2013) Picard, Michel (ed.) (2011): The Politics of Religion in Indonesia. Syncretism, Orthodoxy and Religious Contention in Java and Bali, London: Routledge. Pirker, Eva Ulrike et al. (eds.) (2010): Echte Geschichte: Authentizitätsfiktionen in populären Geschichtskulturen, Bielefeld: transcript. Reuter, Thomas/Horstmann, Alexander (2013): “Religious and Cultural Revitalization: A Post-Modern Phenomenon?”, in: Thomas Reuter/Alexander Horstmann (eds.), Faith in the Future. Understanding the Revitalization of Religions and Cultural Traditions in Asia, Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 1-14. Rudnyckyj, Daromir (2010): Spiritual economies. Islam, globalization, and the afterlife of development, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Schlehe, Judith/Rehbein, Boike (2008): Religion und die Modernität von Traditionen in Asien. Neukonfigurationen von Götter-, Geister- und Menschenwelten, Münster: Lit Verlag.

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Schofield Clark, Lynn (ed.) (2007): Religion, Media, and the Marketplace, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Spörrle, Mark (2012): “Der Trainer Gottes”, in: Die Zeit 20, 5-10-2012, p. 60. Stausberg, Michael (2010): Religion im modernen Tourismus, Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen. Storey, John (2001): Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, London: Prentice Hall. Zinser, Hartmut (2009): Esoterik: eine Einführung, München: Fink.

Part I: Histories and Concepts of Popular(ised) Religions

The Communicative Construction of Transcendence: a New Approach to Popular Religion1 H UBERT K NOBLAUCH

I NTRODUCTION While the secularisation paradigm has dominated discussion of the situation of religiosity in Western, particularly European, societies more recently we have witnessed a resurgence of religion that came to be known as the “return of religion”, “resacralisation” and, more antagonistically, “desecularisation”. This change has been noted on a worldwide level, particularly since the end of the Cold War, and has been accompanied by the decline of secular ideologies, such as Socialism and Nationalism, and, more recently, capitalist liberalism. Although some claim that Europe constitutes an exception because of its strong secularisation (Berger 1999), there are reasons to believe that European societies have also witnessed a revitalisation of religion (Knoblauch 2008). This revitalisation, however, does not follow the same pattern as elsewhere. As opposed to the Americas or Africa, new Christian movements are of no great significance; while Islam in Europe generally remains a religion of migrants (gaining importance with the transformation of European societies into migration societies), Europe’s indigenous religious dynamics can be detected in an area which nowadays is often called “spirituality޵. Although there are huge formal organisations of religion possessing enormous social and economic importance, emergent forms of religion tend to become much less defined in terms of the specific religious institu-

1

This article is based on a French version of this text which will appear in Archives de sciences sociales des religions presumably in 2014.

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tions known by classical sociology of religion. Luckmann (1967) has referred to such forms as “invisible religion޵. By the notion of invisible religion he stressed that religion is increasingly becoming a matter of private life and individual decisions: thus, religion is “privatized޵, subjected to market mechanisms and individual syncretism or “bricolage޵. Luckmann’s privatisation thesis was countered by Casanova (1994) who claimed to observe the de-privatisation of religion. By de-privatisation, he refers to the process by which religion leaves its place in the private sphere in order to participate in ongoing debates and legitimation in the public sphere (Casanova 1994: 65f.): As the case of Poland under Socialist rule shows, religion supports the defence of rights, liberties and traditional life-forms from bureaucratic attacks. The fact that religion can become an actor in the public sphere proves to Casanova that we move towards a “public religion޵ located between the public sphere and the institutions of civil society. The effect of public religion can be seen in events ranging from the Islamic revolution and the rise of American fundamentalism in the 1970s to the role of the Catholic Church in the breakdown of the Polish socialist system as well as in the global rise of religious movements and their newly attracted attention since the turn of the century. The notion of “popular religion޵ I am suggesting, does not only serve as a category covering a range of recently developed religious phenomena; in the context of the fundamental debate about secularisation/desecularisation, it is an analytical tool that dissolves the apparent contradiction between Luckmann’s thesis of privatisation and Casanova’s thesis of deprivatisation. Although Casanova may be right that religion is an increasingly important institutional player in civil society, one must add that its recent revival is not restricted to the formally organised religions which are still in decline both in Europe and Western societies in general; and although Luckmann may be right that individualised, syncretistic forms of religion beyond churches and sects are spreading, one must add that they are, in fact, highly visible and public, as observed in the popular forms of spirituality (Knoblauch 2008). As private religious topics are becoming publicly accessible, everything which is public can be appropriated individually. As this publicity of religion is not covered by Casanova’s notion of public religion as constituted by organised religion only (Knoblauch 2012), I propose the notion of “populär religion޵. Firstly, “populär religion޵ primarily draws on the notion of popular as used in critical theory, cultural studies and cultural sociology, yet it is characterised by various new aspects which will be detailed below. Secondly, the notion of popular religion indicates that religious communication transgresses the boundaries between the popular and the private. Finally, the notion of popular religion

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refers to a fundamental transformation of religion in societies which differ increasingly from the industrialised, functionally differentiated and “modern޵ society we used to consider as “secularised޵. In order to be able to grasp the transformation of religion, we are in need of a theory of religion which encompasses both institutionalised religion and its privatised forms. I want to delineate a sociological theory of religion which builds on the notion of transcendence in phenomenology, the sociology of knowledge and a more recent approach called “communicative constructivism޵ (Keller/Knoblauch/Reichertz 2012). After having highlighted the ambiguity of the notion of transcendence which lies at the root of Luckmann’s theory of religion (I), I want to sketch (II) the communicative construction of transcendence as a basic theoretical frame which allows us to grasp the current transformation to popular religion. The fourth part of the paper will outline the features of popular religion and contemporary spirituality (III). By way of conclusion (IV), I want to name some of the most important areas of future research on popular religion.

I.

R ELIGION

AND THE THREE NOTIONS OF TRANSCENDENCE

Luckmann’s theory of the invisible religion builds on various strands of the sociology of religion. Although Durkheim and his distinction between the sacred and the profane remains one of Luckmann’s and Berger’s (1966) major references, in their general theory on the social construction of reality Weber’s theory of social action provides their true basis. As action is defined by meaning, social action is defined by the actors’ meaning as oriented towards other actors. In his studies on the relationship between world religions and economic ethics, Weber demonstrated that religion as a form of meaning guides economic action in a way which can become decisive for social change. As impressively as Weber (1988[1920]) has elaborated this thesis, for example in discussions of the relationship between Protestantism and Capitalism, Schutz (2003[1932]) was critical that Weber's central notion of meaning lacks a clear definition. This deficiency led Schutz to consider Husserlian phenomenology as a resource to define meaning. It was Schutz’ analysis of meaning which provided a background for Luckmann’s definition of transcendence. Before we can turn to this aspect of transcendence, one must mention, at least in passing, another theoretical strand which made great inroads into the theory of both Berger and Luckmann: Philosophical anthropology. Based on the comparative findings of various anthropological disciplines, philosophical an-

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thropology tried to identify the general features of the human species, the conditio humana, and its differences from other life forms. This influence of philosophical anthropology can be easily discerned in Luckmann’s definition of religion. In the first versions of his “Invisible Religion޵ 2 he defined religion as being based on transcendence. Transcendence, he claims, is not a separate realm which is opposed to the immanence of worldly actions. By transcendence he refers to what turns organisms into meaning bestowing humans. It is that faculty which enables humans to distance themselves from the actual processes performed by their organs, from actual perception, from instincts and mere behavioural learning. On the basis of this distance, transcendence allows us to relate to something else which is not actually given to the perceptions of the organism. Transcendence means that the organism relates to something else. It is on the basis of this relatedness, that organisms can also experience themselves and their bodies as bodies experienced.3 Before I elaborate on the phenomenological aspect of the notion of transcendence, one should note that it is not synonymous with religion. Although Luckmann stresses that they are equal in the basic layers of meaning, religion sensu strictu is defined by the “world view޵ (“Weltansichtӛ) which represents a “cosmion޵ as a universal order which appears to be independent, not only of one’s present experiences, but also of person, time and situation which are expressed in terms of legitimations.4 Luckmann linked this anthropological notion of transcendence with the phenomenological notion mentioned above: the human organism, defined anthropologically, is capable of relating to something which is not present in the actual organism’s experience. Husserl (1972) called this kind of relating “appresentation޵. Appresentation means, in short, that consciousness produces an association with something which is not given to actual experience. In that appresentation presents something to experience which is not present, it implies transcendence. Transcendence, obviously, does not mean a world apart or something 2

The book had been published in a German version already in 1963 before it was rewritten in English in 1966.

3

The notion of transcendence is related to what Plessner (1975) since the 1920s considered to be the most specific feature of the human condition, the “excentric positioning޵ towards one’s own body which gives rise to the distinction between “Körperӛ and “Leibӛ.

4

The notion of legitimations has been elaborated by Berger and Luckmann (1966) in some detail; religion, in this theory, is one of the “symbolic universes޵ which provide legitimation across different institutional fields.

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which is opposed to “immanence޵ (Luhmann 2000). Rather, in being related to what is experienced, transcendence forms part of the intentionality of appresentation. As both notions seem to be compatible on the surface, the phenomenological idea of transcendence differs in that it adds a distinction between various “levels޵ of transcendence added by Schutz (1962), Schutz/Luckmann (1989) and Luckmann (1991): “Small transcendences޵ relate to what is absent in time and space, “mediate transcendences޵ refer to the inaccessible aspects of other subjects, and “great transcendences޵, finally, are experiences referring to a reality not accessible in the everyday life in which we alter the common environment and communicate with others. Drawing on William James' “provinces of meaning޵, Schutz (1962) even subdivided them so that religion appeared to be a substantial area of meaning built either into the structure of consciousness or into the structure of symbols. It was notably Berger (1974) who turned towards this substantialist definition of religion. Luckmann (1991), on the other hand, adapted the three-partite distinction of transcendences. Given that the rather anthropological notion and the phenomenological notion are not identical, one may even find indications of a third aspect of transcendence in Luckmann’s theory. Transcendence, in this understanding, is neither based on the human organism nor an accomplishment of consciousness but an essential feature of human social interactions: as distance to one’s experience is a result of the distance to the experience of others in interaction. Therefore one could call this the sociological notion of transcendence. While the differences between the anthropological and the phenomenological notion are only by degree, the sociological notion of transcendence quite frankly challenges the former concept since it assumes that what is a subjective experience of transcendence from a phenomenological point of view is subjected to the process of the social construction of reality: therefore, the meaning of actions, originally constituted by actors, are socially constructed in such a way as to not only become independent of the individual actor but even to shape the actors to such a degree that they become socially defined personal identities. In this way, the theory of social constructivism challenges the very foundations of the phenomenological and anthropological theory of transcendences. For if meaning is superseded by socially constructed knowledge, the very analysis of meaning may be, in fact, just addressing socially specific forms of knowledge. Thus, the notions of transcendence defined on the basis of philosophical anthropology or phenomenology may be subject to what Luckmann calls the “sociohistoric apriori޵, the specific forms of meaning as socially constructed in certain cultures.

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II.

T HE COMMUNICATIVE

CONSTRUCTION OF

TRANSCENDENCES On the basis of this problem I want to construct a notion of transcendence which takes into account the sociality of transcendences and its relation to the constitution of the human body. This notion builds on an insight previously anticipated by Schutz (1966) who criticised the priority of the phenomenology of subjective consciousness over sociality. Instead of Husserl’s assumption of “transcendental޵ constitution of the other in subjective consciousness, Schutz came to see the other as something empirically given or even as preceding ego (in a “genetic޵ way). The analysis of the social world, thus, cannot start with the subject but, rather, with intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity “is the fundamental ontological category of human existence in the world and therefore of all philosophical anthropology. As long as man is born of woman, intersubjectivity and the ‘werelationship’ will be the foundation of all categories of human existence. The possibility of reflection on the self, discovery of the ego, capacity for performing any epoché, and the possibility of all communication and of establishing a communicative surrounding world as well, are founded on the primal experience of the we-relationship” (Schutz 1966: 82). Subjective meaning, therefore, is basically social, i.e. derived from others as “knowledge޵ (necessarily by way of communication, as I would add). Although this is not the place to discuss the sociology of knowledge (cf. Knoblauch 2005), one should mention that knowledge is not restricted to “predicative޵ meaning but encompasses the forms of sedimented, habitualised and particularly “socially mediated޵ meanings communicated by others which enter into routinised actions as well as into highly conscious deliberations (e.g. the grammar of the language used). In this sense, knowledge implies “traditional޵ elements without being reduced to them. If we return to the notion of transcendence, one should note the role of intersubjectivity in transcendence as already stressed by Luckmann: the “detachment of the stream of one’s own experiences޵ results from the participation in the experiences of a fellow human being. This is only possible in the face-to-facesituation in which subjective processes of one partner are expressed in events in the common time and common space of the partner and this become observable.޵ (Luckmann 1991: 83). Obviously, transcendence is not just related to the human organism; it is dependent on the ability to relate to other actors. To be more specific: it is not a subjective phenomenon but an intersubjective phenomenon. If one tries to elaborate this idea, transcendence cannot be understood only as a phenomenon of consciousness, but as comprising others, their bodies and, consequently, communication. If transcendence is dependent on a relation

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to an other, it depends on the possibility to experience alter ego in a bodily, sensual way which is, simultaneously, accessible to the bodily senses. Empirically, social action, considered as the basic process of society by Weber, Schutz or Luckmann, is communicative action. This inference constitutes one of the axioms of communicative constructivism. Although based on the notion, it dismisses at least two of Habermas’ (1981) assumptions about communicative action. As the corporeal empirical observability of communicative action requires the production of material carriers of meaning, one must make some departures from Habermas' notion of communicative action. Firstly, one cannot separate “teleological rationality޵ (which is related to “nature޵) from “communicative rationality޵ (as related to others). Instead, the distinction between nature and society appears to be a specific cultural accomplishment which became universalised in Western societies; accordingly, the “other޵ is not necessarily a human being. As Luckmann (1970) argues, there are good grounds to assume that communicative action may be performed with respect to animals, plants, and even stones have been proven to be successful communication partners within at least some religious traditions. It is, however, not just the “Other޵ who is transcending ego, as Csordas (2004), referring to Levinas (1979), holds. As the extensive comparison of religion demonstrates (cf. Smart 1998), even organised religions do not require transcendence to be personalised. This insight is related to a second deviation from Habermas’ notion of communicative action. Whereas Habermas considers meaning to be linked to language and the validity claims made by speech acts, meaning and transcendence must not be assigned only to language. Meaning and transcendence are already implied in non-linguistic bodily communication. The most telling example of the role of the body for the constitution of meaning, and thereby transcendence, can be seen in Tomasello’s (2008) analysis of bodily communication among adult humans, babies and chimpanzees. As his experiments demonstrate, chimpanzees and human babies communicate in a way which allows them to, basically, pursue their individual goals in a coordinated way. Humans older than about nine months are able to communicate in a way which is best exemplified by human pointing: Animals, as well as babies, fail to identify the pointing finger as pointing to something else. Human children above nine months succeed in perceiving the pointing finger as a common object or, as Tomasello calls it (using a category coined by Searle) they “share intentionality޵. Sharing intentionality implies a range of activities which have been analysed by Schutz (1962a) as “intersubjectivity޵. The identification of the finger as pointing, for example, implies that the pointing is seen as an activity by someone else. In fact, the identification of

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the finger as pointing requires one to perceive pointing as an activity enacted by someone else. This again presupposes what Schutz calls the “interchangeability of standpoints”: in order to know where the other points to, I need to somehow “imagine޵ myself in the spatial position of the other. Moreover, in order to comprehend that what the other is doing is pointing, and is addressed to someone else, I need to “take the role of the other޵, as Mead (1964[1934]) calls it, so that the “in-order-to-motive޵ of the one pointing (in order to show someone something) is transformed into a “because-motive޵ (look because it is shown). In addition, “understanding޵ and performing pointing implies a process Cooley (1902) has called the “looking glass޵ effect. Our visual perception produces an inverse mirror-image: although I cannot see my face looking at where someone points, I can see that the other can see me seeing her pointing. These intersubjective processes are summarised by Schutz as “reciprocity of perspectives޵. Reciprocity in this sense is not a normative postulate (as implied in Habermas’ theory of communicative action) but rather a basic process in the constitution of intersubjectivity. This process is not just an “idealisation޵ performed by consciousness. As the example shows, it requires a third element which is indicated by the role of the finger: It is the body and anything related to the body, i.e. materialities and objects. Although the role of body and “objectivations޵ have been conceded (Schutz 2003[1932]: 268; Berger/Luckmann 1966: 49), one needs to stress that the act of communication exemplified in pointing is not a form of meaning by “signification޵ but a process of “social working޵ (Schutz 1962a, § 4) in that something, a material objectivation of some kind, in the communicative environment (i.e. what is perceived as being perceived and therefore common) is being “affected޵, “caused޵ or “signified޵. This involves the other and me being aware that the other perceives (or can perceive) the objectivation. Without being able to elaborate on the difficult category of objectivation and its relation to conventionalized signs (and significations), one should underline the triadic structure of communicative action and its consequences. Because of this triadic structure, “objects޵ are not opposed to “subjects޵; rather, subject, other and objectivations are relational categories, and it is due to this triadic relationship that we must distinguish communicative action from mere “dialogic approaches޵.5

5

The triadic relationship has been emphasised by Bühler (1934) and adapted by Habermas (1981).

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Given the reciprocity of perspective, the triadic relationship exemplified by pointing allows us to grasp what we may understand by transcendence.6 For the “deixis޵ of the pointing finger consists of appresenting something which is not “here” but “there”. In this sense, it is coping with the “small޵ transcendence of space. This kind of appresentation cannot be understood entirely as a process of consciousness, as Husserl (1972) assumed. Rather, it is dependent on the subject and, simultaneously, on the subject anticipating the action of others, reciprocally taking their role, anticipating reciprocally the other’s standpoint and assuming the motivational relevance of showing, i.e. the triadic relation in the near future (the transcendence of time) when the addressee will turn to what is pointed at. It is important to know that pointing does not only rely on the “origo޵ of the subject. It is, rather, relational (Hanks 1996) in that it implies that the other’s position is accounted for with respect to one’s pointing: the triadic relationship. It is on the basis of this triadic relation that the finger stands for something else which is not the finger. The transcendence of meaning to something else depends on the transcendence of meaningfulness of the bodily performance. Communicative action obviously copes with various transcendences distinguished by Schutz and Luckmann simultaneously. While the “little޵ transcendences of time and space is a prerequisite for the reciprocity of perspective, the orientation to the other as someone who links meaning to the finger corresponds to the “mediate transcendence޵. These transcendences are not “given޵; they depend on the question of who is considered as an Other and what is considered as objectivation in the common environment. It is at this point one may ask how these transcendences are related to religion. While Luckmann (1990) assumes that religion can also be based on “mediate޵ and “small޵ transcendences, I follow Schutz’s and Luckmann’s (1989) suggestion that religion is based on great transcendences. There are, however, two important qualifications. (a) They are not only a process of consciousness (as the phenomenological notion suggests) and (b) they are not substantial areas in consciousness but rather specific historical constructions. Ad (a): Whereas phenomenology considers transcendence to be an activity performed by “consciousness޵, the argument above suggests that great transcendence can also be defined with respect to communicative action. Clearly, communicative action implies that we manage the “small޵ transcendences of time and space as well as the “mediate޵ transcendences of the other, which, due to the 6

As Leroi-Gourhan (1981) has shown, the “liberation޵ of the hand by the upright position can be seen as the basis for signification; the seemingly trivial pointing finger, therefore, may have some evolutionary significance.

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role of reciprocity, cannot be told apart. While these transcendences form part of the performance of communicative action in the triadic structure, orientation towards this structure as a whole could be considered as the great transcendence. For Durkheim religion is, in principle, the “transindividual” collectivity, it is its most “elementary޵ unit, the triadic relation emerging from communicative action. The social expression of this transcending unit is the communicative form which is built from reciprocally coordinated, though not necessarily cooperative, communicative actions. Such forms can result in “collectivities޵, even “states޵, but they may also be kinds of situations and types of communicative action (e.g. speeches, conversations, events). Although materialised in the ways in which communicative action is performed, forms are characterised as being distinguished from, and relating to, other forms. Communicative forms, therefore, not only relate to something else, as religious speeches differ from political speeches, but are oriented by the way in which the actors enact and read them. Communicative forms, therefore, are the means by which order is constructed in a manner which simultaneously transcends communicative action and is oriented to by actors when performing their actions. As society is constructed by communicative actions, communicative forms can be seen as reflexively producing social order: they are the ways in which certain institutions are produced and, simultaneously, indicate the specificity of these institutions to the actors included and those excluded. It is by way of communicative forms that social order is enacted and made observable in actu, an order which transcends the very situation in which the order is produced. Ad (b): Durkheim, Schutz and Berger assume that religion is defined substantially by being dependent on a certain “province of meaning޵ of consciousness which can be defined in terms of a determined experiential or “cognitive style޵. The notion of transcendence suggested not only departs from this view of religion as a phenomenon defined primarily by consciousness but, while claiming that great transcendences provide the starting point for the communicative construction of religion, it also questions the assumption that religion can be defined substantially. There is no doubt that religion is a socio-historical phenomenon. Following Eisenstadt and Jaspers (1999), one can say that religion, in a narrow historical sense, came into being in the “axis time޵ around 800 BC and 200 AC. Although the reasons for the successful dissemination of these historical religions are still discussed, they seem to lie in one of their specific features: the increasing tension between “transcendence޵ and “immanence޵ (or sacred and profane) which gave rise to utopian collective action projections. As impressively as these historical religions have disseminated, one may doubt that they provide the pattern for other culture’s worldviews. As the failure of the “phe-

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nomenology of religion޵ has shown, the comparison of the various aspects of “religion޵ across human culture does not yield any common element. Therefore Asad (2003) seems to be right in claiming that even the category of “religion޵ is a peculiar Western construction which is difficult to apply even to other world religions. Although Durkheim has fallen prey to this assumption by projecting Western categories of religion on its “elementary forms޵ (Lukes 1973), his suggestion that religions are defined by the binary distinction between sacred and profane may turn out useful for the understanding of religions originating in the axis time. The distinction between two spheres of transcendence and immanence, which implies the ideological reification of great transcendences, was typically accompanied by a social specialisation of religious roles, experts and, concurrently, the specialisation of religious communication and religious knowledge. One of the reasons to assume the more encompassing notion of communicatively constructed transcendence as the basis for religion is to be found in the fact that religious dynamics cannot be explained on the basis of this duality only. As great transcendences are not necessarily defined by the dichotomy of sacred and profane (and correspondingly by forms of communication stressing opposite features and sharp distinctions between the corresponding institutions), many forms of religious communication need not exclusively follow this binary pattern. Rather, they can be characterised by frames which can be interlacing, overlapping, embedded, re-framed, masked or fading out. The empirical study of communicative forms allows us to directly address the question of at what points, how and by whom boundaries are contested, negotiated or marked – thus constituting “communicative communities޵. Historical religions which have developed in the axis time tend to constitute distinct communicative communities marking their boundaries by highlighting their specific forms of communication quite explicitly, e.g. by ornamentation, glorification, exaggeration or even as attempts to negate “common޵ forms of communication, such as in religious Quietism (Bauman 1983). As Samarin (1976) has demonstrated, religious communication is delineated by linguistic means; it may be by sounds only (Wilke/Moebius 2011), or by a variety of specialised communicative genres, such as prayers, sermons, recitations or magical spells (Honko 1968). For example, if one considers forms of religious architecture, religious language, or religious rituals, one may find that forms of religious communication need not be expressed in opposition to other forms. Thus Luckmann (2003) has argued that the moralising sermon results from a religious communicative genre transposed into a “civil religious޵ setting, as in the U.S., or a more secular setting, as in Germany. With respect to religious rituals, Bloch

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(1924), for example, has shown how long French kings were ascribed the religious charisma of healing. It is probably one of the most interesting features of communicative forms that they, in addition to demonstrating the social order they help to construct, also indicate changes in the social order. In fact, the thesis of communicative constructivism is that social order is constructed by way of these forms in the process of communicative action.

III. P OPULÄR

RELIGION

Modern “narratives޵ of secularisation from Comte to Parsons draw a picture of medieval religiosity before secularisation as massively institutionalised and marked. Although this picture may be exaggerated (Duby 1978; Muchembled 1978), our thesis of an increasing societal importance after the secularisation of organised Christianity still meets with strong opposition from authors who empirically back the thesis that secularisation is still advancing (Bruce 2002; Pollack 2003). This apparent conflict over the question of secularisation can be dissolved in the same way as the assumed contradiction over the privatisation thesis: by the idea of popular religion. Regarding the notion elaborated in detail elsewhere (Knoblauch 2009), it needs to be stressed that popular religion does not only mean the transgression of private and public. The notion of transcendence implied in popular religion proposes a notion of religion which supersedes the opposition between the profane and the sacred or the secular and the religious. Popular religion is, on the one hand, more “secular޵ in that it does not follow only, or even predominantly, the patterns of institutionalised religion which seemed to prevail once religion became a rational organisation that not only counted on, but also counted its members. On the other hand, Western societies became more religious in that religious forms of communication, which had been under the jurisdiction of religious institutions, were suddenly accessible to an increasing number of persons without any limit or even mediation by religious institutions. I have tried to make it clear that this transformation to popular religion can be observed empirically in terms of communicative action; in fact it can be accounted for by communicative action and its recent transformation which also affects historical religions. Since the mass media (starting with the written word and print and progressing to the “electronic church޵ mediated by radio and television and internet) lost its monopoly over means of communication, the large organisations who specialised in religion also lost their hegemony (be it organised in terms of market competition of religious institutions, by legitimate fields or by monopolies)

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over the means of communication. Consequently, religious knowledge has been made widely, if not generally, accessible to the audience. A process which had already been anticipated by the “educational revolution޵ of US society in the 1950s, the socio-technically induced social construction of the “knowledge class޵ since the 1960s and linked to the rapid decline of industrial society, the declining relevance of the “working class޵ and the rising importance of women in all areas of society. The communication revolution involved an expansion of global communication which made great inroads into religion. Religious knowledge became accessible on a global level, resulting not only in “syncretistic޵ forms of religion (as expressed in a series of new religious movements founded after the mid 20th century and the merging of “New Age޵ into popular culture) but in the insertion of globally varied religious forms into other spheres of communicative action. The “communication revolution޵ is accompanied by massive social change which parallels what I would call the transformation of religion. The rise of popular religion is one (but not the only) aspect of this transformation which affects and is affected by the transformation of the form of communication. When using the common notion of “popular޵, usually related to culture in general, to characterise this form of religion, it seems useful to distinguish it from historically prior forms of popularity. Following Burke (1988), early modern popular culture refers (a) to various traditional forms of culture, occasionally subsumed under the label “folk޵ religion. Although it gradually shades into modern forms of “popular޵ religion, in modern societies (b) popularity is specifically characterised by its “mass cultural޵ form, particularly with respect to the role of mass media communication, industrial mass production, rational organisation and economisation.7 Thus, the “St.Sulpice޵ style of Catholic “Kitschӛ or the protestant “electronic church޵ using radio and television are examples of the modern form of popular religion (Knoblauch 2009: 79, 215). When talking about “popular޵ religion, however, I would like to refer to (c) a form of popularity which is no longer determined by forms of mass mediated communication. In German, this form is marked by adding the Umlaut “ä޵: “populärӛ (cf. Knoblauch 2000). “Populärӛ not only applies new “mediated޵ structures of communicative action (Hepp 2012), such as the insertion of video and powerpoint, to religious ceremonies, but departs from any definition that relies upon opposition to the culture and religion of the “ruling classes޵ and their opposition to the “popular classes޵ within national societies. Popular religion is disseminated not only across classes but also beyond national societies and cultural areas. An example 7

These features as well as this form of popular culture has been highlighted by “cultural studies޵, e.g., Fiske (1989).

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may be the phenomenon of popular spirituality as evidenced in “pantheistic experiences޵; this phenomenon can be shown to be widely disseminated within 19 national societies – across classes, gender, as well as across the globe and across religions.8 As opposed to the understanding of the cultural studies (Fiske 1989), “populärӛ religion is not essentially coined, determined or influenced by religious organisations; rather, religious communication transgresses the boundaries between the religious and the non-religious in a way which does not allow us to consider the sacred and the profane as the decisive boundary designating religion. In a sense, populär religion corresponds to Bourdieu’s (1985) idea of the “dissolution of the religious field޵ by new forms of organisations, services and professionals. In addition, populär not only describes a transgression of the boundaries of the religious field; but also the effects of such transgression, which can be best described in terms of communication. Although one must concede that the shape of this transgression cannot yet be asserted, the notion allows us to identify some of the transformative developments. (a) Forms hitherto known in popular culture become part and parcel within religious organisations. Material objects known from popular marketing, the use of popular music covering a whole range of more or less religious styles and topics, or media formats known from the mass media are only a few examples for the “popularisation޵ of religion. (b) Within the newly generalised popular culture, one finds an increasing absorption of forms of religious communication, sometimes with clear reference to religion (as in the singer Madonna using the cross in shows or the use of religious symbols by Gothic fans), but often without any clear demarcation, as in the popular glorification of love as ultimate transcendence or in the use of religious architecture for malls or car sales centres (cf. also Höpflinger in this volume). As manifold, rich and omnipresent as the transgression of religious forms of communication may be, it has been already prefigured in modern popular culture. (c) It has, however, not only become more explicit but also given rise to new forms specific to populär religion. One of these forms can be subsumed under the title of eventisation or festivalisation. As the analysis of the Catholic World Youth Day (Forschungskonsortium 2007) has shown, religious events are rationally organised by methods known from commercial event management which explicitly intends to produce “experiences޵ in their audience markedly different from the everyday routine (Hitzler 2011). Including rituals, events are addressing the emotional and experiential economy of the audiences explicitly. Another phenomenon transforming religious rituals has been called mediatisation. In exten8

In France, for example, more than 54% of the population has had at least one “pantheistic޵ experience. Cf. Knoblauch (2012).

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sion of the mere medialised representation of religion in mass media, mediatisation refers to the intrusion of electronic media into everyday life and their ensuing effect on the structure of actions, interactions and rituals. Thus, the analysis of the pope’s masses demonstrates how forms of devotion and religious piety are built on and around new video and visual technologies, substituting older forms (Herbrik/Knoblauch 2013). As forms of communicative action, eventisation and mediatisation affect the role of the actor. Due to the individualising effects of “mass selfcommunication޵ (Castells 2009), individuals are becoming increasingly important as the nodal points of communicational structures. It is important, however, to stress that it is not so much “individuality޵ but “subjectivity޵ which is at stake here. Even in the case of communicative events which aim to elicit gregarious joy in the individual through a collective experience, the chief concern is the individual’s “authentic޵ experience (of collectivity). This stress on subjectivity and subjective experiences is most clearly expressed in the enormous success of spirituality; spiritual experiences do not need to take highly individual forms, rather, they need to be emotionally and bodily “authentic޵ (Knoblauch 2012). By stressing the personal dimension of religion, spirituality has become a widespread phenomenon in everyday language. Sociologically, it can be conceptualised in a manner akin to what Troeltsch (1992) called the “mystic޵ form of religion. Here, the dogma of religion, their doctrines and rituals, lose relevance while the personal experiences of transcendence are stressed, which may be encounters with religious beings (as in the charismatic or evangelical Christian movements), impersonal powers, energies or even of the hidden dimensions of one’s own self (Knoblauch 2009). (d) As the example of spirituality exemplifies, popularity is also expressed in the sheer dissemination of spirituality across the social structure of societies, the different levels of culture and the global difference of religions. 9 This widespread dissemination implies a feature which must be highlighted in the discussion of religion: the distinction between “religious޵ or “spiritual޵ does not depend on affiliation with organised religion. Instead, an impersonal experience of great transcendences can be found among many “religious޵ persons, and even “non-religious޵ persons can claim to have religious experiences. Thus the boundary between “religious޵ and “non-religious޵ people, so important to the sociological analysis of “secularisation޵, is transgressed. In fact, spirituality can be found among many of those who consider themselves “non-religious޵, and even within the core of formal religious organisations, including priests, we find forms of what used to be alternative New Age or esoteric spirituality 9 Cf. footnote 7.

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(Gebhardt/Engelbrecht/Bochinger 2005). Luckmann has already stressed the relevance of subjectivity in invisible religion. It is, however, significant to the process of popularisation that “subjective޵ issues, such as death, healing and spiritual well-being (which had been almost monopolised by Christian religion and neighbouring institutions) have become publicly visible. Thus, the new death consciousness, the rise of the hospice movement or new death rituals have evolved almost exclusively outside the religious field. In addition the topic of “healing޵ demonstrates a transgression not only of the religious but also the medical field (Knoblauch 2009). Whereas popular culture has been analysed in terms of an opposition between a hegemonic form represented by organisational apparatuses by cultural studies (cf. Fiske 1989), and although modern forms of religion are dominated by religious organisations, they have lost this monopoly of communication even on those issues which are still marked as religious in the “religious memory޵ (Hervieu-Léger 1999). This observation supports the thesis of the transformation to “populärӛ religion and demonstrates the dependence of this form on communication and its transformation: Religious institutions are increasingly losing their monopoly over the means of religious communication. This loss of communicative control not only concerns the monopolistic but extends to all formally organised religious organisations in their conventional forms, be they church or sect. Religious knowledge (which includes meaning orienting religious actions and rituals) is now accessible to everyone in a way that increasingly escapes the control of religious organisations, religious experts and the memorised order of religious fields. Interestingly, there is a development opposing the tendency towards popular religion which can be considered as one of its strongest arguments ex negativo. The tendency towards popular religion is vehemently counteracted by some religious organisations who try to maintain strict boundaries between religion and non-religion, i.e. by what in Science Studies is called “boundary work޵ (Gieryn 1983). Boundary work can be seen generally in the “fundamentalist޵ attempt to maintain a distance between itself and “liberal޵ main stream culture, and it finds its specific expression, for example, in the former pope Benedict’s approach to separating the realm of catholic forms of rituals from the abundance of popular expressions which have been developed under John Paul II (Knoblauch 2013).

IV. C ONCLUSION Given the incipient analytical state of the concept of popular religion presented here, there are still quite large areas left open for future research. As a sketch of

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the theoretical framework has indicated, the analysis of communicative action, and particularly communicative forms, provides a ground for empirically answering the most pertinent questions. As communicative action involves subjects, the effects of the communicative transformation must be also specified with respect to the changing role of actors. As the increasing popularity of spirituality indicates, subjectivity is gaining relevance. Therefore, there is a need to study various aspects of subjectivity, such as the ways in which actors cope with the increasing plurality of religion (Lamine 2004), the increasing stress on experiences of transcendence (which may include paranormal experiences, experiential styles in the cultural use of narcotics as well as aesthetics) as well as emotions and emotional expressivity (HervieuLéger/Champion 1990). In this respect, we need to reconsider the role of ethnicity, gender and their relation to religious institutions. Thus, spirituality seems strongly related to female religiosity (Woodhead 2007). On the basis of changes in communication, its materialities, objects and spaces (Houtman/Meyer 2012), one must ask if the concept of “membership޵ in a religious organisation, of religious identity, and, at this point, religious communities in general is being transformed. This task is particularly relevant in times of a global disembedding of religious communication, its recombination with other institutional forms of communication as well as forms which surpass institutional fields and tend to become common to certain global categories of persons, and their effects on economic differences, power asymmetries and the different traditions of historical religions. As the notion of popular religion indicates, questions must be raised as to how religious forms of communication transgress the boundaries of religious institutions and which forms will have a role in this transgression. Although popular religion allows us to indicate some aspects of this transformation, one of the most important questions still open to discussion concerns the order emerging in this transformation. The transgression of religious communication, and the increasing demand of boundary work for religious organisations, may contribute to the dissolution of the religious field into popular religion, possibly still partly related to shrinking fragments of religious organisations; it may lead to the reformation of a “public religion޵ enforced by the power of political, economic, legal or military institutions; or it may contribute to the reconfiguration of religious communication with respect to other institutional and non-institutional forms of communication, the latter possibly demanding the substitution of the distinction between private and public. A key argument in this discussion is that these crucial questions cannot be answered a priori but require a systematic approach to study the social form of

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religion empirically. Given the abundance of studies on various aspects of communication (such as symbols, rituals, language etc.), communicative constructivism provides an approach which not only allows us to study what may be considered religious communication sensu strictu but also to investigate the thesis that religion, instead of falling prey to modernity, becomes immersed into contemporary Western societies as “popular religion޵.

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Castells, Manuel (2009): Communication Power, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cooley, Charles Horton (1902): Human Nature and the Social Order, New York: Scribner's. Csordas, Thomas J. (2004): “Asymptote of the Ineffable. Embodiment, alterity, and the theory of religion޵, in: Current Anthropology 45-2, pp. 163-185. Duby, Georges (1978): Les trois ordres ou imaginaire du feodalisme, Paris: Gallimard. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N./Jaspers Karl (1999): Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution, Cambridge: CUP. Fiske, John (1989): Understanding Popular Culture, London/New York: Routledge. Forschungskonsortium WJT (2007): Megaparty Glaubensfest. Weltjugendtag: Erlebnis – Medien – Organisation, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Gebhardt, Winfried/Engelbrecht, Martin/Bochinger, Christoph (2005): “Die Selbstermächtigung des religiösen Subjekts޵, in: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 2, pp. 133–152. Gieryn, Thomas F. (1983): “Boundary work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists޵, in: American Sociological Review, 48, pp. 781-795. Habermas, Jürgen (1981): Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, Jürgen (1989): The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: Inquiring into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Boston: MIT Press. Hanks, William F. (1996): Language and Communicative Practice, Boulder, Co: Westview Press. Hepp, Andreas (2012): Cultures of Mediatization, Cambridge: Polity Press. Herbrik, Regine/Knoblauch, Hubert (2013): Religion, emotion, and mediatisation, in: C. Scheve/ M. Salmela (eds.), Collective Emotions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle (1999): La religion pour mémoire, Paris: PUF. Hervieu-Léger, Danièle/Champion, Francoise (1990): De l’emotion en religion. Renouveau et traditions, Paris: Bayard. Hitzler, Ronald (2011): Eventisierung. Drei Fallstudien zum marketingstrategischen Massenspaß, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Honko, Laurie (1968): “Genre analysis in folklore and comparative religion”, in: Temenos, 3, pp. 48-66. Houtman, Dick/Meyer Birgit (eds.) (2012): Things. Religion and the Question of Materiality, New York: Fordham University.

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Husserl, Edmund (1972): Erfahrung und Urteil, Hamburg: Meiner. Keller, Reiner/Knoblauch, Hubert/Reichertz, Jo (eds.) (2012): Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus. Theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zu einem neuen wissenssoziologischen Ansatz, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Knoblauch, Hubert (1998): Transzendenzerfahrung und symbolische Kommunikation. Die phänomenologisch orientierte Soziologie und die kommunikative Konstruktion der Religion, in: H. Tyrell/V. Krech/H. Knoblauch (eds.), Religion als Kommunikation, Würzburg: Ergon, pp. 147-186. Knoblauch, Hubert (1999): Religionssoziologie, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Knoblauch, Hubert (2000): “Populäre Religion. Markt, Medien und die Popularisierung der Religion޵, in: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft, 8, pp.143161. Knoblauch, Hubert (2005): Wissenssoziologie, Konstanz: UVK. Knoblauch, Hubert (2008): “Spirituality and Popular Religion in Europe޵, in: Social Compass 55, 2, pp. 141-154. Knoblauch, Hubert (2009): Populäre Religion. Auf dem Weg in eine spirituelle Gesellschaft, Frankfurt/New York: Campus. Knoblauch, Hubert (2012): “La spiritualité populaire”, in: E. Guillaume/B. Michon/C. Vivarelli (eds.), La croyance: de la théorie au terrain, Paris: Hermann, pp. 181-206. Knoblauch, Hubert (2013): “Benedict in Berlin. The Mediatization of Religion޵, in: A. Hepp/F. Krotz (eds.), Mediatized Worlds: Culture and Society in a Media Age, London: Palgrave. Lamine, Anne-Sophie (2004) : La cohabitation des Dieux. Pluralité religieuse et laïcité, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Leroi-Gourhan, André (1981): Hand und Wort. Die Evolution von Technik Sprache und Kunst, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Levinas, Emmanuel (1979): Le temps et l’autre, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Luckmann, Thomas (1967): The Invisible Religion, New York: The Free Press. Luckmann, Thomas (1970): “On the Boundaries of the Social World޵, in M. Natanson (ed.), Phenomenology and Social Reality, The Hague: Nijhoff, pp. 73-100. Luckmann, Thomas (1973): “Philosophy, Science and Everyday Life޵, in: M. Natanson (ed.), Phenomenology and the Social Sciences, Vol. 1, Evanston/III: Northwestern University Press, pp. 143-185. Luckmann, Thomas (1990): “Shrinking Transcendence, Expanding Religion?޵, in: Sociological Analysis. A Journal in the Sociology of Religion, 50-2, pp. 127-138.

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Luckmann, Thomas (1991): Die unsichtbare Religion, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Luckmann, Thomas (2003): “Moralizing Sermons, Then and Now޵, in: R. Fenn (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, New York: Blackwell, pp. 120-32. Luhmann, Niklas (2000): Die Religion der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Lukes, Steven (1973): Emile Durkheim, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mead, Georg Herbert (1964[1934]): Mind, Self, and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Muchembled, Robert (1978): Culture populaire et culture des élites dans la France moderne (XVe-XVIIIe), Essai, Paris: Flammarion. Plessner, Helmuth (1975): Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch, Berlin: De Gruyter. Pollack, Detlef (2003): „Deinstitutionalisierung des Religiösen und religiöse Individualisierung in Deutschland޵, in: D. Pollack (ed.), Säkularisierung – ein moderner Mythos?, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 149-182. Samarin, William J. (1976): “The language of religion޵, in: William J. Samarin (ed.), Language and Religious Practice, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, pp. 3-15. Schutz, Alfred (1962): “Symbol, reality and society޵, in: Collected Papers I, The Hague: Nijhoff, pp. 287-339. Schutz, Alfred (1962a): “Common sense and scientific interpretation of human action޵, in: Collected Papers I, The Hague: Nijhoff, pp. 3-47. Schutz, Alfred (1966): “The problem of transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl޵, in: Collected Papers III, The Hague: Nijhoff, pp. 51-83. Schutz, Alfred (2003[1932]): Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie, ASW II, edited by M. Endreß, J. Renn, Konstanz/Wien: Springer. Schutz, Alfred/Luckmann Thomas (1989): The Structures of the Life World II, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Smart, Ninian (1998): The World’s Religions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tomasello, Michael (2008): Origins of Human Communication, Cambridge, Massachusetts/ London: MIT Press. Troeltsch, Ernst (1992): The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, Westminster: Knox. Weber, Max (1988[1920]): Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, Tübingen: Mohr.

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Wilke, Annette/Moebius, Oliver (2011): Sound and Communication. An Aesthetic Cultural History of Sanskrit Hinduism, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Woodhead, Linda (2007): “Why So Many Women in Holistic Spirituality? A Puzzle Revisited޵, in: K. Flanagan/P. C. Jupp (eds.), A Sociology of Spirituality, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 115–125.

Religion in Early Modern Southeast Asia: Synthesising Global and Local A NTHONY R EID

The conversion of Southeast Asia to its three modern global faiths (Islam, Christianity and Theravada Buddhism) is usually told in terms of foreign arrivals, interventions and successes, or (by reaction) of a relatively seamless gradualism – Ricklefs’ “Six Centuries of Islamization” (1979). For those mainly concerned with contemporary phenomena, the categories “traditional” or “pre-colonia” are so remote as to defy further subdivision. The interaction between global and local is of course a never-ending one, but it is possible and indeed important to discern periods when global ideas appeared particularly compelling to the Southeast Asians in contact with them, and others when the Zeitgeist appeared to be a reaction against alien forms and search for synthesis. Sheldon Pollock (2006) has suggestively used the term cosmopolis for the former, referring to the “Sanskrit cosmopolis” of the first centuries CE, implying “vernacularisation” as its opposite. Ronit Ricci (2011) more recently applied the cosmopolis term to Muslim Asia, though not in the diachronic sense I have in mind. I want here to explain why I think the diachrony between these two processes is particularly critical in Early Modern Southeast Asia. Since I have adopted different formulations of these two phases since first launching the terms “Age of Commerce” and “religious revolution” two decades ago, it may help to set them out below.

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c.1490-1650

c.1650-1820

long 16th century

long 18th century

Age of Commerce (Reid 1988)

Last Stand of Asian Autonomy (Reid 1997)

“religious revolution” (Reid 1993)

popularisation, consolidation

“cosmopolis”

“vernacularising”

Early Modern I

Early Modern II

This alternation helps to explain the hard lines that emerged in the first phase between lowland and highland, scriptural and animist, and state and non-state, with the second of each of these dyads developing unprecedented resistance to incorporation into the first. It also helps to locate in time the emergence of what we think of as popular religious syncretism, primarily in the long 18th century.

L ONG 16 TH C ENTURY – “R ELIGIOUS

REVOLUTION ”

The rapid expansion of commerce through much of maritime Asia in the long 16th century accompanied a new universalism of ideas, a quest for cosmopolis akin to that which had spread Buddhist universalism in the previous millennium. But this was a new universalism that ushered in modernity, or what has been aptly called the early modern era in world history, in which nobody could escape the collision of rival universalisms. Elsewhere I have labelled this period a “religious revolution” for Southeast Asians, which established the ways in which they would identify themselves as individually responsible members of universal cultures (Reid 1993: chap. 3). Each of the new scriptural religions brought a sense of its own core and its own boundaries, conscious of being in competition with other universalisms. While the impetus that drove Southeast Asians to adopt such religions was similar – a commercial, cosmopolitan, competitive environment that shook the foundations of older local beliefs – embracing these religions put them on paths which would ultimately diverge. Unlike the changes brought by Buddha and Shiva, which created further patterns of interaction across the region and beyond, the new universalisms divided the region into five

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modes of modernity. Over the following centuries the Islamised south, the Theravada Buddhist north, the Christianised east, and Confucianised Viet culture grew gradually more distinct from each other and from the fifth mode, the remaining adherents of an older Southeast Asian religious pattern. This last-mentioned category was the most fundamental layer of Southeast Asian belief. At the outset of this revolution it may have been almost universal, coexisting naturally with both the popular Mahayana Buddhism of wet-rice growing communities, and the Shiva cults of ambitious kings. In highland areas, among swidden cultivators and hunter-gatherers, and in all the islands to the east of Bali, it was virtually uncontested until the “religious revolution” of the long 16th century. That revolution introduced in varying degrees the four scriptural universalisms, each concerned with uniformity and with boundaries against each other and against the Southeast Asian pattern. Nevertheless the latter survived everywhere, as it does today, not only in holdouts against the new such as the Dayak, Toraja, Ifugao, Karen and Hmong, but in partnerships suffusing the scripturalisms and supplying what they lacked.

S OUTHEAST ASIAN R ELIGION Because of problems associated with use of terms such as animism and shamanism I have chosen to label this older pattern simply “Southeast Asian” religion, though that too risks exaggerating the differences from some ideas that had nearuniversal currency. Certainly there is no geographical boundary to this mental universe. Some of the key features of the pattern arise from its contrast with modern “religion”, a concept that took hold later in Southeast Asia than in Europe, China and India. The most reliable descriptions of the system from the age of commerce itself come from Christian missionaries, especially in the Philippines, who needed to understand what they were up against, but the more systematic work of modern ethnographers in many areas is also very helpful. The spiritual realm was immanent and pervasive; inseparable from the practical or everyday. European missionaries found the system crassly materialist, interested only in gain, but they quickly realised that if they could not cure ailments, safeguard life passages and make the rains come on time, they could not compete with traditional rituals. Spirits were everywhere there was power, and keeping those spirits content and well-disposed was the business of the specialist. A distinction was widespread between the dangerously mobile spirit or soulessence of living individuals (Malay semangat; Thai khwan, Burmese leikpya), which needed to be ritually brought back or re-concentrated in the body at vari-

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ous life crises, and the myriad spirits (Thai phii, Burmese nat) of nature and of deceased humans that governed the inhabited world. Austronesian terms for the latter are too numerous to record, though cognates of anita (anitu, hantu) are widespread, and Arabic-derived roh has become a generalised term in Malay. The dead continued to influence the living for better or worse. Illness in the living might be attributed to inadequate or incorrect death rituals for a relative recently passed on, and health and prosperity similarly attributed to appropriate manipulation of the powerful spirits of ancestors, heroes, or powerful animals. Even the most important agricultural spirit, that residing in the rice plant, was often humanised as originating from a virtuous maiden sacrificed for the good of humanity. Among all the panoply of rituals for every life passage, those for death were the most elaborate. An acute 17th century observer noted how Southeast Asians, “do not only believe that they may be helpful to the dead…; they think also that the dead have the power of tormenting and succouring the living; and from hence comes their care and magnificence in funerals; for it is only in this that they are magnificent” (La Loubère 1969[1691]: 121). No feast was more important, and since feasts were the only occasion for meat-eating, the sacrifice of a pig, chicken or buffalo was intimately linked to the ritual. Dancing and consumption of alcohol was often part of such feasts, to the horror of moralists of all the scriptural religions, because it was necessary to reaffirm life amidst death, and to assure the deceased that legions were gathered to celebrate his or her name. Although I am describing a “system” of religious belief, by contrast with the modern and scriptural, contemporaries were bewildered by its diversity. A Dutch investigation of beliefs in the Ambonese area noted that “the informants differed so widely that it was impossible to describe the system” (Knaap 1987: 71), while modern ethnographers have similarly insisted on the extraordinary abundance of spirits particular to each village or even each household. There was also a necessary experimentalism amidst this diversity. Those whose enterprises prospered and whose crops and children were abundant were assumed to have adopted the right rituals, and others would seek to find the ritual formula kept secret by the beneficiary. Hence when Muslims and Christians appeared among them who appeared successful in both trade and warfare, their ritual secrets were also keenly sought. Some decided they should spurn pork simply because this seemed the key Muslim formula, while the holy water used by Catholics in the sacraments was sought after as a healing remedy. This fundamental openness in the system made it a ready field for “conversion”, though at least initially without abandoning the assumptions of the old system.

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One striking difference between the old and new religious systems was in their gendering. Southeast Asian religion was balanced and dualistic, with the female gods of the earth (including rice), moon and the underworld matching the male ones of the sky, iron (which ploughs the earth), sun and upperworld. Women were indispensable in ritual, as healers and mediators with the spirits. In some areas like South Sulawesi the particular potency of the male-female mix ensured that the most powerful shamans were of a third gender, the transsexual bissu. By contrast scriptural religions (including the earlier Shaivite and Buddhist ones) were brought to the region by exclusively male specialists with developed concepts of the maleness of their gods and prophets, of a celibate male ascetic ideal, and of female impurity and ritual pollution. Not surprisingly, it was men who most readily adopted the new faiths, often relegating the old rituals to the sphere of women’s business, however necessary they may still have been to ensure fertility and health. In the Philippines the missionaries of the celibate religious orders found that “the priestesses whom they call babaylanas made strong resistance and war against them” (Reid 1993: 162). Whereas in China and elsewhere the Christian stress on lifetime monogamy attracted women in particular, this was a mixed blessing for those accustomed to the widespread Southeast Asian pattern of fidelity within marriage but relatively easy divorce and remarriage. One Visayan lady told a missionary that “it was a hard thing if unhappy with one’s husband one could not leave him, as was the custom among them” (Chirino 1969[1604]: 313).

R IVAL

UNIVERSALISMS

The initial crusading zeal of the Portuguese had not involved great interest in preaching or proselytising, and their early converts were chiefly their wives, children or close allies for whom this was the mark of identity. Their global conflict with a Turkish-led Islamic world, however, became caught up in the European reformation and counter-reformation, and thereby with early modernity. Although the Catholic Counterreformation associated with the Council of Trent (1545-1563) was stimulated largely by the Protestant challenge in Germany, its most faithful agents, the Jesuits, saw their great mission as to the east. Ignatius Loyola had made a pilgrimage to Turkish-ruled Jerusalem before establishing the Society of Jesus in 1534 (approved by the Pope in 1540), and always saw Asia as the greatest challenge for Christendom. His closest friend Francis Xavier was sent to Asia on a Portuguese ship at the first opportunity, and wasted no time in translating texts and preaching to every Asian society he could. Little

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more than two of his ten Asian years were in Southeast Asia (1545-1547), but he transformed the Christian approach by preaching and teaching in Malay and baptising thousands, notably in Melaka, Ambon and the other islands of Maluku. Before moving on to more ambitious targets in Japan and China, he introduced Jesuit methods and personnel to Southeast Asia, and inspired the older preaching orders, Augustinian, Franciscan and Dominican, to adopt a similar rigour. This serious missionary impetus had its effect also on enclaves such as Melaka – Portugal’s primary Southeast Asian base. Portuguese who were living with Asians were pressured to Christianise and marry them. The women in turn had to adopt Portuguese norms of decency in dress. At a 1532 census of Melaka only 75 Christian women were enumerated, whereas there were thousands by the end of the century. On the other hand this increasing Christianisation of the Portuguese presence further reduced the plurality which had been such a mark of the Asian ports. Since the 1511 conquest Portuguese Melaka had attempted to govern its non-Christian traders through a former Malay official, the bendahara, who faced terrible problems mediating between Portuguese and Asians. The conversion of the last bendahara to Christianity in 1564 marked the end of the influence of the once-powerful Indian communities in Melaka. When Philip II of Spain, the mightiest Christian monarch of the day, decided that Spain should establish a permanent presence in Asia, it was in a wholly different reformist mind-set than the Portuguese crusaders, or indeed the conquistadors of the Spanish Americas a century earlier. The expedition Philip commanded to sail from Mexico to the Philippines (already so named in his honour) in 1564 was motivated partly by Southeast Asian spices, but “the most important thing His Majesty desires is the spread of our Holy Catholic Faith and the salvation of the souls of those infidels,” as Legazpi was instructed (Zaide 1990: 408).1 Its command had been entrusted to Fr Andres Urdaneta, navigator turned Augustinian priest, but when he refused this he became instead the spiritual guide of the mission alongside Miguel de Legazpi as military commander. Six Augustinian priests went out on this mission, which began the colonisation of the Philippines at Cebu in 1565, transferring the centre to Manila in 1570. The number of missionary priests rose to 13 by 1576, 94 by 1586 and 267 by 1594 (Phelan 1959: 56). This was more than tenfold the numbers the Portuguese sent to the rest of Southeast Asia. They translated and printed devotional texts in Tagalog and Visayan, and by 1650 had accomplished the Christianisation of Luzon and the Visayas, except for the highland redoubts of the resisters. 1

Documentary Sources of Philippine History, Vol.I, Metro Manila: National Book Store. The instructions to Legazpi by the Royal Audiencia of Mexico, 1 Sept. 1564, are at pp.397-410.

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Though peaceful by the standards of Latin America, the Spanish presence in Manila was also influenced by the global struggle referred to above. Manila was a useful base for missions to Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Japan. Alarmed at the sending of Islamic teachers to Mindanao by Ternate and Brunei, Spanish Manila sent expeditions to Mindanao and Sulu and in 1578 succeeded in sacking Brunei and curbing that city’s role as a hub of trade and Islamisation for the Philippines. Henceforth the sultanates based in the island of Sulu and the Pulangi river basin of Magindanao would be the primary political upholders of Islam and of resistance to the Spanish in the Philippines. The greatest strength of both these polities was their pluralism or oligarchy, which made it impossible for the Spanish to turn their military superiority into permanent influence through a pliant king. Only the long reign of Sultan Qudrat in Magindanao (c.1619-1671) produced a strong political centre for Islam in this period, partly thanks to Dutch commercial support. Some of the reasons why Filipinos embraced Christianity so rapidly were similar to those that persuaded others to embrace Islam in the same period. The experimental nature of Southeast Asian religion tended to see success in warfare, well-being and trade as indicative of correct ritual practice, so that the success of Muslims and Christians in these areas inspired emulation. The rapid economic expansion of Southeast Asia’s long 16th Century pulled many away from their local agricultural roots, and made a portable, universal religious code attractive. The scriptural religions also countered the pervasive and terrifying power of malign spirits with a relatively predictable, rationalised moral code. The abundant Spanish missionary accounts of the conversion of the Philippines are rife with descriptions of the “demons” that terrorised the inhabitants until conquered by the power of the cross and the sacraments (Reid 1993: 150-161). If the motives for the “religious revolution” of early modernity were similar, the modalities of Muslim and Christian proselytists were strikingly different. Muslim traders and scholars married locally, even if already married at home, and their families provided a built-in mechanism of localisation. But the counterreformation Catholic Church was determined to enforce the discipline of a celibate clergy as the sole mediator of sacramental power. This tended to keep the church European in leadership and orthodox in faith in its early stages. The clergy’s monopoly of spiritual power was particularly unpalatable for Southeast Asian rulers, whose main source of power in the old order was as mediators with the cosmic order. The Portuguese made many attempts to baptise kings as Christians, but all failed once it became clear that their conversion destroyed their former spiritual potency without giving them access to the supernatural power of the Christians. By contrast Muslim and Theravada Buddhist rulers found numer-

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ous ways to manipulate the new religion to enhance their eminence. Arabic terms such as dawla (the state) and wahy (the divine inspiration revealed in the Prophet) were used to give an Islamic legitimation to the supernatural potency uniquely claimed by rulers, in Malay (daulat) and Javanese (wahyu) respectively. The newly potent gunpowder kings, moreover, were able to use the new externally validated religions to override the highly plural contractualism of many Southeast Asian societies (Reid 1993: 169-173). The long 16th century brought early modernity to Southeast Asia in the sense that all elites became aware of the competing universalisms of Islam, Christianity and Buddhism, and the need to choose among them. If the Muslim-Christian conflict had begun with brutal raiding and warfare in the early 1500s, by the latter part of that century it had acquired intellectual and spiritual dimensions, as both scripturalisms were creatively translated into vernaculars. Muslim literary creativity was particularly striking in the century 1580-1680, effectively creating what we now call classical Malay literature. The contest between Habsburgh-led Catholic Christendom and Ottoman-led Sunni Islam ended quickly in the 17th century. The most implacable enemies of Catholic Portuguese after 1600 were not Muslims but Protestant Dutch, who initially sought Muslim powers like Aceh and Banten as allies. Dutch and English success in shipping spices and pepper around Africa completely eclipsed the Muslim trade route through the Red Sea by the 1630s. Together with the slow decline of Ottoman (and Spanish) power, this broke the direct link between Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims. The 17th century economic crisis of which this severance was part (Reid 1993) inaugurated the new phase of vernacularisation (below).

P LURALITIES , RELIGIOUS “ HIGHLAND SAVAGE ”

BOUNDARIES AND THE

In the evolution of Southeast Asian pluralities, the religious revolution of the long 16th century was a major turning point. It might be said of this region, as of others, that homogeneities were eventually imposed on the natural diversity of spatially separate peoples by the twin forces of scriptural religion and bureaucratic states. These forces were slower in Southeast Asia than elsewhere to overcome the environmental barriers to integration, which retained a high degree of pluralism up to very recent times. In the “age of commerce”, however, the competing universalisms just discussed confirmed some of the enduring boundaries

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in the region, not only between Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and Confucian, but also between “civilised” lowlanders and “savage” highlanders. The oldest and most enduring distinction was that between modes of production: hunter-gatherers, forest and sea exploiters, shifting cultivators, and settled wet-rice growers. All these remained options in Southeast Asia, where tropical forests continued to dominate the landscape until the twentieth century. Each mode had its advantages in relation to particular environments, and there are myriad examples from past and present of combining modes and shifting between them. Only settled rice-growers provided what Scott (2009: 73) calls a “state-accessible product”, compatible with state control and exploitation, but the open frontier ensured that most agriculturalists could escape oppressive state control by moving further into the forest. Traders, missionaries and soldiers brought the new universalisms to impact with this ecological diversity in the long 16th century. Let me focus here on the boundaries created by two crucial and interrelated factors – the growing reach of states and the behavioural boundaries of the scriptural religions. The state factor was most marked outside the Sinic world in the Philippines, where Spanish control had expanded throughout the lowlands of Luzon and the Visayas by 1650, in tandem with Christianity. The limits to Spanish control were logistic. With a very small number of soldiers, they could not sustain supply lines for an extended campaign in the hills far from Manila, against significant resistance. Those who resisted therefore tended to focus in the Cordillera that runs down the middle of Luzon. Even though the islands’ most valuable asset from a Spanish viewpoint, gold, was chiefly in the Cordillera, the early Spanish campaigns to reach it were unsuccessful, and they gave up trying by the mid17th century. The most widespread revolt against Spanish control occurred in northern areas of Ilocos and Pampanga in 1660-1661. Some highlanders participated, and the unreconciled holdouts naturally retreated to join them in the hills when it was suppressed. Pre-Spanish highlanders were already less literate, less hierarchic, and less inclined to permanent-field rice agriculture than the lowlanders, but these distinctions became far more marked with Spanish control of the lowlands. Spanish officials and priests suppressed petty warfare, head-hunting and elaborate death-feasts in the lowlands, and established Iberian Catholic patterns of marriage and dress, as well as homogenising the main language groups through the introduction of printing. The Cordillera remained diverse in language and religious practice, and the continuation of low-level warfare and headtaking made it seem increasingly wild and dangerous to Spanish and Chinese, and eventually to the lowlanders themselves.

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Recent advances in dating the spectacular rice terraces built by the Ifugao in the Cordillera suggest that they began to be built subsequent to Spanish control of the Cagayan valley floor. The most probable explanation for the sequence of carbon dates obtained is that wet-rice agriculturalists from that rice-bowl of Luzon retreated under Spanish pressure rather than surrendering their religious and social habits. Accustomed to intensive rice-growing in permanent flooded fields, they developed the characteristic rice terraces in the hills of the region, rather than adopt the shifting cultivation of long-term hill-dwellers (Acabado 2009). If this is the explanation for Ifugao rice-terraces, a similar process probably gave rise to the irrigated terraces of the upland Toba and Karo Bataks in northern Sumatra, Torajans in Sulawesi and even Balinese. But here the factor pushing irrigated rice-growers up into the highlands would have been Islamic pressure rather than Christian. To begin with Batak, before the 16th century, this term appears as a place or polity, presumably representing the point on the coast where foreign traders encountered the then majority peoples of northern Sumatra. By 1515 the Portuguese understood the rulers of this place and of nearby Aru (likely ancestor of Karo-Batak) to be Muslims, but evidently of so different or superficial a type as not to be accepted as Muslim at all in the polarised atmosphere that followed the rise of Aceh and its bitter conflict with the Portuguese. Bata and Aru sided with the Portuguese in that conflict, and became early victims of Aceh expansion. Mendes Pinto (1989[1578]: 20-49)2 tells a tragic story of a militant Aceh sultan, supported by Turks and Gujaratis, offering only Islam or death to his Batak rival despite the latter’s attempts at accommodation. When his sons were murdered, his troops defeated and the Portuguese failed to help him, the embittered “king” moved further up into the hills and abandoned his commercial links with the outside world. This appears to mark a turning point, after which the term Batak was used for uplanders defined by their resistance to Islam and the coastal states that represented it, rather than by any particular language or location. Barros (1973[1563]: Dec. III: 509) could later report that Sumatra was “inhabited by two kinds of people”, indigenous animists and Muslims derived from foreign traders, who took over the coastal areas over the previous century and a half and created Islamic states. “The heathens, leaving the coast, took refuge in the interior of the island and live there today. Those who live in the part of the island

2

Though the reference is to the most recent English translation, by Rebecca Catz, there is a later scholarly edition in Portuguese with extensive English footnotes: Fernão Mendes Pinto and the Peregrinação: Studies, Restored Portuguese Text, Notes and Indexes, Directed by Jorge Santos Alves (Lisbon: Fundação Oriente, 2010), Vol. III.

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facing Malaca are called Batas. They are the most savage and warlike people in the whole world; they eat human flesh.” In the less polarised “long 18th century” described below many did gradually assimilate to Islam, and the Gayo in the interior of today’s Aceh Province also accepted Aceh suzerainty in the milder form it was later presented. But the memory of this violent confrontation ensured that there was active resistance as well as simple isolation among uplanders. The chronicles of Muslim Barus, a key Batak outlet to the sea, portray its founding king-hero touring the Batak areas before establishing his kingdom on the coast. Each community asked him to stay as their king, but when he then asked them to become Muslim they replied apologetically, “We do not want to enter Islam. Whatever else you order we will obey” (Drakard 1990: 75-80). Symbiosis between uplanders and the coastal portruler was acknowledged in this foundation myth, but the dividing line between them was clear. It was epitomised in practical terms by the continued importance of pigs in the feasting of Bataks and most other non-Muslim uplanders. When Minahassan missionary teachers, and Chinese traders, penetrated into Batak areas for the first time they were also considered Batak, since they ate pork. The Batak story has parallels elsewhere, wherever rapid military expansion by aggressive Muslim states in this period provoked a new sense of different highland identity. Nearby, the seemingly primeval megalithic culture of Nias is now thought to have been inaugurated only in the 17th century. Oral genealogies and carbon dates for the remarkable megaliths with which the Niha honoured their ancestors in their hilltop villages agree on this dating (Bonatz 2007: 4). The Toraja of Sulawesi are another such case. Their language, culture and ritual are very close to those of the neighbouring Bugis of the lowland. Their freedom from coastal states and from Islam appears to have been a deliberate choice, probably also involving the flight to defensible highlands to avoid unprecedented pressure to submit to alien political and religious forms. The Toraja memory as still chanted at feasts in modern times is of an alliance of those who “held back the mountain of Bone” (untulak buntuna Bone), and swore an oath of resistance. This is usually associated with the most powerful of Bone’s Kings, Arung Palakka, who with Dutch help liberated the Bugis from Makassar domination in 1669 and is believed to have carried his domination into the highlands in the 1680s. Those who joined the resistance oath are remembered as ideal ancestors who became “people of the same level or destiny, people of the same dream” (to pada tindo, to misa’ pangimpi). In the chants it is remembered that X from village Y “likewise held back the mountain of Bone in the days gone by. He too. And the harvest of the earth was abundant at that time, and human beings multiplied” (Waterson 1997: 73-76). This memory of an agricultural golden age sug-

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gests that the seventeenth century was the time when the Toraja began to carve their hillsides in beautiful terraces of irrigated rice, just as did the Ifugao. An analogy in Java to the Islam-induced upland statelessness of the Batak and Toraja may be the Sundanese of West Java, who withdrew to the highlands in the 16th century but accepted Islam in the syncretising long 18th century. This is a complex issue that must be explored elsewhere. In the Javanese-speaking area in the eastern two thirds of the island, however, the synthesis achieved by Sultan Agung (r.1613-1646) succeeded in absorbing even uplanders rather than forcing a hard choice upon them. This achievement needs to be compared with that of Sultan Akbar and other Muslim rulers of India in the same period, who never could achieve the same consensus either through compromise or coercion. But the literate and political elites of Java moved east in face of the attacks from Muslim Demak in the polarised 16th Century. Pasuruan and Balambangan in the furthermost east of Java held out for some time, but in the 17th century only Bali remained as the bastion of an older Hindu-Buddhist civilisation. Its high population and elaborate irrigated-rice system undoubtedly owe something to migrations from Java at this time. Though differing from highlanders in their hierarchic social system and elaborate literary culture, and in being defended by water rather than mountains, Balinese also encouraged their reputation for ferocity, for they knew the dangers the Muslim states posed to them long before they knew the potential danger of Europeans. Mainland Southeast Asians followed a different historical rhythm, though with some of the same long-term results. At moments of neo-Confucian success and assertiveness among the Viet, in the 15th and early 19th centuries and to a lesser extent the 17th, state attempts to enforce Confucian norms bureaucratically did create reaction and rejection in the highlands. But in the remainder of the Mainland Theravada Buddhism expanded through the charismatic power of its sacred centres and its sangha, with little sense of boundary against the unbeliever or savage. There were certainly aggressive campaigners against the old spirit religion in the 16th century, of whom the Burmese conqueror Bayinnaung was paramount. The chronicles show him building Buddhist temples throughout the areas of Upper Burma that he conquered, unifying their diverse religious calendars with his own, and outlawing human and animal sacrifices. Yet he only destroyed shrines to the spirits (nat) if he deemed they had failed to aid him in his campaigns, and belief in them remained universal in Burma until the twentieth century. Earlier (1527), Luang Prabang had destroyed its great shrine to the local spirit at the meeting of its rivers, and built there a Buddhist pagoda, yet a Portuguese source a little later described a great diversity of cults and of blood sacrifices still thriving there (Reid 1993: 193-194).

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The upland communities that survived and developed a separate identity from lowlanders in the mainland did so chiefly by pragmatically sending some form of symbolic tribute to the lowlanders with whom they traded, invoking their intervention only when it seemed necessary to fend off rival lowland centres. Until the 19th century the Jarai in the hills between Khmer and Viet territory exchanged gifts with each King of Cambodia, in acknowledgement of a symbiosis symbolised by their possession of a sword inherited from ancient Cham rulers, of which the Khmer held only the scabbard. But in return for being acknowledged as suzerain, the Cambodian king sent presents of far greater value than he received – not unlike the rulers of China. The people now known as Karen occupy the hills between two lowland Theravada cultures – the Myanma and Mon in the deltas of the Irrawaddy and Salween, and the lowland Thai of the Chaophraya basin. They were typically diverse stateless communities trading their forest products and hill crops to the lowlands, and often content to see it interpreted as tribute. Although as usual their history is poorly known, in the late 18th century the missionary bishop Sangermano (1966[1833]: 44) singled them out in his account of Burma: “although residing in the midst of the Burmese and Peguans, they not only retain their own language, but even in their dress, houses, and everything else are distinguished from them; and what is more remarkable, they have a different religion”. This suggests that despite their great internal diversity, many Karen uplanders had consciously begun to distinguish themselves from lowlanders. At least since the mid-19th century an origin myth was shared among them, whereby the founding ancestor entrusted with the book of knowledge by the creator-god had lost it through carelessness, and thereby left the Karen without writing as their neighbours forged ahead. Baptist missionaries in the 1830s found the Karen exceptionally receptive, believing that their just deserts as elder brother to the Burmans were being returned through the new writing the missionaries brought.

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CONSOLIDATIONS

In the 17th century there was a change of direction, as long-distance trade and foreign involvement began to yield more dangers than opportunities. Despite the different political results of this shift in different parts of the region, all experienced a vernacularising response in the long 18th Century, following the cosmopolitanism of the long 16th. In the new period cultural identities consolidated in their different directions, enabling us for the first time to speak of Myanma,

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Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Acehnese, Bugis, Javanese and Balinese as coherent identities, more enduring than dynasties that claimed to rule them. If the gunpowder empires had brought together diverse peoples sheltering under a common power centre, their successors focussed their primary ambitions on religion and culture, seeking to make up as exemplary centres what the gunpowder empires had lost in military power. In the long 18th century the societies in question developed literary cultures, unifying religious syntheses, and histories that celebrated the warlike conquerors of the gunpowder age even as their political heritage was rejected or lost. Their economies became less dependent on the vagaries of the international market, but more monetised and marketised internally, as the cities shifted their roles towards internal rather than international exchange.

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It is in the nature of universal scripturalisms to be subject to recurrent waves of reform legitimated from external sources – the original texts or the authority of a foreign centre imagined as purer. This type of polarising reformism was prominent during the long 16th century age of commerce, as we have seen, and periodically revived thereafter until peaking again as the world became more directly unified during the high modernism of the long twentieth century. In between these two phases, however, the second, self-strengthening phase of the Early Modern witnessed some remarkable achievements of synthesis and syncretisation, helping to unify societies that had been polarised by external influence. The gunpowder kings (including Spanish governors of Manila) had often enforced universal religion to justify their expansion, but in this second phase religious networks were more autonomous, and rulers needed to honour them in order to share in their charisma. The survival of Southeast Asian religion, and its understated but effective incorporation into the religious syntheses of the long 18th century, has a key gendered dimension. Women had such a lowly place in all the three scriptural religions that made gains in the Age of Commerce, that it is difficult to understand how they could have been accepted in Southeast Asian societies distinguished by the economic autonomy of women and their centrality in ritual life. We know that female shamans were among the strongest defenders of the old religion in the Philippines and other parts of the island world. But the syntheses that took hold in the longer run allowed women to continue attending to key concerns of healing, childbirth and agricultural fertility by ritually manipulating spirits. The

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male specialists of the new religions could be avoided when stern, but asked to add their blessing when accomodating. Female ancestral spirits and rice goddesses remained influential figures, and sometimes the tombs of the wives of Islamic saints received the most offerings from women seeking safe childbirth. When sternly male Viet Confucianism took over southern areas where the Cham goddess Po Nagar was previously worshipped, it was obliged to allow Confucianised goddesses to take her place as healer and protector. A British visitor to southern Vietnam in the early 1800s was struck by the number of “priestesses” (spirit-mediums) he encountered (Wheeler 2006: 184-187). Since Islam demonstrated the vernacularising trend most dramatically, let us begin there. 1. Islam The polarisation described above reached a peak in the reign of Sultan Iskandar Thani (Iskandar II) of Aceh (1636-1641). He was a devout Pahang-born Malay prince, brought captive to Aceh after the conquest of his homeland, and married to the daughter of Aceh’s tyrannical sun-king, Iskandar Muda. That king had imposed Islam according to his own tastes, which included the mystic monism of Hamzah Fansuri and Syams al-din al-Samatrani (d.1630). The second Iskandar, his son-in-law, however, sought legitimacy through patronising foreign ulama who identified themselves with the universal orthodoxy of the Persian theologian al-Ghazali (1058-1111). Chief among them was the prolific Gujarati-born theologian Nurul-din al-Raniri, a stern upholder of what he held to be the literal demands of the shari’a. Under Raniri’s influence Sultan Iskandar Thani enforced a narrow view of shari’a even at the expense of Aceh’s harmony and its cosmopolitan prosperity. Chinese traders were excluded from Aceh because of their pork-eating habits, and a Portuguese peace mission was offered the alternative of conversion to Islam or execution. He had the books of Hamzah Fansuri and al-Samatrani burned in front of the great mosque, and invoked the Islamic murtad (apostasy) laws to have executed those who refused to renounce the proscribed views. These divisive interpretations were rejected after the death of Iskandar Thani in 1641. The commercial elite that dominated the city’s commerce had been terrorised by the first Iskandar’s absolutism and preference for foreigners, but shocked when Raniri and the second Iskandar proved both cruel and bad for business. They hoped to correct both excesses by placing a woman on the throne, daughter of one Iskandar and widow of the other, defying Islamic strictures against female rule. The results were so satisfactory that they enthroned three

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subsequent women, covering the period 1641-1699. We might ask whether the conventional disbarring of women from exercising religious authority was seen as an advantage, preventing the execution of divisive measures such as those advanced by Al-Raniri. It may have been a means of legitimating the pluralism essential to stable commerce by default of a sole religious authority. Under the queens the Chinese returned, a Franciscan mission served the small Christian community, and Aceh became the only Southeast Asian maritime state to withstand the pressure of the Dutch Company. Hearing of the death of Raniri’s protector, a Minangkabau disciple of the executed sheikh, Sayf al-Rijal, returned to Aceh from his studies in Arabia, and bitterly attacked Raniri’s views and actions. As Raniri himself put it: “Sayf al-Rijal…held debates with us over the matters which had been discussed before. We ask: ‘How could you approve of the people who assert that man is Allah and Allah is man’? He answers: ‘This is my belief and that of the people of Mecca and Medina.’ Then his words prevail, and many people return to the wrong belief.” (Raniri, Fath al-Mubin, as translated in Azra 2004: 60-61)

Aceh opinion favoured Sayf, and Raniri was forced to flee back to Gujarat in 1643. This opened the way for a new consensus personified in Aceh’s most beloved sufi master, Sheikh Abdul-Rauf al-Singkili (c.1617-1684). His own copious writings never condemned either Hamzah Fansuri or Raniri, but sought a synthesis which would reconcile a commitment to shari’a with the appreciation of the inner knowledge of the mystics. It was probably he who appealed to one of his teachers in Mecca for a ruling whether it was legitimate for a sultan to have executed a sufi accused of heresy by another ulama, when the sufi in question responded that he could not repent as his argument had not been understood. He received the answer he appears to have hoped for, that such executions were very grave errors. Although religious courts continued to function in several port-cities, there is little evidence in Aceh or elsewhere after the 1660s of the harsh application of shari’a laws as occurred earlier in the century, or of executions on religious grounds. The decline of absolutist port-rulers reduced the coercive power of the state in religious matters, and allowed religious solidarities to centre rather in the mystical tarekat (sufi orders), notably the Qadariyyah and Shatariyya. These encouraged an inner piety expressed in ecstatic chanting and rituals at the graves of the saints and founders of mysticism, particularly the great local sheikhs, Abdurrauf of Aceh and Yusuf of Makassar (Reid 2010).

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In Java the 16th century had seen much conflict between coastal and cosmopolitan Muslims and old-school Javanese. A guide to Islamic behaviour of the period, probably from Demak, warned against honouring idols, denying one’s Islam or suggesting it made no difference. It condemned new Muslims who killed unbelievers only to take their property, rather than for truly religious motives (Drewes 1978: 15, 35-39). But the 17th century was a story of destroying or marginalising the cosmopolitan coastal centres of Islam, while selectively borrowing from them to create a remarkable synthesis of distinctively Javanese Islam. This became established in the warlike reign of Sultan Agung of Mataram (r. 1613-1646), who unified the Javanese-speaking area for the first and only time by conquering the coastal Muslim port-states one by one from his thenrustic base in what became Jogjakarta. Despite the Hindu subject matter of its stories from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the Javanese shadow-puppet theatre (wayang kulit) appears to have developed its modern form in those urban crucibles of Islamic innovation. It may have been a cultural compromise to avoid depicting human forms in deference to Islamic prohibition, but instead their shadows. As elite patronage of Javanese performance moved to the inland capital of Mataram, the stories of Arjuna and Bima continued to enthral Javanese audiences, and to convey the deeper inner truths for which the world of Islamic legal obligation was the outer shell. It was after the disastrous defeat of Sultan Agung’s attack on Dutch Batavia in 1629 that he turned his greatest attention to creating an integrated and selfsufficient culture within his realm. He came to accept the Dutch as coastal tributaries, concerned with the international trade that provided exotic luxuries to his court but was no longer of more substantial interest. The Sultan brought to his capital the Surabaya prince and exemplary literatus, Pangeran Pekik, famous for rendering the new Muslim knowledge into elegant Javanese poetry. Agung coopted Pekik’s charisma by strategic intermarriages, and gave him the task of domesticating and Javanising the most sacred centres of Muslim mysticism – Ampel, Giri and Tembayat. A hybrid architectural style was developed for these sacred places, and for the royal cemetery Agung built for himself at Imogiri, giving the entrances to the holiest Muslim centres a Balinese external appearance to modern eyes. Sultan Agung also authorised a uniquely complex Javanese calendar, incorporating the Islamic cycle of weeks and lunar months into the solar Indian-derived Saka calendar. The new kingship model was to focus on symbolic assertions of the centrality of the king-priest (prabu pandita), a supernatural figure who could magically pray in Mecca every Friday, and yet control the spiritual forces of Java through his ritual couplings with the Queen of the South Seas (Ratu Kidul) and rituals to the spirits of the volcanoes. What Ricklefs (2006)

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calls the “mystic synthesis” successfully brought virtually all Javanese into the new religion, even though there were constant challenges to royal authority. Southeast Asia is rightly celebrated for its capacity to retain diversity, in human society as in its flora and fauna. In religious terms, however, this point must be qualified by the “frontier” quality of scriptural religions. Diversity inhered in the myriad ways in which the local was combined with the universal, the highly plural spirit world with revealed scripture. Universal religion itself, however, was strangely uniform. The inherent diversity of Middle Eastern Islam, with its entrenched Sunni and Shi’a sects and its four schools of law, was exported to India but not Below the Winds. Because Islam played the role of external legitimator of local eminence, it was perceived as singular even when practiced as plural. Shi’ite rituals and texts found their way below the winds, but whenever orthodoxy became an issue for states it was purely Sunni with the Shafi’i school of law. The prominence of Arabs from Hadhramaut in mediating Middle Eastern complexities to Southeast Asia may be the key reason for this. In the long term this would hold dangers for the acceptance of diversity. Independent Indonesia officially recognised two Christianities as permissible for its citizens, but only one Islam. Only in the twenty-first century, however, did the quest for universal orthodoxy make this a problem by contrast with the very evident practical diversities of vernacularisation. 2. Christianity The Christian communities developed under Portuguese auspices in Southeast Asia saw few Catholic priests after the Dutch conquered Melaka in 1641 and expelled Portuguese as the first priority from their other conquests around the Archipelago – notably the large communities in Makassar and Ambon (Maluku). Only a tiny Portuguese elite withdrew to Goa or Portugal. Most faced the choice of remaining in Dutch-controlled cities by accepting the Reformed (Calvinist) official faith of the VOC, or moving to Asian-ruled centres such as Siam, Cambodia, Burma or the south-eastern islands of the Archipelago (Lesser Sunda Islands of Flores, Solor, Timor). The best-known centre was Ayutthaya (Siam), which became a new centre for predominately French missionaries to train Asian priests for East and parts of Southeast Asia (though not the Philippines). In Siam itself, however, there were only about 2,000 Catholics in the 1660s and only a few more in the 1810s, when a more peaceful modern period of expansion began. More influential in the long term were hybrid communities known as Topaz or “black Portuguese” in Flores and Timor. From bases first in Solor, then Larantuka (Flores) and Lifao (Timor), they established local alliances that the Dutch largely ignored, partly because they were almost totally devoid of priests

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or of Portuguese officialdom. Their lay organisation, a confraria (brotherhood) devoted to Mary, retained a vernacular synthesis of Catholicism, expressed in a mix of Portuguese and commercial Malay, into the era of modern missions in the late 19th century. The Christians of the Philippines, too, were left much more to their own devices after the phenomenally rapid changes of the first sixty years. Fr. Schumacher (1984: 254-256) argued that the initial conversion process was perhaps the most rapid but profound to be found anywhere in Christian history, partly through the insistence that converts would not be baptised unless they agreed to a subsequent ongoing course of instruction. But from over 300 European priests in the islands in the early 1600s, the numbers failed to rise thereafter despite their vastly extended responsibilities as the population expanded for whom they were the chief representative of both church and state. Rather than moving to the training of a Filipino clergy, the friars exchanged their missionary impetus for a relatively comfortable role as provincial elite, presiding over a calendar of festivals, marriages and funerals. Philippine piety was channelled into paths later known as “folk Catholicism”, whereby an elite received some Christian education but the majority participated primarily through feasts, rituals, dramatisations and the partial Christianisation of the major rites of passage. Even the religious orders of nuns were closed to Philippine women, but they responded in their own vernacular way by establishing parallel beatarios, with the religious disciplines and piety of a sisterhood but a largely autonomous vernacular expression. Even without a significant number of Filipino priests, the gospel was vernacularised through the extensive translation and printing, initially of Spanish religious texts in translation. But Filipino delight in oral poetry was extended to the bilingual (ladino) poetry of figures like Tomas Pinpin, who was able to publish some of his Tagalog prose and poetry because he worked in the printing house of the Dominicans in the early 1600s. Several Spanish friars were able enough to produce sacred works and dictionaries in Tagalog, Cebuano and Ilocano, but what the Filipinos loved the most were poetry and dramatisation of the Christian feasts, especially when written by their own poets. The first poetic renderings of the passion (death and resurrection) of Christ by Filipinos was published in Tagalog in 1704, from the pen of prominent Tagalog layman, Gaspar Aquino de Belem. His version was emulated, amended and enacted in parishes throughout the Philippines thenceforth, generating a vernacular idiom of the Christian experience. An endemic power struggle between the Governor and the Archbishop of Manila, both appointed by the King of Spain, and the religious orders which

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claimed loyalty only to the Pope culminated in the 1760s. A new “enlightened despotism” in Madrid sought to control the clergy in national interests, leading to the suppression of the Jesuits throughout the empire and consequent expulsion from 130 parishes in the Visayas and Mindanao. There was a sudden need for Filipino diocesan priests answerable to the Manila Archbishop and the King, to replace European friars deemed loyal to their order and to the Pope. The result was at last to produce a Filipino clergy, though one trained so hastily that a large cultural gap emerged between them and the Spanish-trained religious orders. An English visitor wrote in the 1820s of “a keen and deadly jealousy …between these [Filipino priests] and the Spanish ecclesiastics, or rather a hatred on one side and a contempt on the other” (Schumacher 1979: 213). Filipinos entrusted with parishes tended to abandon the big stone structures the friars had built for their needs, in favour of living Filipino style in wood and bamboo houses, less concerned with maintaining celibacy than their Spanish colleagues, and more with their kinship networks. They were less critical of the sensuality condemned by Spaniards as keeping “these regions aflame with an infernal and inextinguishable fire” (Velarde 1749: 93-94); and of the universal belief that spirits of the dead needed to be manipulated and assuaged by the living. The healing syntheses that emerged here were made possible by Catholicising offerings and prayers for the dead, notably at funerals and the annual graveside feasting on All Saints’ Day. The prominent role of Filipino clergy in generating a Filipino identity and national consciousness in the 19th century originated in this period of explicit vernacularisation. 3. Buddhism Theravada Buddhism was also sustained by a celibate male clergy, but not one that was foreign-born as in the early Catholic Philippines. The key to the long 18th century in the Theravada Mainland was the gradual homogenisation of monastic rules of ordination and practice, but their separation into distinct Myanma, Thai, Lao and Khmer vernaculars. The rich and powerful monasteries sustained by royal or aristocratic endowment gave way to a more popular pattern of integration with the population. Monks received alms from ordinary villagers as well as town-dwellers and pilgrims, and in return provided not only blessings and key rituals of life and agricultural cycles, but instruction in literacy and Buddhist virtues for young boys temporarily assigned to the monkhood. Burmese monks were especially successful in this role. By 1800 they were estimated to comprise about two per cent of the Burmese population, and “there was not any village, however small”, which did not have at least one monastery, where all boys at puberty were supposed to spend some time (Sangermano 1966[1833]: 90). This

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practice had produced by the 19th century more than 50% male adult literacy in the Myanma language –perhaps a record for any pre-industrial society. The Buddhist sangha was particularly important in developing a common cultural identity among Lao and Khmer, for whom the long 18th century was a time of political fragmentation and intervention by Siam, Burma and Dai Viet. Bereft of strong kings, both societies cohered around their respectively Lao- and Khmer-speaking monkhood. Burmese and Thai monarchs in this period of consolidation also knew that alliance with the sangha was essential. The primary purpose of kingship became the promotion of the dharma, or Buddhist teaching. Each culture area emerged with its own compromise with the older pattern of spirit worship. The kings of this period did not attack spirit worship as some had in the age of commerce, but accommodated it within the Buddhist framework. Thai kings retained Brahmins at court to enhance their supernatural power with Sivaite ritual, but popularly the Hindu deities (beloved in the Thai version of the Ramayana) were incorporated into a Buddhist pantheon. Burmese rulers went further in seeking to nationalise and unify the extraordinary diversity of the spirit world through a state cult of 37 recognised great spirits (nat), said to originate, like many traditions, with King Anawrahta of Pagan (1044-1077). Though royal rituals propitiating this pantheon may have served unifying purposes, the official cult by no means excluded local spirits, and indeed millions of other nat, some of whom were described in official cosmology and embedded in the rituals of Buddhist monks. Every village had its own guardian nat and, as in Siam, every building honoured a spirit or collection of spirits. Finally an elaborate system of omens was incorporated into the synthesis, some based on the calendar and the stars, others relating to bodily particulars. Increasingly systematised as the Burmese and Thai realms became more integrated, these syntheses of universal and vernacular served to unify culture areas according to language. 4. P opular religion In my understanding, the long 16th century brought change so profound as to justify the term revolution, but also erected barriers between the new religions and those who rejected it, the insiders and outsiders, and between men and women. The long 18th was a time of cultural integration and synthesis between the old and the new, during which external models were much reduced. Local religious leadership became much more important, and brought with it a popularisation of the new religions to much wider circles of society. Vernacularisation seems an apt term for this, not only in the ways in which Arabic, Spanish/Latin and Pali concepts were translated into local languages, but also in the way time-honoured

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habits of dealing with death, gender relations and power found a place within the new faiths. Both cosmopolis and vernacularisation, in other words, were necessary to create the pattern of popular religion found in 19th century Southeast Asia, at the time new forms of cosmopolitanism began again to inject both dynamic and division into Southeast Asian religion. But that is another story.

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Reid, Anthony (1988): Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce. Vol I: The Lands below the Winds, New Haven: Yale University Press. Reid, Anthony (1993): Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce. Vol II: Expansion and Crisis, New Haven: Yale University Press. Reid, Anthony (1997): The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia and Korea, 1750-1900, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Reid, Anthony (2010): “Islam in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean Littoral, 1500-1800: Expansion, Polarization, Synthesis”, in: David Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds.), The New Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 3: The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 427-469. Ricci, Ronit (2011): Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ricklefs, Merle C. (1979): “Six centuries of Islamization in Java”, in: Nehemia Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam, New York: Holmes and Meier, pp. 100128. Ricklefs, Merle C. (2006): Mystic Synthesis in Java: A history of Islamization from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, Norwalk: Eastbridge. Sangermano (1966[1833]): A Description of the Burmese Empire, London: Susil Gupta. Schumacher, Frank, S.J. (1979): Readings in Philippine Church History, Quezon City: Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University. Schumacher, Frank, S.J. (1984): “Syncretism in Philippine Catholicism: Its Historical Causes”, in Philippine Studies 32, pp. 251-72. Scott, James (2009): The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, New Haven: Yale University Press. Velarde, Pedro Murillo (1909[1749]): “Historia de Philipinas 1493-1803”, translated in E.H. Blair and J.A. Robertson, The Philippine Islands, Vol 44, Cleveland: Arthur Clark, pp. 27-119. Waterson, Roxana (1997): “The Contested Landscapes of Myth and History in Tana Toraja”, in: James Fox (ed.), The Poetic Power of Place: Comparative Perspectives on Austronesian Ideas of Locality, Canberra: ANU E Press, pp. 63-88. Wheeler, Charles (2006): “One region, Two Histories: Cham Precedents in the History of the Hoi An Region”, in: Nhung Tuyet Tran/Anthony Reid (eds.), Viet Nam: Borderless Histories, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp.163-93.

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Zaide, Gregoria F. (1990): Documentary Sources of Philippine History, Vol.I, Metro Manila: National Book Store.

Who Defines “the Popular”? Post-colonial Discourses on National Identity and Popular Christianity in the Philippines P ETER J. B RÄUNLEIN In memory of Pattana Kitiarsa, a good friend.

I NTRODUCTION The social sciences are enmeshed with their own subject area in complex ways. Social-scientific discourses have an impact on the self-perception of tradition, authenticity and identity in the broader society. In the following sections, I shall trace various scholarly discourses on Filipino tradition, national identity, and popular Christianity. Such discourses result from varying expressions of Philippine nationalism. A general characteristic of nationalist discourses is their “propensity to ‘invent tradition’ [...], rewriting histories, revivifying long dead customs, and inventing new forms and traditions with apparently primordial origins” (Hogan 2006: 118). Hence, religion functions either as obstacle to or source of national identity. From the post-Second World War years until today, the intellectual attitude towards Christianity varied considerably: outright refusal of the oppressor’s religion by left-wing nationalists, reappraisal of a revolutionary “Passion Catholicism” by the “history from below” discourse, attempts of reconstructing pre-Christian animism, Austronesian cosmology and/or mysticmessianic nationalism as the true religion of “the” Filipino people, or postnationalist appreciation of religious “creolisation” and “hybridity”. Such discourses are inseparable from the political development after independence and the postcolonial struggle over intellectual self-determination. Also inseparable from discourses on the nation, tradition and the popular is the question “who

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speaks authoritatively, from what position, with what knowledge about the Filipino people”? This chapter examines various attempts of Filipino intellectuals to contribute to the collective identity of their nation. As will be shown below, over a long period of time this ambition could be achieved only by selecting and defining certain essentials that make the desired collective “good to think”. Thus, the scholarly endeavour is aimed at compensating the loss of a supposed cultural authenticity of the past, destroyed by colonialism. In their neo-Marxian struggle for a classless society of “the people”, in their post-Rousseauistic attempts of reconstructing an “imagined community”, or in their recent esteem of cultural difference and “hybridity”, historians and socio-cultural anthropologists unavoidably take positions in the political arena. At first, it seems useful to refer to concepts such as “the people” or “the popular” in the context of European nation building. The romantic idea of “the people” as the bearer of an authentic “spirit” or “essence” of a collective called nation had considerable effects on anti-colonial and post-colonial movements in the non-Western hemisphere. Furthermore, the romantic coinage of the terms “Volk” (folk) and “volkstümlich” or “populär” (popular) by the German philosopher Herder creates constant conceptual confusion in the academe.

“T HE

PEOPLE ”, “ THE POPULAR ” AND RELIGION ” – PRELIMINARY REMARKS

“ POPULAR

During the 18th and 19th centuries, when the social sciences and humanities in Europe emerged, nationalism and imperialism were significant forces which profoundly shaped scholarly concepts and analytical categories in these disciplines. In particular, the political rivalry between the German-speaking countries and the French Empire spawned the well known pair of opposites “culture” and “civilisation”. French intellectuals lived in a centralised state and were deeply inspired by the rational principles of the philosophical Enlightenment. They reasoned about the ideal society as something universal. In fact, the French language, French fashions and the French arts were universally appreciated, at least in the transnational universe of the European nobility. In contrast, German intellectuals were desperately seeking unity in a fragmented patchwork of independent principalities and autonomous cities. Inspired by romanticism, they considered culture as something peculiar, mainly based on language, oral lore, songs, myths, legends, local customs, natural environment and sentiment. The bearer of culture was neither the nobleman nor the intellec-

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tual, but the peasant. Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) was the most influential philosopher in this regard, and the contrast of culture vs. civilisation was reflected in the controversy Herder vs. Voltaire, summarised as follows by Eriksen and Nielsen (2001: 13): “In 1764, the young Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) published his Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte (‘Yet another Philosophy of History’, 1993), which was a sharp attack on the French universalism championed [...] by Voltaire (1694–1778). Herder proclaimed the primacy of emotions and language, and defined society as a deep-seated, mythical community. He argued that every Volk (people) had its own values, customs, language and ‘spirit’ (Volksgeist). From this perspective, Voltaire’s universalism was nothing but provincialism in disguise. His universal civilisation was, in fact, nothing but French culture.”

The Herder-Voltaire controversy left its imprint on disciplines such as Volkskunde (European folklore studies) and Völkerkunde (cultural anthropology) and consequently, on debates about cultural relativism and universalism.1 Far more important, however, was the political career of Herder’s concept of the Volk – the people – and his idea of the Volksgeist – national character or spirit of a people. Herder insisted that each people had a true genius or spirit. In order to preserve its purity, foreign influences had to be excluded. In the work of philosophers such as Fichte (1762–1814) and Schelling (1775–1854), Herder’s Volk became a term charged with emancipatory impulses and ambitions for nationalist movements in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. The exclusive and monolithic concept of Volk unfolded its dark side in the course of history. Ethnic nationalism merged with scientific racism. Bizarre, dangerous and sometimes murderous ideologies took root subsequently: “racial hygiene”, “Völkisch Movement”, dis1

Edward B. Tylor equated culture with civilization and opposed Herder’s Volkconcept. In contrast, Franz Boas was heavily influenced by Herder. For him, it is autonomous, bounded cultures that form humanity. Thus, via Boas, Herder's ideas shaped culture-concepts of Alfred Kroeber and Ruth Benedict, and by it the USAmerican cultural anthropology as a whole (Eriksen/Nielsen 2001). In her brilliant study In Search of Authenticity, Regina Bendix (1997) shows how the academic discipline folklore studies or Volkskunde (in the US and Europe) developed out of intellectual movements that made the knowledge of folk cultures available amidst rapid modernisation. Thereby, bemoaning the “loss” and “estrangement” became a characteristic line of reasoning, and the term authenticity (and the search for it) was instrumentalised for the establishment of new nation states. Authenticity as a concept is highly flexible and always suitable for ideological use in different political contexts.

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courses on a master race such as “pan-Germanism”, “Aryan Race” or “Nordic Race” (cf. Poliakov 1974; Hutton 2005).2 Apart from these specific developments in the western world, nationalism, a concept deeply inspired by Romantic philosophy, made its career in the nonWestern world. In times of postcolonial nation building, Herder’s ideas prompted other peoples, whether implicit or explicit, to define their “national” characteristics (Zialcita 2005: 4). For the purpose of this chapter these references to Herder, his idea of Volk and the early history of European nationalism are necessary, because they make clear that the terms “the people” and “popular” have a peculiar political history and are evocative of their close relatives “folk” and “folk-like” in their specific European 19th century setting. The merging of ethnicity, national identity and the people generated a peculiar German vocabulary which is hard to translate. “Volksgeist” (genius/spirit of a people?), “volkstümlich” (folksy?), or the term “völkisch” are part of this vocabulary. On the other hand, the German word “populär” – popular – usually refers to consumerism and modern pop-culture. Cars, fashion, film or music become popular products due to marketing strategies of popularisation.3 Here are the roots of certain misunderstandings in the use of the term “popular”, especially between German scholars and those who grew up in the Anglo-American social sciences tradition. But behind German and nonGerman traditions of conceptual allocations lies a general problem: what is the subject of our research? 2

Herder cannot be made responsible for racism. He strongly denied the notion of the superiority of one culture. He advocated cultural relativism and belongs, therefore, to the ancestral line of socio-cultural anthropology. Nevertheless, Herder's romantic idea of cultural authenticity and peculiarity, as well as his Volksgeist concept, became absorbed by scientific racism. Herder's work, as Harry Liebersohn (2008: 29) remarks, “sometimes seems to take a hermeneutic approach, which tries to enter into the spirit of every time and place, and at other times reads as a xenophobic partitioning of culture into irreconcilable spheres of the organic and authentic versus the inorganic and inauthentic”.

3

A telling example which creates notorious confusion is the realm of German popular music. The term “Volksmusik” can be translated as folk music, but only in the context of history, folklore and ethnicity (comparable to the Irish Folk genre or the Portuguese Fado). “Populäre Volksmusik” in German TV shows or charts, however, refers to anything but popular folk music. Instead, the music showcased is a post-modern creation of feel-good pop-music with sentimental allusions to a non-urban pre-industrial idyllic world. The category “volkstümlicher Schlager” is only vaguely translatable as “popular hit”.

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“Popular religion” as the equivalent to “folk religion” is used by sociocultural anthropologists, religionists and scholars of folklore, and separates the supposed elite or orthodox version of a religion from its non-elite counterpart. “Popular religion”, however, can be something different in the context of cultural studies or sociology, as, for example, in the statement “Buddhism is a popular religion in Hollywood”. Such disparities in use and meaning of the term “popular” are closely related to the processes of modernisation, the emergence of complex societies, and the scholarly critique and deconstruction of essentialist notions of nation and ethnicity. The desire of contemporary anthropology “to challenge all essentialisms and question all generalizations” (Bunzl 2008: 57) is paralleled by a growing ethno-political drive “Back to Blood”, to paraphrase Tom Wolfe’s new book title (Wolfe 2012).4 What is meant by “the popular” also depends on the field that we study and the disciplinary tools we use. Thus, it makes a difference whether we talk about functionally differentiated capitalist societies, the middle class and Bourdieu’s taste and distinction (1984), or “world religions”, colonialism, and the analytical category of syncretism. In the latter case, the term syncretism itself is endlessly criticised but nevertheless remains “productively problematic” (Rutherford 2002: 196). Notorious problems are caused by doubtful juxtapositions such as elite– folk, giver–taker, great–little tradition and the implicit, and almost unavoidable, notion of “folk so-and-so” as something “impure” or “inauthentic”. Adducing Buddhism as an example, Justin McDaniel argues convincingly that the common description of Thai Buddhism as “magic”, “folk”, “syncretistic blend”, or one variety among many “local Buddhisms” is misleading: “Broadly judging Thai Buddhist practice, explanations, and expressions against their Indic origins is suspect and arbitrary. If we are going to use the term ‘local Buddhism(s)’ in contrast to early Indian Buddhism or a translocal Buddhist ideal, then we must ask, What form of Buddhism isn’t local?” (McDaniel 2011: 16)

When we talk about “popular religion” or “folk religion”, certainties that there is something such as “pure religion” are implied, explicitly or implicitly. Though emic statements such as “I am an adherent of Pop-Buddhism” or “we are folkCatholic believers” are cryptic, if not absurd. And it is even more obscure to use “non-popular religion” as the opposite of “popular religion”. Furthermore, the common assumption of the existence of a pure Christianity or true Buddhism be4

The desire to find reliable resources of identity and security in blood ties and ethnic belongings results in ethno-nationalist movements all over Europe and the former Soviet Union. The concept of Volk – “the people” – is revived in essentialist ways.

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fore magic practices, local culture, colonial encounters and modernisation changed their pristine state is an intellectual elitist construct in itself, whether philosophical or theological. In other words, heuristic categories are not innocent, and classification work never takes place on politically neutral ground. The concept of “syncretism” or “popular religion” claims to describe the encounter of religions and cultures in a neutral way, “but is itself a part of that encounter” (Baird 1971: 151).

P HILIPPINE C HRISTIANITY : “ REACTIONARY “ SYNCRETISTIC BLEND ”?

IDEOLOGY ” OR

Since Christianity, specifically Iberian Catholicism, is a foreign import to the Philippine archipelago, discourses on religion in the Philippines necessarily refer to indigenous tradition, colonialism, conversion and nationalism. They refer, in other words, to the enduring and troublesome quest for cultural identity, illustrated by the well-known description of Philippine history as “three hundred years in a Spanish convent followed by fifty years in Hollywood”. Labels such as “cultural schizophrenia”, “split-level Christianity”, “mongrel”, “bastard”, “half-breed” are used by the people to denote their own culture which is located in a vague and doubtful realm between East and West. Unlike in Latin America, where the term Mestizo is a positive attribution, in the Philippines an equivalent concept is lacking (cf. Zialcita 2005). The primary authority on the pressing question of national identity is the academic discipline of history. Historical knowledge about the Filipino people, their pre-Spanish origins and traditions, as well as their anti-colonial struggle for freedom and national independence, are of great importance for the identity quest, at least for intellectuals and, increasingly, the growing middle class. In this nationalist paradigm, collective identity is intrinsically linked to the people’s struggle for liberation (Ileto 1998: 178). Subsequently, the discourse “about Filipino history and culture is shaped by two binaries; (1) colonial versus noncolonial/anticolonial, and (2) Asia versus West” (Zialcita 2005: 19). After national independence in 1946, the historical (re)interpretation of the (failed) Philippine revolution of 1896–1898 was a passionately debated issue. Who were the moving forces behind true nationalism and historical progress? Members of the modernist educated elite, the lower-middle class or indigenous clerics? Marxist-Maoist guerrilla movements? What about “the people”? And equally important was the question: “Was independence in 1946 really a culmination of the revolution of 1896? Was the revolution spearheaded by the Com-

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munist-led Huk movement legitimate?” (Ileto 2011: 496). The Philippine historian Teodoro Agoncillo (1912-1985) offered crystal-clear answers in his famous biography of the revolutionary Andrés Bonifacio (Agoncillo 1956). For Agoncillo, the revolution “was supposed to be the highest expression of nationalism, it was the ‘masses’ who served as the bearers of true nationalism and the engine of historical progress” (Curaming 2012: 603). Agoncillo and his comrade Renato Constantino (1919-1999) were the most prominent representatives of nationalist historiography. With the rise of Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarianism and the emergence of left leaning social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, an ideological divide became obvious. For the academic left, Agoncillo and Constantino were the voices of righteous nationalism, and their strictly class-based interpretation of Philippine history was shared by their fellow leftist thinkers. Socio-economic and political factors seem to have played the most important role in the shaping of Philippine society and national consciousness. Religion in general, but particularly the Catholicism of the Spaniards, was considered a reactionary ideology, effectively used as an insidious instrument of (self-) subjugation, resulting in miseducation, “false consciousness”, “(neo)colonial mentality”. Renato Constantino, for example, never dealt with religion per se, but was concerned with the resistance of the masses in relation to the political consciousness. His central question and criterion was “how class-conscious are the Philippine masses?”. “The people” is synonymous with “the masses”, consisting of the working men and peasantry. “Popular religion” is something prone to “false consciousness”, and “authentic popular culture” is equivalent to the “class-consciousness of the masses”. It seems that Constantino’s programme of consciousness building through writing and reading history (in the “correct” way), ideally supplemented by active participation in the liberation struggle, intended to replace other (wrong) ideologies. “Revolts are shown to be increasingly complex and secular, in stages, as the economy develops. In an interesting variation of this by a militant church worker, religious unrest is pictured as developing in stages, from Hermano Pule’s primitive cofradia movement to the highest stage in Aglipayanism.” (Ileto 1986: 6)

For Constantino, history is progressing towards the ultimate fight of the masses for liberation and a classless society. The precondition, however, is the proper political consciousness. The whole “history of the people’s movements through the centuries has been characterized by a groping for consciousness” (Constantino 1975: 404). History has to have a goal, and the nationalist histori-

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an’s job is to integrate “seemingly isolated facts and events into a coherent historical process so that a view of the totality of social reality may be achieved” (Constantino 1975: 404). There are objective laws of development, and the promise of liberation and the forward-movement of history are beyond dispute. Thus, history itself becomes a way of salvation, a substitute for religion.5 The Weberian ideal of value neutrality in the social sciences and the sophisticated debates over methodological questions are irrelevant for that postcolonial commitment. The struggle for liberation does not allow neutrality, but demands staunch positioning.6 Starkly different is John Leddy Phelan’s historical description of the “Hispanization of the Philippines”, published in 1959. Whereas Agoncillo and Constantino developed distinctly nationalist perspectives on Filipino history, Phelan (1924-1976) represents “outsider” scholarship. The US historian Phelan, trained in Harvard and Berkeley, with a specialisation in Latin American history, never set foot on the Philippine archipelago. His sources were exclusively the Spanish chronicles and missionary accounts. In Phelan’s narrative, the Spanish-Philippine encounter is interpreted as a meaningful historical event, a meeting of an advanced giver of civilisation and of a backward receiver of civilisation. The reconquista tradition of suppressing paganism was supplemented by a humanist ideal of Renaissance inspiration.

5

Walter Benjamin, in his Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940), famously considered Historical Materialism as quasi-religious, despite Karl Marx’s claims to scientific objectivity (Benjamin 2009).

6

The U.S.-American historian Glenn May criticised Constantino’s renowned “A Past Revisited” as pure propaganda, because it “violates virtually every canon of historical scholarship, and rather than teaching students to think critically, it merely offers them a new dogma to replace the old” (May 1987: 23). Even though he might be right from certain academic standards, May’s critique misses the point. In the context of postcolonial self-discovery, the committed native intellectual considers “value-neutrality” and the claimed “historical canon” itself as ideological in nature, basically a myth. In the “Post-Colonial Studies Reader”, the editors introduce the chapter on History by the following statement: “[T]he emergence of history in European thought is coterminous with the rise of modern colonialism, which in its radical othering and violent annexation of the non-European world, found in history a prominent, if not the prominent, instrument for the control of subject peoples. At base, the myth of a value free, ‘scientific’ view of the past, the myth of the beauty of order, the myth of the story of history as a simple representation of the continuity of events, authorised nothing less than the construction of world reality.” (Ashcroft/Griffiths/Tiffin 1995: 355)

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“The ‘pax hispanica’ created conditions of ‘law and order’ [...], Spanish political institutions took deep root and Catholicism forged powerful new bonds of cultural unity. [...] And finally, Spain brought the Philippines into the orbit of Western civilization, from which they have not departed since the sixteenth century.” (Phelan 1959: 161)

The career of the foreign religion brought by the Spaniards is mainly seen through the lenses of the missionary accounts. Problematic and highly positioned terms and concepts such as “magic”, “superstition”, “idolatry”, “paganism”, “ritual formalism” are never questioned. “The Filipinos’ lack of a solid grasp of Catholic doctrine threatened to cause native Christianity to degenerate into outward ritual formalism. The line between veneration of the saints and idolatry was often crossed, and belief in miracles sometimes provoked a relapse into magic and superstition.” (Phelan 1959: 78)

It is insinuated that the Filipino lack the ability to grasp the authentic doctrine of Christianity, whereas the Spanish missionaries are portrayed as the bearer of a true world religion and assiduous persecutors of paganism. Hence, juxtaposed are an authentic and consistent Christianity versus multifarious pagan practices. Phelan ascertains that the missionaries’ success was never complete. The danger of a relapse into magic and superstition has been a permanent threat (solely to the missionaries, of course). Philippine Christianity is analyzed under the categories of “syncretism” and “folk Catholicism”, as Phelan put it: “preconquest beliefs and rituals, which survived the conquest eventually lost their pagan identity and blended into popular or folk Catholicism” (Phelan 1959: 80). It is worth noting that Phelan connects “identity” with pagan beliefs and rituals, and the new “blending” called “popular” or “folk Catholicism” is associated with the loss of identity and/or its substitution by an amalgam. Needless to say that such a statement is highly political in nature. Phelan’s approach stands for a quite common perception. “Syncretism”, “popular religion” and, “folk Catholicism” are terms that are obviously unavoidable whenever someone tries to describe the confrontation of a “great tradition”, Christianity in our case, with “little traditions”, pre-Spanish cosmologies and ritual practices – from the perspective of the “great tradition”.7 7

A more recent example of a terminology that describes the results of the Spanishindigenous encounters as mixture, blending, folk can be found in the introductory text on State and Society in the Philippines by Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso (2005: 51): “As acculturation to Christianity progressed, important continuities and

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The early colonial period is seen by many historians, relying wholly on sources written by the colonisers, under the perspective of the “Christianisation” of a subject people and/or of the “Hispanization” of indigenous cultures and tradition (Rafael 1988: 4). The outcome is a mixture called “folk Catholicism”, a seemingly self-explanatory concept. Because of its simplifying potential, the processes and power relations behind it become invisible. The reverse view, the “Filipinization” of Iberian Catholicism, would demand new sources, a different methodology, and consequently the deconstruction of the giver–taker/victimiser–victim dichotomy.

IN

SEARCH OF THE F ILIPINO P EOPLE : N ATIONALIST DISCOURSES ON TRADITION AND IDENTITY

In the 1960s and 1970s, nationalist discourses within the academe were growing and the critique of non-native scholars, especially US academics such as Phelan, was a matter of course. Nationalism, however, was (and still is) in no way a uniform movement in the Philippines, and the history of Philippine nationalism/s is yet to be written (Hogan 2006: 120). Samuel K. Tan distinguishes at least two types of nationalism: conservative/elitist nationalism, represented by political leaders, the economic elite and anti-communist intellectuals, and progressive nationalism, represented by left-wing activists and academics, such as Renato Constantino (Tan 2011: 87f.). Tan’s two type differentiation, although a bit rough, can be considered as ideal-typical.8

underlying patterns persisted, as they did in Islamized areas. Converts adopted Christian teachings and rituals creatively, blending them with pre-Spanish norms and practices to create a ‘folk Catholicism’ unique to the Philippines”. 8

Trevor Hogan distinguishes between Spanish inflected histories in the 19th century and American inflected histories in the first half of the 20th century, romantic nationalist histories following independence after the Second World War, and revolutionary romantic histories in the Marcos years (Hogan 2006: 130). In an analysis of Philippine history textbooks, Rommel A. Curaming (2008: 142) identifies at least five streams of nationalism: (1) mass or anticolonial nationalism; (2) colonial nationalism; (3) clericonationalism; (4) state nationalism; and (5) indigenous nationalism. Reynaldo Ileto characterises “nationalists” as an “all-embracing term for antiestablishment intellectuals and activists” at the University of the Philippines, Lyceum of Manila and a few other institutions. This movement of “decolonizing” the Filipino mentality started in the late 1950s and its members saw themselves as “carrying out ‘the second Propa-

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In the 1970s, when Maoist guerilla and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) gained influence, leftist students revolted and bombs exploded in Manila, President Ferdinand E. Marcos (1917-1989) declared martial law. At roughly the same time he aspired to rewrite Filipino history in twenty-one ambitious volumes, titled “Tadhana: History of the Filipino People” (Marcos 1976).9 The carefully selected group of ghostwriters consisted mostly of historians of the University of the Philippines. The intended framework of Marcos’ historical revision was “to show the evolution of the Filipino people from a glorious beginning in precolonial times, moving towards progress but passing through a period of colonial trial and travail, before finally achieving a triumphal blend of the old culture and the new elements of civilization.” (Tan 1993: 86)

Special attention was directed towards the pre-Hispanic roots of Filipino heritage. The Barangay, the idealised pre-Spanish village community, was considered the nucleus of the Filipino nation whose blossoming was interrupted by the Spaniards. Finally, however, Filipino culture culminated in the birth of the New Society in 1972 under Marcos, who installed himself “as the successor to the series of fighters for freedom from the sixteenth-century Lapulapu onwards” (Ileto 1998: 167). The Tadhana [destiny] project has never been completed, but reveals perfectly a revisionist nationalist concept of history which points to a “golden past” from whence “a new nationalism could emerge to neutralise a growing radicalism” (Tan 2011: 89-90). The nationalist ideology of Ferdinand Marcos was working in paradoxical ways. On the one hand, Marcos secured US-America’s control over plantations, military bases, mines, businesses. As a result, his politics of “independence without decolonization” (McCoy 1981: 23) stirred an anti-colonial backlash. On the other hand, he “was able to surf on the wave of such a backlash and use nationalist rhetoric to justify his authoritarian rule, one clear example being the Tadhana project” (Curaming 2008: 130). Ghostwriter of the first published Tadhana volume called “Encounter (15651663)” was Zeus Salazar (* 1934), a historian at the University of the Philippines with a PhD from the Sorbonne, Paris (cf. Tan 1993). Deeply impressed by ganda movement’, a repetition of the consciousness-raising activities of Filipino reformists and nationalists in the late 1880s” (Ileto 1998: 180f.). 9

Rommel A. Curaming (2008) compares the Filipino Tadhana project with the simultaneous government-sponsored Indonesian history-writing project Sejarah Nasional Indonesia (Indonesia’s National History; SNI).

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the German anthropologist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), a follower of the doctrine of the Austrian-German “Kulturkreislehre” (theory of cultural circles) who provided key ideas for Leopold Senghor’s and Aimé Cesaire’s conception of “Négritude”, Salazar founded the “Pantayong Pananaw” movement (cf. Guillermo 2003). The term translates as the “from-us-for-us perspective”, building upon “philosophies, methods and viewpoints distinctive to the Filipino historical experience” (Reyes 2008: 242). Starting in the 1970s, the “Pantayong Pananaw” movement formed a more or less coherent intellectual community in the 1980s and 1990s. The shared assumption was that there is a definite Filipino uniqueness. Knowledge about this uniqueness is, however, obscured by foreign influence, namely by the colonisation of knowledge production in the country. The ultimate goal is the construction of a uniquely and historically contextual Filipino voice. The key to revealing Filipinohood is the exploration of “the consciousness and social practices of the subaltern classes as marginalized bearers of the culture and history of Filipino society” (Reyes 2008: 249). Portia L. Reyes, comparing the Filipino “Pantayong Pananaw” movement with the Indian Subaltern Studies project, emphasises that both intellectual schools “introduce a ‘historical difference’ or a history-writing that subverts the European variant” and seek “to destabilize the inherent Eurocentrism of the social sciences” (Reyes 2008: 254). Methodologically, the “royal road” to the decolonisation of knowledge is the use of the national language, Filipino, and linguistic analysis for historical interpretation. In terms of content, the distant Austronesian past serves as a central source of Filipinohood. Culture, language and authentic collective identity are inseparable from such a perspective. The success of Iberian Catholicism can be easily explained as the superficial disguise of an Austronesian cosmology. For example, the stunning career of Sto. Niño, the Christ Child, as a national icon is due to its characteristic “as the representation (likha) of an anito (divinity) connected with the sun, the sea and agriculture” (Salazar 1998a: 61, cited in Abinales/Amoroso 2005: 49). Although the attempt to subvert European variants of history writing is all too understandable, the proposed solution to the post-colonial identity-dilemma is reminiscent of the very European and romantic idea of a “Volkscharakter” – people’s character – in the strict sense of Herder. It is (Austronesian) language, pre-colonial culture, and territory which contain the essence of Filipinohood. In fact, the guiding idea behind such academic attempts at a reinvention of national identity has its roots in the 19th century, and in Europe. National hero José Rizal (1861-1896) studied in Europe and stayed for a while in Germany. With his friend and mentor Ferdinand Blumentritt (1853-

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1913), a scholar from Austria, he exchanged ideas about nationalism in connection with the German term “Vaterland” (fatherland). Correspondingly, he adopted the periodisation of golden age-darkness/decline-glorious future for his own historical approach and desire for national unity. Rizal, actually a mestizo de sanglay, a person of mixed Chinese and indigenous ancestry, adopted Blumentritt’s idea of a pan-Malay race as the authentic root of the Filipino people and considered himself as a “Tagalog Malay” (cf. Salazar 1998b; Reid 2009: 98f.).10 In his “Pantayong Pananaw” vision, Zeus A. Salazar builds on the European ideas in the spirit of Herder, the Humboldt brothers and Blumentritt. The “Pantayong Pananaw” movement, which began as a critique not only of colonialism but also of left-leaning nationalist historiographies, is apparently an offspring of Marcos’s revisionist “Ideology for Filipinos” (Marcos 1980), designed to answer the problem of national unity (Tan 2011: 95; Diokno 1997).11 The second type of nationalism which became consolidated in the martial law years was “the radical agitation and movement involving more or less a large portion of the ‘the masses’, workers and peasants. [...] It was in the milieu of this mass movement [...] where 10 In the 1930s, Wenceslao Vinzons (1910-1942), a student of law at the University of the Philippines founded the “Malay Association”, supported by Manila based students from Malaya, Indonesia and Polynesia. They promoted not only the study of the history, civilizations and culture of the Malay race but also a confederation of free Malayan Republics in Southeast Asia. Vinzons was executed by the Japanese in 1942, but his ideas remained important in the post-war Philippines (cf. Salazar 1998a: 126-128; Reid 2009: 99f.). 11 Curaming (2008: 128) remarks that in the Philippines “there was nothing comparable to the Sumpah Pemuda or Pancasila, two important markers of Indonesian unity and nationalism. Marcos’s [...] was perhaps the first attempt to propose what amounted to a Filipino ideology, but due to his unpopularity it was dismissed as nothing but a selfserving ploy.” Besides the Pantayong Pananaw movement, other attempts at indigenizing the social sciences are notable: Sikolohiyang Pilipino, initiated by Virgilio Gaspar Enriquez in the mid-1970s, and Pilipinolohiya or Filipinolohiya, a nationalist version of Philippine Studies (incl. political science, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, sociology). Also in the mid-1970s Leonardo N. Mercado published his meta-linguistic reconstruction of a coherent Filipino worldview as “Elements of Filipino Philosophy” (1974). Cf. Aquino (2004); Mendoza (2002: 51-85); Pe-Pua/Protacio-Marcelino (2000); Salazar (1998b); Bennagen (1990).

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the ideologically sophisticated socialist and Marxist elements found complementary roles.” (Tan 2011: 90)

Renato Constantino and his acclaimed “The Philippines. A Past Revisited” (1975) held a prominent position in this intellectual movement. The National Democratic Front (NDF), a coalition of social movements and leftist political parties, derived its conception of history from Amado Guerrero’s “Philippine Society and Revolution” (1971). The dialectical progression of history in the Hegelian sense was assumed, and the masses were considered the real “makers of history” in the Marxian and Maoist sense. Required was solidarity with the masses and a determined fight against authoritarian rule and US (or any other Western) imperialism. Despite grave ideological differences between the liberal and radical variants of the nationalist reconstruction of the authentic Filipino people, both sides shared basic assumptions, as Reynaldo Ileto summarises: “they present an image of pre-Hispanic feudal order bastardized by colonialism and a native culture contaminated by Christianity”, and “the same construct of Fall-DarknessRecovery (or Triumph), where there is a necessary development from a point in the past to the present and everything in between is either taken up in the march forward, or simply suppressed.” (Ileto 1986: 6)

A further, even more important point must be highlighted here. The assumption that there is such a thing as “the” Filipino people is fundamentally ahistorical in nature, as well as the conception of “the masses” as being self-evidently homogeneous and uniform. Glenn Anthony May, in his review of scholarly studies on the Philippine revolution and the Philippine-American war, underlines the fact that local histories show “beyond a shadow of doubt [...] that there were important social, economic, and ethnic differences between the various provinces in the Philippines” (May 1987: 181). The Muslim-Christian, and UplandLowland divide within the country, 180 indigenous ethnic groups and 171 living languages show anything but cultural homogeneity. 12 In need of explanation is the fact that despite the continuous search for the authentic Filipino, sociocultural knowledge about cultural minorities is widely ignored (Zialcita 2005: 12 The ethnic groups and languages are listed in the relevant Wikipedia websites: “Ethnic groups in the Philippines”. In: Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_Philippines); “Philippines”. In: Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines). Last access 9th February 2013.

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24).13 The mandatory use of Filipino in the academe as a means of liberation is in itself a doubtful attempt by an intellectual Manila-based elite that is ignorant of the political importance of Taglish (Tagalog-English fusion) and the vernacular languages in the Visayan region and Mindanao. Thus, the national language does not represent the nation. It serves as the lingua franca of the mass media, but only in conjunction with English and Taglish.14 Cultural and ethnic differences and the variety of local traditions contradict essentialism. Essentialism as a concept can only be saved in the form of “strategic essentialism” (Spivak 1987), though this strategy is meanwhile itself under heavy critique by proponents of postcolonial theory (Mendoza 2002: 31-33; Lee 2011). The Filipino historian Reynaldo Ileto cautions against homogenisation and romanticisations.15 History, he argues, should not celebrate

13 “I have gone through many academic papers that tend to fantasize when alluding to indigenous, non-Hispanized culture because they ignore these accounts and ethnographies. As a result they fail to realize how strong and persistent indigenous ways are even in the lowlands, and that these modify the foreign”, Zialcita (2005: 24) comments. 14 Vicente Rafael (2000: 170) states: “Seized on by the new social movements of the 1960s—consisting of left-wing student, worker, and women’s organizations—Tagalog as Pilipino or Filipino has been a popular medium for mass mobilization at political rallies in and around Manila. Outside the Tagalog-speaking regions in such cities as Cebu or Iloilo, however, English and the local vernacular continued to be the languages of political movements”. Filipino sociologist and anthropologist Fernando Zialcita prefers to use the vernacular because it forces him “to rethink abstract concepts in a clear, concrete way. [...] But the reality, however, is that in both the Visayas and Mindanao, the colleagues I wish to reach complain when the discourse is completely in Filipino” (Zialcita 2005: 26). 15 Nationalism as ideology and political project produces basic contradictions whenever it is measured against the ambitions of social scientists to document the richness of culture and religion and the contingencies of history. Accordingly, “Pantayong Pananaw”, an amalgam of an essentialist political ideology and historical scholarship, is criticised for its methodological, epistemological and theoretical shortcomings. For a discussion of the critical objections, see Guillermo 2003 and Reyes 2008. Guillermo’s book-length “Critical Appraisal of Pantayong Pananaw” (2009) might be a helpful contribution in this regard. The publication, unfortunately, is inaccessible outside the Philippines.

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“some epic resistance to colonialism. It should give equal status to interruptions, repetitions and reversals, uncovering the subjugations, confrontation, power struggles and resistances at the level of the local and specific, which our dominant histories tend to conceal. [...] We tend to identify nationalism with identity, unity, destiny. We would be better nationalists, I think, with a national history that welcomes difference, disorder, and uncertainty.” (Ileto 1986: 16)

P EOPLE ’ S P OWER R EVOLUTION : RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT ?

A POPULAR AND

Ileto delivered this statement in 1985, the year before the “People’s Power Revolution” ousted Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda. Societal disorder and uncertainty increased during the Marcos years as well as harassment and pressure by the government. After the assassination of opposition senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino in August 1983, demonstrations started in Manila. After manipulated elections in February 1986, they culminated in a mass rally of two million people. This rather unexpected “revolt of the (bourgeois) masses” was supported by the Catholic church in equally unexpected ways. At first glance, the EDSA revolt16 was a popular uprising, and through this outstanding historical moment ideas of the people and “the popular” were reconceptualised in the public arena. The Filipino people became tangible in its entirety by this act of open resistance: the collective of “the Filipino people” versus the corrupt individual Marcos. Unsurprisingly, “the crowds on EDSA seemed to readily interpret or locate their experience within a familiar discourse of revolution and mass action” (Ileto 1998: 177). The historian Mario V. Bolasco doubts this version and argues that the “miracle of the EDSA” was a revolt by the middle class elite of the capital, guided by the voice of the institutional church, Cardinal Sin, through Radio Veritas. For Bolasco, the question then “is not whether or not traditional religion can be mobilized for politics but rather how come the institutional Church took the lead and how come the discourse of protest took that particular form at that particular juncture in Philippine history” (Bolasco 1994: 147, 148).17 Thinking

16 The acronym EDSA stands for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major north to south aterial road of Metro Manila. In February 1986, the highway was the site of huge demonstrations that toppled president Ferdinand Marcos. 17 “EDSA religiosity was consistent with middle class practice and whatever creativity there was, it was within the parameters of that practice”, and “[...] the organization of

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along similar lines, Julius Bautista shows that it was the images of the Virgin Mary and the Santo Niño which contextualised mass political actions, and it was the ability of the “Philippine Catholic Church [...] to exert its authoritative jurisdiction over icons in general, by projecting ‘People Power’ as both a religious and political phenomenon” (Bautista 2006: 295). The Catholic church declared itself as the legitimate representative of Filipino “popular religion”. Eventually, the revolt was interpreted by many as a specific Catholic revolt, with marching and singing nuns in the front line, fought with rosaries and shielded by Mother Mary’s wondrous interventions.18 The EDSA shrine with the sculpture of Saint Mary, Queen of Peace, condenses such a statement symbolically. 19 The EDSA rebellion made clear that the Christian religion can be an effective social and political force in the struggle for liberation and freedom. It was exactly this capacity of Christianity that nationalist intellectuals in both camps had denied vehemently. For them, Christianity, the colonisers’ effective instrument of thought control, is what made the masses submissive.

middle class daily life was the éminence grise that made possible the effectivity of the Church’s prescience.” (Bolasco 1994: 156) In 1986 Fr. Ruben J. Villote wrote in the Philippine Daily Inquirer: “In the liberation story of February 1986 the millions who composed people power at EDSA and Channel 4 were actually the small and dominant elite sector of our society, while the vast ‘unchurched’ majority (88%) were left behind and marginalized” (Villote cited in Bolasco 1994: 155). Esperanza E. Abellana characterised “People Power” by the term “elite populism” (1987). Though slightly hesitant, Reynaldo Ileto points in the same direction in his comments on the “Unfinished Revolution” and the EDSA revolt of 1986 (cf. Ileto 1998: 197). 18 For details of the Catholic “Miracle of EDSA discourse”, see the biography of Cardinal Sin by Felix B. Bautista 1987. On the Protestants’ claim to have been an active force in the EDSA revolt, see Schwenk 1986. 19 Built in 1989, the EDSA shrine is a small church located at the intersection of Ortigas Avenue and Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Manila. It commemorates the People’s Power Revolution of 1986. The statue of Saint Mary, represented as Mother/Queen/Lady of Peace, is holding a dove and an olive branch as symbols of peace.

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P ASYON AND IN ACTION

R EVOLUTION :

POPULARISED

C HRISTIANITY

In 1979, prior to the EDSA events, Reynaldo C. Ileto published his “Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910”, a trail-blazing monograph which opened up a fresh perspective on Philippine Christianity and the meaning of “popular” as related to that religion (Ileto 1979). The main thesis is that it was the ritual reading of the Pasyon that provided the “grammar of dissent” for the revolutionaries (Azurin 1988). Since the 18th century, poetical translations of the Christian passion story into the local languages, as well as staged passion plays, had become increasingly popular, especially in the island of Luzon and the provinces near Manila, the colonial power centre. The content of the Pasyon is obviously “Western”, namely the story of Christ’s death. However, the social context of its reception, its form and aesthetics are related to epic narratives and Southeast Asian theatre practices. Thus, the Pasyon replaced these traditional epics. The ritual singing of the Pasyon during Holy week still continues today.20 Without doubt, the Pasyon is the best-known Filipino text, at least in Central Luzon (Tiongson 1976). Through the vernacularisation of the biblical passion story, Iberian Catholicism became the Philippines’ popular religion, labelled today as “Calvary Catholicism”. This transformation included textual translation, ritual singing and dramatisation. For a whole week, 24-hour recitations, stage dramas and street plays, rites of self-mortification such as self-flagellation and crucifixion were (and are) powerful expressions of Filipino Christianity. Thus, the indigenised version of Christianity was “popularised”, so to say, by means of performance (cf. Bräunlein 2010: 212-240). The vernacular passion narratives effectively transmitted indigenous cultural values and, during the period of nation-building in the 19th and early 20th centuries, offered resources for anti-colonial insurrections, at least in some parts of the country, and at least by some charismatic leaders. Those self-appointed Kristos identified themselves with the suffering Christ and interpreted their suppression in the light of the Pasyon. The text of the Pasyon, as Ileto expressively underlines, is able to generate multiple meanings in relation to audience and context. It may effectively function as a colonial tool, at one time, or, under certain circum-

20 Ricardo Trimillos points out a close analogy between the singing of the Pasyon and the Javanese wayang kulit puppet theatre. In discerning such a connection, he reveals an indigenous model of theatre performances in the Philippines which is only masked by the Christian content (cf. Trimillos 1992).

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stances, as a language for liberation (Ileto 1979: 15-17; 1982: 94). Thus, the socio-cultural history of the Pasyon and its various encoded messages serve as a perfect example of Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding-model that differentiates between a hegemonic, professional and negotiated code. Before a message “can have an ‘effect’ (however defined), or satisfy a ‘need’ or be put to a ‘use’, it must first be perceived as a meaningful discourse and meaningfully de-coded” (Hall 1973: 3). With his “Pasyon and Revolution”, Ileto recalled a centuries-long tradition of anti-colonial resistance that basically consisted of religiously motivated revolts.21 Almost all of the hundreds of local revolts against the Spaniards were led by a charismatic religious person, male or female. David Sturtevant, in his “Popular Uprisings in the Philippines” (1976), distinguishes between the “Little Tradition” of peasant unrest and the “Great Tradition” of elite-led movements for independence. In Sturtevant’s view, the peasant-based, religious-oriented revolts were antinationalist and irrational. For Ileto, this is a crooked interpretation, because Sturtevant’s effort “to classify each peasant movement according to its proportionate ingredients of the religious or secular, rational or irrational, progressive or retrogressive, nationalist or anarchist, [...] explains away whatever creative impulses lie in them rather than properly bringing these to light.” (Ileto 1979: 7)

Ileto’s critique reveals his own ambitions and new perspectives. By writing “history from below”, he wants to show that Catholic religion, especially its master narrative, was creatively appropriated and transformed by the non-articulate. Ileto’s primary sources were texts in Tagalog, for example the Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal ni Jesucristong Panginoon Natin – Account of the Sacred Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Pasyon Pilapil, published in 1814, and probably the most common text to be used in the ritual reading, called pabasa. Ileto applies a new interpretive strategy by close readings of such vernacular texts, implicitly advocating a literary approach to history and culture (See 2009: 12). By decoding the unfamiliar worldview behind the peasant unrest, he discloses various dynamics of popular Christianity, especially its revolutionary potential in the realm of politics. Furthermore, the people, usually portrayed as the passive and submissive subject of colonialism, appears as active, resistive and creative. Although native epic traditions declined in the 16th and 17th centuries, Filipinos nevertheless 21 For a historical overview of messianic uprisings all over Southeast Asia, see Ileto 1992.

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“continued to maintain a coherent image of the world and their place in it through their familiarity with the pasyon, an epic that appears to be alien in content, but upon closer examination in a historical context, reveals the vitality of the Filipino mind.” (Ileto 1979: 16)

Ileto’s study was a great leap forward for the study of popular religion in the Philippines. Popular Christianity was no longer a “wrong ideology”, something “inauthentic”, a “syncretistic amalgam” or an “irrational force”, but a valid moral resource for political action and a coherent, though complex, worldview of the people. The Philippine people as docile disciples, Christianity as an unproblematic gift of colonial rule – such a view was no longer convenient, and the line between “Great” and “Little Tradition” was no longer as clear cut as it was hitherto. The vernacular Pasyon texts were produced by a native literate elite, Gramscian “organic intellectuals” so to speak, and the encoded indigenous values, subversive messages, and emotional images were understood not only by illiterate peasants but also used by intellectuals, although within a different framework of ethos and pathos. Finally, Ileto’s “history from below” approach provided an elaborate and explicit local history of religion. The above-cited programme of “uncovering the subjugations, confrontation, power struggles and resistances at the level of the local and specific” (Ileto 1986: 16) has notable methodological consequences. This focus on local situations and on the peculiar historical events strives against tendencies of homogenisation of culture, religion and identity. The lasting value in Ileto’s book, “and something that imbues his approach with credibility and poignancy is this very reminder that the world of humans is complex to the point where we may be actors on the same stage, but we are seldom in the same play. And yet, in the end, a finale involving all actors is assumed necessary.” (Ooi 2009: 52)

Published in 1979, Ileto’s work had a tremendous influence on Filipino intellectuals who were struggling against dictatorial suppression. His book about peasant resistance during the revolutionary period in Philippine history served perfectly as an allegory for the present time. Ileto could show that in this crucial period the relation between Catholicism and anti-colonial resistance was not contradictory but complementary. A new window of self-perception was opened: religion, especially the Catholicism of the Philippine peasants, was discovered as a source of cultural identity. Christian images, symbols and semantics, motifs of suffering and sacrifice, martyrdom and salvation were recognised as a potential for unrest and liberation. They served as catalysers for a peculiar alchemy which

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made “the multiethnic imperial identity transform into a passionately felt new community” (Reid 2009: 26), at least potentially. Religion henceforth became part of the nationalist discourse. It was not only the peasants of the 19th century, moved by the Pasyon, who believed in sacrifice for a worthy cause. It was also José Rizal who became identified with the suffering Christ. Both figures “at once pathetic and prophetic” were mobilised “to explain the events that began with the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983 and ended with the People Power Revolt in 1986” (Rafael 2000: 211).22 Ileto’s plea to take popular religion seriously stimulated further academic research. Alfred W. McCoy (1982) examined peasant revolts in the Western Visayan part of the country. He discerned animism as the dominant spiritual force and the core of what McCoy calls “peasant ideology”. Characteristic of that local cosmology are the omnipresence of spirits with greater or lesser powers, and the Babaylan, a male or female trance-medium and ritual expert who constitutes its charismatic centre. Important features of this peasant religion are protective amulets, a spiritually endowed leadership, and a conception of political and natural powers in magical terms.23 “Folk catholicism” as an analytical category has to be reconsidered: “The term ‘folk Catholicism’ has been used to describe the existing syncretism, but it is not an altogether accurate description if by ‘folk Catholicism’ one means the survival of pagan influences in a rural Catholic faith. In the Western Visayas, the reverse is true – a few Catholic practices such as Latin invocations, saints’ images, and medallions have been incorporated into a pagan religion that remains the dominant religious experience of the region’s peasantry.” (McCoy 1982: 164)

22 “Ninoy and Rizal,” Vicente Rafael (2000: 211f.) resumes, “seemed to merge into a single narrative frame that harked back to the themes of the Pasyon: of innocent lives forced to undergo humiliation at the hands of alien forces; of unjustified deaths both shocking and public; of massive responses of pity and prayer that would, in mobilizing alternative communities of resistance, finally drive away the forces of oppression and pave the way for some kind of liberation. In place of the class-based militancy of the National Democratic Front and Communist Party of the Philippines, this particular narrative drew on cross-class religiosity, positing a sacred hierarchy within which all other hierarchies would be subsumed and reordered”. 23 In the region of the Central Visayas, the image of Sto. Niño, the Christ Child, has provided an enduring material and emotional source of power for the popular imagination since the 16th century (cf. Bautista 2010a, Bräunlein 2009).

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McCoy’s comparison of modern peasant revolts in Mindanao, the Visayas, and the Tagalog region unveils “a spectrum of conceptual development ranging from an animist based millennialism to folk Christian aspirations inspired by a positive model of a utopian state” (McCoy 1982: 180f.). Alfred McCoy not only links historical research into peasant rebellions with the reconstruction of an animist peasant religion, but also places that religion in a wider pan-Asian horizon. He identifies the mythical motif of the Naga serpent which connects Philippine animism to the “Indianization” process of Southeast Asia during the 2nd to 15th centuries.24 In the 1980s, Reynaldo Ileto and Alfred McCoy complemented the scholarly perspective on popular religion in the Philippines. Both linked popular anticolonial uprisings with religion, indigenous cosmologies with “world religions” (Christianity or Hinduism), and both impressively demonstrated the value of an approach which privileges the local history of religion. Most notably, both scholars emphasised that familiar and catchy dichotomies such as coloniser– victim, giver–taker, authentic–inauthentic are too simple.

M T . B ANAHAW MESSIANISM AS PECULIAR SPIRITUALITY ?

F ILIPINO

Although McCoy demonstrated the persistence of animism, or what he called peasant ideology, as a basic stratum of Philippine religion, nationalist scholars did not cherish McCoy’s approach and findings, but rather ignored them. From their perspective, the implication that Filipino traditions and culture are somehow “borrowed”, coming from elsewhere, has to be countered.25 By contrast, Ileto’s study was passionately debated within the Filipino academe, because he, as a Filipino historian, shed new light on agents and agency of the Filipino revolution and the question of nationalism and its legitimate representatives.

24 McCoy draws here on the “farther India” thesis of the French scholar George Coedès (1886-1969), who linked the proliferation of formal Hindu courts, including palaces and monuments, with the wider penetration of the region by Indian scripts, vocabulary, ritual elements, cosmology and demonology (Coedès 1968). 25 In the aftermath of the EDSA events, social anthropologist John P. McAndrew made reference to McCoy’s findings on Southeast Asian animism, considering “the indigenous religious tradition as an embryonic expression of Philippine counterconsciousness” (McAndrew 1987: 61).

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Animism, nevertheless, was ennobled as the primordial religion of the Filipinos by the anthropologist Prospero Covar, distinguished proponent of Pilipinolohiya – Filipinology (cf. Covar 1991, 1998). Starting in the 1960s, he studied messianic communities, particularly the Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi – The Church of the Banner of the Race – in the province of Laguna, Luzon (Covar 1961, 1975, 1998). This messianic movement was established around 1940 and its members revered Dr. Jose Rizal as a new Christ. Besides the Bible, Rizal’s El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere are considered Holy Scriptures. The adherents merge traditional beliefs, Catholic and Protestant Christianity, and a rigorous nationalism. Through his fieldwork, Covar became interested in various similar religious communities, all situated on the slopes of Mt. Banahaw, an active volcano in the province of Quezon. More than 100 sites, such as rivers, rocks, anthills, caves and peaks are recognised as sacred. The whole area is famous for its powerful anting-anting – amulets – which attract healers of various kinds. All the worshippers share the conviction that these sacred sites were once mystically, i.e. by means of the four archangels, transferred from ancient Palestine to Banahaw. Furthermore, many devotees state that Christianity existed on the Philippines long before the Spaniards arrived, and its original form has been preserved at Mt. Banahaw. Many of the Banahaw millenarians aspire to absolute self-reliance. According to Covar, the eclectic cosmology of the Iglesa Watawat and other religio-nationalist groups is based on animism, the belief in “nature spirits”, the role of Dr. Rizal as a messiah, and Christianity, with a reframed doctrine of the Holy Trinity, consisting of Jehovah, Jesus, and Jose. The veneration and manipulation of spirits is a crucial part of this belief system. “These spirits possess power, knowledge, or amulets about various things. These are bestowed on select people. Mountains, caves, swamps, rivers, waterfalls, plants, animals, even humans have their very own powers. The power may be obtained through the cultivation of a clean heart, conscience, and spirit and through the meticulous adherence to ritual, such as fervent praying.” (Covar 1980: 77; Aquino 2004: 115)

For Covar, such a mystical messianism represents a peculiar Filipino spirituality, characterised by cleansing of the kalooban (inner self) and pagpapakatao (aspiring for humaneness). Teresita Obusan, who, in the footsteps of Covar, researched a “Filipino folk religion” at Banahaw, stresses a reversed concept of folk Christianity: “Filipino traditional religion shaped the Christian elements incorporated into its system, and not vice versa, as is generally taught” (Obusan 1991: 90; Wendt 1997: 122). For scholars determined to decolonise knowledge and uncover indigenous and

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authentic Filipino religion, the mystical nationalism of the Banahaw religiosity provides an ideal field of inquiry.26 Only recently the Banahaw mountain massif, for 150 years a known habitat for communities usually categorised as “alternative sects”, became a popular pilgrimage site. The majority of the tens of thousands of pilgrims belong to the urban middle class of Manila. They combine mountaineering with visiting sacred sites, the discovery of the “powers of nature” with New Age spirituality. Since the late 1980s, Banahaw has satisfied the spiritual desires of people, frustrated by politics and stressed out by the pressures of urban living and neo-liberal working conditions. Sporty nature lovers, mountain climbers, ecological activists, feminists, New Agers, traditional and post-modern healers, even Catholic theologians feel equally attracted. Moving forces behind such an enthusiasm are the need for extraordinary experiences, i.e. encounters with powerful spirits in magic locations, but also the certainty that Banahaw offers something authentic and spiritual, Filipino uniqueness. Not least, pilgrimage to Mt. Banahaw is the search for true Filipino roots (Wendt 1997: 120). The Banahaw “boom” parallels the late advent of religious alternatives in the Philippines, consisting “of eclectic forms of religion and religiosity from born-again to new age, from beliefs in reincarnation to gleeful fantasies about aliens from outer space” (Rafael 2000: 191).

ANTI - ESSENTIALIST AND POST - NATIONALIST APPROACHES : “L OCALISING ” AND “ TRANSLATING ” C HRISTIANITY Without doubt, Spanish colonialism was not a peaceful enterprise. Colonial order was forcefully implemented and violence was part of it. However, a growing sensibility for the local situation and scholarly acknowledgment of a “nonlinear emplotment of Philippine history” (Ileto 1997) have opened up new windows on encounters, mutual perception and interaction in the colonial setting beyond “either-or” dichotomies. The transformations caused by colonialism and Christianity have been analysed through the lenses of new key concepts such as “localiza-

26 Vitaliano R. Gorospe, S.J., a Filipino Catholic theologian and university professor, discovered the “power mountain” (cf. Gorospe 1992). Floro C. Quibuyen (1991) offers a feminist, “counter-hegemonic discourse” of the Banahaw Church “Ciudad Mistica de Dios”. After her fieldwork at Banahaw, Smita Lahiri published on “Filipino Nationalism through Mt. Banahaw” (2005).

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tion” and “translation”. It was the eminent historian Oliver W. Wolters who coined the concept “localization” as an analytical tool. Deliberately and strategically, Wolters avoids characterising the foreign-indigenous encounters in Southeast Asia under the headings of “syncretism”, “assimilation”, “adaption”. It is more convincing, he argues, to analyse the advent of various “world religions” such as Islam, Hinduism or Christianity in mainland or insular Southeast Asia as “local statements”. Such a view is more unbiased than the commonly accepted and all too convenient label “syncretism”. “The term ‘localization’ has the merit of calling our attention to something else outside the foreign materials. One way of conceptualizing ‘something else’ is as a local statement, of cultural interest but not necessarily in written form, into which foreign elements have retreated.” (Wolters 1999[1982]: 57)

Installing the local as the angle of historical perception is neither banal nor negligible. By directing our attention to the notion of “something else” in the study of “local” religions and cosmologies, Wolters gives proof of its analytical potentiality. “I hasten to add that only the awareness of a ‘something else’ prevents the notion of ‘localization’ from being trivial. These ‘local statements,’ generated from interactions between foreign fragments and indigenous preoccupations, comprised a range of experiences: for example, relationships between local spirits and the ‘Hindu’ pantheon and how religious and political relationships overlapped in Khmer elitist society; the dispersal of foreign materials in Khmer and Malay society; the value of royal gifts in Malay society; the blending of tantric and indigenous notions of sanctity in Borneo; how Visnu in Balinese society came to represent new men from the periphery of ancestor groups; the Tagalog localization of Christ’s Passion; how Angkor Wat, with its profusion of Hindu materials, represented the privilege of living in Suryavarman II’s generation; a Vietnamese local statement that called attention to the novelty of the Vietnamese dynastic institution.” (Wolters 1999[1982]: 174)

The passion Catholicism in the Philippines, at least in Central-Luzon, can be regarded as a local statement, as an interaction between the foreign religion and local culture. Deceptive and misleading dualisms, such as “great” and “little” tradition, “folk” and “world” religion, are avoided. The historian Vicente L. Rafael fully sympathises with Wolter’s approach on “localization” and himself adds a further equally promising analytical dimension, namely “translation”. Here, translation is meant both as a linguistic tech-

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nique and a cultural operation. As in Ileto’s “Pasyon and Revolution”, general topics in Rafael’s influential “Contracting Colonialism” (1988) are religion, resistance and cultural identity. Unlike Ileto, however, he concentrates on the missionaries’ attempts to convert Manila’s populace to Christianity, and the responses of the converted. The procedure of translating Spanish sermons into Tagalog during the early period of Spanish rule is one central focus. Due to the encoded notions of authority and exchange, catechetical texts were conceived as a means of domination by the Spaniards. Through translation, power relationships were deliberately introduced into Tagalog culture. Rafael shows the dialectics of such power implementation by considering the Tagalog responses to this process. Rafael scrutinises untranslatable native concepts of exchange, reciprocal indebtedness (utang na loob) and shame (hiya). Christianity was phrased in the idiom of hiya and utang na loob, and so “the natives ‘converted’, that is, availed themselves of the sacraments as a way of entering into a debt transaction with the Spaniards and their God” (Rafael 1988: 127). Confession became a key procedure for that process. “Confessional discourse, as with the sudden turn to the other sacraments, tended to be motivated [...] by the fear of hiya and the desire to establish utang na loob ties with those at the top of the colonial hierarchy. What emerged was confession without ‘sin’, conversion in a state of distraction [...]. Converting conversion and confusing confession, the Tagalogs submitted while at the same time hollowing out the Spanish call to submission.” (Rafael 1988: 134 f.)

For the Spaniards translation was aimed at the reduction of native language and culture to objects accessible to imperial interventions. For the Tagalogs, “translation was a process less of internalizing colonial-Christian conventions than of evading their totalizing grip by repeatedly marking the differences between their language and interests and those of the Spaniards.” (Rafael 1988: 211)

Rafael unravels the complex web of submission and resistance by depicting the colonised not as mere passive recipients, but as interactive subjects with distinct intentions and the ability to form power relations and interests in the colonial setting. Finally, “there was no conversion at all because of the conflicting signsystems constituting the Spanish and Tagalog languages, which rendered impossible the translation of concepts from one into the other. The converts used the missionaries for their own ends”, as Ileto summarises Rafaels argument (1986: 8). Thus, Rafael’s work corroborates Anthony Reid’s thesis of a so called “ver-

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nacularizing” process which took place in the long 18th century all over Southeast Asia.27 By reconsidering the act of translating and the binary opposition between “original” and “translation”, Rafael highlights activities of power negotiation and persuasion politics in the colonial setting. The colonial encounter between the Tagalogs and the Spaniards is interpreted as a dialectical one. Hybridity is celebrated as a creative and proliferous state, and not as a deplorable or imperfect condition.28

U NIVERSAL C HRISTIANITY

AND LOCAL C HRISTIANITIES : CHALLENGES FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF C HRISTIANITY The innovative strength of both Ileto’s and Rafael’s work is reflected in the larger cultural analysis they offer. Notions of “cultural syncretism” and “historical synthesis” are no longer relevant. More important are cultural processes in local contexts, an actor-oriented approach and the paradigm of a power-religion correlation. Thus, “popular religion” is a matter of constant negotiation which can be meaningfully analysed only in its historical and local context. Inspired by Rafael’s work and other studies of Christian conversion, Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper offer a new view of colonialism, Christianisation and indigenous response as a dialectical process, generating innovative results that fall into a thought-provoking “neither-nor” category. “In the Philippines as much as in Africa, people heard what Christian missionaries had to say but scrambled the message – sometimes finding in the mission community something valuable and meaningful to them, sometimes using their mission education to gain secular advantage, sometimes insisting that their conversion should entitle them to run the religious organizations themselves, and sometimes dismantling both doctrine and organization to build a religious edifice or even a revolutionary movement that was wholly new, neither the Christianity of Europe nor a recognizable variant of local religious practices.” (Stoler/Cooper 1997: 8)

27 See the chapter “Religion in Early Modern Southeast Asia: Synthesizing Global and Local” by Anthony Reid in this volume. 28 Vicente Rafael took part in the “translational turn” of the late 1980s and shaped that turn in a very substantial way (cf. Robinson 1998). On the translational turn in general, see Bachmann-Medick (2009).

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Such a perspective on vernacular Christianities in the Philippines or elsewhere comes along with recent attempts at finding new analytical concepts and categories that replace pejorative terms like “syncretism” or “folk” and the contradictory concept of “popular” culture/religion. Examples of such new analytical concepts are notions of “multiple syncretisms”, “configurations”, James Clifford’s “inventive syncretism” or, inspired by Stuart Hall and Homi Bhabha, religious “creolization” and “hybridity” (cf. Bräunlein 2012: 403-405). It is high time to abolish “Manichaean dichotomies” such as coloniser–colonised or giver–taker (Stoler/Cooper 1997: 7). However, the reconfiguration of a foreign culture and religion as a hybrid bricolage of Western and indigenous elements, presupposes the question “hybrid of what?”. Thus the danger of a paradoxical reinforcement of binary equations is lurking (Bräunlein 2012: 403f.). In former times, and in the tradition of Robert Redfield’s “little/great” division, anthropologists studied the local and the popular as opposed to the elite or orthodox tradition. Anthropologists modestly accepted their role as experts for the cultural-specific approach, and subscribed to cultural relativism with good reason. The job of reasoning about the essence of Buddhism, Islam or Christianity was left to religionists and theologians who, by the way, were not really concerned how religions are lived. The growing interest in the anthropological and sociological study of “Global Christianity” has changed such a division of labour.29 The ambitious ongoing project of an “anthropology of Christianity” adds an elaborate theoretical level of reflection here (cf. Robbins 2003; Cannell 2006).The problem of defining its subject is central to this anthropological endeavour. The value of studying local Christianities is indisputable, yet the Christian theological claim to universality, without any regard for the spatial confines of culture, is equally indisputable. Labels such as Filipino Catholicism or nonEuropean Christianity seem to be contradictory against the background of such a self-conception, which is shared by theologians as well as laypeople. Hence, the anthropology of Christianity, as Simon Coleman suggests, has to respond to the need to represent social realities as “authentically different” or as “different and therefore authentic” (Coleman 2007: 20). The well-known Philippine scholar Fernando N. Zialcita recommends crosscultural comparison and analyses as antidotes against essentialism. After investigating Islam in Central Java, the Philippine Maranao and Christianity among the

29 Although the Christian religion has always been global from the year one, the specific coinage “Global Christianity” has been under more intense debate for a decade. This can be explained by the continuing growth of Pentecostal churches and charismatic versions of Christianity worldwide (cf. Jenkins 2002).

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Germanic people, he concludes with a programmatic assessment: “We Are All Mestizos” (Zialcita 2005: 211-238). Jon Bialecki meets the challenge of the paradoxical nature of Christianity, being local and universal at the same time, by proposing a Deleuzian-derived assemblage theory. He promotes the view of Christianity as a virtual object, “to have a sense for the range and complexity of actualized elements from it, so that we can grasp how these actualized elements themselves can be folded into larger assemblages” (Bialecki 2012: 313).30 Through socio-anthropological concepts such as “configurations” or “assemblage”, but also through historical approaches such as “histoire croisée” (cf. Bräunlein 2012), the global and local dimensions of Western and non-Western Christianity can be researched in a non-dichotomous constellation. Finally, the imminent danger of reifying religion, whether in terms of its claim to be a “world religion” or in terms of its rites and practices as local manifestations, is recognised and averted.

C LOSING REMARKS My paper started in 18th century Europe, in order to recall the simple fact that disciplines such as socio-cultural anthropology, folklore studies, or history were formed in those turbulent times when European nations were nascent. Key terms such as the people, nation and tradition, as well as concepts of the popular and the elite became both political and academic terms. Herder’s ideas of Volk and Volksgeist were contested in the political struggle for national unity, and consequently for national identity. The European notion of nation made its global career together with the notion of identity, whether individual or collective, as something essentially homogeneous, although individualistic, “spirited” and therefore authentic. In the postcolonial struggles for self-determination, nation and identity were only thinkable along these lines. The internal complexity of cultures and histories, languages and ethnicities had to be surmounted by that powerful imaginary of collective oneness. Among the indigenous elite the fear prevailed that their identity and

30 This, Bialecki comments, “is something that has been already occurring in the anthropology of Christianity, perhaps most explicitly in Simon Coleman’s thinking through Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity as a ‘part culture... worldviews meant for export but often in tension with the values of any given host society’.” (Bialecki 2012: 313, citing Coleman 2006: 3)

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culture would be bastardised, somehow carrying the stigma of being illegitimate, as compared to the seemingly holistic nature of the colonialist national character. A consistent and integrative narrative of the Filipino nation was the pressing political requirement of the day, especially in the years after independence. Philippine academics, particularly historians and social scientists, offered intellectual instruments for the society as a whole. By means of such tools, the Filipino people were empowered to differentiate between “us” and “them”. Filipino uniqueness could be disclosed only by defining its other, whether the English language, wrong consciousness, the coloniser’s religion or misinterpreted history and culture. Scholarly projects such as Pantayong Pananaw, Pilipinolohiya, Sikolohiyang Pilipino, or the nationalist class-based reconstruction of history drew lines between colonial-anti-colonial, and Asia and the Filipino people. Discourses on popular religion and tradition have always been part of this project. But Catholicism was fraught with problems. The colonisers’ “gift” was intended to reinforce submission, but, idiosyncratically interpreted by the people, it turned into the main source of national identity, and occasionally inspired uprisings. The scholarly evaluation of Christianity happened after the so-called EDSA revolt which ended the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. “People’s Power” was interpreted by its participants as a basically Catholic upheaval and this event was reminiscent of a centuries-long religiously motivated anti-colonial resistance. Thus Christianity was seen as being authentically Filipino, in the public arena as well as in the academe, and research on Philippine indigenous religions was intensified. Due to the post-colonial and translation turn in the social sciences, Philippine Christianity was analysed increasingly against the background of localised, reciprocal processes. As a result of efforts to scrutinise post-colonial identity, the terms “folk”, “popular” or “syncretistic Catholicism” lost their self-explanatory and simplifying quality. At least in the scholarly discourse, the recognition prevailed that identity is psychologically and culturally formed. Culture, in turn, is always complex and heterogeneous. Purity of culture or primordial identity are ideological and idealised constructs. Thus, the search for authentic origins, the definition of what is considered the Filipino people and the popular, is always governed by ambiguous “politics of epistemologies”, as Ann Laura Stoler (1997) lucidly showed a while ago. Today, “folk Catholicism” or “popular Christianity” is not banned from the academic vocabulary, but sensitive scholars know that these terms need always further explanation. Julius Bautista, for example, who contributed an article on “Filipino Roman Catholicism” to the catalogue of the prestigious Asian Civilisa-

W HO DEFINES “ THE P OPULAR ”? | 105

tions Museum of Singapore, explains the term folk Catholicism to a wider audience in an exemplary manner: “While ‘folk Catholicism’ may be seen as a pejorative term, it remains a fact that many Filipinos do not see their faith as diminished or corrupted. Rather, theirs is a faith that is integrated into the very fabric of life

– such as in praying to both animist spirits and pa– without a sense of duality or theological fric-

tron saints in harvest time, for example tion.” (Bautista 2010b: 33)

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Constantino, Renato (1975): The Philippines: A Past revisited. (Vol. I), Quezon City: Tala Pub. Services. Covar, Prospero (1961): The Watawat ng Lahi: Sociological Study of a Social Movement. Unpubl. MA thesis in Sociology, University of the Philippines, Diliman/Quezon City, pp. 332. Covar, Prospero (1975): The Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi — An Anthropological Study of a Social Movement in the Philippines. Unpubl. PhD dissertation in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tuscon, pp. 161. Covar, Propero (1980): “Potensiya, Bisa at Anting-Anting”, in: Asian Studies 18, pp. 71–78. Covar, Prospero (1991): “Pilipinolohiya”, in: Violeta Bautista/Rogelia Pe-Pua (Eds.), Pilipinolohiya: Kasaysayan, Pilosopiya at Pananaliksik, Manila: Kalikasan Press, pp. 44. Covar, Prospero (1998): Larangan: Seminal Essays on Philippine Culture, Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Curaming, Rommel A. (2008): “Contextual Factors in the Analysis of StateHistorian Relations in Indonesia and the Philippines”, in: Philippine Studies 56.2, pp. 123–150. Curaming, Rommel A. (2012): “The making of a ‘classic’ in South East Asian studies. Another look at Kahin, Agoncillo and the revolutions”, in: South East Asia Research 20.4, pp. 595–609. Diokno, Maria Serena (1997): “Philippine Nationalist Historiography and the Challenge of New Paradigms”, in: Diliman Review 45, pp 2-3. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland/Nielsen, Finn Sievert (2001): A History of Anthropology, London: Pluto Press. Gorospe, Vitaliano R., S.J. (1992): Banahaw. Conversations with a Pilgrim to the Power Mountain, Makati: Bookmark. Guerrero, Amado (1971): Philippine Society and Revolution, Hongkong: Ta Kung Pao. Guillermo, Ramon (2003): “Exposition, Critique and New Directions for Pantayong Pananaw”, in: Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia 3, pp. 2-3. Guillermo, Ramon (2009): Pook at Paninindigan: kritika ng pantayong pananaw, Diliman, Quezon City: The University of the Philippines Press. Hall, Stuart (1973): Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse, Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. Hogan, Trevor (2006): “In but not of Asia: Reflections on Philippine Nationalism as Discourse, Project and Evaluation”, in: Thesis Eleven 84, pp. 115132.

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Tan, Samuel K. (2011): The History of the Philippines, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Tiongson, Nicanor (1976): “Pasyon: the best known Filipino book”, in: Archipelago 4, pp. 1-28. Wolfe, Tom (2012): Back to Blood, New York: Little, Brown, and Company. Trimillos, Ricardo D. (1992): “Pasyon: Lenten Observance of the Philippines as Southeast Asian Theater”, in: Kathy Foley (Ed.), Essays on Southeast Asian performing arts: Local Manifestations and Cross-Cultural Implications, Berkeley: International and Area Studies, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, pp. 5-22. Wendt, Reinhard (1997): “The Revitalization of Indigenous Traditions and the Prospects of Cultural Decolonization in the Philippines”. In: Sri KuhntSaptodewo/Volker Grabowski/Martin Großheim (Eds.), Nationalism and Cultural Revival in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the Centre and the Region, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 119-131. Wolters, Oliver W. (1999, revised edition [1982]): History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives (Studies on Southeast Asia), Ithaca/New Yorl: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. Zialcita, Fernando N. (2005): “We are All Mestizos”, in: Fernando N. Zialcita, Authentic though not Exotic. Essays on Filipino Identity, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, pp. 211-236.

Part II: Popular(ised) Religions in Asia

Concepts of (Protestant) Christian Identity in Chinese Microblogs K RISTIN S HI -K UPFER

1

I NTRODUCTION

In present-day China you may meet a Tibetan youngster wearing earrings in the shape of a Christian cross. When asked about being a Christian, you are likely to hear him or her reply: “I mainly like the shape” or “It is for good luck”. You may also meet a private entrepreneur holding Christian prayer sessions for his company members or hosting weekend services in his company’s meeting room. Passionate believers will frequently mention their beliefs and read their Bible on the subway. When confronted by police, Christian dissidents even try to engage the officers in theological talks. However, public statements and activities of Christian – or any other religious – identities are still linked with limits and risks. Party cadres are forbidden to state or practice any religious belief (Zhu 2011).1 Nobody is legally allowed to 1

The Chinese constitution protects the freedom of religious belief related to “normal religious activities”. While no official definition for “normal” is given, most Chinese religious scholars interpret it as “legally recognized” (cf. Tao n.d.). The Chinese Communist leadership has taken over the religious concept and policy established by the Nationalist (Guomindang) government in the 1920s. The Chinese government recognizes Protestantism, Catholicism, Daois m, Buddhism, and Islam as official religious traditions protected by related legal stipulations. They can, in accordance with various legal stipulations, build and register religious sites, recruit and educate clergy, and

also

practice

religious

activities

within

these

registered

sites.

Cf.

Goossaert/Palmer 2011: 58ff.). For the complexity of the notion “religion” in Chinese history, see Yang 2008: 11ff.

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proselytize outside of registered places of worship.2 For several reasons, Christian-related public statements and activities provoke stronger and stricter reactions from the Chinese authorities than other religious traditions. First, Christians played an active role within the democratic transitions in Eastern Europe and South Korea. Second, due to their congregational structure, Christians possess both a strong organizational base and transnational networks. Third, more than the rather world-detaching religious like Buddhism and Daoism, the Christian faith urges believers to speak up for social justice and freedom, even against the authorities if necessary. Many well-known human rights activists in China are Christians.3 Christian intellectuals and entrepreneurs tend to stay away from the often overcrowded and rather old-aged, officially registered “Three Self”4 churches. They start their own worship meetings within private flats or offices. If these meetings get too big or garner too much publicity, the relevant Chinese authorities revoke their rental contracts, ban them from meeting altogether, or arrest their members for “disturbance of social order”, like in the prominent case of the “Shouwang Church” in Beijing (cf. China Aid Association n.d.; Beijing Shouwangjiaohui n.d.). Statements of Christian identity normally have not elicited widespread public or media attention – until last July when the actress Lü Liping, well known throughout the nation, called homosexuality a crime loathed by God. In reaction to a post on the legalization of gay marriage in New York, she wrote on her Sina microblog account: “Even if anti-homosexuality becomes illegal someday, I will keep preaching: homosexuality is a crime” (Wang 2011). Her remarks triggered ten thousands of comments, entered the daily hit lists of “hot topics” on the microblog platform, Sina Weibo, and were also widely reported in the Chinese online media (e.g. Lin n.d.; Zheng 2011; Anonymous n.d.). For the first time, 2

All religious congregations officially need to register with the Bureau of Religious Affairs to obtain a legal status. Evangelism and religious rituals are not allowed outside these registered places of worship. Within the Christian context, lay persons and foreigners are not allowed to preach to Chinese Christians. For state policy towards Christianity and Christians in China, see Vala 2012 and Hong 2012.

3

For example, the lawyers Gao Zhisheng, Chen Guangcheng, and Ni Yulan or scholars

4

“Three Self” refers to the three principles of self-governance, self-support (financial

like Zhang Boli, Fan Yafeng, and writer Yu Jie are all stated Christians. independence from foreigners), and self-propagation (indigenous missionary work) as the doctrine of the state-sanctioned umbrella organization of all registered Protestant churches, the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China. For the history of the “Three Self” doctrine, see Bays 2012.

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both homosexuality and Christianity5 became topics of widespread discussion on identity and values within the Chinese society. Building on these observations, this study sets out to discover how Chinese netizens adopt Christianity to shape and communicate their own virtual identity.6 I am particularly interested in what kind of Christian concepts the users construct against a perceived tradition of Christianity and how they relate these concepts to their own lifeworld. By doing so, I hope to shed some light on the overall scope and the process of mediatization, and thereby on the popularization of Christianity within Chinese society as an example of a non-European context. Regarding the Chinese Internet, I have chosen to focus on microblogging (weibo) services since they represent the most dynamic and pluralistic online platform in China. The four most used providers of microblogging services (the companies Sina, Netease, Tencent, and Sohu, comparable to Twitter) were established in 2009 (Incitez 2011a). Their number of registered users reached nearly 200 million at the end of 2010 (CNNIC 2011). With free registration using any name7 and e-mail address, Chinese microblogging services allow users to communicate personal activities, comments, and information using up to 140 Chinese characters for each post. The services also allow uploads of unrestricted multimedia content like photos or videos. Account users can choose to follow other users (guanzhu) and become their fans (fensi). As a result, posts by followed bloggers are displayed on the main starting page of one’s profile. Besides writing new posts themselves, users can forward other users’ posts and/or comment about them (cf. Yu/Asur/Huberman 2011). Since the 5

In Chinese, the term “jidujiao” refers both to “Christianity” and “Protestantism”, but clearly not to “Catholicism”. Following the Chinese usage, the term “Christianity” is used interchangeably with “Protestantism” unless otherwise indicated.

6

As this study is primarily concerned with the popularization of Christianity as mediatisation via the Internet, the offline identity of the users is not taken into account.

7

On 16 March 2012, Sina, Netease, Tencent, and Sohu announced the start of a “realname registration system” (shimingzhi), following earlier calls and regulations by government agencies related to web services like blogs, email accounts, and discussion forums. On 28 December 2012, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passed the “Decision on Strengthening Protection of Online Information” which asks Internet users to provide his/her real identity when using web services, calls on Internet providers to protect personal information, and bans any misuse, stealing, or selling of user identities (Anonymous 2012). The real-name registration policy has not been implemented fully at the time of writing (September 2013). Sina Weibo has only enforced this policy for new account registrations (personal information).

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microblogging service of Sina, called Sina Weibo, is the most influential and most widely used such site in China, I chose it as the exemplary medium for this analysis (Incitez 2011b). The first part of this paper presents an overview of the presence of Christianity within the context of microblogging services. Second, taking a closer look at Sina Weibo, functional elements that can be used to state identity will be described. By examining a sample of microblog users, different concepts of Christian identity will be identified and analysed in the third and last part.

2

M ICROBLOGS

AND

C HRISTIANITY

IN

C HINA

2.1 Microblogs, Religion, and Identity Microblogs are one particular form of social networking services (SNS) which can be defined as “… web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (Boyd/Ellison 2007: 211). Research on microblogs as part of social media has mushroomed during the last three years in the global academic community. It mainly deals with five aspects: (1) the private sphere and data protection, (2) relationships and interaction within SNS, (3) the self-presentation of users, often related to youth and students, (4) users’ motivation to log on to specific SNS, and (5) various aspects of social marketing (cf. Richter/Riemer/vom Brocke 2011; Boyd/Ellison 2007). Concerning the third aspect, which is closely related to the issue of identity, several studies have been undertaken within the Chinese context (Peng/Fang 2012; Herold 2011; Chu/Choi 2010). While a large corpus of literature on the relationship between media and religion exists covering various country studies (Baffelli 2011; Campell 2012; Stout 2012; Lynch 2012), research on religion and social media is overall still rather limited (cf. Roislien 2011; Cheong 2011; Cheong 2012). Surprisingly, Christianity is the only religion in China whose followers can choose among at least three microblogging platforms specially offered to them.8

8

All search results were conducted using the official Chinese names for “Christianity” (jidujiao), “Buddhism” (fojiao), “Daoism” (daojiao), and “Islam” (yisilanjiao). I am aware that this choice can distort results as religious identity might be also expressed

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However, all three platforms have been set up by one company, an IT company named Hangzhou Godly Word Information and Technology Limited (Hangzhou shenhua xinxi jishu youxian gongsi).9 The three platforms are called “Christianity Microblog” (jidujiao weibo), “Good Shepard” (hao muren), and “Wild Lily” (ye baihe), with the latter subtitled “A Space for Christians”. In terms of layout and functional elements, they all look like copycats of Sina Weibo. Consequently, interested users can log in via an already registered Sina Weibo account (same ID and password). Therefore, most of their account names can be also found on Sina Weibo. According to various spot tests, the content of these platforms seems to consist only of Christian-related topics like Bible study, experiences with God, prayer, and worship. Non-Christian content cannot be found. Either the platforms’ followers are highly committed Christians seeking to maintain a specialized forum or posts related to other topics are somehow filtered and deleted. The scope of the platforms is comparably small: on the largest platform, “Christian Microblog”, the most popular netizens attracted some 2,000 followers while on Sina Weibo the top ten bloggers all have around 20 million fans. 2.2 Christianity on Sina Weibo Placing Christianity within the context of Sina Weibo, and again comparing it with the other five state-recognized religions in China, it becomes clear that while Christianity is the second most popular term online, it still has a much weaker presence than Buddhism as an overall phenomenon on the Internet. Regarding the official names for the five recognized religions, a much larger group of verified users has chosen a Buddhist virtual identity marker in any part of their profile (for example as part of tags, groups, online or offline activities, or votes concerning related topics or judgements).10 To get one’s account verified by Sina Weibo, one must provide various materials, including a scanned copy of personal identification and documents from one’s work unit (cf. Sina n.d.). using other terms (e.g. “Jesus”, “Bible”, or “God”). But the selection used provides a good base for comparison. 9

The word “shenhua” might be translated as “God’s word”. But “shen” might also be translated as “divine” and is used in official Chinese references like “shenzhou” (divine land), a traditional name for ancient China, or “shenzhou” (divine vessel), used for China’s spacecraft carriers.

10 To verify my results, I also searched with other terms and definitions than the official Chinese names for the five above-mentioned religions. However, I never found a word producing more verified users than the 221 mentioned in Table 1.

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Table 1: Search Results of Religions on Sina Weibo Number of

Number

Number

Number

Number

Number

Number

Number of …

Posts Con-

of

of

of Tags

of

of

of Votes

Containing the

taining…

Total

Verified

by

Groups

Activities

(toupiao)

Users

Users

Verified

(weiqun)

(huodong)

170

187

137

276

terms ….

Users Christianity

3,319,0

(Protestantism)1

81

2

500+

221

… 17

…as part of name

…5

… school

… 10

…company Catholicism

1,480,329

500+

81

500+

49

40

112

16,125,966

500+

None

500+

500+

500+

390

1,569,024

500+

None

108

74

162

166

Islam

Not

336

16

10

10

11

None

(Yisilanjiao)

available3

(Tianzhujiao) Buddhism (Fojiao) Daoism (Daojiao)

1

The term “jidujiao” is used to refer to both “Christianity” and “Protestantism”, but normally not to Catholicism.

2

The number of displayed users is limited to 500.

3

Upon searching, the following statement appeared below the search window: “According to relevant laws and policies, search results on Islam cannot be displayed”.

Verified users relating their profiles to “Christianity” mostly attach the term to their name. A professional attachment without a private one, meaning “Christianity” only being a part of a company or school name, might be explained by the fact that some people work for Christian-based or Christian-related organizations without being an active Christian. Looking further into the profiles of verified Christian users according to the statistics provided by Sina Weibo, a large majority are older men (a total of 87 users over the age of 30 years, among them 59 in their forties). Concerning verified female users, the largest group (27 users) consists of women over 40.

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This is surprising as the average microblog users u are younger, while the average members of Chinese Christian congregationss are elderly women.11

3

C ONCEPTS

OF

C HRISTIAN I DENTITY

ON

S INA W EIBO

3.1 Profiling Christianity Identifying functional elements provided byy Sina Weibo to shape one’s virtual profile, I took a sample of the first 100 dispplayed verified users and looked for any traces of Christianity, such as wording,, pictures, or Bible citations, within their profile names, their profile introductioon, their tags, their photos, and their membership within groups.12 Chart 1: Screenshot of Displayed Search Ressults for Verified User Profiles Containing “Christianity”

11 On statistics related to microblogs, see CNNIIC (2011). For the social composition of Protestant congregations, see Fiedler (2010). 12 The plugin “Scrap Book” for Mozilla browsers was used to archive the related webpages on a certain date (21 September 2012) so as to provide a common and fixed parameter for a valid comparison. I didn’t conntact the chosen users to avoid any influence on how they shape and communicate Chrristianity.

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Nearly half of all users (49) have put a personal photo on display, emphasizing a strong interest in a unique and individual appearance of their profile ID. Only 12 users used Christian-related pictures, 11 of them showing a cross, either plain, as part of a (church) building, or integrated into their name (see selection at Chart 2): As a result, three main observations can be made (see Table 2). First, a majority of already verified “Christians” express a considerably rich real profile by uploading a profile picture showing their personal portrait13 (49 users) or other Christian-related pictures (12 users, for a selection see Chart 2). Chart 2: Christian-Related Picture Profile of Selected Users

Many users also state their profession (59 users) and occupational affiliation (58 users), often giving detailed addresses. They don’t seem to fear or even consider any negative consequences or discrimination, e.g. at work, when linking themselves to “Christianity”. Table 2: Usage of Functional Elements within Profiles of 100 “Christianity” Users Functional Element

Number of

Functional Element

Users Overall Identity

Number of Users

Self-Introduction

Corporate (bleu V)

27

(Top 3)

Private (orange V)

73

… Biographical

26

Non-Christian

20

… Christian

20

Institution … Non-Christian Philosophy Located in…(Top 3)

Other Elements (Non-Christian

… Beijing

30

Content)

63

… Shanghai

13

… Photos

59

13 As their profiles are verified, the photo most probably shows the user him- or herself.

C ONCEPTS OF (P ROTESTANT ) C HRISTIAN I DENTITY IN CHINESE M ICROBLOGS | 123

… Hong Kong

6

… Groups

49

… Games Followers

Other Elements (Christian Content)

… over 10,000

40

… Groups

28

… over 1,000

49

… Photos

18

… over 100

7

… Links

7

Profile Picture … Personal Photo

49

… Christian-Related

12

… Other (Landscape,

34

Cartoon Figure) Tags (Top 10)

Other Profile Features Profession (Including

59

“Pastor”) Occupational

58

Institution/Affiliation

… Christianity

65

… Christian

19

… Zodiac Signs

15

… Photography

15

University/School

33

… Books

15

Website

17

… Sports

15

E-Mail Address

13

… Jesus

14

Phone Number

11

… TV & Movies

14

Address

7

… English

14

Social Media Platforms

4

… Bible

14

Second, taking tags as indicators of expressing interest, the Christianity-related users show a strong affiliation with this faith (65 out of 100 users tagged “Christianity” within their profile). Additionally, they pay attention to a wide range of topics overall, including zodiac signs which are often critically assessed or opposed by Christian traditions (cf. Johnson/Payne 2004). Third, besides a demonstration of interest in Christianity via tags, membership in virtual, topic-related “groups” and personal photos are the key features for shaping individual user IDs related to “Christianity” (28 users are members of virtual groups related to Christianity and 18 users have posted photos with Christian content, showing, for example, church buildings, scenes from worship services, or Jesus sculptures). Most group memberships and photos, however, relate to non-Christian content like sports, entertainment, or lifestyle (63 users posted photos with non Christian-content and 59 users assigned themselves to groups with non-Christian content).

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3.2 Types of Christian Profiles Building on these results, I focused on users’ choices of localization / contextualization of the term “Christianity” within their profiles. Nine types of Christian user profiles can be derived from this analysis. Table 3: Nine Types of Christian Profiles among 100 Verified User Profiles on Sina Weibo Type of Christian Profile 1. Christian Corporative Users (Not Companies) – Open 2. Christian Cooperative Users (Not Companies) – Concealed

Number 21

3. Professional Christians

9

4. Faith Christians (jidutu) 5. Business Christians (Individuals and Companies)

13 6

6. Christianity as Intellectual Interest 7. Christianity as Tag

12

8. Christianity as Part of Work Affiliation (Address or Name)

8

9. “Pseudo Christian” (wei jidujiaotu)

1

2

28

The majority of corporate users, mostly churches and online platforms, choose to place “Christianity” (jidujiao), “Christian” (noun referring to a person; jidutu), or related Christian terms in their self-introduction that is visible on the searchresults display page, which captures the major aspects of a user profile (see Chart 1). Two IDs have been classified as “concealed” since they do not use any Christian-related wording in their names or self-introductions and are therefore not identifiable as Christian at first glance. Only after a second mouse click on their profile, by which a user’s main profile page is accessed showing all abovementioned functional elements, do “Christianity” and other Christian-related terms (Bible, church) become visible as part of their tags. Both IDs are private publishing houses specialized in Christian books and materials. Given the strict

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state control of the publishing sector, especially related to religious material, their choice of concealment is not surprising (cf. Gardner 2008; Ramstad 2007). The designation “Christians” relates to all profiles where the user asserts him- or herself as a “Christian” in the introduction. As the introduction is readily visible while searching for users, it is assumed that these users want to profile themselves as (committed) Christian believers recognizable at first sight. Subsequently, “Professional Christian” refers to users who state their profession as “pastor” (mushi, chandaoren) or “church worker” (jiaohui tonggong). “Faith Christians” are users listing other professional attachments or none at all, and “Business Christians” points to profiles of stated businessmen or companies. Users who put “Christian”, “Christianity”, or a Bible phrase as a tag or “Christianity” related to their profession have been classified under “Christianity as Intellectual Interest” or “Christianity as Tag” (Tag Christians). Eight users just mentioned “Christianity” as part of their address or work affiliation (e.g. being the manager at a company called US Christian Snow Mountain Catering) or as part of their profession (e.g. Vice-Chairman and ViceDirector of the “Two Organizations” [of Protestantism] in Harbin City14). No other reference to Christianity can be found in their profiles, like tags, pictures, et cetera. One user refers to himself as “Pseudo Christian” (wei jidujiaotu). Whether he aims to express a very self-critical or humorous self-perception or to ridicule other Christians cannot be known with certainty. Taking his stated profession as a lawyer into account, and linking it with the above-mentioned fact that many lawyers dealing with human rights cases refer to themselves as Christians, the user might intend to place himself in a different light.15 Taking a closer look at his profile and his postings, he actively engages in social and political discussions, often as a critic of official government positions.

14 “Two Organizations” is used in Protestantism to name the two Chinese governmentsanctioned Protestant organizations: the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC). Due to the close relationship between these two organizations, they are sometimes mistaken as the same. 15 Activists openly stating their Christian faith are not very well received among some Non-Christian dissidents. They are perceived as intolerant and opportunistic, using a stated Christian identity to secure attention and the funding of Western (often US) foundations and companies (personal communication).

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3.3 Communicating Christian Identity A majority of the analysed users present Christianity as a key part of their virtual profile. How much influence does this stated identification or interest have on the content of their communication? What topics do they employ to express their ideas about Christianity, and to relate this understanding to their own lifeworld and overall discussions within the microblog? Finally, to what extent does this reflect back on their stated virtual expressions of Christianity? In an attempt to find some answers to these questions, a corpus of 100 posts of all 100 users have been chosen (randomly accessed and archived over a one-month period from mid-September to mid-October 2012) and analysed. 16 While the results concerning most types of profiles basically confirmed trends on similar types of Christian identity offline,17 the study focuses on the two most heterogeneous profile types, the “Faith Christians” and “Christianity as Tag”. 3.3.1 Faith Christians The degree of postings concerning Christian content among the Faith Christians varies considerably. None of the postings analysed are totally committed to Christianity, unlike the ones of most Professional Christians. However, at least more than half of each user’s posts are directly or indirectly linked with Christian content. The relationship between personal life experience and faith is the most dominant topic: User “Immanuel Rebecca”: “Thank you, God, that you let me sleep well. I didn’t dream anything, slept until dawn. Now I don’t force anything, I know to be thankful for everything. Although I still find that difficult, still become impatient, still do not do it very well, I want to firmly continue walking towards that holy place!” (11 May 2012, 10:58) User “Sexy Love Baths Little Cat”:

16 As some users tend to more actively post than others, the dates of posts vary considerably. Posts which have only been forwarded without any comment have not been taken into consideration. 17 In addition to the above-mentioned “Culture Christians”, the “Boss Christens”, the “Professional Christians”, and also to some extent the “Christianity as Interest” can likewise be linked to offline Christian identities, cf. Fiedler 2012: 138-52.

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“(My Bible Time) As my old knee injury has recurred lately, all walking hurts, I am distressed by all these health problems. Now I think, maybe God puts some burden onto our burdens and limits us in some things only to give us an unlimited spiritual extension. Because God is comforter, healer, and saviour! Amen!” (1 November 2012, 14:11)

Due to their faith, some users feel that they are different from Non-Christians. User “Poet Shaguang”: “Recently writing a 700,000 character book on Bible study in original language [Hebrew, Greek], am half through. Except praying, eating and sleeping I write all the time. Yesterday after class I shared some thoughts on Christian contemporary literature with a fellow student. She asked me about my intent and purpose of writing such a book. I nearly fainted! Every time I start a new book project, I pray about the topic, and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, I am guided until the end. I really haven’t thought about my intention and purpose. ‘God’s satisfaction’ is both meaningful and has a clear goal.” (15 September 2012, 23:30)

While implicit judgment on Non-Christians is very common, only few users state clear-cut, sometimes pejorative moral judgments, like user “Old Ke [from the city of] Xiamen” commenting on an online video showing a violent conquest of the disputed Senkaku Islands: He [the maker] will go to hell! (26 September 2012, 16:22)

Several Faith Christians frame their Christian faith within broader observations of life, emphasizing its ethical guidance on themes of common interest: User “Immanuel Rebecca”: “A long, wide, high and deep love is the love of God. Can only the love between men and women be called love? Don’t get it wrong! Maybe you really don’t know anything! But I love to love everything possible.” (21 August 2012, 10:16)

By doing so, they often add a new Christian dimension to a previously plain philosophical post. User “Old Ke [from the city of] Xiamen”: “A good thing! Life is a grace of God, everybody should treasure it and make it worthy. [commenting on]

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@Waiting of Middle @Sister Lotus is really fucking shameless, wanting to be a bitch and be praised for it. Today Sister Lotus Assistant put up some posts denying that Lotus has already committed suicide, like ‘Adieu, this world!’ [She] was very upset after posting and said she never jointly hyped anything. Concerning this series of ludicrous events, many netizens were very angry, rebuking these hyping methods as mentally retarded, ‘pretending to be innocent while lying shamelessly’”. (21 September 2012, 17:36) User “Nie Zichan”: “In the landscape [paintings] of [the Russian painter] Levitan I don’t see traces of realism by an atheist, but a religious mood, a Russian heart appearing full of the beauty of tragedy …” (26 October 2012, 15:55)

Commenting on current issues from a perspective of Christianity is again very common. User “Huang Yikun”: “Don’t place all sin on Satan. [commenting on] My prayer No. 1 for China: Heavenly father, full of grace and love, please have mercy on our country and its people. Please stop Satan’s cruel and violent acts stirred by hate, anger and nationalism. Please protect people here against such unwarranted harm. Please heal the long-suppressed pain, mania, grievance and anger. Give calm and comfort. Let more Christians rise, speak up and pray for the truth, plug in the hole. In the name of Jesus, Amen!” (17 September 2012, 9:44)

Some other users state a Christian vision for the future of China even more explicitly. User “Poet Shaguang”: “After three years of ‘Great Leap Forward’ we had three years of ‘Great famine’. I hope that the change China will embrace this time is the faith of the cross. [commenting on] @ Director Sun Haiying: Wu Jinglian warns that we have already entered a period of craziness. He said we have problems similar to the Great Leap Forward in 1958: 1. For money, all means are possible, also the loss of life; 2. Over-exploitation of resources; 3. Worsening of environmental situation […]” (10 October 2012, 13:36) User “CVTV Huang Baoluo”:

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“China should include passages of the Bible in primary school textbooks. Then, China’s future will be even more successful! Let more Chinese be saved! [commenting on a post by user ‘Poet Shaguang’]” (6 October 2012, 18:32)

Some postings of Faith Christians somehow thwart their stated identity as Christian believers. Relating to the ongoing dispute between China and Japan about the Senkaku Islands, user “Old Ke [from the city of] Xiamen” writes: “The Little Japanese should not stir up trouble. Whoever dares to attack the Three Gorges Dam, this will be seen as a nuclear attack on our country. China will immediately strike back! According to Japanese media, the US will relax the limits on the range of the Taiwanese ‘Xiongfeng 2 E’ missile.” (10 October 2012, 02:16)

3.3.2 “Christianity as Tag” The majority of “Tag” Christians work within the arts, fashion, or IT/media industries. They seldom or never communicate Christian content. For many of them, Christianity just seems to be one of several other interests. Some of them display a rather superficial understanding of Christianity. User “Moderator Cici” posted cheerfully about a received gift: 18

“It is the first time I got a gift from this brand, thanks, grace (gan’en)!”

(17 September

2012, 16:07)

Another user named “Korean Jin Zhiyuan” posted: “Friends have sent me this picture [from a Christmas market], looking forward to celebrating Christmas!” (12 December 2011, 12:43)

Most of their postings related to values and life attitudes reveal a rather ambiguous connection with Christian-ascribed attitudes or concepts: User “Deng Zongjian Jim”: “It is not about being egotistical, but about being yourself. [commenting on a cartoon about a man and a women and their donkey; regardless of how they decide to use the donkey (only one riding it, both riding, or both walking beside the donkey), other people will ridicule them]” (22 June 2012, 6:45) 18 “Grace” in Chinese is not limited to Christianity. An an addition to “thanks”, it is only used by Christians (such as in the United States of America).

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User “Cao Xiaoyou”: “Humankind, in the wake of being torn apart, cannot help but expose its most vicious and dark side. But that side is only a part of it. Love and Peace.” (22 October 2012, 17:54) User “Nie Yichan”: “Today is a date to remember. Not you choose life, but life chooses you. Men who have hope respect the unknown, men who have wisdom know their limits. Everything happens naturally, if a clear spring bubbles up on a plateau, this is hollow.” (27 May 2012; 5:31) User “Justin Yang Jin”: “At times when most people only pay attention to how high you fly, I will care whether you are tired or not.” (3 July 2012, 3:22)

Searching for meaning, for answers to questions of life importance, and for comfort might have made them to turn to Christianity as one potential source. User “Little Stone Kevin”: “[talking about Shanghai, with a picture of the city below his post] Red represents fashion, yellow represents money! Cities of evil are never lacking these two colours. […] Here, the so-called “love at first sight” might only happen at that moment you manage to slam the door of your car very naturally. The so-called ‘tender affection’ may happen after you have used your credit card generously […]” (24 June 2012, 22:18) User “Me Dong Xiyang”: “I have decided to let nobody come close. When life comes to an end, I am only a shadow. . . . About being banished and searching, give yourself to people who love you as a gift and leave and stay within their memory.” (29 October 2012, 00:35)

A minority of the users’ posts demonstrate a direct identification with Christianity. Nonetheless, compared with the Faith Christians, they don’t express it in a similarly profound and intense way. User “Sophie Li Hui”: “Today we had Holy Communion, I brought Q to church service. Having eaten the Holy Bread and having drunk the Holy Wine, I am full of joy. Thank you, Lord.” (7 October 2012, 5:40) User “Czech Adult Zhao Ruoxi”:

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“The bell in church always has some healing powers, the sermon of the pastor always helps you to come to a wide clearing, the sound of the worship songs always lets you calm down, the laughter of the children always makes you feel that the world is beautiful […]” (15 July 2012, 9:31) User “Lianzhong Holiday Yu Xuebing”: “With the attitude of a servant Jesus won universal respect, he became the leader of the biggest organization on earth. [commenting on previously voiced service attitudes]” (23 October 2012, 11:08)

During the course of her posting, user “Moderator Cici” underwent a major change concerning her relationship towards and understanding of Christianity. Later posts reflect a growing importance of faith in her life. User “Moderator Cici”: “Worked again 18 hours straight and have been in five cities today! Working, thinking, socializing! Almost too tired to cry! On the road I have been misunderstood, trapped, and hurt! We still should be grateful. I am grateful to the team of Southern TV for working through the whole to get my program done. I am grateful to my colleagues who drove like lightning to get me to the banquet. Grateful for everybody who helped me. Heaven watches over our deeds. To have a clear conscience is the best gift of God. Good night.” (28 September 2012, 19:40)

4

C ONCLUSION

This study has set out to explore which concepts of Christian identity can be found on the Chinese microblog platform Sina Weibo. Based on a small-scale sample of 100 verified users using “Christianity” to shape their virtual profile with different functional elements, nine types of Christian identity have been identified. Some correspond with research of Christian identity offline, like “Faith Christians”19, “Business Christians”,20 or “Christianity as Intellectual Interest”21, while at least one type, “Christianity as Tag”, can be only found related to the Internet. “Faith Christians” and “Tag Christians” use a wide range

19 Cf. Lim 2012; Yang 2005. 20 Cf. Cao 2010; Chen/Huang 2004. 21 This is similar to the offline phenomena of the well-known “Culture Christians”; cf. Leung 2003; Fällman 2012.

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of topics and tactics to state their Christian understanding and identity on Sina Weibo. Three observations of this analysis are particularly noteworthy and might serve as a starting point for further research. First, although Christianity (Protestantism) is a marginalized topic within the sphere of microblogging, it has been accepted and employed as a faith and/or general interest (“tag”) suitable for a young, urban, and highly educated Chinese population. Judging from the revealed lifeworld of the “Faith Christians” in their postings, Christianity is framed as a source of inner peace and comfort amid the very demanding rhythm and challenges of everyday (working) life within urban Chinese society. Linked with the observation of a strong desire to design a unique virtual ID often by exhibiting a personal photo, this points to a strong aspiration for individual religious experiences as part of a modern lifestyle. Studying conversion histories of young urban Chinese, Fenggang Yang has found that “[...] Christianity offer[s] a sense of individual freedom, civility, responsibility, and status for the yuppies in urban China. [...] in a symbolic sense, adopting Christianity [...] make the Chinese feel they have gained an equal footing with the Americans and other Westerners as modern world citizens” (2005: 438). This individualization drive is sometimes accompanied by a rather superficial understanding of Christianity, especially when looking at the postings of the “Tag Christians”. The emphasis of gifts is based on a strongly visible dereligionization and commercialization of Christianity within the urban Chinese lifeworld. During Christmas season, shopping malls and supermarkets in firstand second-tier cities display the same decorative slogans and symbols as their counterparts in Western cities. They sell artificial Christmas trees and Easter bunnies. Hotels and restaurants offer Christmas banquets and Easter brunches. Still, the popularization of Christianity via microblog users is not limited to a shallow individualization adopting a Westernized and commodified lifestyle. In addition, netizens frame Christianity as a valuable reference for a deeper quest for identity. This relates to a strong linkage between search for identity, online self-representation/expression, and young urban netizens’ usage of the Internet (Liu 2011; Sima/Pugsley 2010). Especially the postings of the “Tag Christians” reveal a complex inner struggle. Users feel hunted by perceived social demands of being tough and competitive. They are frustrated with experiences of interpersonal relations spoiled by commercialization and egoism. Longing for truthfulness and authenticity, Christianity is seen as one potential source for fulfilment.

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Moreover, some netizens juxtapose Christian concepts with their perceived degenerated situation of the Chinese state and society, bestowing a collective dimension on their quest to popularize Christianity via their microblog posting activity. This effort echoes the “Christianity fever” of the 1980s, heated discussions among intellectuals linking Christianity to freedom, justice, and democracy and the future of China (cf. Fällmann 2008). Although calls never totally ceased to exist, they have become marginalized after the suppression of the Tiananmen protest movement in June 1989. Resurfacing within microblogs, these visions contribute to increasingly critical and pluralistic discussions about the future of China within the online sphere (cf. Esarey/Qiang 2011; Kupfer 2011). On a mesolevel all these framings are grounded in obviously existing knowledge about basic Christian teachings and symbols, like the cross, and in a non-hostile political and social environment towards Christianity as one legally established religious tradition, certainly within clearly defined boundaries of the state. These factors, together with the above described motivations by microblog users to mobilize Christianity on an individual and collective level, contribute to the popularization of this non-Chinese religious tradition (cf. Chau 2011). Second, microblogs provide netizens with various opportunities to express their faith or interest that go beyond existing forms of “Offline Christianity”. While the netizens might find it too time-consuming (many Chinese have to work on Sundays) or too binding to visit church services, they probably feel more comfortable within a loose group of Christians and Non-Christians. They could choose which kind of ideational and organizational commitment to make. Additionally, larger church celebrations rarely offer members the opportunity to reflect on and explore the personal dimensions of their faith life. As most congregations within cities lack space, they are normally very crowded and ask people to leave quickly after one service since they offer multiple services on Sundays to cater to the huge demand. Fenggang Yang has noted a strong relationship between the availability and variety of fellowship interactions within church communities and the willingness of believers to attend services (Yang 2005). It is too early to tell whether this trend will foster a new understanding of Christian-based communities and communal faith practice/sharing. Definitively, for both the “Tag Christians” and the “Faith Christians”, microblogs offer a huge pool of resources and the possibility of connecting to fellow Christians. Their wish to establish links and share information about the relationship between their faith, everyday life, and even current affairs dominates their postings. Third, microblogs have a potential to serve as carriers of new patterns of proselytization.

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As the example of “Moderator Cici” has shown, the interaction with other users ended up considerably impacting her later, more intensively stated commitment toward Christianity. Since many netizens use a Christian perspective (terms and concepts) to comment on posts that did not originally have any Christian content or meaning, other Non-Christian netizens might get in touch with previously unknown ideas and perspectives in a rather noncommittal context. Furthermore, this “evangelization along the way” circumvents the state-given ban on evangelism outside officially registered places of worship. A closer look into the communication strategies of churches as employed by the above-mentioned corporate users might also prove to be a fruitful field for further research (cf. Wyche 2008). Whether applications like Christian “microblog groups” (wei qun) or “microblog churches” (wei hui) might even go beyond a communicational function and provide Christians with an alternative form of organization apart from state-sanctioned churches and house churches, and whether this might even change or create new religious rituals (like the already existing “microblog testimony" [wei zhengjian]) and even teachings, has yet to be seen.

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The Cinematic Contest of Popular Post-Islamism1 A RIEL H ERYANTO

B EYOND

A CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS

In early 2008 a strongly Islamic film, titled Ayat-ayat Cinta (Verses of Love) took the Indonesian public by storm. The film is based on the best-selling novel of the same title, authored by a devout and prolific Muslim writer and proselytiser, Habiburrahman El Shirazy, who claims he writes for the primary purpose of propagating Islam. Ayat-ayat Cintais set in Egypt, with background music and scenes that are markedly Middle Eastern and Islamic throughout the film. Its commercial success surpassed any other titles previously screened in the country, regardless of country of origin, language, or genre. Indeed, the film is now best remembered as the single most popular Islamic film ever by most Indonesians. The release of Ayat-ayat Cinta took place when in many parts of the world public life remained overshadowed by the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the 1

This essay is a short version of a section in a larger work-in-progress. During my research, I received generous support from The Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific; The Australian Research Council; The Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University; Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden; and two units of the Universität Freiburg: Institut für Ethnologie and The “Historische Lebenswelten in populären Wissenskulturen der Gegenwart” project. I am grateful to all of those institutions, as well as to Professors Judith Schlehe and Sylvia Paletschek, and researchers Evamaria Müller and Yuli Asmini. All shortcomings in this report belong to me alone.

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US, and the US-lead War in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a time when a crude dichotomy between the secular, modern and liberal West versus the conservative or radical Islamism became normalised in the media and public discussion. In response to the films’ unprecedented popularity, one US-based columnist, writing in the international media in English, described Ayat-ayat Cinta as “a vehicle for marketing fundamentalism” (Bev 2008). According to the columnist, this cultural product has “been embraced by Indonesian Islamists” and other “common people who don’t think critically” (Bev 2008). Speaking from a completely different position, the Indonesian state officials who enthusiastically welcome the film have also described the film’s merits in terms of the globally familiar framework of an “Islam versus the West” binary opposition. Upon viewing the film, President Yudhoyono argued in his speech that the film performs an extremely important favour for promoting Islam as a peace-loving and tolerant religion. This could be considered as a counter-statement to the further stigmatisation of Islam provoked by the controversial anti-Islam video Fitna, produced by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and released online just a few weeks earlier. Yudhoyono’s point was reiterated by Junus Effendi Habibie, the Indonesian Ambassador to the Netherlands, in anticipation of the screening of Ayat-ayat Cinta in The Hague on 26 October 2008. Under such circumstances, what many analysts have frequently overlooked are the deep and long-standing internal conflicts within Muslim communities, whose differences and occasional violent conflicts manifest with no less intensity than those between Islam and its distant foes. Clifford Geertz’s (1976) classic distinction between the santri and abangan Muslims is clearly inadequate for dealing with today’s situation in Indonesia. Merle Ricklefs acutely perceived the inadequacy of the more recently popular terms such as “liberals and moderates on the one hand and radicals and extremists on the other” (Ricklefs 2008: 123). Internal conflicts have surfaced on multiple fronts, articulating a range of differing concerns, such as those between the conservative established institutions (for instance the state-sanctioned Islam Cleric Council at the national and provincial levels) and the few liberal-minded minority groups (such as the Jakarta-based Liberal Islam Network) or sects within Islam (for instance between the Sunni majority and the Ahmadiyah and the Shiah minorities). Serious tension has also escalated between mainstream organisations either separately or collectively (involving members of the Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, the nations’ two largest Muslim organisations) and the militant and violent tendencies of a scattered network of Islamists (with the Islam Defender Front being the most prominent).

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Focussing on the case of Indonesia, this essay is a preliminary attempt to examine a recent set of tensions within the Muslim communities, set against a backdrop of newly emerging forms of religious piety and practices among the urban Muslim youth, which can be conceptualised as post-Islamism. Its advocates and followers are largely unbound by formal organisation, but their collective expressions are strongly visible in public spaces, both in Indonesia and in many societies in the Middle East, South Asia, West Asia and North Africa which have a considerable sized Muslim population. It is necessary to briefly introduce the concept of “post-Islamism” in the next section. In the subsequent section, I will examine a case of a cinematic battle in contemporary Indonesia, taking the success story of Ayat-ayat Cinta as a starting point for illustrating the strong assertion of Indonesian post-Islamism and its compelling political significance for Indonesia’s current political trajectory. This essay will conclude with a section that discusses the broader political context of Indonesia’s post-Islamism, by identifying its historic specificities and distinctions from counterparts in other Muslim majority nations. One tentative argument that this paper puts forward is that Indonesian postIslamism has been adopted by many young, urban, middle-class Indonesians as the preferred alternative mode for being modern and being Muslim. Their choice also signifies a negative response to the pressures from two other dominant and competing models that have prevailed in their society. One of these models is the persona of an old-fashioned, provincial and orthodox Muslim who cherishes local wisdom and long established “tradition” in the image of their teachers’ or parents’ generation. The other is the persona of a radical, but nonetheless modernist militant with a commitment to pursuing some moral and political agenda for a better world inspired by religious teachings, with the ability to use modern science and technology as weapons, and a willingness to sacrifice one’s life if deemed necessary, to achieve this aim. By embracing post-Islamism, these Indonesians defy the secular-West versus radical-Islamism dichotomy that has become so familiar in public discussion in the early decade of this century.

P OST -I SLAMISM There are several versions of Islamism, which in turn generate several forms of post-Islamism, as will be shown below. Any definition of Islamism or postIslamism is necessarily subject to contestations (see Yilmaz 2011: 247-249 for a brief review), which we need not go into here. At the risk of being simplistic, I wish to focus my discussion of Islamism and post-Islamism by referring primar-

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ily to the work of Asef Bayat, which has made major impacts on contemporary studies of the Middle East and Islamic politics. Bayat extends his post-Islamist perspective from state politics and the study of democracy to areas of popular culture (Bayat 2002a, 2007b), which is my concern in this essay. In Indonesia, Bayat’s work draws some attention from some scholars, although not prominently. In this discussion, I take Islamism to refer to any social movement that advocates for a maximal application of Islamic teachings (as understood by its proponents) in the widest possible scope of public life, including but not restricted to the formal adoption and enforcement of sharia law as the basis of government in a given nation-state. Regardless of their variations, Islamist movements share several things in common: “Islamism emerged as the language of self-assertion to mobilize those largely middle class high achievers who felt marginalized by the dominant economic, political or cultural processes in their societies; [...] for whom the perceived failure of both capitalist modernity and socialist utopia made the language of morality (religion) a substitute for politics.” (Bayat 2007a: 14)

Bayat observes that in many parts of the Middle East around the 1950s-1960s “Islamist movements succeeded for three decades in activating large numbers of the disenchanted population with [...] cheap Islamization, that is, by resorting to the language of moral and cultural purity” (Bayat 2007a: 16). However, after three decades, many of these movements experienced an impasse, as they encountered many difficulties delivering “a more costly Islamization, that is, establishing an Islamic polity and economy and conducting international relations compatible with the modern national and global citizenry” (Bayat 2007a: 16). What followed was “Islamist rule faced profound crisis wherever it was put into practice (as in Iran, Sudan, or Pakistan); and the violent strategies, and armed struggles, that the radical Islamists had adopted, failed to make major inroads (as in Egypt and Algeria)” (Bayat 2007a: 16). It was under the condition of such a crisis that new thinking emerged, and aspirations which he calls “post-Islamism” began to flourish and rapidly spread across the Muslim-majority societies especially, but not exclusively, among the youth and the new middle classes in urban areas. By post-Islamism, Bayat means a condition as well as a project. As a condition, the term “refers to a political and social condition where, following a phase of experimentation, the appeal, energy, and sources of legitimacy of Islamism get exhausted even among its once-ardent supporters” (Bayat 2002b: 5). As a

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project, it “is neither anti-Islamic nor un-Islamic or secular” (Bayat 2007a: 19). Rather, “it represents an endeavor to fuse religiosity and rights, faith and freedom, Islam and liberty, [...] emphasizing rights instead of duties, plurality in place of a singular authoritative voice, historicity rather than fixed scriptures, and the future instead of the past. It wants to marry Islam with individual choice and freedom, with democracy and modernity.” (Bayat 2002b: 5)

Bayat’s original study was based on analyses of the political trajectories of Turkey and Iran. In both countries Bayat noted a period of Islamist rule preceded the discontent, disenchantment, and disillusionment that were generated among many, even those who had formerly supported Islamist politics. Bayat is careful not to suggest post-Islamism as the end of an “Islamist political agenda” in any deterministic sense. He reminds us “[i]n reality we may witness simultaneous processes of both Islamization and post-Islamization” (Bayat 2007a: 20), a pertinent point for our discussion of contemporary Indonesia. In one essay, Bayat (2002a) discusses the phenomenal popularity of the Egypt-born televangelist Amr Khalid as something of an unprecedented trend and a case of “post-Islamist piety”. Indonesia has Khalid’s equivalents, among whom AA Gym, Jeffry al-Buchori or Muhammad Arifin Ilham count as being some of the most popular (see Hasan 2009: 239-241; Hoesterey 2007; 2008; Howell 2008; Muzakki 2007). In another study, Bayat (2007b) expands and elaborates his study of the Islamic “politics of fun”, critically asking why Islamic regimes, like most other modern secular regimes whether revolutionary or conservative, have a tendency to be “anti-fun-damentalist” (Bayat 2007b: 435), while young Muslims in the Middle East continue in their pursuit of fun, without disavowing their religious piety, despite knowing they will pay severe penalties for challenging the anti-fun regimes. While being mindful of the different religious histories in the Middle East and Indonesia, I find Bayat’s insights and phraseology inspiring in my work on Indonesian popular culture, with the recent Islamic films being a case in point.

A CINEMATIC

BATTLE

Earlier I referred to the remarkable success of the melodrama film Ayat-ayat Cinta, based on a best-selling novel under the same title. Set in Egypt, the storyline revolves around the life of Fahri, an Indonesian graduate student of Al-

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Azhar University from a modest family background back in his homeland. His personality, religious piety, and intelligence charm several women around him. Fahri marries one of these women, a German citizen of Turkish decent. During critical circumstances and upon her insistence, Fahri takes a second wife Maria, an Egyptian Coptic Christian, near the end of her life due to serious illness. Ayat-ayat Cinta is not the first Islamic film in Indonesia, but no other title has made an impact anywhere close to the enthusiastic reception of this film. One reason for Ayat-ayat Cinta’s popularity lies precisely in it being both more, and less, than Islamic; it is hybrid in both substance and style (Heryanto 2011). Despite its richly and markedly Islamic elements, the film resembles in many sections elements belonging to Hollywood and Bollywood movies, as well as local Indonesian television drama (sinetron). In defiance of the new trend among Indonesian Muslims for wearing typical Middle Eastern dress, the male protagonist Fahri sports a trendy haircut, growing no beard, and wears stylish Western casual clothes. His physical appearance allows him to be almost any character in any one of the mainstream films from Asia or the West. In his wedding ceremony Fahri wears a Western suit and tie. The scenes of the wedding itself are strongly reminiscent of Bollywood films. The leading male character displays a most attractive blend of the following favourable attributes: a devout and intelligent Muslim, a post-colonial Indonesian citizen who is at ease with the world of classical Islamic texts, and a Western-dominated global lifestyle of consumption. Here is a case of the amalgamation of what used to be seen as a binary of opposites: tradition and modernity, East and West, religious piety and worldly pleasure. However, not everyone is impressed by Ayat-ayat Cinta. The film received only a lukewarm response from local film critics, and it performed poorly during the Indonesian Film Festival by the year-end. Worse still, the more Islamistoriented groups condemned both the novel and film as heresy. Some of the devout young Muslims who were avid readers of the novel Ayat-ayat Cinta expressed their serious grievances in public, viewing the film fell short of bringing what they considered to be the Islamic values and spirit in the novel onto the silver screen. Many of the novel’s fans accused the director of manipulating the symbols of Islam for material gain and fame. The case of Ayat-ayat Cinta is solid testament to not only centuries-long diversity and hybridity within the Muslim communities, but also to something novel in the dynamics of such diversity and hybridity. For instance, the embrace of religious piety, strong desire for wealth and consumerist lifestyle, and the pleasure from displaying all of them in public appears to be a more recent trend. Despite its questionable artistic merits in the eyes of cinephiles, Ayat-ayat Cinta

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is but one expression of Indonesia’s post-Islamism that has struck a significant chord with the majority of largely apolitical, urban-based, new rich segments among the Indonesian Muslim communities. And it did so with greater impact than the filmmaker had intended or hoped. This new, perhaps first, generation of post-Islamism is distinct from an earlier generation of Indonesian Muslims. Many of the latter remain aloof or ambivalent to the idea of bringing the divine values of Islam into the film industry. For them cinemas carry the stigma of bad taste and sleaziness. These post-Islamists also distinguish themselves from the Indonesian Islamists who have rapidly grown strong in the past two decades, and who took offence and fiercely denounced Ayat-ayat Cinta. Ayat-ayat Cinta is an experiment in meshing together different streams of ideologically-loaded desires and consciousness which historically have not always got along. It took considerable compromise from each of three key persons behind the making of the film. The first is prolific Muslim writer and proselytiser Habiburrahman El Shirazy whose novels became best-sellers as an unprecedented increase in the pace and scale of Islamisation swept Indonesia. The second is award-winning film director Hanung Bramantyo who gained a prominent reputation in the secular field. The third is producer Manoj Punjabi of MD Entertainment, one of the most prolific producers of Indonesian film and television drama, who took the risk of making a record-breaking investment for the production of Ayat-ayat Cinta, clearly with the expectation of a handsome return. In a series of weblog posts made periodically during the course of the film production, Director Bramantyo vented his frustration at the many compromises demanded of him from the pious Muslim novelist in one direction, and the producers from the other direction. For instance, the casting process was complicated by a series of bitter disputes with the novelist. Heeding the novelist’s recommendation, casting for the lead character began with a search for the potential actors in a number of Muslim boarding schools (pesantren). However, this yielded no result, because no one dared to participate in the casting as “many had the prejudice that film was a secular entity” (Bramantyo 2007). Several months later, when Bramantyo found the two actors he wanted for the lead roles, novelist Shirazy vetoed the decision because they were not Muslims. The production proceeded with the final choice of Fedi Nuril as the lead actor. In an interview with me, novelist Shirazy claimed that director Bramantyo broke an agreement that he would consult with him before deciding the final casts. When the news broke about Fedi Nuril taking the lead role, many of the novel’s readers expressed anger and disappointment, because in a previous film the actor was shown kissing a woman who was not his wife (both on and off screen).

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From the other direction, Bramantyo had to face the demand from producer Punjabi to make the film as entertaining as possible, in order to appeal to the widest possible audience, and ensure a good return on the investment of 7 billion rupiah (approximately US$770,000) which was then double the average cost required for domestic film production. Producer Punjabi expected Bramantyo to copy as many of the ideas as possible from the sounds and images of Hollywood and Bollywood cinema. As production for the film continued, director Bramantyo faced numerous difficulties with logistics and budget constraints which led to further compromises on the original project. He was so discouraged by the entire process of production and so apprehensive about the outcome that he “even feared it would be his last movie” (Emond 2012). He did not attend the screening of the film at its premiere, and hid outside the movie theatre in anticipation of how badly the audience, and especially the avid readers of the novel, would react to the film. All of this underscores that the novel’s was no guarantee of the film’s success. Interestingly, novelist Shirazy admits to have confronted similar conflicting pressures in an attempt to seek what he views as the middle ground. During the course of my conversation with the novelist Shirazy (Canberra, 7/03/2011), he describes how he and his novel have also been subjected to hostile criticisms. The secular criticized him for being fanatically Islamic, while the Islamistoriented fundamentalists accused him of forsaking Islam’s values and mission for his own fame and fortune. Indeed, one magazine accused him of sowing the dangerous seed of liberalism in his novel, in line with the international conspiracy of Zionism (Risalah Mujahidin 2008). All the above illustrates how complex and tension-ridden Islamisation is in contemporary Indonesia. Far from being primarily a tension between “traditional” and backward looking Islamist radicalism and a secular, “modern” and liberal West, what has occupied the minds of many equally modernist-oriented Muslims in Indonesia comprise a series of internal conflicts. Both novelist Shirazy and film director Bramantyo are contemporary Indonesian artists with two variants of post-Islamist orientation, which are not only distinct but also potentially conflictual. The conversion of the novel into the film represents a conversion from one variant representing a didactic post-Islamism into a variant that is more liberal-minded. Each variant has its own dedicated group of followers, who do not necessarily get along, but who all share a strong objection to the Islamist politics currently running high in Indonesia. This will be further discussed in the final section of this essay. The film’s dazzling impact is of a scale far greater than that of the novel, and it took those involved in its production by surprise. Ironically, internal disputes

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made it difficult for those responsible for the production of the film to share in the joy of celebrating their huge public success. Immediately after the completion of the legendary film, and before the public excitement subsided, the three key forces behind the making of Ayat-ayat Cinta went separate ways in subsequent film projects. None achieved anything near the success of their Ayat-ayat Cinta. Of particular interest is what film director Bramantyo and novelist Shirazy did in the months following the release of Ayat-ayat Cinta. Their actions bring into sharper relief the divisions between what can be collectively understood as Indonesia’s nascent post-Islamism. Bramantyo’s subsequent film Perempuan Berkalung Sorban (Woman with a Turban), was released in the early months of the following year (2009). This film was based on a novel of the same title by feminist Muslim author, Abidah El Khalieqy. It tells the story of Annisa, a daughter of an Islamic teacher in a local Islamic boarding house, who is engaged in a struggle with gender discrimination in her family and immediate social environment. As the story is set in a devout Muslim community, critics of the novel and the film have received it as a ferocious attack against Islam, rather than a genuine criticism of patriarchy per se (see Hellwig 2011). Nearly all Muslim males in the story are self-serving, conservative, incredibly irrational, narrow minded, and intolerant. Some of these men are depicted as morally corrupt, others as violent and aggressive. To settle a financial debt Annisa’s father arranges her marriage to an unemployed man who is a drunkard, sexually abusive, and a pervert.2 Critics acknowledge that such characters do exist, but they find offense in what they perceive to be a one-sided portrayal of the Islamic community, and the fact that there appears no solution in Islam to the social and moral problems represented in the story. The film stirred up a bigger outrage than Ayat-Ayat Cinta did among Muslim communities, alienating the director from many of his religiously devout fans and peers in the industry. Film critic Ekky Imanjaya in publishing a fierce criticism of the film questioned the director’s ideological intentions, his knowledge of Islam as well as his cinematic skills (Imanjaya 2009a). Senior cleric and deputy on the fatwa commission of the Indonesian Council of Clerics (Majelis

2

In an interview with the media, the novelist acknowledges that she took inspiration from the Indonesian translation (Perempuan di Titik Nol) of Nawal el-Sadawi’s novel Emra’a enda noktat el sifr (via the English version Women at Point Zero) and a few other feminist literary works that were widely discussed among student activists in the previous decade (el-Sadawi 1989). Like El Sadawi’s novel, there is not a single male character in Perempuan Berkalung Sorban with admirable merits, except short-lived Khudori, who is Annisa’s first love.

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Ulama Indonesia or MUI), Ali Mustafa Yaqub called on Muslims to boycott the film. One interviewee for my research on this issue described an informal meeting in Jakarta, attended by some of the most revered names in the Indonesian film industry, who are known for their strong commitment to Islam. Shared anger about the film had brought them together to discuss a joint response. A few months later the public learned about the production of Ketika Cinta Bertasbih (When Love Has a Tasbih), a film that appears to be intended as a corrective response to Bramantyo’s films. Ketika Cinta Bertasbih is based on another novel by Shirazy, but this time directed by Chaerul Umam, whose reputation for producing Islamic films was well established many years prior to the phenomenon of Ayat-ayat Cinta. In a media interview, Umam was asked for his comments on the call for a boycott of Perempuan Berkalung Sorban. Umam replied that a boycott was inadequate: “I think, this is a crime, and must be brought to the court. The Council for Film Censorship is also implicated for having let it go to the public” (Anshor 2009). The film Ketika Cinta Bertasbih purposefully distinguishes itself from the two recent Islamic films by Bramantyo in both content and mode of production. Rather than pursuing commercial success or high aesthetics above all else, as Bramantyo presumably had done, those behind the production of Ketika Cinta Bertasbih were first and foremost committed to producing this new film to propagate the “correct” Islamic teachings, and as a corrective to previously circulated films with Islamic themes, which were currently in vogue. With implicit criticism of Ayat-ayat Cinta, those in charge of the production Ketika Cinta Bertasbih made public statements to the effect that the film would be made as identical as possible to the novel’s original narrative. As a result, it took two sequels (Ketika Cinta Bertasbih I and II) to present the whole story. To ensure readers of the novel would not be disappointed author Shirazy was directly involved in the production of the film and took a supporting actor role. With a budget of “40 billion rupiah (around US$ 4 million), KCB [Ketika Cinta Bertasbih] is the most expensive film ever to be produced in Indonesia” (Imanjaya 2009b), and more than five times the budget of Ayat-Ayat Cinta. Casting for Ketika Cinta Bertasbih was done with greater prudence and more publicity than usual, with the intention of preventing the problems that pit the novelist against the director, namely the religious credentials of the actors. Rigorous compliance with the teachings of Islam also required that actors and actresses who are not married do not touch one another before the camera. An ability to recite the Koran was required as part of the casting. Selection of the finalists for casting was televised nationally in the style of a talent-scout reality show.

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In addition, Deddy Mizwar also stars in this film as a supporting actor. With the exception of the director Chaerul Umam, no one is more prominent and respected in contemporary Indonesia than Mizwar for his commitment to propagating Islamic values through culture and the arts in cinema and television. A large-scale promotion of Ketika Cinta Bertasbih was launched to announce the mega ambition behind the production. Endorsements from top politicians representing Islamic political parties filled the mediascape and urban public spaces to draw attention to the film’s Islamic credentials at the highest possible levels. These efforts did indeed achieve significant outcomes for the film, including record sales for the year 2009: 2.4 million viewers for the Ketika Cinta Bertasbih I in the middle of the year and 1.4 millions of viewers for Ketika Cinta Bertasbih II by the year’s end. Each sequel reached a smaller size of viewers than Ayat-ayat Cinta did at 3.7 million viewers. Ketika Cinta Bertasbih was also less successful in impressing film critics. Published reviews of the film in both parts are generally critical of its cinematic merits. Many reviewers could not help making unfavourable comparisons to Ayat-Ayat Cinta, which since 2008 continued to overshadow discussions on any Islamic film. That was not the end of the cinematic battle. In 2011 Bramantyo took his boldest step yet by electing to direct a film dealing with the most sensitive issue of the day: inter-religious intolerance in Indonesia. The title of the film consists of a single punctuation mark, that of a question: “?”. It provoked the muchfeared militia group Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, aka FPI) into action, whose violent actions ironically bring into reality what the film depicts on screen. In two separate incidents, the Bandung local government in West Java (May 2011), and a major nation-wide television network SCTV (September 2011) decided to cancel scheduled screenings of the film after public statements were issued containing threats of violent retaliation from the militia group. In another development, the preacher-cum-novelist Shirazy made his first task directing a film based on his other novel Dalam Mihrab Cinta (Under the Arch of Love) (2010) in order to further his mission of promoting his own variant of post-Islamism. What lesson can we learn from the cinematic battle depicted above? The secret of Ayat-ayat Cinta’s unrivalled success lies in its correctly proportioned blending of various elements, some with Islamic values and others not, for the right audience in Indonesia in the early decades of the twenty-first century. Of course, all other films must also accommodate various elements, which also make them somewhat hybrid. However, in any of the subsequent attempts by the same and other film-makers to produce newer films that are more, or less, Islamic (in whatever sense), or more or less liberal, progressive or entertaining,

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none has been able to achieve the same level of public impact as Ayat-ayat Cinta did. Presumably, this general failure to excite the public is due to their less successful combination of similar elements blended. What we need to ask next is whether we can locate the significance of this cinematic battle, and particularly the towering success of Ayat-ayat Cinta within the broader context of Indonesia’s Islamisation. The next and final section will be devoted to answering that question, by returning to Bayat’s concept of post-Islamism, and critically examining the limits of its use value.

P OST -I SLAMISM : T HE I NDONESIAN

CASE

Earlier, I introduced Bayat’s concept of post-Islamism, which he developed on the basis of empirical references to the political history and dynamics of Iran and Turkey. Bayat observed this birth of post-Islamism in Iran as growing out of a moral, political and religious crisis, following an extended period of Islamist state rule. Indonesia is certainly not Iran. No Islamist regime seized state power in the formal sense, and there is no sign of such a prospect in the near future. In the 1980s some observers were partial to an analysis that drew a comparison of state politics in Indonesia and Turkey, which considered the privileged status of the military and its antagonism towards Islamic politics. Such similarities diminished from the 1990s. Turkey has achieved a status of being the most outstanding model for an inclusive, democratically-oriented post-Islamist country with a Muslim-majority population (Yilmaz 2011). Contrarily, in Indonesia, an exclusivist politics of Islamism has been rising at an alarming pace, even if the prospect of an Islamist state remains nil or distant. Given all these differences, can there be some justification for adopting the concept of post-Islamism for an analysis of the situation in Indonesia today? In the following section I wish to argue for an answer in the affirmative. Bayat is cautious not to over-generalise the applicability of his theory of post-Islamism to other parts of the Muslim world (Bayat 2009). I wish to contend that with due diligence and some modifications, Bayat’s theory can be highly useful to an understanding of the case in Indonesia. This is the case, despite the different social forces and historical contexts in the two regions that have led to their highly comparable post-Islamist trends. One important step for such a modification is to draw a necessary distinction between political postIslamism, as that which pertains to formal governance at the state level (Bayat’s main area of enquiry), and cultural post-Islamism (the concerns of this essay), which pertains to both the highbrow intellectual culture, as well as the more

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lowbrow expressions to be found in the multiple forms of popular culture, life style and everyday life. In the formal institutional sense, political Islam has been the single generic framework within which all major political battles in Indonesia have been fought and shaped since the 1990s. The wave of Islamisation expanded to include other areas beyond the formal political institutions, such as the mass media, education, banking, arts, popular culture and everyday life (see Heryanto 1999). In this study, Indonesia’s Islamisation is understood broadly to mean the rapid expansion and increased visibility of the social practices of Islam, and those material elements, which are widely understood in their immediate social contexts to bear Islamic value. Of course, Islamisation cannot be reduced exclusively to Islamist politics, about which we need to discuss a little further. At the end of 1990, President Suharto began a series of dramatic political moves and about turns, by courting Islamic politics of various ideological orientations, including the radical militias. It was a hasty and desperate attempt on his part to rescue his power by building a new power base and legitimacy, when intra-elite conflicts between his inner circle and segments within the military top brass, reached a critical level and brought his New Order regime to the brink of its demise. Suharto’s dangerous move managed to delay, but not prevent, his humiliating downfall in 1998. In fact, in subsequent years the politics of faith have stepped over his dead regime, and marched on to take a life of their own. Until 1990, political Islam was the New Order government’s primary victim of repression and stigmatisation. The Anti-subversion Law was deployed most frequently to prosecute those suspected of engaging in “right extremist” politics, as the “left extremists” had already been crushed once and for all in the mid1960s. And then suddenly, from the 1990s, the courts were busy with the trials of individuals and institutions accused of having made public statements that were disrespectful of Islam. Prisoners bearing the label of “right extremists” were freed from prison, without having to spend the remainder of their long-term sentences. President Suharto went on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1991. The number of mosques in East and Central Java suddenly rose to almost double the number twenty years earlier (Hefner 1993:10). The aftermath of 09/11 galvanised some of the more radical elements and strengthened the siege mentality of a world divided by President Bush’s declaratory mantra: you are either with us or against us. In the everyday activities of the majority of Indonesians, the strident march of Islamisation has affected many. In the mid-1980s school aged girls were not allowed to wear the veil in school. The ban was lifted in the early 1990s, when President Suharto’s eldest daughter stunned the public by donning a veil at almost all formal functions. In the few

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years immediately before and after Suharto’s death in 2008, school aged girls faced a penalty if they did not wear the veil in a number of provinces where sharia-based bylaws had been adopted. The process of Islamisation that Suharto initiated in 1990 experienced a major Islamist turn when Suharto involuntarily stepped down in May 1998 and Vice-President BJ Habibie took over as interim President. Having no power base, but determined to upgrade his presidency constitutionally at the next election, Habibie relied on the assistance of General Wiranto, the Chief Commander of the Armed Forces. Wiranto took a new emergency step in a long tradition of the state exercising its repressive power, by mobilising existing street thugs.3 In late 1998, Wiranto recruited and trained new ones, for a paramilitary group called Pam Swakarsa, drawing its ranks from the many young people who had been rendered unemployed as a result of the 1998 economic crisis. Under the banner of Islam, these groups were deployed to violently confront street protestors who had called for Suharto’s resignation, now rejecting Habibie’s presidency, and further demanding a full overhaul of the New Order regime. Numerous fatal clashes took place between the civilian protestors and the newly trained militias, before Habibie lost the 1999 elections and the new state-sponsored militias were dissolved. A strong element of the disbanded militia groups regrouped and independently founded a new mass organisation which has now become the strongest and most-feared of its kind: Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) (Wilson 2006; 2008). While there are many advocates of Islamist politics other than the FPI and other militia groups, political parties with Islamist agendas have consistently been the losers in elections (Buehler 2009; Hadiz 2011). So, while Islamisation is in vogue, and Islamist politics in street violence has been a major cause for concern among many, an Indonesian Islamist state (such as in Iran following the 1979 revolution) still remains out of the picture under Indonesia’s new formal democracy. In the meantime, in the sphere of culture, the overwhelming success story of the film Ayat-ayat Cinta attests to a wider and growing trend of Indonesianstyled post-Islamism beyond the cinema. In contrast to the situation in Iran and the other countries in the Middle East analysed by Bayat, post-Islamist piety in 3

I refer to the political alliances of the state institutions and formally illegal groups of gangsters. Although such relationships have a long history, which can be traced back to the colonial time, it was not until the New Order assumed power in the mid-1960s that such alliances were institutionalised nation-wide (Ryter 1998).

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Indonesia has not developed out of a crisis following an exhausted Islamist rule. Rather, it has grown out of the exhausted secularist regime of the New Order. For these reasons, the term “post-secularist piety” (Khalid 2012) could be considered an attractive substitute for “post-Islamism”, with one important caveat. As Bayat emphasises, and I agree, post-Islamism is not a secular movement or trend. It is deeply religious, but not at the expense of, or in contradiction to, the worldly aspirations for cosmopolitanism, democracy, human rights, gender equality, and everyday forms of pleasure. Nor is it immune from adopting the trendy life styles prevalent amongst youth across the globe. Whichever term is adopted for use in Indonesia, popular religious pietism in this country as demonstrated in the case of Ayat-ayat Cinta, articulates widely held moral convictions for correcting New Order secular developmentalistmodernisation. At the same time it also implies a rejection of both the older and “traditional” religious forms of piety as well as the sharia-based Islamist utopia – both promoted by less popular and less commercially successful films. In the first decade of the new century, Indonesians, especially the young, urban, middle-class segments of the population appeared to have warmly welcome postIslamism as a preferred mode for being modern and being Muslim. Off screen, the majority of the Indonesian population has repeatedly given their electoral votes of confidence to candidates other than the overtly Islamist political parties, forcing the latter to give up much of their rhetoric and many of their original stances in order to appear accommodative and inclusive, much to the dismay of their staunch supporters (Buehler 2009; Hadiz 2011). Seen from the perspective above, any serious analysis of contemporary Indonesia requires that more rigorous attention be directed beyond the details of a religion’s sacred books, its formal political institutions such as the elections and the parliament, or the provocative statements from leaders of a few terrorist networks. It is time for analysts to direct serious attention to the everyday life of the majority of the population, the forms of popular culture that occupy their mind most deeply during times of leisure, and their conversations both on social media and off-line that shape and articulate their identity.

R EFERENCES Anshor, Saiful (2009): “Chaerul Umam: Munculnya Liberalisme di Industri Film”, in: Suara Hidayatullah March (http://majalah.hidayatullah.com/?p=223), last accessed 28/07/2012.

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Bayat, Asef (2002a): “Piety, Privilege and Egyptian Youth” in: ISIM Newsletter 10, p. 23. Bayat, Asef (2002b): “What is Post-Islamism”, in: ISIM Newsletter 16, p. 5. Bayat, Asef (2007a): Islam and Democracy: What is the Real Question?, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bayat, Asef (2007b): “Islamism and the Politics of Fun”, in: Public Culture 19 (3), pp. 433-459. Bayat, Asef (2009): “Democracy and the Muslim World: the ‘Post-Islamist’ Turn”, in: openDemocracy 6th March (http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democratising-the-muslim-world), last accessed 20/04/2012. Bev, Jennie S. (2008): “Romancing the Koran in Indonesia”, In: Asia Sentinel 20th March. (http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&i d=1110&Itemid=35), last accessed 27/07/2012. Bramantyo, Hanung (2007): “Kisah Di Balik Layar AAC I“, in: (hanungbramantyo.multiply.com/journal/item/8), last accessed 27/03/2012. Buehler, Michael (2009): “Islam and Democracy in Indonesia”, in: Insight Turkey 11(4), pp. 51-63. el-Saadawi, Nawal (1989): Perempuan di Titik Nol, trns Amir Sutaarga, Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia. Emond, Bruce (2012): “As He Likes It”, in: Weekender 25th April (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/04/25/as-he-likes-it.html), last accessed 07/05/2012. Geertz, Clifford (1976): The Religion of Java, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hadiz, Vedi (2011): “No Turkish Delight: The Impasse of Islamic Party Politics In Indonesia”, in: Indonesia 92, pp. 1-18. Hasan, Noorhaidi (2009): “The Making of Public Islam: Piety, Agency and Commodification on the Landscape of the Indonesian Public Sphere”, in: Contemporary Islam 3(3), pp. 229-250. Hefner, Robert W. (1993): “Islam, State, and Civil Society: ICMI and the Struggle for the Indonesian Middle Class”. Indonesia 56, pp. 1-35. Hellwig, Tineke (2011): “Abidah El Khalieqy’s Novels: Challenging Patriarchal Islam”, in: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 167 (1), pp. 16-30. Heryanto, Ariel (1999): “The Years of Living Luxuriously”, in: Michael Pinches (ed.), Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, London/New York: Routledge, pp. 159-187.

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Heryanto, Ariel (2011): “Upgraded Piety and Pleasure: the New Middle Class and Islam in Indonesian Popular Culture”, in: Andrew Weintraub (ed.), Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia, London: Routledge, pp. 6082. Hoesterey, James (2007): “Aa Gym; the rise, fall, and re-branding of a celebrity preacher”, in: Inside Indonesia 90 October-December (http://www.inside indonesia.org/weekly-articles/aa-gym), last accessed 26/04/2012. Hoesterey, James (2008): “Marketing Morality: The Rise, Fall and Rebranding of Aa Gym”, in: Greg Fealy/Sally White (eds.), Expressing Islam; Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 95-112. Howell, Julia (2008): “Modulations of Active Piety: Professors and Televangelists as Promoters of Indonesian ‘Sufisme’”, in: Greg Fealy/Sally White (eds.), Expressing Islam; Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 40-62. Imanjaya, Ekky (2009a): “Posisi Ideologis dan Representasi: Perempuan Berkalung Sorban, Membela atau Merusak Nama Islam?”, in: Rumah Film 24th February (http://old.rumahfilm.org/resensi/resensi_perempuanberkalungs orban.htm), last accessed 28/04/2012. Imanjaya, Ekky (2009b): “When Love Glorifies God”, in: Inside Indonesia 97 July-September (http://www.insideindonesia.org/weekly-articles/when-loveglorifies-god), last accessed 30/04/2012. Khalid, Ahmad Ali (2012): “Post-secularism, Post-Islamism and Current Arab Revolution”, in: Viewpoint 97 6th April (http://www.viewpointonline.net/post-secularism-post-islamism-and-currentarab-revolutions.html), last accessed 12/04/2012. Muzakki, Akh (2007): “Islam as a Symbolic Commodity: Transmitting and Consuming Islam through Public Sermons in Indonesia”, in: Pattana Kitiarsa (ed.), Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods, London: Routledge, pp. 205-19. Ricklefs, Merle (2008): “Religion, Politics and Social Dynamics in Java: Historical and Contemporary Rhymes”, in: Greg Fealy/Sally White (eds.), Expressing Islam; Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 115-136. Risalah Mujahidin (2008): “Misi Pluralisme Di Balik Novel Ayat-ayat Cinta”, in: Risalah Mujahidin (swaramuslim.net/printerfriendly.php?id=5878_0_1 _0_C), last accessed 08/12/2008. Ryter, Loren (1998): “Pemuda Pancasila: The Last Loyalist Free Men of Suharto’s Order?”, in: Indonesia 66, pp. 47-73.

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Wilson, Ian (2006): “Continuity And Change; The Changing Contours of Organized Violence in Post-New Order Indonesia”, in: Critical Asian Studies 38(2), pp. 265-297. Wilson, Ian (2008) “‘As Long As It’s Halal’: Islamic Preman in Jakarta”, in: Greg Fealy/Sally White (eds.), Expressing Islam; Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 192-210. Yilmaz, Ihsan (2011): “Beyond Post-Islamism: Transformation of Turkish Islamism Toward ‘Civil Islam’ and Its Potential Influence in the Muslim World”, in: European Journal of Economic and Political Studies 4 (1), pp. 245-280.

Popularisation of Religious Traditions in Indonesia – Historical Communication of a Chinese Indonesian Place of Worship E VAMARIA S ANDKÜHLER

I NTRODUCTION Following the 1998 fall of former president Suharto and his strongly centralized authoritarian regime, Indonesia underwent multiple processes of decentralisation. This not only concerns the political dimension of the Regional Autonomy (otonomi daerah) laws from 2001, which were intended to decentre certain political, administrative and financial functions from the capital Jakarta towards the outer regions (Bünte 2003: 13). It also encompassed a new awakening of local, regional, and cultural identity, which in turn had been (and still are) invoked for political reasons. Accordingly, the formation of new provinces, districts and subdistricts, as well as the call for autonomy of certain regions were often linked to cultural, ethnical and/or historical argumentation (cf. Bünte 2003: 12; Morrell 2005; Prasojo 2003: 257-262). This can be witnessed amongst others by the struggle for autonomy in the provinces of Aceh and Riau (on a religious, namely Islamist basis), as well as in the formation of the province West Sulawesi (based on ethnic, namely Mandar, affiliations) (cf. Erb 2005; Faucher 2005; Satriyo 2003; Morrell 2005). In this context, the notions of “culture” (budaya), “tradition” and “custom” (both synonyms for the Indonesian term adat) as well as “religion” (agama) and their respective revivals or reinventions play an important role as they represent commonly recognized means of cultural justification (Davidson/Henley 2007; Bourchier 2007; Picard 2005; Erb 2005, 2007; cf. also Laskar Pelangi Anak Bangsa 2011).

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As these developments are often linked to territorial claims, they mainly concern the assumed indigenous populations (pribumi or putera daerah). However, similar revitalisation processes can also be witnessed regarding the Chinese Indonesians, who are considered to be “pendatang” (immigrants). Even though they represent a minority across all parts of Indonesia, as well as their lack of distinct territory, they take part in this “revitalisation boom” linked to a certain mode of popularisation. In this context differing aspects of “religion” as well as “tradition” and especially “the past”1 become most prevalent. It is thus promising to examine a place, where these different categories intersect. I therefore chose the Chinese temple Sam Poo Kong in Central Java to spatially ground the question on what dynamics develop when religion, the past (particularly tradition as a specific way to refer to the past), and the popular(ised) intersect. As recent processes concerning the temple and the Chinese Indonesian community in general can only be understood against the backdrop of historical development, I will first of all give a short overview of the history of the Chinese in Indonesia, before describing the temple in further detail. I will then elaborate on the approach of “Ethnogeschichte”, as it is strongly connected to the concept of “Historical Culture” as a new way of researching and linking references to the past with the notions of tradition, religion, and the popular. Subsequently, I will draw on the importance of spatially grounding the above mentioned research question. In the empirical part I will present my findings from six months of fieldwork in the city of Semarang, Central Java, in 2011-2012.2 The interviews for this paper were conducted with non-Chinese government officials and different “leading” personalities of the Chinese community in Semarang.3 1

As I will further elaborate below, the notion of “tradition” sometimes encompasses very specific or even judgmental meanings. I therefore prefer the term “the past” as it enables a broader and less exclusive approach. Nevertheless I still use the term “tradition” in this paper as it has heuristic value, especially when talking about emic perspectives (see especially the empiric part).

2

These two fieldtrips are part of the PhD project “Popular Historical Cultures in Indonesia: Recent References to the past in the context of Decentralization and Democratization” in which I work under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe. This project is part of the interdisciplinary research group “Historical Lifeworlds in Popular Cultures of Knowledge” (“Historische Lebenswelten in populären Wissenskulturen der Gegenwart”) that is generously funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation). I hereby want to express my thanks to the DFG and my supervisor.

3

By “leading” personalities I refer to mainly five persons (four male and one female) that were mentioned by a lot of different members of the Chinese community as “important to talk with when studying about Chinese in Semarang”. Accordingly, these

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H ISTORICAL B ACKGROUND The above mentioned participation of Chinese Indonesians in the current revitalisation process is surprising, as historically the situation of the Chinese in Indonesia has been marked by ambivalence and even discrimination. While the first immigrants arrived sporadically and were few in number, an increase in trade and contact between China and Indonesia could be observed in the 14th and 15th century (Suryadinata 2007). The foundation of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602 set the cornerstone for the encounter of the Chinese and the Dutch. The following colonisation by the Dutch dramatically changed the status of the Chinese. Due the ordinance from 1855 the Chinese were subjected to the European Civil and Commercial Code, while remaining under customary law in other matters. Thereby they came to occupy an important intermediate position that placed them as “Foreign Orientals” between the mass of the indigenous population (also called “inlanders” or “pribumi”) and the few upper class Europeans (cf. also Ju Lan 2012: 375; Jacobsen 2005: 77, 78). This laid the foundations for racial unrest, as the Chinese were to be considered allies, or at least the beneficiaries of colonisation. The height of tensions, fuelled by anti-Chinese sentiment, took place at the beginning and end of the Suharto regime. After a failed putative communist coup in 1965, Suharto seized power and used the incident to restrict the freedom of the Chinese, who were suspected of being communists. Over the course of his 32year reign, nearly every expression of Chinese culture (e.g. the display of Chinese characters in public places, Chinese publications, Chinese schools, etc.) was banned from the public realm and “Indonisation”4 (e.g. the adoption of a name that sounds Indonesian) was fostered for the sake of a very narrow concept of national identity. Accordingly, the activities of all Chinese temples were restricted because they were associated with Chinese culture (cf. Koji 2012: 391). Moreover, Suharto also put into effect laws prescribing all citizens to adhere to one of the five state-sanctioned religions (Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism and Buddhism). As the majority of the Chinese Indonesians by that

people often showed up at social events that were somehow connected to Chinese Indonesians. They cover the spectrum of different religious orientations, ranging from not clearly definable (their own words) over Catholic and Protestant to Muslim belief. Their commonality lies in a financial well-off situation and a good educational background. 4

This concept mainly refers to the renouncement of Chinese naming expressing familiar affiliation in the favor of Indonesian sounding names.

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time adhered to unrecognized Confucianism, they were forced to convert in order to acquire formal recognition by the state (cf. amongst others Jacobsen 2005: 80; Muzakki 2010: 83-85; Suryadinata 1997; Freedmann 2000). The reformation era that started with the resignation of Suharto in 1998 brought improvement to the situation of Chinese Indonesians. The rights of the Chinese as Indonesian citizens slowly became recognized. In 2000, Abdurrahman Wahid (commonly called Gus Dur) abrogated the prohibition of celebrating Chinese religious festivities (mainly concerning Confucianism) and customs in public places, and declared the Lunar New Year (Imlek) as a facultative holiday. In 2003, Imlek became a national public holiday under Megawati Sukarnotputri (cf. Lindsey 2005: 59-61; Lembong 2008: 52-53). The New Citizenship Bill No. 12/2006, under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, finally imparted equal citizenship status to Indonesians of Chinese descent (Muzakki 2010: 81-82). Such political recognition went hand in hand with the resurrection of different aspects of Chinese culture. Nowadays one can observe exuberant Imlekcelebrations. Shopping malls are decorated in red and gold to promote special Imlek-offers, and are often host to Imlek entertainment programs. Moreover, a several day Imlek-fare takes place in the – sometimes newly assigned – Chinese quarters of nearly every large city, accompanied by abundant lion and dragon dance performances all over the towns. This resurgence not only concerns the annual public celebrations of Imlek, but also the revitalisation of Chinese temples and the associated festivities that take place all year round (cf. also Schlehe 2010: 327-330).

T HE S AM P OO K ONG T EMPLE

IN

S EMARANG 5

The Sam Poo Kong Temple represents the largest klenteng in Semarang (figure 1). A klenteng is a place of worship combining Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs, mainly used by Chinese Indonesians. Prayers and pleas are directed to the different deities in a practical manner, according to the needs of the devotee, regardless of her or his formal religion.

5

The following descriptions mainly concern recent developments. Further details on the historical background of Sam Poo Kong will be elaborated in the course of the paper, as they mainly serve argumentative reasons of certain actors involved with the temple.

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Figure 1: The Sam Poo Kong Temple during the celebrations for the anniversary of its foundation (Photo E.S.)

The klenteng Sam Poo Kong in Semarang is one of the city’s main tourist destinations. According to the descriptions above, in the past years the temple has undergone several restorations as well as makeovers. Surrounding festivities are organized frequently and have increased in scale. A prominent example of this would be the celebration of the anniversary of the temple’s foundation. This lasts for two days and includes a fair-like atmosphere with sales stalls and a manifold stage program with international participants, which attracts a large number of (also non-Chinese) visitors to the area of the temple. The highlight of the celebration represents a carnival-like procession between the Sam Poo Kong Temple and another temple (Tay Kak Sie) in Semarang that starts at four o’clock in the morning. It mainly consists of numerous lion- and dragon-dance formations and a heavy shrine with the statue of the deity of the Tay Kak Sie temple (figure 1; figure 2). It is followed by people with carefully painted faces in the style of the Beijing opera (figure 3). The original purpose of the parade was to enable the duplicate of the statue of the deity “Sam Poo” in the Tay Kak Sie temple to visit its original in the Sam Poo Kong temple once a year. The painted participants are members of the religious community who have asked the deity for a favour and want to keep their promise of being devoted supplicants.

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Figure 2: Crowd of the Sam Poo Kong parade and shrine of the deity (Photo E.S.)

Figure 3: Devotee with carefully painted face (Photo E.S.)

By 2012, this parade had moved beyond its religious aims to become an annual event in the city’s tourism agenda (cf. Central Java Provincial Culture and Tour-

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ism Office JPCTO 2011 and Java Tengah Prrovincial Culture and Tourism Office JTPCTO 2012b: 36). In 2013, besides partticipating as spectators, it was even possible for everyone interested to directly take part in the parade by buying a p in the style of the Beijing opparticipation package consisting of a mask painted era, a T-Shirt, as well as a scarf with the logo of the event, and finally, a ticket for the closing tombola (figure 4). Figure 4: Author with participation package (Photo E.S.)

In the previous descriptions of the temple annd the surrounding festivities, the notions of religion, tradition and the popular already a seemed omnipresent. Nevertheless it is indispensable to further elaboratte on what these terms mean in this specific context. The next section will thereffore deal with possible alternate the-

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oretical approaches that can consequently be narrowed down to focus on the concrete example of the Sam Poo Kong temple.

“E THNOGESCHICHTE ”, T RADITION , R ELIGION P OPULAR

AND THE

As I have elaborated upon elsewhere, “Ethnogeschichte”6 is meant to be a new anthropological approach to history and the past (cf. Sandkühler 2013). Based on the concept of Historical Culture as proposed by Maria Grever (2008), as well as the German history didactics (cf. amongst others Pandel 2006a, 2006b; Rüsen 1997, 2001; Borries 1994, 1997), it attempts to advocate a holistic approach in order to take into equal account different kinds of references to the past, be they written, oral, corporal, mythical, emotional or imagined. It thus refers to the disclosure of a multi-perspectivity that also includes non-academic expressions, representations and (re-)productions of histories through new forms of transmission and negotiations. This includes different characteristics and functions of historical knowledge, as well as new actors and ways of perception, thus providing for a thorough consideration of new source materials. Such an approach suggests a qualitative, inductive, and most notably, empirical methodology. The goal is to pave the way for an actor-based perspective, which simultaneously takes into account different modes of appropriation in light of the reflexivity of historical knowledge. The latter refers to the fact that the past is contemporarily (re)constructed by the process of “Historical Communication” thus made relevant for the future (cf. Sandkühler 2013: 26-29, 39-46; Straub 2001: 45).7 It be-

6

I here choose the German term because the literal translation “ethnohistory” corresponds with an older approach that has been widely neglected in subsequent anthropological studies and doesn’t develop the same epistemological and methodological starting point as “Ethnogeschichte” (cf. Sandkühler 2013: 15-20).

7

In this way the concept of “Historical Communication” strongly relates to the “communicative constructivism” put forward by Knoblauch (this volume). Commonalities lie in the understanding (1) that meaning is produced by intersubjective processes of negotiation, (2) that communication refers to both spoken and body language, and (3) that communicative approaches serve the aim of overcoming categorical divides (e.g. sacred vs. profane; academic vs. popular) by paying attention to the specific historical contexts. In this paper however, “Historical Communication” is seen as the methodological implementation of Ethnogeschichte, whereas the “communicative constructivism” by Knoblauch represents a new approach in the sociological theory of religion.

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comes clear, that the past is not represented in mimetic depictions, but rather selectively (re-)constructed and interpreted according to the functions and needs it should fulfil (Jeismann 1997: 42; Straub 2001: 51). In this “[…] attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past” (Hobsbawm 1983: 1), the approach of “Ethnogeschichte” aligns itself with the notion of “tradition” or “invented tradition” as coined by Hobsbawm. But even though there are numerous approaches advocating the interrelatedness and simultaneity of tradition and modernity (c.f. amongst others Handler/Linnekin 1984; Kohl 2006; Schlehe/Rehbein 2008), it appears that tradition in some contexts still refers to a very specific kind of reference to the past, namely a presupposed mono-linear continuity, that is bound to a specific set of cultural traits.8 It is therefore more appropriate for a holistic intended approach to generally speak of “references to the past”. Nevertheless, the notion of “tradition” is useful as a heuristic category, as it represents a certain conception of referring to the past often used in emic considerations and argumentations. Essentialised dichotomous views similar to that of tradition and modernity also appear in the realms of popularisation (in the shape of consumption, secularisation or – especially relevant for this paper – touristification), as well as religion. As Stausberg (2010: 13) argues, tourism and religion are commonly seen in contradiction. In this vein, tourism represents “the profane”, “the superficial”, “fun”, “recreation”, “leisure” as well as “the here and now” whereas religion stands for “the sacred”, “the profound”, “seriousness”, “salvation”, “duty” and “the afterlife”. However, empirical findings prove that this dichotomy is far from exclusive or static (cf. ibid. 13, 14). The considerations concerning the notions of “tradition”, “religion” and “the popular” presented in the introduction reveal that their heuristic value is limited by the vagueness and multiplicity of their definitional utilisation. As they often imply ideological connotations of uneven power relations and often function as static, unchangeable entities, they don’t qualify as independent categories of analysis. It is therefore helpful to return to “Ethnogeschichte” as an allembracing supra-structure that includes them as possible sub-categories. This approach has proven to be fruitful in dealing with such difficult notions, as it successfully utilizes methodological empirical implementation in the shape of “Historical Communication”, subsequently enabling new possibilities for an inductive and relational approach. By means of “typical” anthropological methods 8

Unfortunately, even in some publications in Cultural and Social Anthropology this perception still seems to prevail (cf. Zwernemann 1999 and his definition of “tradition” in the “Wörterbuch der Völkerkunde”).

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such as different kinds of interviews, participant observation combined with informal talks, and a general inclination towards the inclusion of for different sources, it becomes feasible to let people speak and act for themselves. To actually take into account the perceptions of the different actors involved in the negotiation of tradition, religion and the popular, enables an approximation of the specific facets of their lifeworlds. In this context, the accentuations of “the popular”, “tradition” and “religion” mentioned above and in the introduction of this volume can be considered as preliminary, but infinitely extendable templates of comparison for the perspectives that arise from the empirical, inductive, qualitative analysis of the field. Regarding the specific example of the Sam Poo Kong Temple in Semarang, it can initially be stated that the aspect of the popular is represented by the increasing attention it enjoys, accompanied by a growing touristification, carnivalisation, eventisation and commercialisation of this sacral site. Further considerations concerning the popular, tradition and religion will be further elaborated upon in the empirical part of this paper, as they can only be understood within their own specific context of enunciation. Before focussing on the empirical findings of my fieldwork, I will shortly reiterate the importance of space and place for research on religion, tradition and the popular.

S PATIALISING AND C ONTESTING AND THE P OPULAR

T RADITION , R ELIGION

To clarify why it is important to look at a particular site to gain a broader understanding of certain phenomena, such as the intersection of tradition, religion and the popular, I will draw on the anthropology of space and place. Towards the end of the 1980s, the spatial turn of the cultural sciences introduced a new critical understanding of the concept of space (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2009). On the one hand, this could be seen as a response to the deterritorialisation and dissolution of space assumedly initiated by globalisation processes. In this realm the advocating of the (re-)location of culture as well as the importance of the materiality of space came to the fore (Bachmann-Medick 2009: 41, 284, 316). This draws attention to the fact that the fluidity of space doesn’t lead to its disappearance, but produces new forms and settings for space. On the other hand, the new understanding of space also accentuates its social and political construction, negating naturalizing tendencies (Bachmann-Medick 2009: 288-292, 306-308; Hauser-Schäublin 2004). In this sense, space has to be understood not only as a

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locale, a physical setting or a stage on which to express actions or ideas, but also as a venue for the production of spatially grounded meaning (cf. Rodman 2003: 204, 207). As Rodman (2003: 205) puts it, “[p]laces are not inert containers. They are politicized, culturally relative, historically specific, local and multiple constructions” (cf. also Bachmann-Medick 2009: 292). It becomes clear that space is constantly subject to alterations and that places and their ascribed meanings are never static, “fixed, given or unchanging, but depend in part upon the practice within them“ (Urry in Rakic 2011: 1613; see further Low/LawrenceZuniga 2003: 5; Bachmann-Medick 2009: 289). In this way, the aspect of agency comes to the fore. Space cannot be considered as detached from the people who act in or on it and actively make sense of it. This is best expressed in the concept of “embodied space”, which serves as “[…] a model for understanding the creation of place through spatial orientation, movement, and language” (Low/Lawrence-Zuniga 2003: 2).9 It becomes clear that this understanding of place is likely to produce a multiplicity of different, inconsistent or even conflicting perceptions that underlie constant contestation. This “multivocality” as Rodman (2003) calls it, has to be explored from multilocal perspectives. 10 The abovementioned methodological proceeding of Historical Communication seemingly does this, as it takes into account the emic points of view, enabling it to expand beyond differing standpoints. According to Chang (2005: 247-248), these contestations feature particularly in the context of Asian urbanism, where the “urban memory” represents the way in which constructed environments either help or hinder recollections of the past and thereby influence the formation of identity, both of which are closely connected to notions of tradition as well as religion. As the Sam Poo Kong temple can also be considered as an urban space of memory, we can suppose that here too similar processes are to be observed. Additionally, the temple constitutes both an urban space as well as a tourist attraction, which is likely to reinforce contestations and negotiations, as touristic places “lie at the intersection of di-

9

The concept of “embodied space“ is closely connected to the concept of “embodiment”, which “denotes the ways in which the individual grasps the world around her/him and makes sense of it in ways that engage both mind and body” (Crouch in Rakic 2011: 1616).

10 This insight is based on the “multi-local ethnography” of George Marcus, which aims to increase the awareness “that any cultural identity or activity is constructed by multiple agents in varying contexts, or places, and that ethnography must be strategically conceived to represent this sort of multiplicity […]” (Marcus 1998: 52; cf. also Rodman 2003: 210).

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verse and competing social, economic, and political influences” (Low/LawrenceZuniga 2003: 23). This is especially true when considering religious tourist sites, which “are multilayered social constructions whose meanings and functions reach far beyond the sphere of religious practices and ideas” (Stausberg 2010: 60). It seems especially important to highlight the latter aspect concerning the interlacement of religious and social as well as political spaces. Hauser-Schäublin (2004) argues that, in the case of Southeast Asia, and specifically Bali, “the organization of space on all levels [has long time been] presented as natural order of gods, things, and men” (ibid. 290) and “[…] [sacred] space has been viewed as given sacred framework that is beyond any human intervention” (ibid. 291). She draws attention to the fact that this “naturalisation” omits the insight that power and knowledge are both crucial criteria, which influence the way in which powerful actors restructure space (Hauser-Schäublin 2004: 308). Thereby, the aspect of “power”, which not only seems important in the religious sphere, but also in the aforementioned contexts of negotiation of memory as well as tradition and touristification (the popular), comes to the fore. Accordingly, Sam Poo Kong should be considered as a place where “spatial tactics” are used to maintain power relations, hegemony, social control, and a certain social memory (cf. Low/Lawrence-Zuniga 2003: 22, 30). This is showcased by national or regional governments becoming involved in tourism as “active producers of history, heritage, and identity for the nation [and the region]” (Fürsich/Robins in Patil 2011: 989; cf. Patil 2011: 1004, Slama 2012, Stausberg 2010: 60-75). The government is an important stakeholder in the ongoing touristification processes of the Sam Poo Kong temple. In order to highlight the interrelatedness of religion, tradition, and the popular, I will start by describing the official perspective of the temple as a basis of comparison with other multivocal and multilocal viewpoints.

H ISTORICAL C OMMUNICATION S ELLING CULTURE

BY THE OFFICIALS :

The official interpretation of the Sam Poo Kong temple that I will present here is based on an analysis of official tourism websites and brochures for Semarang City and Central Java, as well as different speeches given by officials at special occasions at the temple, including interviews with representatives of the Culture and Tourism departments of Central Java and Semarang City (Dinas Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata Jawa Tengah/Kota Semarang).

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The official tourism websites as well as the brochures of Central Java and the City of Semarang promote the Sam Poo Kong temple as one of the main tourist attractions of the region and the city (JTPCTO 2012a, 2012b; Official Website Java Tengah OWJT 2012; Official Website Kota Semarang OWKS 2012). In most cases the temple is classified under the category of “wisata religi” (religious tourism), along with other important religious sites such as the Sultan Agung Mosque of Central Java, Prambanan temple, Borobodur temple, and Blenduk Church. As all of these latter religious buildings can be seen as either representing Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or Christian belief (in this case Protestantism), Sam Poo Kong stands for the sixth officially recognized religion in Indonesia, namely Confucianism. The Culture and Tourism offices also emphasize this multi-religious stance. In the city’s office, staff members explained to me how “the harmony of the religious communities is proved by the places of worship built in Semarang. And because Sam Poo Kong is very beautiful and big it became a tourist site” (i134: 2).11Accordingly, the head of the provincial tourism office states that the five12 main religions are equally strong in Central Java. This diversity can be observed in local objects and buildings, as well as in societal values that find their expression in harmonious and tolerant behaviour towards people of different belief systems (i99: 1, 2, 15). Likewise, Semarang is heralded as the safest, quietest and most peaceful city in Indonesia. This is considered to be due to the multiculturalism and tolerance that are based on its three cultural roots, namely Javanese, Arab and Chinese culture, all of which have historically formed an integral part of the city’s identity (i134: 1, 2). This uniqueness can also be traced back to the alleged founder of the Sam Poo Kong temple, the Chinese admiral Cheng Ho. According to the websites, brochures and the opinion of the tourism office’s representatives, Cheng Ho stopped over with his fleet in Semarang in the 15th century (i134; I 99; JTPCTO 2012a, 2012b; OWJT 2012; OWKS 2012). One of his main attributed merits is that as a Chinese Muslim he spread Islam on Java on a large scale. This achievement serves as the main reason for one of the officials at the inauguration of a new Cheng Ho statue at Sam Poo Kong temple to declare that this statue has to be seen a symbol of religious

11 The references in the empirical part of this paper refer to different interviews (i) conducted by the author. The numbers are mentioned so that the different statements can be assigned to the respective enunciator while keeping them anonymous. 12 Interestingly, a lot of my interview partners talked of five recognized religions in Indonesia, even though there are six, namely Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Confucianism. The newly acknowledged Confucianism was often forgotten.

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harmony and of an extraordinary history, as it proves that peace between religions already existed since former times. An interesting aspect becomes obvious in nearly all speeches and interviews. From the viewpoint of the tourism officials, the emphasis on harmony, multireligiosity and multiculturalism represents a unique selling point. For example, the head of the provincial tourism office states: “I think the culture in Central Java is still tolerant so that it can become a tourism product.” (i99: 4). Accordingly, none of the interviewed government representatives seems troubled by the notion of selling or marketing culture in this way (“tidak masalah kalau budaya dijual”) and they do not appear to worry that people might condemn the use of culture for touristic purposes. On the contrary, they appear to assume that most of the population would be happy for their culture to be appreciated by tourists (i99: 3-4). This positive attitude towards the commercialisation of culture can be explained by several factors. First of all, tourism is considered to be an important source of income, and therefore not only has the potential to support the provincial economy but also to improve the economic situation of society in general (i99: 3).13 Another reason is that the Department of Culture on the regional level of Central Java has been integrated within the Department of Tourism. 14 Thus, the employees of the tourism offices perceive it as their main task to manage culture in a way that supports the progress of tourism (i134: 1). Hence, it is not surprising that touristic destinations such as Bali or Yogyakarta are cited as exemplary, as they succeed in combining culture and tourism in a lucrative manner (i134: 6). Likewise, Sam Poo Kong is heralded as a positive example of the type of attractions that could engender more Chinese tourists to visit Semarang (i99: 13-14). In this context, it is interesting to note that the remarkable significance of such a Chinese protagonist is promoted by non-Chinese Indonesians (as state officials rarely are of Chinese descent) who mainly adhere to Islam. The question then is whether economic interests guide such development, or if they can also

13 For further information on the growing importance of tourism for foreign currencies on the national level see: http://www.budpar.go.id/userfiles/file/rankingdevisa20062010.pdf. 14 The organization of the ministries is not uniform in Indonesia. On the national level the name of the relevant ministry is “Kementrian Pariwisata dan Ekonomi Kreatif” (Ministry of tourism and creative economy). On other regional levels the ministries are partly organized or at least named differently (for further details see: http://www.budpar.go.id/asp/content.asp?id=86). Additionally, these organizations and the naming underlie constant change.

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be considered as an indication of the gradual recognition of Chinese Indonesians and their achievements by the government? It can be summarized that from an official point of view the Sam Poo Kong temple is considered to be a potent source of income for the city and the province. Its commoditisation and commercialisation for tourism is based on the belief that it should be interpreted as a unique symbol of multi-religiosity, multiculturalism, tolerance and harmony. All of which can supposedly be traced back to the early beginnings of the city and the extra-ordinary historical event of the arrival of Cheng Ho in Semarang. In this sense, the interpretation of the officials can be considered as inherently “traditional” as it promotes a presupposed monolinear continuity with the past that is bound to a specific set of cultural and historical features (see above). It is therefore interesting to compare this official opinion on the recent developments of the Sam Poo Kong temple with the opinions of Chinese Indonesians. To illustrate the differing perceptions of the popular dimension, I will first take a closer look at how the touristic, eventisised and commercialised usages of the temple and its surrounding events are perceived. This provides the basis for further considerations regarding the historical and recent interpretations concerning the officially endorsed depictions of multi-religious harmony in Sam Poo Kong.

H ISTORICAL C OMMUNICATION

OF

S AM P OO K ONG

AS A

POPULAR SITE OF WORSHIP What becomes apparent in nearly all of my interviews is the fact that none of my interview partners proclaimed any negative impacts induced by the touristic use of the Sam Poo Kong temple or any other place of worship. On the contrary, tourism is considered to have had a positive impact on such places. As one of my interview partners states: “For the Chinese community it is not a problem if a klenteng becomes a tourism destination because like this it obtains further support.” (i112: 27). It is even considered to be an honour if religious celebrations become a tourist attraction. Accordingly, one of my interview partners put forth that the annual parade of Sam Poo Kong offers great touristic opportunities: “The parade of Sam Poo Kong has potential to be boosted, because it has a story, a ritual, a spirit and uniqueness.” (i72: 1). According to the interview partner, such practices offer an extraordinary experience while engendering the spiritual involvement that is demanded by many tourists nowadays. As this is unique to

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Semarang, “[…] it becomes a uniqueness that can be sold” (i72: 1) and thus has the potential to bring profit to the entire city (i 72: 13). This positive attitude towards tourism can be explained by several factors. Most importantly, the fact that tourists attend a religious celebration or place would assure the continued existence of that celebration or place. This perception is mostly due to the negative experience during the Suharto regime, during which every display of Chinese culture, symbolism and religion was strictly forbidden. The recent government transformation of places such as Sam Poo Kong for touristic purposes and the subsequent involvement of tourists thus provides a means to ensuring the survival and continuity of these specific forms of religious practices (cf. amongst others i112: 28). The attraction of tourists is considered to be in support of the respective places and events. But even though my interview partners speak of “selling” the event, the main focus is not on the direct profit derived from tourists. Rather, tourism is considered as a multiplier effect. This means that it can attract a larger religious community, which then directly funds the religious place (i112: 20), while simultaneously boosting local businesses such as hotels, restaurants and other service industry oriented infrastructure (i72: 13-14). Greed did not seem to fuel the motives of my interview partners. This is also one of the reasons why the management of the Sam Poo Kong foundation is often criticized for requiring an entrance fee. As for the majority of my interviewees, it seems condemnable to ask for money for admission to a klenteng (which isn’t usual in Semarang). Some especially complain about the amount of money that is charged: “It would be okay to ask for little money like two or three thousand Rupiah [0,16-0,32€], but not 25.000 Rupiah [2€]” (i112: 26). Some even consider the entrance fee to be an inhibiting factor for tourism (i72: 12). Only one of my interview partners defends the entrance fee by comparing Sam Poo Kong to other religious tourism destinations in Semarang or Central Java, where it is common practice to charge for admission (i79: 7). However, for most of the other interview partners it appears to be especially disturbing to set a price of admission for a place of worship (cf. amongst others i112: 26-27). Even those who would generally agree on fees for tourists criticize the fact that even Chinese Indonesians have to pay the same price (i79: 7). It becomes clear that touristification per se doesn’t represent a problem for most of my interview partners. Nevertheless, there are limitations to said process. As the last two statements show, different interests and orientations should also be taken into account. Whereas the first argument is based on religious reasoning, the second is based on ethnical concerns. Similar contestations or disagreements arise regarding the involvement of tourists in sacral events, such as the Sam Poo Kong parade. On the one hand, certain interview partners agree that

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tourists should be encouraged to be spectators, but should be denied active participation in order to preserve the sacral value of the event. In their eyes, it is not acceptable that non-pious persons become directly involved with the sacral part of the parade by wearing masks that imitate the paintings of devoted supplicants. Normally these paintings demand a lot of preparation and are bound to certain rules reserved to persons who want to hold their sacred vows. The selling of the masks and the subsequent monetary gain derived from the sacral event is considered to have a destructive effect on the ritual (i112: 31-32). On the other hand, there are interview partners who share the opinion that a mere conservation of the ritual without further development would lead to a decline of the event and dissipate its religious value (i72: 2,13). To involve tourists by selling them masks not only represents something that they can take home as a souvenir but also enriches the parade. Change and future development are considered to be crucial to the survival of such historical events (i72: 9). Besides the degree of involvement of tourism in the Sam Poo Kong parade, the “becoming too Chinese”15 of the temple and the celebrations forms a point of criticism in the eyes of some of my interview partners. In their opinion the revitalisation and restoration has lead to an increasingly strong orientation towards China. Such critique concerns the construction material of the temple (an apparent change from wood to mainly plastic), as well as a strong emphasis on Chinese “traditional” beliefs (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and the specific prioritizing of the Chinese community during celebrations (i79: 8-10; i72: 5). It becomes clear that even though tourism is generally considered as a positive factor, certain side effects remain highly contested. As the abovementioned considerations show, personal interests and orientations guide such contestations. If we take a closer look at the different argumentations, it appears that they entail a deeper concern regarding identity formation and negotiation. People opposing the commercial or touristic use of sacral elements are themselves part of the respective religious community, and likely to be deeply involved in the religious celebrations. One of them is even the head of the P.T.I.T.D (perkumpulan tempat ibadah tri dharma), the association of Tri Dharma16 worship places, and therefore especially offended by the dissolution of the Sam Poo Kong management into what is considered an umbrella organisation (i112). In contrast, the 15 The terms used by my interview partners is “(menjadi) terlalu cina”. 16 Tri Dharma is the association of the three teaching of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. It was fostered under the Suharto regime as possibility of survival for Confucianism and Taoism as they were not officially recognized religions. Klentengs that were labeled Tri Dharma could persist even though containing Confucian or Tao elements.

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person advocating the touristic use and further popularisation of the Sam Poo Kong parade is commonly considered to be the unofficial representative of the Chinese community in Semarang and pursues close relationships with governmental dignitaries (i72). Those who oppose such “Chinesification” and express concern regarding the exclusion from the Sam Poo Kong temple are adherents to Christian belief and are therefore concerned with the recognition of their Chinese identity as they do not adhere to “traditional” Chinese beliefs (i72; i190). In summary it can be stated, that while the governmental popularisation of Sam Poo Kong as part of an increased touristification process appears to be commonly accepted, it nevertheless engenders the voicing of multiple contestations that form the basis for a negotiation of identity in relation to supporting or rejecting certain interpretations of religion and tradition. This already indicates that there could be other levels of contestations or shortcomings that are not explicitly linked to the popularisation, but which are revealed through actions or reactions concerning the wider context of the place’s popularisation. Supposedly, the mono-linear historical tradition of Sam Poo Kong presented by the government officials serves as a good starting point for research into conflicting contents and interpretations. In the following part, I will take a closer look at emic interpretations concerning the past, as well as ethnical, cultural, and religious aspects of the Sam Poo Kong temple. The aim is to compare them to the multicultural and multi-religious perspectives proclaimed by the officials.

H ISTORICAL C OMMUNICATION

OF S AM TRADITIONAL PLACE OF HARMONY

P OO K ONG

AS A

Even though several of my interview partners concurred that Semarang is a particularly peaceful city with very few inter-religious incidents, nearly no one traces this situation back to the achievements of Cheng Ho. The historian Singgih Tri Sulistiyono17 (2010: 6) even states that “unfortunately there is no credible document that is able to provide evidence for the stopping of Zheng He’s18 fleet at Semarang” and that it remains uncertain whether or not he founded Sam Poo Kong. Nevertheless, he considers the Sam Poo Kong temple as a symbol of the

17 For the argumentation on inter-ethnic controversies that will be elaborated further below, it is important to note that Sulistiyono is Javanese as well as Muslim. 18 Cheng Ho and Zheng He are synonymous for the same historic person. “Sam Poo” is considered to be the deity of this person, which is represented as a statue and worshipped in the temple.

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historical inter-religious and inter-ethnic relations in Semarang, namely “the identity formation among descendants of Chinese society” (Sulistiyono 2010: 1). Even though the founder of Sam Poo Kong is not historically documented, it appears to be certain that Chinese immigrants built the original mosque. It was subsequently transformed into a temple during the first decade of the 18th century. According to Sulistiyono, this transformation can be explained by historical socio-cultural developments. In the early 15th century the Chinese Muslims integrated into the local community to the extent that there was no need to highlight their “Chineseness” or abandon Muslim belief, and thus Sam Poo Kong remained a mosque (ibid.:12). The situation dramatically changed with the arrival of the Dutch colonizers and the establishment of the quasi-racial stratification system. Sulistiyono (2010: 12, 15) states that the Islamic identity no longer provided political, economic or cultural benefits due to the fact that Islam became an integral part of the indigenous identity. And “[i]n this case, ‘Chineseness’ and the ‘deislamisation’ of identity brought higher profits in facing the ruler (the VOC19)” (ibid.: 12). This change could also be observed at Sam Poo Kong, which subsequently became a temple for Chinese beliefs. Sulistiyono (2010: 1418) declares that after a short period during which the temple was abandoned by the Chinese community and owned by a Jewish landlord, Sam Poo Kong increasingly assumed a “Chinese” identity. It was returned to the Chinese of Semarang in 1879. Upon its restoration, the Chinese symbolism featured more prominently than before. According to Sulistiyono (2010: 18) the “summit of Chineseness” of Sam Poo Kong was reached in the Reformation era when ostensibly all elements of Muslim belief were removed and Cheng Ho “as a symbol of Islam had been captured by the Chinese community who had left Islam”. Even though the latter assumption is debatable, it becomes clear that Sulistiyono’s vision of the place differs significantly from that of the representatives of the tourism departments. He traces a history of Sam Poo Kong that also reflects multiculturalism and multi-religiosity, but in a far less harmonious and much more complex way. He even reveals that the officials’ assumptions are mainly based on folktales rather than historical fact. This is a first indication that the official perception of the place diverges with other views, and may suffer from a lack of historical depth and selective interpretation. But first, let us consider other opinions regarding the historical significance of the temple. Most of my interview partners displayed a working knowledge of the legend of Cheng Ho and his arrival on Semarang, but, as mentioned above, were fairly unknowledgeable regarding its recent or historical significance. The sole differing opinion came from a Muslim Chinese man (a rare combination for Chinese 19 Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie/ Dutch East India Company.

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Indonesians in Semarang). Even though in his argumentation he does not insist on the fact that Cheng Ho really came to Semarang, it appears to be very important to him that Sam Poo Kong had been a Muslim site and that Chinese merchants such as Cheng Ho had played an important role in spreading Islam throughout Indonesia. According to him, the majority of Chinese in Indonesia at that time had been Muslim and thus the relationship between Chinese and Islam and Javanese had been very close (i190: 1-2). He further highlights the fact that Islam had arrived in China much earlier than in Indonesia and that, in comparison to Arabic Islam, Chinese Islam had been strongly oriented towards interreligious tolerance (i190: 5-7). The significance of these statements can only be understood if we consider the actual relationship the Chinese community has with Islam. As my interview partner states: “Chinese are already a minority. If they enter Islam they are again a minority. So they are a minority within a minority” (i190: 24). This not only refers to the fact that only few Chinese Indonesians adhere to Islam, but also that the position of Chinese Muslims is often quite complicated within the Islamic community itself (cf. also Jacobsen 2005, Muzakki 2010)20. Chinese Muslims are for the most part considered to be “muallaf”, to be “new” Muslims, who did not inherit, Islam but later converted to it and are as such perceived to be less pious (i190: 8). This explains why it is important to my interview partner to highlight the Islamic orientation of Chinese Indonesians dating back to earlier times. His argumentation implies that, not only were they recently introduced to Islam, they were in fact returning to the religion of their ancestors (cf. i190: 8). Accordingly, Sam Poo Kong’s Islamic origin is of much significance. My interview partner even told me that there had been a plan to convert Sam Poo Kong from a temple into a mosque and that there already existed architectural drawings for such a project. The undertaking had failed due to the resistance of the Sam Poo Kong foundation’s manager, as well as the government’s decision to promote it as a tourist attraction (i190: 4, 23). It becomes clear that according to this interview partner, Sam Poo Kong does not represent a multi-religious or multicultural place, but rather highlights the symbolisation of a dominant opinion oriented on “traditional” Chinese beliefs, including their subsequent appropriation as a tourist commodity. It once more 20 It is nearly impossible to present concrete numbers on the percentage of Chinese Indonesians adhering to Islam, because the ethnic background is no longer part of the official statistical data collection. According to the here mentioned interview partner the Association of Chinese Indonesian Muslims ( Persatuan Islam Tionghoa Indonesia) in Semarang encompasses not more than 500 members, with a total of approx. 1,7 million inhabitants in Semarang (cf. i190: 23; Dispenduk Capil Kota Semarang 2013).

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appears that, in regard to religion, tradition and identity, Sam Poo Kong remains a place of many contestations. Even though the here described conflict is between Islamic and “traditional” Chinese beliefs, similar struggles also arise between Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and traditional religious practices, and are ultimately likely to affect Sam Poo Kong as well. Due to the difficult historical situation of Chinese culture, there exist strong contestations concerning the ascription of a place of worship to one of these beliefs. Such elements are reminiscent of the above mentioned example of the Sam Poo Kong management refusing to be part of the general umbrella organisation P.T.I.T.D. The interviews also mention various personal convictions and interests in influencing the religious orientation of temples (cf. i112: 21) as opposed to recognizing the space as a common example of “Chinese” worship (cf. Koji 2012: 397). These religious contestations not only raise tensions within the Chinese community, but also cause inter-ethnic controversies. One of my interview partners assumes that it had been a concealed effort of the “Indonesian” people to make Sam Poo Kong a mosque, as part of what he considers to be a sign of their hegemonic attitude as the Muslim majority towards the minorities of different faiths (i112: 6, 7, 27). In yet another example, the above-mentioned JavaneseMuslim historian Sulistiyono declares that each and every sign of Muslim belief had been removed from the Sam Poo Kong temple to be replaced by Chinese symbolism. Despite this, as I could witness myself, a cave with reliefs that tell the story of the Muslim Cheng Ho still features as a destination for Muslim pilgrimage, which can be found directly behind the temple. A third example of the ethnic controversies that arise concerning Sam Poo Kong is provided by the case of the elementary and junior high school Salomo. As one of my interview partners explained to me, the school is located on the wider ground of the Sam Poo Kong area. The Sam Poo Kong management intends to develop the space as a parking lot. Because of this the school was asked to relocate its premises. This in turn led to a public outcry that drew strongly on ethnic affiliations. According to my interview partner, the press characterized the story as “rich Chinese chasing poor school children”. She expressed the fear that these simplifications could cause further ethnic unrests (i79: 5-6). These examples reveal the ethnic tensions that arise regarding Sam Poo Kong. Evidently government officials do not draw upon these stories to illustrate the harmonious multiculturalism of that place. Accordingly, the historical importance of the repressive Suharto order during which the Sam Poo Kong parade between Tay Kak Sie and Sam Poo Kong temple was prohibited is carefully concealed. It is also likely that other restrictions issued by Suharto to affect all

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klenteng, have also had an impact on Sam Poo Kong. For instance, to ensure their existence, all temples had to embrace different strategies such as registering themselves as Buddhist sanctuaries, becoming members of bigger associations (such as the P.T.I.T.D.), or keeping a low profile, which caused the above described problems (Koji 2012: 391-393). Finally, the Suharto order fostered, or at least failed to prevent, racial persecution of the Chinese, which are commonly considered to have been carried out, at least partially, by Muslim organisations (cf. i190: 24).

C ONCLUSION The theoretical part has shown that “Ethnogeschichte” and its methodological implementation in the shape of Historical Communication offers great opportunities to integrate fluid notions of tradition, religion and the popular by considering them both in their respective contexts and lifeworlds, as well as approaching them inductively. By paying special attention to the insights resulting from the spatial turn, that means the concomitance of a place’s materiality and constructedness, as well as spatially grounding their respective meanings and peculiarities on the specific example of the Sam Poo Kong temple in Semarang, it became possible to grasp their multiple constructions, i.e. their multivocality. The analysis of the Historical Communication belonging to the official perspective has led to the insight that popularisation is fostered in the shape of touristification, carnivalisation, eventisation, and commercialisation. These processes are based on a putative multi-religious harmonious continuity of the place’s history that draws on a traditional, i.e. mono-linear and mono-causal, interpretation of the past. The confrontation of these perspectives with those of Chinese Indonesians involved with the temple has indicated that popularisation processes are commonly accepted or even welcomed and that there exists no exclusive dichotomy between the religious orientation of the place and its popularisation. Nevertheless, certain aspects of such popularisation engender critique, especially regarding the degree of the involvement of tourists, the commoditisation of sacral elements, or the presumed threat of “Chinesification”. Further contestations become obvious when scrutinizing the official presentation of Sam Poo Kong as a traditional place of harmony. A deeper analysis of the place’s past has painted a far less harmonious and much more complex picture of the historical occurrences, challenging the image of a coherently developing place of multi-religious harmony. Similarly, continuous dissonances regard-

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ing the recent ethnic and religious orientation of Sam Poo Kong reveal prejudices and disharmony that are the basis of the struggle of authority of interpretation. The case of the Sam Poo Kong temple has thus shown that religion, the past and the popular –when connected to concrete lifeworlds – adopt different, often conflicting, but nearly never dichotomous or mutually exclusive meanings according to specific points of view. In the case of the Chinese Indonesians, it therefore becomes possible to interpret the popularisation fostered by the regional government, not only as a means of exerting power, but also as an arena for negotiating agency. Indeed, they do not passively adopt or reproduce the official opinion. Rather, they strategically use and reject common judgments or prejudices to suit their own purposes. The extent to which the here described patterns of religion and the past play analogical roles in other contexts regarding the ongoing revitalisation processes within the Chinese Indonesian communities should be the focus of further research.

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Translating Traditions and Transcendence: Popularised Religiosity and the Paranormal Practitioners’ Position in Indonesia J UDITH S CHLEHE

I NTRODUCTION In worldwide processes of globalisation, migration and circulation of knowledge, many new and renewed beliefs and practices occur that are not necessarily connected to “disenchantment”, but rather point towards significant religious transformations. “Religion”, however understood, as such becomes an important terrain of struggle over values and identity politics, possibly culminating in ethnoreligious conflicts and an increase in organised fundamentalist or radical religious activity. It is for this reason that the rise of religious orientations has recently received much scholarly attention. While both public and academic interest has mainly concerned itself with fundamentalism and interreligious dialogue (which is usually seen as something that should happen between the institutionalised religions), local beliefs in both traditional and modern form as well as alternative religions have mostly been sorely missing from such consideration. Yet, religious change and global enchantment is not only to be observed amongst the so-called world religions, but also manifests itself within formations and articulations of popular religiosity. What does this mean? Popular religiosity here includes folk belief or a simplified form of a so-called world religion, as well as differing forms of globalised alternative religions, or a combination of all, in which diverse traditions borrow from each other. The use of the term “popularised religiosity” in this chapter adheres to the latter interpretation. It is characterised by its engagement with the praxis of life and a blurring of boundaries between social classes.

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In this chapter I want to focus on a modernised and popularised form of locally based religious traditions in Indonesia that transfer everyday problems from the realm of the mundane to the transcendent realm of supernatural powers. I do not identify “locally based traditions” with pre-modern aspects of life or bounded space(s). Popularised religious beliefs and practices, although often built on the basis of what are seen as local traditions, extend and transcend such categories due to their inherent entanglement with translocal and even global factors. Various forms of knowledge, beliefs and practices circulate in the realm of such entanglement, including so-called world, scriptural, institutionalised, organised, or universal religions and global faiths. Thereby, also the market as well as the media become crucial factors. Although I will focus on magical-mystical concepts and practices in Java, Indonesia, I do not wish to relapse into the formerly widespread convention of anthropologists working on “exotic” issues of cultural others. On the contrary, I intend to de-exoticise the paranormal phenomena by critically discussing their risks and potentials from my point of view, which is inherently that of an outsider.1 One method of de-exotisation is to become aware of the relatedness of a phenomenon. In the present case, this means that we may have a look at similar phenomena in other parts of the world. For instance, one might point towards examples of folk religiosity in Europe such as, for instance, the beliefs and practices to be found in Lourdes. Or we can look at fairs for esotericism as they can be witnessed regularly in numerous European cities. This provides many examples for the global flows of popularised religiosity and connectedness of magical-mystical beliefs and practices in the context of old and new religious and esoteric movements, healing or advisory practices (cf. Knoblauch, Voss, von Schnurbein, Gründer in this volume). Their solutions and remedies on offer are closely connected to the everyday life of patients and customers. In this way they mirror the people’s needs and desires. Thus, it would already serve the purpose of de-exotisation if I would do nothing else but just describe how the Indonesian paranormal practitioners’ offers and activities relate to their clients’ needs and wishes (as they do at many places in the global world, too). Indeed, the modern Indonesian paranormal’s tendency to focus on all kinds of up-to-date issues is worthy of further consideration. This will be done in the following. But beyond this, it is the intention of this chapter to emphasise the position – and potential – of modern paranormal in the current context of religious dynamics, tension and rising conflicts in Indonesia.

1

It should be noted, however, that it has become increasingly difficult to establish who or what constitutes an in- or outsider in the globalised world.

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As such, one of the crucial queries of this volume concerns the significance of popular and popularised religions in the contemporary world. The concrete questions of this paper are twofold. Firstly, what characterises a modern paranormal 2 in Indonesia? Secondly, what do the paranormal’s practices and self-positioning signify in respect to the contemporary religious situation in Indonesia and beyond? In order to suggest answers to these questions, I will refer to the concept of translation. Data collection took place during several weeks of anthropological fieldwork3 in Yogyakarta, Solo, Jakarta and Semarang between 2010 and 2012. I visited many4 paranormal, took part in various rituals, and was also treated myself. This chapter proceeds as follows: After a brief historical background and introduction to the present cultural setting, I will describe modern paranormal practitioners’ practices and self-positioning in Java with special reference to (a resurgence of) Chinese-Indonesian traditions. In the conclusion I will return to the inherent meanings, potentials and problematic aspects of modern paranormal in Indonesia, which contribute to a more general reflection on popularised religions.

P AST

AND PRESENT RELIGIOUS DYNAMICS IN I NDONESIA

Java has a long history of religious tolerance and pluralism. As described by Anthony Reid (this volume), a shift from the cosmopolitan stage of religious change (and rival universalisms) took place in the “age of commerce” during the long 16th century, leading to the religious synthesis and homogenisation of the long

2

In the Indonesian language “paranormal” can indicate singular or plural.

3

This study is part of a DFG-funded project on “Popular Historical Cultures in Indonesia: Current References to the Past in the Context of Democratisation and Decentralisation” in the context of the interdisciplinary research group “History in Popular Cultures of Knowledge”. I am very grateful for the financial support of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

4

I am aware that this sounds vague. This is due to the difficulties to categorise and calculate numbers of informants and interlocutors in anthropological fieldwork. For instance, you make an appointment and visit a paranormal practitioner in order to conduct an interview – but then his/her assistants, colleagues, neighbours, friends, family will drop in and join the conversation. A group interview develops spontaneously and/or the original interlocutor may be even replaced by somebody else. How can you count the number of informants in such a case?

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18th century. Eventually, Islam established itself as the crucial marker of Javanese identity. This brought about socio-religious change, which privileged men in new and significant ways. However, the Javanese Muslim world remained immersed in local deities and spirits, and “spirit mediumship still provided the means whereby women could gain recognition as healers and seers, [yet] a long line of Islamic teachers saw such practices as unacceptable polytheism” (Andaya 2006: 93). In the late 19th and early 20th century, Javanese society became polarised along religious lines, and the contesting identities of devout Muslims and the more syncretic Javanese – which had, according to Ricklefs (2006), formed a “mystic synthesis” before – became increasingly politicised. In the second half of the 20th century, President Suharto led the state on a path toward controlled Islamisation (Ricklefs 2012). Corresponding with a normative definition of religion, and based on a model of scriptural monotheism, only four other world religions were officially recognised in Indonesia: Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Only in 2006, after Suharto’s resignation and the Reformasi (era of democratic reforms), did Confucianism gain state recognition.5 But even today local beliefs, including kejawen,6 as well as magic and supernatural power are dissociated conceptually from religion (agama) and relegated to the realm of “tradition”, “custom” (adat) (Picard 2011: 5) or culture (kebudayaan) and folklore (cf. Davidson/Henley 2007). At present the religiosity of the population is increasing. Though this also holds true e.g. for Pentecostalism, the most powerful dynamics relates to an increasing emphasis on Islam (cf. Burhanudin/van Dijk 2013; Heryanto in this volume). This has spawned an increase in religious exclusiveness and intolerance, including the radicalisation of Indonesian Islam. In this context, a recent law on blasphemy, as well as sharia elements in regional bylaws, and restrictive fatwa (authoritative religious decisions) by the MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, the Council of Indonesian Ulama/Muslim leaders) have to be mentioned. Yet, at the same time Reformasi (Reform period) and decentralisation have led to a reemphasis and revitalisation of adat (tradition, custom). Under this label we can also find a resurgence of popular religious practices. In the present context, the emergence of many new “spiritual groups” can be considered a remarkable trend. This new popular spirituality, existing in tension with congregational re5

Chinese Indonesians, constituting between two and three percent of the total population, still hold an ambivalent position in the country, going back to the long-standing discriminatory policies against them in the Suharto period. They are heterogeneous in many respects, one of them is religion (Sai/Hoon 2013: 12).

6

Kejawen is based on “Javanese” worldview, ethics, rituals, aesthetics, etiquette and mysticism (kebatinan).

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ligion, emphasises subjective experience and individual autonomy (Howell 2005). It can be related to Sufism (mystical Islam), kejawen, New Age and various subjectivities. In parts it overlaps with the consumption of “Pop Islam” and the individualised form of modern Islamic lifestyle of the new middle class (cf. Fealy 2008). This implies a focus on personal piety and an open attitude towards Islamic marketisation, (Western) management theory, popular psychology, and self-help industries. Rudnyckyj (2009) therefore refers to this as a “spiritual economy”, whereas Hauser-Schäublin, in more general terms, argues that the combination of “religion”, “tradition” and “politics” works towards a “spiritualised modernity” (2011: 193).7 Imageries of spirituality are closely linked with imageries of modernity. This is the context in which modern paranormal are positioned.

M ODERN

PARANORMAL PRACTITIONERS IN

J AVA

Everyday discourse, both in Europe and Asia, often associates folk belief and magical-spiritual specialists with superstition, old-fashioned traditionality, exploitation – or strangeness and mental disturbances. This can be traced back to projects of colonisation, modernisation, scientific rationalisation and the formation of post-colonial nation-states (Endres/Lauser 2011: 2). In fact, there exist many different kinds of magical practitioners. Their beliefs and practices, as well as their respective importance to society, differ immensely. In respect to Java, for instance, it is difficult to draw a sharp line between the designations of dukun and paranormal. In their classic works on Java, Geertz (1960: 86) and Koentjaraningrat (1985: 422) have characterised traditional mystical experts, the dukun (dhukun), as magical and ceremonial specialists, performers, curers and sorcerers. Other authors have since put more emphasis on the practitioners’ healing capacities (Ferzacca 2001), including Islamic healing (Daniels 2009; Woodward 2011). The profession of dukun can be inherited. Alternately, one might be summoned in a dream or in meditation. The dukun’s moral status and reputation are ambivalent, as on the one hand they provide supernatural aid and are consulted for many health-related and other problems (mainly concerning love magic, and divina-

7

The mentioned authors focus on Islam and Hinduism whereas this study mainly refers to magical practices.

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tion), while on the other hand they are regarded with suspicion for their ability to exercise sorcery.8 In the past few decades, a new group of spiritual, supernaturally powerful specialists has emerged, often labelled paranormal. What is the current distinction between dukun and paranormal practitioners (or the other widespread modern designation, supranatural)? Although they distance themselves from dukun, when queried, most paranormal explained that despite their similarities, the dukun are more commonly associated with traditionality, rural and village life, as well as a low formal level of education. In contrast, paranormal and supranatural are mostly urbanised, mostly well educated (often academics), they belong to the middle class, and employ modern technologies and media. Many paranormal have websites and use global communication networks. They use Facebook accounts, and advertise in magazines9 and newspapers. Some even appear on television shows. They act and communicate translocally (some of them offer their services on certain weekdays in different parts of the archipelago or they practice in hotels or perform in shopping malls) and situate themselves in both modern and traditional spheres. Because they also re-attach their clients to traditional symbols and relations one can designate them as intermediaries between tradition and modernity. Their capacities are very broad. Not only are they alternative healers,10 especially for severe physical and psychological diseases, they are also active in numerous other fields. Depending on their specialisation, these could include: business, careers, selling property (houses/land/cars), searching for natural resources, liberating people from debts, opening one’s aura, beauty, producing self-confidence and charisma, giving fulfilment to the soul, fortune-telling, love, sex, infertility, breaking spells, treating possession and exorcising evil spirits, fighting drug addictions, repelling black magic and, perhaps most remarkably (as one of the many unexpected side-effects of decentralisation in Indonesia since

8

For an analysis of accusations of sorcery and violence in times of disintegration at the end of the Suharto regime, cf. Siegel (2006).

9

There is a considerable variety of mystical psychic tabloids in Indonesia.

10 Most of the recent ethnographic literature remains focused on dukun and paranormal as healers (Daniels 2009; Woodward 2011), however it is suggested here that these practitioners should be considered in the broader spectrum of their activities. Furthermore, it should be noted that not all paranormal are Muslims (as these works give the impression). Even in Yogyakarta, there exist a considerable amount of Christian practitioners, mostly addressed as Romo. And, last but not least, the present study includes female paranormal practitioners, a group not mentioned by Daniels and Woodward.

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2001) the winning of local elections.11 Thus, it can be concluded that the paranormal have effectively transferred the image of the sage or the dukun into that of modern cosmopolitan metaphysics (metafisika). Finally, they offer support in all kinds of uncertainties to remedy the existential anxieties of everyday life, be they economic, emotional or related to general orientation. There are various types of paranormal, including those with a predominantly Islamic religious orientation.12 In 2005, the MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) proclaimed a fatwa against paranormal practice. As a result, a growing number of paranormal now identify and (re)present themselves as pious Muslims. They use the title of kyai (religious expert) or ustad (ustadz; religious teacher). Daniels (2009: 56) interprets this as a self-protective appropriation of normative Islam by which to frame their practices. In line with this, we can also say that they manage to translate local world-views and indigenous belief systems into what is commonly categorised as religion (agama) in Indonesia. There are also paranormal who identify as Christian, Buddhist or Confucian, and others that draw upon local philosophy and belief (kejawen), as well as explicitly modern varieties relying on (what the practitioners call) metaphysics. Most of them stress that their abilities and magical power (kesaktian) come directly from God, and that they treat their clients using inner or supernatural powers (kekuatan gaib), spiritual strength, ascetic exercise, meditation, prayers, suggestion, hypnosis, transfer of energy (or bio energy), trance and possession. Others employ pusaka (magical heirlooms) or chant over the remedies that they intend to give their clients, such as water or herbs. They even insert small golden objects under the skin (pasang susuk). Sometimes, visible evidence of their practice is provided to the client, for example when objects are extracted from the body. Some, on occasion, may make use of modern techniques by means of electricity, computers or Western medicine. Whatever the method, the performative aspects of the connected rituals are central to their practice. Part of this is the paranormal practitioners’ own appearance. They dress themselves in adat clothing, enhanced with self-made innovations by mixing 11 Most political candidates for both local and national elections are said to consult paranormal. However, as several paranormal interlocutors complained, politicians would not openly admit this because the practice is often associated with superstition. Instead, they would rather publicly announce their visits to Islamic teachers (ustad, ustadz). Nevertheless, paranormal receive an immense income for conducting these rituals for politicians. The 2005 direct elections for regional administrators saw a sharp increase in employment for paranormal. 12 For a detailed description of various Islamic types and a debate about being klenik or musyrik (non-Islamic, polytheistic, superstitious) cf. Daniels (2009: 55-81).

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clothes, markers, symbols and accessories referring to various traditions. The spaces in which they receive clients – sometimes huge centres – are decorated with impressive emblems referring to an immense variety of traditions (cf. figure 1). Figure 1: Decoration in a waiting room of a Klinik Supranatural in Yogyakarta, displaying a painting of the Javanese sea goddess Ratu Kidul, fotos of the paranormal with various celebrities, a statue of a Native American, and a box for donations (KOTAK). (Photo J.S.)

Regarding gender, the paranormal practitioners’ clients include both women and men and vary with regard to ethnicity, level of education, social class and faith. The majority of paranormal are male, and an estimated 30% of practitioners are female. Nevertheless, some interviewees claim that there are as many female as male paranormal, but that the former are reluctant to expose themselves to the public. According to these interviewees, female paranormal are considered to be less self-confident and less proficient speakers, while also being constrained by menstruation. One male paranormal complained about the successful, rich female paranormal in Jakarta, all of whom, according to him, have one weakness in common: they have many young lovers. This reveals an obvious double stan-

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dard. What Ferzacca writes about male dukun holds true for male paranormal as well: they “are notorious for their sexual prowess and for engaging in sexual relations with their female clients” (Ferzacca 2001: 174). However, unlike for their female colleagues, this is not seen as a weakness for male practitioners. Rather, it adds to their reputation as being exceptionally powerful (cf. Anderson 1990: 32; van Wichelen 2010: 77). A crucial aspect of the modernisation and reconfiguration of the role of spiritual specialists lies in the creation of numerous local and national organisations. The most famous of which is the Forum Komunikasi Paranormal dan Penyembuh Alternatif Indonesia (FKPPAI; Communication Forum for Indonesian Paranormals and Alternative Healers) with approximately 40,000 members. It is based on a nationally recognised organisation initiated by President Suharto and his wife Ibu Tien and was founded in Taman Mini (a central cultural theme park in Jakarta) in 1990. Suharto was renowned for his paranormal advisors and it is said that his motivation to found the FKPPAI was to secure the paranormal practitioner’s power for himself and his authoritarian regime. At present, the organisation has been left weakened by power struggles and commercialisation. Nonetheless, it still offers its members social respect, self-confidence and enhanced means of networking. As an additional innovation, amongst the paranormal themselves disparaging gossip about paranormal sorcery (“black magic”) has decreased.13 This, however, seems to have been replaced by a condemnation of their apparent profit-orientation. All interlocutors accused their paranormal colleagues of this, stating that they themselves do not ask for money. Yet some keep a box for donations in their consultation room or even employ fixed prices.14 13 On the other hand, the issue of “black magic” became a highly contested topic in the Indonesian public in 2013 due to an attempt of Indonesia’s parliament to outlaw black magic. In a proposed revision of the criminal code it would become illegal to “declare the possession of mysterious powers” (Bland 2013). This caused concerns that black magic, sorcery and witchcraft (ilmu santet) would be difficult to prove before the law. Another argument is that black and white magic – the handling of supernatural energies – cannot be completely separated (Koko T. 2013). Others attribute the proposed law to a “pious turn” in Indonesian Islam, which argues that any attention to “supernatural” powers outside those of Allah is blasphemous, violating the belief that God is One and unique (Herriman 2013). 14 It is difficult to make and assessment of financial rewards. In advertisements in the mystical magazine Posmo, we found claims ranging from IDR 500,000 to 4,000,000. But in most cases it seems that the amount of payment or gifts depends on the client’s capacities.

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Ki Joko Bodo, a “celebrity” amongst contemporary paranormal in Jakarta, summarised the situation by explaining that “the paranormal have to know politics, know religion, know the arts, know the economy, know technology and all the necessary tricks for life. Thus, if we only meditate on a mountain we do not know anything.”15

S ELF - POSITIONING

OF MODERN PARANORMAL

Discussing Western and global society with paranormal16 practitioners – male, female, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, from various ethnic and social backgrounds – it became clear that all of them stressed primarily human similarities, not differences. Being accustomed to guests, they warmly welcomed a Western anthropologist and were more than willing to answer questions concerning their worldviews and practices. Some of them had visited the United States or Europe and could compare and evaluate due to their own experiences abroad. Others derived their knowledge from foreign visitors, or (as do most Indonesians) from the media. But paranormal are much more universalistic than the mainstream society. As one informant (from a Minangkabau/West-Sumatran ethnic background) put it, “the perspective of paranormal is that all people are the same. Yes, everybody is the same, West and East.” Another confirmed “We are all humans and we must have mutual respect and not spurn others, regardless of religion or status.” Saksono also refers to this universalistic orientation in his book on paranormal, according to which Allah has the power to bestow the abilities of paranormal on anyone, no matter what religion they ascribe to, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or language. Accordingly, everyone can profit from (or be helped by) paranormal (Saksono 2007: 161). The above mentioned, renowned Jakarta-based paranormal, Ki Joko Bodo went one step further in suggesting that the task of paranormal in a global community is to provide peace and prevent conflicts between religions. They can do this easily, he argued, as they have access to all strata of society: paranormal exist among both the powerful and the poor. Paranormal are convinced that they have colleagues everywhere in the world and that no fundamental differences exist between them. As one pointed

15 All interviews were conducted in the Indonesian language; quotations from these interviews were translated into English by the author. 16 Not all of them categorised themselves as paranormal. Some preferred the term spiritual, supranatural or, in one case, hypernatural.

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out, “their methods [of treatment] might look different but they are in fact the same; the spirit is the same, only the media are different.” But, upon stating their basic and principal universalism, many interlocutors nevertheless proceeded to highlight differences between East and West. For instance, one informant deduced from his experience in the US that, “in supernatural matters, the Javanese are more advanced than the Americans, whereas in technological matters, America is much better.” Many statements revealed selforientalising mystifications and descriptions of a natural religiosity in the East (cf. Schlehe 2013; Schlehe/Nertz/Yulianto 2013).

T RANSLATING

AND TRANSCENDING

C HINESE -I NDONESIAN

TRADITIONS The paranormal practitioners’ negotiation and navigation of symbols, meanings and practices between and across traditions forms one of the most noteworthy features of their profession. This corresponds with Martin Fuchs’s (2009) concept of translation based on reciprocal openness for the new (cf. BachmannMedick 2012). As mentioned above, paranormal strive to attract clients from all religious, ethnic and social backgrounds and they explicitly state that they can help anybody. This is in stark contrast with the above-described contemporary tendency towards religious separation and exclusiveness in Indonesia. Contrary to this tendency, the paranormal stress their inclusive intentions. The most striking of examples comes from Chinese-Indonesian spiritual specialists, as Chinese had previously been the victims of hostile prejudice in Indonesia, in addition to a long history of discrimination (cf. above, footnote 5 and Sandkühler in this volume). During my fieldwork in Semarang in 2012, I noticed many new klenteng (temples), which mixed Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, often integrating folk religious elements and referring to Dewi Kwan Im (Kuan Yin, the most worshiped and most depicted deity in Chinese Buddhism). These klenteng, I was told, increasingly compete with each other.17 Often you can find diviners (peramal) or suhu (spiritual teachers) practicing in close relation to the klenteng. For instance, I met a female peramal who receives her clients under an altar of Kwi Kwi Tiong. Her main task is to determine auspicious days for all kinds of activities, be it the opening of an enterprise or a good date for a caesarean. But she will also give support for many other everyday problems and transfer what I would call psychological strength. In many ways, her practice illustrates the

17 Some people say that they are also increasingly commercialised.

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benefits of a mixing and mingling of traditions. As with the other Chinese peramal I observed, the majority of her clients are female. Her specialisation is to work with Tarot cards. According to her assumptions, Tarot derives from a Western origin, and was invented by Gypsies. In any case, she herself learned Tarot from a woman who had adopted it from an American citizen in Jakarta. Furthermore, she experiences support by both a Chinese god and a spirit whom she identifies as the child of Sunan Bonang.18 This child is neither Javanese nor Chinese, but was born in Pakistan. In accordance to Javanese tradition, the peramal underwent a long period of fasting after the spirit had revealed itself to her for the first time. For her divination and the selection of appropriate days (e.g. for a marriage or the opening of a business) she uses the national, the Chinese and the Javanese calendar. Thus, we can see that she relies on Chinese, Islamic, Javanese and Western elements (resp. on what she perceives as such) at the same time. This hybridisation is not exclusive to Chinese diviners working in close association with a klenteng. Actually, we can also find remarkable mixtures and translations from calendars and traditions at more commonplace sites, like for instance at a night market in Semarang, the Pasar Semawis, with predominantly Chinese customers. There we found a peramal, Paman Kwik, who advertised at a stall where he was offering his services “Nama usaha, Feng sui, nasib, jodoh, peruntungan, pengobatan, prediksi dan solusi narasumber, pengisi acara di radio” (name for enterprises, Feng Shui, destiny, lover, luck, healing, all kind of predictions and solutions, contributions to radio programs). He designates himself as purely Javanese. But as he is of Chinese origin, he claims to be able to translate, combine and transfer his skills: You tell him your birth dates and he will calculate, as announced, “all kind of predictions and solutions” by using the International, the Javanese and the Chinese calendar, as well as the Shio-system. He explained to us how books about Japanese Buddhism form the main source of his education. But what was even more surprising was that it turned out that his wife is a professional psychiatrist. Therefore, he has access to her books and was even scheduled to attend a conference on Hypnotherapy the following weekend at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. In this way, his work integrates so-called traditional and scientific methods. What also becomes clear from these examples is that Chinese-Indonesian spiritual specialists, unlike many of their Javanese counterparts, do not adhere to local and personal spirits, but rather relate to Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese Gods and Goddesses. They combine religion and folk beliefs (like Dewi Kwan Im). In addition to this, hy18 Sunan Bonang was one of the wali songo, the saints who are said to have spread Islam in Java. He was of both Javanese and Chinese descent.

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bridising methods of calendrical calculations have become an essential feature of their work. Let me give another example referring to a Buddhist temple (following the Mahayana tradition) at Gunung Kalong in Ungaran, Semarang, the Vihara Sei Kukusrejo. The temple is also called Vihara Avalokitesvara, as it is dedicated to Avalokitesvara or Kwan Im Posat. There we found an old man, who explained that since 1963 the site had been used as a place for meditation (pertapaan), indeed even before it became a klenteng. After 1984, however, when klenteng were no longer accepted by the state, it was re-designated as a Buddhist site. He receives daily visitors who consult him for various reasons relating to their everyday grievances. These visitors are not only Buddhist, but also Muslim, Christian etc. He says, referring to these multi-religious encounters “Kita beradaptasi, kita bermasyarakat, masing-masing bisa saling mengerti, saling percaya, saling mengisi [...]” (we adapt, we socialise, we can understand each other, believe in each other, inspire one another). What becomes obvious through this example is that it is neither simply tolerance and open-mindedness, nor a desire for monetary compensation that prevents Chinese spiritual specialists from becoming exclusivistic. Rather, historical experience and prudence also play a fundamental role in these exchanges. One final aspect I wish to touch upon here refers to the additional hybridisation between religious traditions which takes place as a related translation between different healing systems. For instance, a doctor for traditional Chinese medicine in a Chinese Medical Center in Semarang, who had studied in Beijing for ten years treated his patients – 30-40% of which are Javanese, the others Chinese-Indonesians – with shinshe. This is a traditional Chinese medical method which connects the elements, the organs, blood, other substances (like e.g. wood) and energy (ji). He told me that he often treats Javanese paranormal with shinshe and Chinese herbs because paranormal transfer their own energy to the bodies of their clients. Then they come to him: “Mereka kesini karena Ji-nya habis, energinya habis” (they come here because their energy is finished). Hence, once more, Chinese and Javanese ideas and practices become intertwined.

C ONCLUSION Derived from the characterisation of modern Javanese and Chinese-Indonesian paranormal, this chapter raised the question as to what the paranormal special-

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ists’ practices, their societal position and self-positioning imply for the contemporary religious situation in Indonesia and beyond? Before I return to this question, I would like to stress once more that in studying Java, and other parts of the world as well, we should – besides the official religions – also take new and popularised forms of traditional local beliefs into account. In addition to the Indonesian resurgence of Islam and Pentecostalism, alternative, popular religious forms like the modern paranormal also increasingly rely on the many traditions that they integrate into modern cultural and economic contexts. An enchantment of economic and political practice is to be observed not only in respect to (popular) Islam, but also in relation to the paranormal’s practice. As such, economics, politics, health, personal empowerment, social and emotional relations as well as religious domains become closely interlinked. But what about this then, can be considered peculiar to the paranormal? What I find most remarkable in respect to modern paranormal is that there is a strong tendency to translate, mediate and mix between several traditions and communities. Clients from various backgrounds seek solutions for particular difficulties and do not see their recourse on paranormal as incompatible with their official religious affiliation (agama). There is even space to overcome prejudices and resentments between non-Chinese and Chinese Indonesians. The paranormal practitioners’ eclectic, popularised magical practices shape social relationships in everyday life and translate practical problems into mystical, transcendent idioms that nonetheless fit within a modern, globalised world. Thus, they translate the traditional into modern idioms, thereby blurring and transcending the increasingly rigid boundaries between religions, ethnic groups, gender and social class in Indonesia. It is not my intention to idealise or romanticise the practices of the paranormal. It is important to remain aware of their problematic history in relation to Suharto’s New Order (c.f. Bertrand 2002). And at present, many of them still support any politician in Pilkada (Pemilihan Kepala Daerah – direct elections of local leaders) willing to pay for their loyalty. In general, a growing commercialisation among paranormal has become noticeable. Some paranormal may in fact be clever spiritual entrepreneurs (Schlehe 2012). But although as social scientists we want to produce critical knowledge, it is not our task to judge the phenomena or people we are working with. Rather, I would like to suggest that we regard contemporary Indonesia in a more inclusive way. In order to understand the realities on the ground, we need an understanding of Indonesians’ views, beliefs and practices beyond the structures of officially recognised religions. Both, the contemporary dynamics of traditional local

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beliefs and their popularised, modernised, marketised, translocal, transreligious and transcultural forms need to be included. I see the modern paranormal as an example of the latter – not as strong opponents to Islamisation or religious fundamentalism, but as informal, self-managing agents with the ability to undermine exclusiveness – and with the potential to overcome boundaries between knowledge systems and social groups by translating between diverse traditions. The ambiguity and in-betweenness of the paranormal practitioners’ position also constitutes their potential. Thus, let me end with a careful proposal regarding the contemporary religious situation in Indonesia: In contrast to the scholarly emphasis on Islamisation, I would like to put forward that the religious situation in Indonesia is still and in ever-changing ways diverse and dynamic. The present boom in popularised religiosity, not only in Indonesia but in many parts of the contemporary world, indicates personalisation, plurality and a potential opposition, or at least an alternative, to the divisive politics of the fundamentalist religious movements around the globe. The construction and popular representation of religious traditions and the everyday politics of identity are closely intertwined and connected with new forms of (non-occidental) modernities. Future critical assessments will have to consider whether these modernities contribute constructively to cosmopolitanisation or if they are to become part of a commercialised individualisation adherent to neoliberal forces.

R EFERENCES Andaya, Barbara Watson (2006): The Flaming Womb. Repositioning Women in Early Modern Southeast Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press. Anderson, Benedict (1990): The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture, in: Anderson, Benedict: Language and Power. Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1990. Bachmann-Medick, Doris (2012): “Translation – A Concept and Model for the Study of Culture”, in: Birgit Neumann/Ansgar Nünning (Eds.), Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, pp. 23-43. Bertrand, Romain (2002): Indonésie: la democratie invisible. Violence, magie et politique à Java, Paris: Karthala. Burhanudin, Jajat/van Dijk, Kees (Eds.) (2013): Islam in Indonesia. Contrasting Images and Interpretations, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Bland, Ben (2013): “Indonesia moves to outlaw black magic”, in: Financial Times 4-7-2013 (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bdebf2a-9df7-11e2-bea100144feabdc0.html#axzz2TXAvVfVg; last access 9-12-13)

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Daniels, Timothy (2009): Islamic Spectrum in Java, Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate. Davidson, Jamie S./Henley, David (2007) (Eds): The Revival of Tradition in Indonesian Politics: The Deployment of Adat from Colonialism to Indigenism, London: Routledge. Endres, Kirsten/Lauser, Andrea (2011): “Introduction: Multivocal Arenas of Modern Enchantment in Southeast Asia”, in: Kirsten Endres/Andrea Lauser (Eds.), Engaging the Spirit World. Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Southeat Asia, New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-18. Fealy, Greg (2008): “Consuming Islam: Commodified Religion and Aspirational Pietism in Contemporary Indonesia”, in: Greg Fealy (Ed.), Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 15-39. Ferzacca, Steve (2001): Healing the Modern in a Central Javanese City, Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press. Fuchs, Martin (2009): “Reaching out: or, Nobody exists in one context only. Society as translation”, in: Translation Studies 2.1, pp. 21-40. Geertz, Clifford (1960): The Religion of Java, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press. Hauser-Schäublin, Brigitta (2011): “Spiritualised politics and the trademark of culture: political actors and their use of adat and agama in post-Suharto Bali”, in: Michel Picard/ Madinier, Rémy (Eds.), The Politics of Religion in Indonesia, pp. 192-213. Herriman, N. (2013), “Legislating against the supernatural. Indonesia’s parliament is cracking down on sorcery”, in: Inside Indonesia 112 (http://www.insideindonesia.org/feature-editions/legislating-against-thesupernatural; last access 08/28/2013). Howell, Julia (2005): “Muslims, the New Age, and Marginal Religions in Indonesia: Changing Meanings of Religious Pluralism”, in: Social Compass 52.4, pp. 473-93. Koentjaraningrat (1985): Javanese Culture, Singapore/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Koko T. (2013): “Bisa picu Perang Santet”, in: Posmo 724.1, 4-17-2013: p. 5. Picard, Michel/Madinier, Rémy (Eds.) (2011): The Politics of Religion in Indonesia: Syncretism, Orthodoxy, and Religious Contention in Java and Bali, London/New York: Routledge. Picard, Michel (2011): Introduction: ‘agama’, ‘adat’, and Pancasila, in: Picard, Michel/Madinier, Rémy (Eds.), The Politics of Religion in Indonesia, pp. 120.

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Ricklefs, Merle C. (2006): Mystic Synthesis in Java: A History of Islamization from the Fourteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries, Norwalk, CT: EastBridge. Ricklefs, Merle C. (2012): Islamisation and its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural and Religious History, c. 1930 to the Present, Singapore: NUS Press. Rudnyckyj, Daromir (2009). “Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia”, in: Cultural Anthropology 24.1: pp. 104-41. Saksono, Ign. Gatut (2007): Paranormal. Peran dan Tanggung Jawab Moralnya, Yogyakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Nusantara. Sai, Siew-Min/Hoon, Chang-Yau (2013): “Introduction. a critical reassessment of Chinese Indonesian Studies”, in: Siew-Min Sai/Chang-Yau Hoon (Eds.): Chinese Indonesians Reassessed. History, Religion and Belonging, London/New York: Routledge, pp. 1-26. Schlehe, Judith (2012): “Moderne Paranormale als spirituelle UnternehmerInnen in Indonesien?”, in: Asien. The German Journal of Contemporary Asia 123, pp. 95-111. Schlehe, Judith (2013): “Concepts of Asia, the West and the Self in Contemporary Indonesia: an Anthropological Account”, in: South East Asia Research 21.3, pp. 389-407. Schlehe, Judith/Nertz, Melanie V./Yulianto, Vissia Ita (2013): “Re-Imagining ‘the West’ and Performing ‘Indonesian Modernities’: Muslims, Christians and Paranormal Practitioners”, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 138.1. (forthcoming). Siegel, James (2006): Naming the Witch, Stanford: Stanford University Press. van Wichelen, Sonja (2010): Religion, Politics and Gender in Indonesia: Disputing the Muslim Body, London: Routledge. Woodward, Mark (2011): Java, Indonesia and Islam, Dordrecht: Springer 2011.

Part III: Popular(ised) Religions in Europe

A Sprout of Doubt. The Debate on the Medium’s Agency in Mediumism, Media Studies, and Anthropology1 E HLER V OSS

I NTRODUCTION When I tell people that I researched current mediumistic healing in Germany for my anthropological PhD fieldwork, they often assume I was focusing on healing via television. This common association indicates the current use of the term “medium”. The philosopher and media theorist Boris Groys (2004) remarks that when we open a book nowadays with a title that contains the term “medium” we probably would expect a book on computer programs, television, newspapers, or other mass media but not a book where human beings are the central topic of reflection, as was the case in a book by Alan Kardec from 1861 called “Le livre des médiums”. Alan Kardec is the pseudonym of the French pedagogue Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (1804-1869), who, with the help of documented dialogues with

1

This article translates, emphasises, and modifies some arguments presented in the ethnography “Mediales Heilen in Deutschland” [Mediumistic Healing in Germany] published in 2011 by Dietrich Reimer Verlag Berlin (cf. Voss 2011: 27-49, 302-315, 335) and extends these with other arguments developed and presented in the context of the research project “The immanentization of spiritualistic effects in the nineteenth century. Transformations of human mediums and technical media” at the University of Siegen (Germany) by Erhard Schüttpelz and myself (cf. Schüttpelz forthcoming; Schüttpelz/Voss 2013; Voss 2013b, 2013c, and http://www.okkultemoderne.phil.unisiegen.de).

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different spirits, laid out the main features of his spiritist doctrine in five books in the middle of the nineteenth century. Even today, this has many followers and has became influential, especially in Brazil and the Philippines, where it is still very popular. For Kardec, whose conception is strongly reminiscent of Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings, everybody who feels the influence of the spirits, is more or less a medium. And because this is an innate ability which everyone possesses and which is not a privilege of preordained people, one could say everybody is a medium. But this usage of the term “medium” was even at that time not selfevident. For a long time all of nature, with its elements water, earth, fire, and air, was considered a medium of God, even if this medium did not reach the level of an explicit message, since this explicitness was reserved for the holy book. Also influential was the claim of an immanent and self-referencing medium nature as found in the texts of Hegel and Goethe – this claim was influenced by Spinoza and tended to be anti-theological (Hörisch 1994). The spiritism of Kardec instead strongly refers to Christianity. An important element of Kardec’s spiritism is the supposed reincarnation of spirits. According to Kardec, spirits are then nothing more than human beings without a body and find themselves in the same condition as they were as human beings. And in a march through incarnations they experience an ongoing process of improvement. The highest attainable level in this process is equivalent to angels, the messengers of God, and everybody who has good will, could reach this level.2 Thus there are spirits in higher and lower levels of development, i.e. there are good and bad spirits. According to spiritism, on the one hand, spirits can appear by their own will and act upon people who are living, and, on the other hand, living people can cause them to appear in a specific way by specific techniques. Spirits can also provoke intersubjectively verifiable phenomena such as moving tables or glasses or unusual materializations. Moreover, spirits can become visible as a ghost or audible as an invisible poltergeist. The influence on an individual by a spirit can also remain unnoticed and instead be interpreted as artistic inspiration or as a premonition of future events (Sawicki 2002:19-20). But Kardec as well as other spiritualists did not define themselves as religious. Instead, they claimed to follow a scientific approach which enabled them to experimentally verify former metaphysical questions. In the mid-nineteenth century, spiritualism became a popular amusement which could thus assume the shape of a religious practice, a scientific experiment, or a middle-class parlour 2

The idea of reincarnation is often the cause of controversies among spiritualists which often lead to distinguishing spiritualism (the assumption of life after death as spirits) and spiritism (a spiritualism with Kardec’s assumption of the on-going process of reincarnation of spirits).

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game (Heimerdinger 2001). In various countries, countless spiritualistic circles and societies were constituted, where séances with writing or speaking mediums were held, and these mediums transferred spirit-messages or materialised different substances. Kardec as well interrogated different spirits through different mediums and this with a zest of an ambitious researcher stepping in unchartered waters. Thus his books mainly consist of dialogues with spirits in which Kardec addresses general questions of existence but also particularly the contact to spirits itself. It is the question of the mediums’ influence on the messages of the spirits which bothers Kardec, and the spirits’ answers reveal that doubts about the pure instrumental character of the mediums are in many cases legitimate. Even though Kardec admits the existence of fraud, where messages are originated in the medium itself – this was the established criticism of contemporary skeptics and is still today – he does not doubt the possibility of conveyance itself. Thus, the crucial question concerning the conceptualisation of the term medium is the question of the relationship between mediumship and authorship, i.e. of the relationship between activity and passivity, ownness and foreignness, instrumental mediumship and creative authorship. In other words: Is the medium a completely subordinated and arbitrarily usable tool of a particular spirit, conveying its messages in a pure way, or is the message influenced by the medium in a way that the medium him/herself becomes partly or even fully the author of the message? In this article I will show how in various areas this question of the medium’s agency is not only a problem for nineteenth century spiritualists, but also the crucial question for current religious and scientific practices. Using the examples of current practices of mediumistic healing in Germany, the attempt of media studies to define its object, and a common self-reflexion of anthropologists concerning their professional practice as well as scientific practice in general, this article points out the continuity of vagueness from nineteenth century European mediumism up to today and how mediumism cannot be simply allocated to a religious or scientific, archaic or modern tradition.

T HE

HEALER AS MEDIUM

As in the nineteenth century, even today there are many people in the world who claim to have contact to invisible entities and refer to themselves using the term “medium”. While following the metaphor of mediumistic healing in Germany during my anthropological PhD-fieldwork between 2005 and 2007, I encountered different scenes focused on different healing methods with mediumistic aspects: channeling, shamanism, Reiki, Family Constellations in the tradition of

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Bert Hellinger, and the stream of healing transmitted by the healer Bruno Groening. Channeling is a method in which human beings who call themselves a medium contact different spirits or energies which are assumed to hold a kind of higher knowledge and transmit curative messages or energies to the clients. People who refer to themselves as shamans or shamanic practitioners generally alter their consciousness through drum rhythms, which enables them to go on a shamanic journey and meet their “helping spirits” or “power animals”. These can be asked for help and they are the ones who heal. Reiki is the name for both the claimed universal and medicative “Reiki energy” as well as the method of transmitting this energy. To be able to transmit the Reiki energy one needs to be initiated—the “channel” of the human being will be opened, and this allows the energy to flow through the healer’s body. It is assumed that the energy flows out through the healer’s hands into the client’s body, where it then releases pathogenic blockades. Family Constellation therapy in the tradition of Hellinger was invented by a German named Bert Hellinger (*1925). In this therapy, the causes for illness and other problems of life are found in the involvement of the client with his or her family system. The therapy is usually carried out in small groups of 10-20 people, which perform the family. The mediumistic aspect in this therapy lies in the assumption that the representatives express the authentic feelings of the real family members they are standing for. Thus, they become mediums of the client’s family members. Another healing method with mediumistic aspects is connected to the healer Bruno Groening who became famous in Germany in the 1950s but died shortly thereafter in 1959 at the age of 52. Groening claimed to be the transmitter of the “divine healing stream”, which he makes bearable and absorbable for human beings, i.e. he transforms the divine power into the healing stream. Soon after his death, his followers noticed that he continued to function as a medium of the healing stream. Subsequently different organisations were founded whose members teach and distribute his doctrine as well as meet regularly to praise and ask him for help and healing. The largest and most wellknown organisation of this sort is the Bruno Groening Circle of Friends. However, in everyday practice there is hardly anyone who follows only one of these methods. In most cases, patients as well as healers use these methods alternately or simultaneously, combined or synthesised. Thus, the different scenes consolidate in a “culture of mediumistic healing”. The assumption, that the messages have their source inside the medium him/herself can indeed be found within the culture of mediumistic healing, but also here the assumption is always combined with a criticism of other healers, i.e. combined with a distancing from supposed mediums. In this way a Reikimaster, who calls herself a medium, distances her practice in an interview from

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“spiritual healing practices” because spiritual healers would just heal with their own energy. Another woman who calls herself a medium mentions that many spiritual healers often say that they are exhausted after a healing session and can only perform a few treatments per day. This kind of statement would indicate healings through the use of their own energies. Another healer who refers to himself as a shaman considers those “who are drumming while lolling on the ground” – here he is referring to a special kind of modern shamanic practice – as “losers” who just fancy themselves as a real shaman, and he surmises: “Most of the things happening there are fictions. If you wish to see something, then you will see something.” Thus in the culture of mediumistic healing, a medium is considered as real if s/he transmits something other than his/her own. This consideration is partly combined with the idea of the medium as a pure transmitter without influence on what is transmitted. In this way the Reiki-master already cited above reveals a questionable trust in water pipes when she explains: “The special thing with Reiki is, that you are a pure channel, like a water pipeline. […] The Reiki energy just passes through your body. That means, if I like to get Reiki for myself, I just have to put my hands on my body. When Reiki is given, no energy of the healer is involved. That is why in Reiki no transmission of symptoms happens, neither from the patient to the healer nor vice versa.”

Also a woman working as a shamanic practitioner says: “In shamanism there is the image of the shaman as a hollow bone, that means, that the shaman has to defer the ego in order to establish the line to the other world, bidirectional.” This leads her to the assumption that shamanic healing happens independently of the particular healer: “In principle, I would say it doesn’t matter who the shaman is. All roads lead to Rome. One takes the train, another the plane, and the third goes by ship. But in the end all arrive at the same place.” If the aim of a medium is to defer the “ego” in a way that it is no longer present, the ego becomes the antagonist of a good medium. Thus, another channel-medium reports that in the beginning of her practice she found it very difficult to distinguish between what originates in herself and what does not. And in her explanation of this circumstance, she says: “At that time my ego was still very strong”. But the shamanic practitioner cited above also mentions an “individual tone” a shaman could have. Usually one would say, you will only get the answer to the question you have asked, but in her case she also often gets important additional information for the patient. Even though this practitioner promotes the image of the shaman as a line without influence, she also admits the possibility of influence by the medium herself when she says: “It is important to have as little in-

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formation about the client as possible. It’s true, as soon as you have some information, you start to think about it, and so possibly have experiences as you think they should be.” Also in Family Constellations, interference between the medium (i.e. the representative) and the real family member is considered possible. Thus, access to the feelings of the real family members by the representatives is better the less they know about the particular family situation because, according to Hellinger, this reduces the danger that prejudice and projections of the representative interfere with this connection. However, the alteration of the transmitted does not necessarily have to be interpreted as an annoyance but can also be regarded as the medium’s task: This becomes especially clear with Bruno Groening because only through his channeling of the healing stream are human beings able to absorb the divine power. I.e. he transforms the divine power into the healing stream, and thus makes it accessible. As members of the Bruno Groening Circle of Friends observe: “You also wouldn’t connect a filament lamp directly to an electric power station.” The conflict of the two positions – the medium either alters the message or does not – do not have to be articulated through different actors but can also appear in one single person. At an event in Germany called “Healing Days”, one Brazilian healer (Manolo) filled in on short notice for the actual intended Brazilian healer (João), who was uninvited due to accusations of sexual abuse. A voluntary assistant combined the assumption that a medium is a pure transmitter and the assumption that s/he has a specific influence on the messages in a single statement: “Many people visit the healing days because they only want to meet João, but I don’t think the spiritual world differentiates. For the spiritual world, it doesn’t matter who is acted through. I think it makes sense that Manolo is coming to Germany now – that means it’s his time, Germany needs his energy.”

T HE

MEDIUM IN MEDIA STUDIES

Anthropologists are used to dealing with globally detectable people who act in different ways as a medium for various entities and it is usual in anthropology to call them a medium. However, in media studies the usage of the term “medium” to describe people was seen as no more than a joke for a long time, and is partly still this way today. This usage is seen as being based on a historical misunderstanding of naïve people or of jugglers trying to get rich on naïve people by claiming to have the same abilities as technical media (e.g. Hagen 2002). Even if

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it has always been an open question what should be defined as media and what not, media studies – which were established after the Second World War – thus distinguish human mediums and technical media and traditionally focus on technical and mainly mass media. As in the writings of Alan Kardec and other spiritualists in the nineteenth century and in the current culture of mediumistic healing in Germany even in media studies, the question of the medium’s agency becomes crucial in the discussion of what a medium actually is or rather how a medium can be characterised. Even in media studies, the answers vary within the broad spectrum of different possible answers: one prominent idea is that the medium withdraws when it appears (Mersch 2008: 304). Media thus tend to simply be tools or instruments for communication with no influence on the message. The current dominant usage of the term medium as a pure technical device can be understood as a result of “the modern constitution” in the sense of Bruno Latour (1993). According to him this constitution is based on the division of culture or rather society and nature, of animated subjects and inanimate objects without agency, of autonomous, active human beings and dependent, inanimated technology. This is a theoretical divide whose existence is continually claimed by science and politics, though the claim is quite tenuous because this theoretical “work of purification” is simultaneously opposed by the practical “work of translation”. The latter is, according to Latour, the work, “through which actors modify, displace, and translate their various and contradictory interests” (Latour 1999: 311) which continuously undermines the divide by producing hybrids in which technology and sociality are inseparably entangled. The nineteenth century common usage of the term medium for both humans and techniques is separated by the modern constitution and attributed to different times: Human mediums as intermediary between humans and spirits or God are attributed to a former, albeit periodically returning, archaic period, and technical media as functional extensions of the human body are attributed to current modernity. From such a “modern” point of view the modern inanimate technology is characterised by pure transmission without agency while the archaic medium appears itself as the source of the message through claimed hallucination, projection, or (self-) deceptional suggestion. But its practical work of translation does not remain hidden for modernity; thus, modern media studies, for example, are beginning to focus on the agency of technical media. As the philosopher Stefan Hoffmann shows in his conceptual history of the term medium, a certain dual nature of the medium had already been noticed very early: “Along with the first sanded glasses and cut lenses, not only was the perceiver’s view sharpened, but the consciousness that you cannot

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necessarily trust the media of perception as well. Instead of obediently executing transmission and bringing the perceived object accurately to the sensory organ, some of them offer resistance by adding a tinting” (Hoffmann 2002: 154, translated by EV). Thus even in media studies a kind of disorder is often put at the centre of consideration. Media acquire a kind of “waywardness” and they no longer appear as pure instrumental transmitters. The “disturbance” of media becomes a matter of debate (cf. Kümmel/Schüttpelz 2003), and media tend to be seen as a kind of “world-producing machines” (“Welterzeugungsmaschinen”) as Sibylle Krämer (1998) called it; this perspective reached an extreme in Friedrich Kittler's (1990) media determinism and in Marshall McLuhan’s thesis that the medium is the message (McLuhan 1964). In the course of the newly sparked controversy on the agency of technical media and human mediums in media studies, the productive adaptation of the anthropologically inspired ActorNetwork-Theory and the Science and Technology Studies in media studies is no surprise. In talking of “collectives” of human and non-human actors, the ActorNetwork-Theory offers a symmetrical theory which mediates between the idea of the medium as a completely passive instrument and the medium as completely determining object because such collectives are seen as socio-technical compounds in which agency is simultaneously allocated to different human and nonhuman actors.3 In recent times, historical approaches inspired by symmetrical perspectives have become more and more prominent; these take the usage of the term “medium” for humans more seriously. In doing so, they detect the interferences between human mediums and technical media, which leads them to recognise spiritualism as an important part of modernity (cf. Andriopoulos 2000, 2002; Holl 2002; Peters 1999). The media theorist Erhard Schüttpelz has pointed out that, during the long nineteenth century in Europe, trance and corresponding bodily practices were part of a great public debate on “mediumism” which was about testing and explaining the abilities and potentials of human mediums as well as technical media. Different groups and individuals were involved in this debate and the testing of people in altered states of consciousness were deeply connected to the development and utilisation of new technologies able to do similar things as human mediums supposedly could do: to telegraphy, which enabled 3

Such a perspective leads to the assumption that media have to be studied as locally and socially situated parts of “collectives” (in the sense of Bruno Latour). This is for example the approach of the Research Training Group (post-graduate program) “Locating Media” at the University of Siegen, Germany. In addition, the media scientists Tristan Thielmann and Erhard Schüttpelz present the concept of Actor-Media-Theory as an adaptation of the Actor-Network-Theory (Thielmann/Schüttpelz forthcoming).

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disembodied communication across huge distances, or imaging instruments which made invisible things visible. The mediumism of the nineteenth century has always been controversial and the controversy has always been situated between religious and secular aspirations. Furthermore, the testing of mediumism – the “mediumistic trial” – becomes comprehensible only through the realisation of incompatible claims and interests (cf. Schüttpelz forthcoming). Schüttpelz describes European mediumism in the nineteenth century with reference to a concept by Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer as an undetermined “boundary object” which was “both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites” (Star/Griesemer 1989: 393). During that time spiritualism was just one of the small and the great mediumistic controversies concerning for instance mesmerism, hysteria, and hypnosis, and, according to Schüttpelz, the continuous crucial point of debate was the underdetermined medium’s agency: “[...] something that could be ascribed to unknown, imponderable natural forces (ethereal or fluid substances) or else to human capacities such as a passivity on the initiator’s part allowing these forces to accumulate and be contacted. In turn, these capacities could be identified with a force of nature, or with an elitist or egalitarian ability to interact with it; with such an ability to manifest immanent entities, non-human and otherworldly powers, and extra-human persons bound to the person of the medium, all in the form of either transcendent private revelation or of ‘higher knowledge’ (Zander 2009). And as already evident at the start of the mesmerist debates, they could be ascribed to a fraud or a selfdeceit of the medium, her or his impresario, or his scientific observers, or an excitation of the imaginative faculties to be considered a source of error.” (Schüttpelz forthcoming)

The starting point and basic reference of these mediumistic controversies were the practices and techniques of Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), a physician who practiced mainly in Vienna and Paris, and who in the 1780s claimed the existence of a universal and, for most people, invisible force called “fluidum”. According to Mesmer illnesses are caused by blockages of the fluidum’s flow through the bodies of the patients. The fluidum can be accumulated by a human healer or by technical instruments and then be transmitted to the patients to dissolve these blockages. In 1784 his student Marquis de Puységur detected unusual abilities by his patients after he put them in a “somnambulistic” state with the help of mesmeristic techniques: they were able to find lost things, to diagnose illnesses or to foretell different events. 1784 was also the year in which a French royal commission composed of prominent researchers negatively tested the exis-

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tence of Mesmer’s fluidum. Due to the simultaneousness of these events in 1784, this can be defined as the starting point of the mediumistic controversy of the long nineteenth century in which both human mediums and technical media were submitted to a trial of their mediumistic abilities and potentials and in which these trials were protocolled and often published in regard to a later validation by a public body (cf. Schüttpelz forthcoming). Mesmer acted as an enlightener; even if contemporaries did not find much originality in his concept, he was initially welcomed as the one who was able to substitute exorcism with an explanation based on natural forces and natural laws. But his practices which could substitute the practices of the famous exorcist Gaßner were most convincing. Mesmer did not need demons to evoke the same bodily reactions in his patients as an exorcist (cf. Ego 1991; Schüttpelz/Voss 2013). Even if Mesmer and the early mesmerists did not use the term “medium” for humans – this first became popular in the middle of the nineteenth century with the spiritualists – Mesmer created a foundation for it. As mentioned above, between 1600 and 1800 people in Europe used the term “medium” to refer mainly to nature as a medium between humans and god. Research of nature thus was understandable as reading “nature’s bible” (Schott 2012). With his new imponderable Mesmer instead promised a secular explanation and individualistic and on-going accessibility, as well as usability of this medium. An immanentisation or secular interpretation of the medium’s agency has been possible since the beginning of the controversy but only at the end of the nineteenth century was it established as the prevailing public interpretation of mediumistic effects when Sigmund Freud – in an explicit denial and denunciation of the spiritualistic practices – claimed that all altered states of consciousness are rooted in the inner Self of his patients and could thus be domesticated. From this perspective altered states of consciousness are no longer a possible way to gain knowledge of the world, but only a way to attain knowledge of the Self. Through the dominance of the psychological immanentisation of mediumistic effects the former great public debate was altered and thus continued in smaller debates, amongst others in the contexts of modern art and literature; various psychotherapies, parapsychology and modern esotericism (cf. Schüttpelz forthcoming).

T HE

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS MEDIUM

In doing research, anthropologists are very often faced with altered states of consciousness – on the one hand as observers of worldwide common practices of

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trance, and on the other hand, due to their methodological ideal of participant observation, very often as participants as well. Even if they are not confused by trance rituals, it is not uncommon for their consciousness to become hazy due to the exertions of their journeys, illnesses, or drugs, as Johannes Fabian at least showed regarding the exploration of Africa at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century (Fabian 2000). However, in the following I do not intend to judge anthropologists’ state of mind but instead want to follow the usage of the term “medium” in the self-reflexion of anthropology. A debate concerning the question of mediumism, just as was shown above for the great transatlantic debate on mediumism in the nineteenth century, for contemporary media studies, and for the contemporary culture of mediumistic healing in Germany, also exists within the field of anthropology. In anthropology the term and concept of shamanism is often used as an analogy of the anthropological practice.4 The anthropologist Ioan M. Lewis presents the parallelism between shamans and anthropologists as follows: “Like shamans, anthropologists go on trips to distant and mysterious worlds from which they bring back rich stores of exotic wisdom. They mediate between their own group and the unknown. They speak ‘with tongues’ which are often unintelligible at home, and they act as mediums for the alien cultures through which they roam and which, in a sense, they come to incarnate. […] Pursuing my parallel, we should note that in internalizing the culture of his alien hosts […] the anthropologist becomes possessed by them. […] Finally, as the anthropologist proceeds to analyse and write up his findings he externalizes his experiences and gradually disengages himself from his informants. […] This process is a form of exorcism.” (Lewis 1973: 9-10)

Such an analogy once more raises the questions connected to the term “medium” concerning the medium’s agency, and this analogy evokes all facets of anthropological fieldwork thematised in the history of the discipline. It makes obvious the indetermination of anthropological research. Fieldwork ultimately becomes a mediumism (in the sense of Schüttpelz) in which the medium’s agency appears as the central and in the end unresolved matter of debate. As Lewis points out, for Bronislaw Malinowski, usually seen as the forefather of modern anthropological fieldwork, fieldwork is a conversion and an initiation and anthropologists become speakers of the other. For Lewis anthropological mediumism consists of the ability to follow the other and thus to come to shared knowledge – through an interplay of possession and exorcism, of inter4

E.g. Abrahamian 1993; Kramer 1993; Lévi-Strauss 1955; Lewis 1973; Münzel 1994; Uchtmann 1991.

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nalisation through incarnated knowledge and externalisation through writing. And the journey to the other world usually promises the possession of higher knowledge and thus charisma for the anthropologist. As in the mediumistic controversy of the nineteenth century, the debate can also be reduced to the question of power and reality, i.e. the claim or rather suspicion that mediumism should be regarded as deceit or at least self-deceit. This was for example the case in the 1980s in the course of the “WritingCulture-Debate”, a name which, due to the ambiguity of “writing a culture” and “culture of writing”, concisely describes the topic of the debate which has resulted in a never-ending “crisis of representation” (Marcus/Fischer 1986). Influenced by growing criticism, especially in philosophy and literary studies, of correspondence theories of truth, the view became accepted in anthropology that ethnographies are “fictions”, in the sense that they are something which is “produced” or rather “constructed” (Geertz 1973). The interest in the influence of the anthropological culture of writing on the description of culture led to a kind of research which looked at ethnographies from the perspective of literary studies, as a literary genre. Thus Marcus and Cushman (1982) allude to a category of literary studies when they use the term “ethnographic realism” to describe the style of the classic monographs of tribes. Here an omniscient narrator attempts to portray, as a whole, a particular way of life which he or she knows from direct contact, and this is done by way of a detailed description of everyday life. Characteristic is a deindividualisation and thus an anonymisation of the members of the culture through standardisations in the third person, e.g. as “the” Trobriander. In addition to claiming to represent a culture as a whole, the culture becomes ethnocentrically systemised in academic jargon and with familiar categories such as economy, society, religion, etc. From this critical perspective gained from literary studies, the strategies employed to establish the authority of the ethnographers were given particular attention. So, for example, in classic monographic descriptions, the impression of objectivity is heightened by the usual appearance of the author as an absent and omniscient narrator. The researcher usually only appears in the initial sequence – Marie Louise Pratt (1986) analysed this as the “arrival scene” – in which the author verifies that s/he really was there by describing the stresses and strains of fieldwork. Furthermore, the arrival scene usually includes some stories illustrating the path from initial feelings of foreignness accompanied by unskillful and clumsy behaviour to an increasing familiarity, and the native’s acceptance and integration of the anthropologist. In the “Writing-Culture-Debate”, the anthropological “culture of writing” appeared as a kind of “writing a culture”. The term “othering” was used to describe the work of anthropology in the sense that the other “is never simply given, never just found or

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encountered, but made” (Fabian 1990: 755). If one interprets the term “othering” in a constructivist manner, the authorship in ethnographic descriptions is completely assigned to the ethnographer. In opposition to the established selfconception, the ethnographic descriptions of the other appear as self-projections onto the other. A radical consequence of this perspective is the emphatic affirmation of the ethnographer’s authorship in the work of Stephen Tyler (1986). In contrast to the idea that anthropologists and shamans act purely as a transmitter of something other than their own, Tyler rejects the idea that ethnographies are connected to something they transmit. Instead they only evoke undetermined effects within the readers, and thus they are no longer “documents of the occult” but are themselves “occult documents”. Other attempts to arrive at a new understanding of one’s own mediality, and thus to a new culture of writing, are summarised under the terms dialogic and polyphonic anthropology. They try to substitute the monophonic narrator, who speaks over the others for a narrator who speaks with the others. And so the lost authority of the ethnographer is restored by including the voices of the other and the partial disclosure of the circumstances of fieldwork, in other words through establishing the ethnographer as a medium of foreign voices. A well-known criticism of dialogic and polyphonic anthropology detects in these a reinstalling of correspondence theories. Geertz talks of “text positivism” (Geertz 1988: 145), which ignores the fact that a large part of oral speech is lost when representing dialogues in written words. In addition, the dialogue partners lose their supposed autonomous voice through the selection and arrangement of the voices by the ethnographer; thus, the resulting ethnographies appear rather as a monologue of the ethnographer (cf. Clifford 1986, 1988; Crapanzano 1990; Lewis 1986; Spivak 1988). This kind of criticism is justified if a dialogic or polyphonic approach indeed acts with the claim of pure transmission, but it is excessive if in turn the authorship is completely assigned to the ethnographer. Other agents of dialogic approaches, such as Vincent Crapanzano (1980) for example, assume that dialogic ethnographies always describe a collective reality which is negotiated together by ethnographers and their dialogue partners and which thus in the end can not be assigned to one side or the other alone. Thus, the ethnographer is neither a pure instrumental medium nor a medium which itself is the source of the message; instead self and other, ownness and foreignness are inseparably bonded together. Through its one-sided reduction of anthropological fieldwork’s complexity to questions of literary criticism, the “Writing-Culture-Debate” has resulted in questioning the authority of the anthropologists as well as of the whole discipline in general. But unmasking and blaming is just one possible position within the

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broad spectrum of the mediumistic debate. The analogy of Lewis entails the possibility to recognise that the anthropological profession as an anthropological mediumism – just the same as the European mediumism of the nineteenth century (in the sense of Schüttpelz) – opens all options mediumism has to offer, and, furthermore, that these diverse options cannot be standardised or ultimately institutionalised without being covered by modern illusions. The analogisation of the underdetermination of anthropological mediumism and nineteenth century mediumism does not necessarily have to result only in self criticism and a denial of legitimation. As Lewis shows, this analogy can also result in a humility which relativizes the anthropologist’s own pretensions concerning his or her own part within fieldwork, and in honouring the knowledge and competencies of the other. This is a more positive interpretation of this analogy and can thus still lead – perhaps to an even greater extent – to an appeal for the adventure of fieldwork with its open outcome.

C ONCLUSION The starting point of the reflections in this article was anthropological fieldwork among mediumistic healers in Germany, often described as part of modern esotericism or the New Age movement and thus as popular religion (cf. Knoblauch in this volume). The reflection on the term “medium” and its usage and the current common surprise about the usage of the term to describe human beings, led to the nineteenth century spiritualism in which the term was generally used for both technical instruments and humans as instruments. In both nineteenth century spiritualism and the current culture of mediumistic healing in Germany, the agency of a medium appears as a central matter of debate. Looking at media studies as the discipline which has defined media as its object revealed that even in this area the degree of the medium’s agency is the central question in the attempts to define the discipline’s object, even if media studies traditionally only focus on technical media. This is because it follows the modern work of purification and thus follows the evolutionary distinction between human mediums and technical media which became dominant at the end of the nineteenth century and which allocates human mediums to former archaic periods and technical media to current modern times. From this perspective human mediums are active producers of the medium’s immanent message and technical media are pure instruments of communication; human mediums thus only appear as religious survivals, and the claimed modern approach of spiritism only appears as a misunder-

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standing or a business trick. Nonetheless, in recent times media studies has become more and more aware of both the activity of technical media as well as the interferences between technical media and human mediums. Current discussions on the medium’s agency in the present German culture of mediumistic healing as well as in media studies and anthropology can be linked to a European tradition of debating and testing mediumism during the long nineteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century, mesmerism opened the field for a greater public debate on where the agency of human mediums as well as technical media was object of a confusing series of mediumistic trials ʊ i.e. the testing of the capabilities and potentials of technical media and human mediums. According to Schüttpelz, mediumism can be understood as a shared “boundary object” between religious and secular, scientific and magical, medical and aesthetic interests throughout the long nineteenth century. In spite of the psychological reading of mediumism becoming dominant in the public sphere and leading to the dissolution of an extensive public debate at the end of the nineteenth century, altered states of consciousness did not loose their confusing character and thus the testing of mediumistic capabilities and potentials of humans and technology has not disappeared even into the twenty-first century. While in the twentieth and twenty-first century mediumistic trials have been conducted in smaller and less public settings than in the nineteenth century, this results in new controversies. Today, in the current culture of mediumistic healing, media studies, and anthropologists’ self-reflexivity, a discussion also exists concerning the medium’s agency. Mediumism remains a sprout of doubts and results in a permanent problem of trustworthiness. Given the background of the idea that a medium transmits something external from it’s own, the assumption that the medium influences the message or is even the origin of the message is usually accompanied by claims of fraud and discreditation or rather the revocation of one’s mediumistic abilities. Anthropologists who regard themselves as mediators of foreign worlds must either recognise by themselves or be confronted by others’ accusations that their descriptions are more or less strongly influenced by themselves and thus reveal more about the anthropologists than about the others. For this reason in anthropological monographs, not to mention in the process of fieldwork, the encounter with “the other” and the subjectivity of the knowledge presented have nearly become a breach of etiquette. Similarly, healers within the culture of mediumistic healing are often met with the suspicion (and are even suspicious of each other, and sometimes even of themselves) that the messages are influenced by or originated from them. This controversy concerning the character of mediumism en-

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ables the healers, depending on the situation and in different ways, either to emphasise their part of the healing and thus to take responsibility for it or to shift the responsibility onto others – either to spirits or other non-human actors (though this could also compromise their own charisma if healing does not occur) or to the patients themselves by claiming that the medium is only mirroring the patient’s will. In the latter case, the medium as well as the spirits are in the end simply performers of the client’s will, and the client is thus claimed to be self-responsible (cf. Voss 2013a). The permanent problem of the trustworthiness of media and mediums, and thus of anthropologists, healers, and their spirits – today as well as in the nineteenth century – becomes comprehensible through the uncertainty, impureness, and vagueness of mediumism. The quest for defining the medium’s agency therefore becomes central, and the impossibility of making a final decision concerning the character of a medium allows human mediums – whether healers or anthropologists – to more or less strategically hide and seek identities. Authorship and, thus, responsibility and trustworthiness must be continually negotiated in new ways and will probably never come to an end. Perhaps this is the only thing without doubt in mediumism.

R EFERENCES Abrahamian, Levon H. (1993): “The Anthropologist as Shaman. Interpreting Recent Political Events in Armenia”, in: Gísli Pálsson (Ed.), Beyond Boundaries. Understanding, Translation, and Anthropological Discourse, Oxford/Providence: Berg, pp. 100-116. Andriopoulos, Stefan (2000): Besessene Körper. Hypnose, Körperschaften und die Erfindung des Kinos, München: Wilhelm Fink. Andriopoulos, Stefan (2002): “Okkulte und technische Television”, in: Stefan Andriopoulos/Bernhard Dotzler (Eds.), 1929. Beiträge zur Archäologie der Medien, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 31-53. Clifford, James/Marcus, George E. (Eds.) (1986): Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. A School of American Research Advanced Seminar, Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. Clifford, James (1986) “Introduction: Partial Truths”, in: James Clifford/George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, pp. 1-26.

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Clifford, James 1988, “On Ethnographic Authority”, in: James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture. Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, pp. 21-54. Crapanzano, Vincent (1980): Tuhami. Portrait of a Moroccan, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Crapanzano, Vincent (1990): “On Dialogue”, in: Tullio Maranhão (Ed.), The Interpretation of Dialogue, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 269-291. Ego, Anneliese (1991): “Animalischer Magnetismus” oder “Aufklärung”. Eine mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studie zum Konflikt um ein Heilkonzept im 18. Jahrhundert, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann. Fabian, Johannes (1990): “Presence and Representation: The Other and Anthropological Writing”, in: Critical Inquiry 16.4, pp. 753-772. Fabian, Johannes (2000): Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa, Berkeley: University of California Press. Geertz, Clifford (1973): “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”, in: Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books, pp. 3-30. Geertz, Clifford (1988): Works and Lives. The Anthropologist as Author, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Groys, Boris (2004): Im Namen des Mediums (Audio CD), Köln: Supposé. Hagen, Wolfgang (2002): “Die entwendete Elektrizität – Zur medialen Genealogie des ‘modernen Spiritismus’”, in: Torsten Hahn/Jutta Person/Nicolas Pethes (Eds.), Grenzgänge zwischen Wahn und Wissen. Zur Koevolution von Experiment und Paranoia 1850-1910, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus, pp. 215-239. Heimerdinger, Timo (2001): Tischlein rück’ dich. Das Tischrücken in Deutschland um 1850. Eine Mode zwischen Spiritismus, Wissenschaft und Geselligkeit, Münster: Waxmann. Hörisch, Jochen (1994): “Die Medien der Natur und die Natur der Medien”, in: Joachim Wilke (Ed.), Zum Naturbegriff der Gegenwart. Kongreßdokumentation zum Projekt “Natur im Kopf” Stuttgart, 21.-26. Juni, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, pp. 121-137. Hoffmann, Stefan (2002): Geschichte des Medienbegriffs, Hamburg: Meiner. Holl, Ute (2002): Kino, Trance & Kybernetik, Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose. Kardec, Allan (1861): Spiritisme expérimental. Le livre des médiums ou guide des médiums et des évocateurs contenant l’enseignement spécial des esprits sur la théorie de tous les genres de manifestations, les moyens de communiquer avec le monde invisible, le développement de la médiumnité,

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les difficultés et les écueils que l’on peut rencontrer dans la pratique du spiritisme. Pour faire suite au Livre des Esprits, Paris: Didier et Cie. Kittler, Friedrich A. (1990[1985]): Discourse Networks, 1800/1900, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Knoblauch, Hubert: The Communicative Construction of Transcendence: a New Approach to Popular Religion, in: this volume. Kramer, Fritz (1993 [1987]): The Red Fez: Art and Spirit Possession in Africa, London: Verso. (zuerst: 1987 Der rote Fes. Über Besessenheit und Kunst in Afrika. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum) Krämer, Sybille (1998): “Das Medium als Spur und Apparat”, in: Sybille Krämer (Ed.), Medien, Computer, Realität. Wirklichkeitsvorstellungen und neue Medien, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 73-94. Kümmel, Albert/Schüttpelz, Erhard (Eds.) (2003): Signale der Störung, München: Wilhelm Fink. Latour, Bruno (1993[1991]): We have never been modern, Cambridge(Mass.): Harvard University Press. [zuerst 1991, Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’athropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte]. Latour, Bruno (1999): Pandora’s Hope. Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1955): Tristes tropiques, Paris: Plon. Lewis, Ioan M. (1973): The Anthropologist‘s Muse. An Inaugural Lecture, Welwyn Garden City: Broadwater. Lewis, Ioan M. (1986): Religion in Context. Cults and Charisma, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, George E./Cushman, Dick (1982): Ethnographies as Texts. Annual Review of Anthropology 11: pp. 25-69. Marcus, George E./Fischer, Michael M. J. (1986): Anthropology as Cultural Critique. An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McLuhan, Marshall (1964): Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man, New York: McGraw-Hill. Mersch, Dieter (2008): “Tertium datur. Einleitung in einer negative Medientheorie”, in: Stefan Münker/Alexander Roesler (Eds.), Was ist ein Medium?, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 304-321. Münzel, Mark (1994): “The Researcher as Shaman. Field-Work between Musty Mystification and True Enchantment”, in: Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 3.2, pp. 133-153. Peters, John Durham (1999): Speaking into the Air. A History of the Idea of Communication, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.

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Pratt, Mary Louise (1986): “Fieldwork in Common Places”, in: James Clifford/George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, pp. 27-50. Sawicki, Diethard (2002): Leben mit den Toten. Geisterglauben und die Entstehung des Spiritismus in Deutschland 1770-1900, Paderborn: Schöningh. Schott, Heinz (2012): “Hieroglyphensprache der Natur. Ausschnitte einer Ikonographie des Medienbegriffs”, in: Irene Albers/Anselm Franke (Eds.), Animismus. Revisionen der Moderne, Zürich: diaphanes, pp. 173-195. Schüttpelz, Erhard (forthcoming): “Trance Mediums and New Media. The Heritage of a European Term”, in: Heike Behrend/Anja Dreschke/Martin Zillinger (Eds.), Trance Mediums and New Media, New York: Fordham University Press [Übersetzung von: Schüttpelz, Erhard 2012: Mediumismus und moderne Medien – Die Prüfung des europäischen Medienbegriffs“, in: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, Jg. 86, Heft 1.] Schüttpelz, Erhard/Voss, Ehler (2013): “In jeder Beziehung ebenso wirksam. Die mediumistische Kontroverse im langen 19. Jahrhundert”, in: Kathrin Busch/Helmut Draxler (Eds.), Theorien der Passivität, München: Wilhelm Fink, pp. 97-109. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988): “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in: Cary Nelson/Lawrence Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271-313. Star, Susan Leigh/Griesemer, James R. (1989): “Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’, and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-1939”, in: Social Studies of Science 19.3, pp. 387-420. Thielmann, Tristan/Schüttpelz, Erhard (Eds.) (forthcoming): Akteur-MedienTheorie, Bielefeld: transcript. Tyler, Stephen A. (1986): “Post-Modern Ethnography: From Documents of the Occult to Occult Document”, in: James Clifford/George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, pp. 122-140. Uchtmann, Roger (1991): “Schamanisches Sein als dialektischer Modus”, in: Michael Kuper (Ed.), Hungrige Geister und rastlose Seelen. Texte zur Schamanismusforschung, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, pp. 151-180. Voss, Ehler (2011): Mediales Heilen in Deutschland. Eine Ethnographie, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Voss, Ehler (2013a): “From Crisis to Charisma. Redefining hegemonic ideas of science, freedom, and gender among mediumistic healers in Germany”, in:

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Anna Fedele/Kim Knibbe (Eds.), Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality. Ethnographic Approaches, London: Routledge, pp.115-125. Voss, Ehler (2013b): “Die Erziehung der Medien. Reinigungsarbeiten am Spiritismus bei Albert von Schrenck-Notzing”, in: Nacim Ghanbari/Marcus Hahn (Eds.), Reinigungsarbeit. Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 1/2013, pp. 81-94. Voss, Ehler (2013c): “California Dreamin'. Die Erfindung des Neoschamanismus als mediumistische Probe des 20. Jahrhunderts”, in: Historische Anthropologie 21.3, pp. 367-386. Zander, Helmut (2009): “Höhere Erkenntnis. Die Erfindung des Fernrohrs und die Konstruktion erweiterter Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten zwischen dem 17. und dem 20. Jahrhundert”, in: Marcus Hahn/Erhard Schüttpelz (Eds.), Trancemedien und neue Medien um 1900. Ein anderer Blick auf die Moderne, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 17-55.

“Tomorrow, Christ on the Cross Will be Selling Socks”. References to Christianity in Contemporary Advertising Campaigns A NNA -K ATHARINA H ÖPFLINGER

H EAVENLY

COFFEE : I NTRODUCTION

George Clooney bargains with God and trades a Nespresso machine for a longer life; a nun kisses a priest in a Benetton campaign; a snake guards a tomato instead of an apple, promoting Heinz ketchup. These examples show that over the last twenty years, a number of well-made, glossy advertising campaigns for profane goods have been realized in Europe and the US by well-known (international) advertising agencies that use themes and motifs from religious traditions in order to call attention to the non-religious products advertised. Although the above mentioned campaigns use religious motifs first and foremost to gain attention, this context of usage initiates multi-layered reception processes. On the one hand, religious communities (such as Christian groups) may react to the alienation of “their” traditional semantics with criticism. On the other hand, the use of traditional religious semantics in advertisements cultivates a special sort of commercialization and popularization of religious contents, creating new “popular religious knowledge”. In the following I will discuss this interrelation between advertising and religion with a special focus on the popularization of traditional religious motifs: first, I will develop some theoretical thoughts on their relationship as well as on interrelations between the encoding and decoding of religious semantics in advertisements. Secondly, I will introduce the concept of “commercial religion” as a way to understand how the use of religious references in advertising is connected with the popularization of traditional religious semantics. For the purposes of this paper I will focus on the use of Christian con-

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tent, but similar processes can also be observed for other religious contexts (for advertisements in Islam see: Beinhauer-Köhler 2007; Beinhauer-Köhler 2011). To illustrate the complex interrelation between ads and religion, I will begin with the analysis of a commercial that includes religious content. One popular example of the use of Christian motifs in advertising for profane goods is the series of cinema and, in a shorter version, also TV spots for Nespresso,1 a coffee making system produced by the Swiss company Nestlé: George Clooney (playing himself) dies, killed by a falling piano while he was buying a new (Nespresso) coffee machine. He arrives at the gates of heaven, still holding the coffee machine in his hand. God (or Saint Peter – both interpretations of this personage are possible, but I will call him God in the following) wants to trade the coffee maker against George’s life. In one version of the spot, George gives the machine to God (John Malkovich) and returns to earth. In a second, and even more interesting, version, George refuses to give the machine away and passes through the gates into heaven. In the next shot we see him with God and two very pretty angels sitting on a couch. They are all dressed in white, drinking coffee and chatting about life in heaven: George: So, you always wear white? God: Always. […] George: Do you eat here? God: No. […] George: Do you sleep? God: No. George: That’s why you keep drinking coffee. That’s right. I understand. George: Basic question: Is there a bathroom here? God: We have lovely bathrooms. George: Good. […] But you don’t need to go. God: Not so much. (Dialog Minute 1:01-1:49)

On the one hand this spot tells us that Nespresso makes a heavenly coffee and that, of course, we should buy it. On the other hand the clip provides a contemporary example of the ancient tradition of giving an account of afterlife (cf. 1

These campaigns were developed 2009 by the advertising agency McCann in Paris and realized by director Robert Rodriguez via Moonwalk Films. The clip analyzed here is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23j1B4-lroM (21.2.2013). The customer is Martina Panagia, an Italian actress, the barista is Helen Lindes, Miss Spain 2000. The angels are played by Charlotte Poutrel and Madilon Bos.

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Pezzoli-Olgiati 2010b; 2011), as it can be found as early as in the so called standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, dated in this version around the 7th century B.C., although it is based on much older material. Here, Enkidu, one of the protagonists, falls into the netherworld and later gives his friend Gilgamesh an account of life there. This account is constructed in the same question-answer manner as the chat on the heavenly sofa between George Clooney and God, with Gilgamesh asking the questions which Enkidu answers. For example: XII, 148: He who was slain in battle, have you seen him? – I have seen him. 149 His father and his mother support his head, and his wife weeps over him. (For the Akkadian version cf. Parpola 1997: 67 [cuneiform text]; 116 [transliteration])

Also the humorous way in which life in heaven is described in the Nespresso clip has a long tradition, as can be seen in the ancient Greek comedy Batrachoi (“Frogs”) by Aristophanes (around 400 B.C.E.), in which Dionysos descends to the netherworld in order to bring the poet Euripides back to earth and to safe with this act the languishing Athenian tragedy tradition. In the netherworld, Dionysos becomes the judge of a poetry contest between Euripides and Aeschylus (another famous Greek poet), in which Aeschylus wins. But Dionysos cannot decide whom to revive. So he decides to take the poet with him who will provide him with the best advice to safe the tragedy tradition in Athens. Because Aeschylus gives him more practical tips, he chooses to take this poet with him. Being a comedy, Aristophanes’s Batrachoi combines a look into the netherworld with a satirical critic of his time, but also with simple jokes to amuse his audience. And this twofold function of amusement and reporting about the afterlife can also be noted in the Nespresso commercial. So to come back to Clooney and God: on a semantic – a term I use for the references of a sign to culturally constructed fields of meaning (Höpflinger 2010a: 40f.) – level, the Nespresso clip is linked to the tradition of imagining life beyond death. The commercial works with strong associations with traditional Christian ideas of heaven as a place of joy, happiness and pureness, giving them a humorous twist. With regard to its aesthetic form, the spot draws on a different set of motifs, namely modern mass media references to Christian semantics, such as used in the recent film Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, USA 2003)2.. White as the dominant (non-)color of heaven, the look of the angels, the couch, God’s clothing – all this draws on 20th- and 21st-century esthetics that become com2

I would argue that John Malkovich as God is constructed on the basis of Morgan Freeman, who plays God in Bruce Almighty.

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mon reference points through their use in films, other advertising campaigns, internet presentations, etc. Thus it is useful to differentiate between two interrelated, but different transmission processes: the semantic and aesthetic level.

T HE I NTERRELATEDNESS OF M EDIA

AND

R ELIGION

As the Nespresso example shows, religious media representations are a complex part of contemporary popular culture and the public sphere. This is true not only with regard to advertisements, but also to popular films (Mäder 2012), contemporary music (Hecker 2012; Laack 2011) and so on. For the study of these interdependencies between religion and various media, Steward Hoover proposes two heuristic perspectives (see Hoover/Lundby 1997; Hoover 2005: 5805ff.; Hoover 2006: 26-55; Pezzoli-Olgiati 2010a). On the one hand, scientific research can focus on how “religion uses media”, how different religious traditions include different media to communicate and how these media communication processes change within different contexts. One typical example for religions using media would be televangelism3, i.e. when a specific religious community uses a particular medium and its characteristics in order to spread its messages and normative values, construct identity and regulate processes of power, to just mention some of the aspects of how and for which purposes religions use media (cf. for televangelism Hoover 2006; Einstein 2008 for an economic perspective on how religious groups use mass media commercially). But depending on the definition of “medium” very different forms of communication, such as film, music, clothing, the internet, etc., can be studied from this perspective (see the articles in Beinhauer-Köhler/PezzoliOlgiati/Valentin 2010 and in Pezzoli-Olgiati/Rowland 2011 for approaches to religions using visual media; Mäder 2012 for films as media of religion; Glavac/Höpflinger/Pezzoli-Olgiati 2013 for clothing as a medium of religion). Ariel Heryanto’s contribution to this volume shows very well the complexity of the processes of “religion using media”, when, as in Heryanto’s example, Indo-

3

“Televangelism” refers to the use of television programs to communicate and spread Christian thought. It was first and foremost an US-american phenomenon and later on became popular in other parts of the world (South-America, Asia). It is an adaption of Christian radio programs (which have been popular since the 1920s) and started after World War II, when TV became a popular medium in US households. For more details see Hoover 2005.

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nesia, processes of Islamization or post-Islamization interact with politics, economics and media (in this case, film). On the other hand, an academic approach to media and religion can analyse processes of “media using religion”. In what follows, I will concentrate on the second perspective of how media use religion because this contributes to a better understanding not only of media processes, but also of basic cultural concepts of and assumptions about religion. This perspective also allows to show how advertisements are not only an omnipresent medium of communication in the “West”, but also shape in a profound way “western” worldviews and ideals. I define advertising campaigns as a medium that makes extensive “use” of various religious contents. In doing so, these campaigns presuppose something I would call “popular religious knowledge”. Popular religious knowledge means a fuzzy sort of shared, culturally specific knowledge, in large part constructed by and transmitted through visual media such as images, films, monuments, and also advertisements. Because of changes in context and the new commercial function, recipients may not even interpret these references as religious anymore, as it happens for example in the case of the commercialization of Christmas, which as a festival is a part of common western culture, without many people, at least in the European context, attaching importance to its religious meaning and background: the exchange of gifts, constructions of “family” and the representation of commercialized light metaphors are also popular in atheist or even antiChristian contexts.4 As the example of Christmas shows, such fuzzy popular religious knowledge often becomes integrated into a specific culture so that it becomes an aspect of one’s cultural rather than religious identity, no longer related to religious experiences and functions. Thus, to focus on “media using religion” means to be concerned not primarily with religious communities, institutions or the religious experiences and worldviews of individuals, but rather to analyse how religion – in the case of this study, visual religious semantics – can be used in order to communicate, to create attention, to establish (new) worldviews and not least to pursue commercial goals in a non-religious context. Focussing on “media using religion” also means that intermediality and reception processes are to be integrated in the analysis. Following Irina O. Rajewski, I define “intermediality” as the synchronic interdependencies and interrelations between different media, for example relations between literature and images, or images and films (Rajewski 2002: 13). In contrast to these synchronic 4

In my empirical research in the Swiss Black Metal scene (cf. Höpflinger 2010b), I have encountered a number of people who celebrate Christmas in the popular commercialized way with presents, expensive meals with relatives, Christmas cookies and Christmas trees, although they claim to be satanic or antichristian.

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intermedial interrelations, I intend the term “reception” to refer to diachronic processes of transmission. Both of these processes are not only connected with changing media forms, but also with transforming (religious) functions.

E NCODING AND D ECODING IN ADVERTISEMENTS

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R ELIGIOUS R EFERENCES

One of the main functions of advertising is to create attention (Schierl 2002: 79159; Kloss 2003). The use of religious motifs can be seen as contributing to the realization of this function: advertising campaigns use religious motifs – as we have seen sometimes in a humorous or provocative way – first and foremost in order to gain attention. This usage initiates multi-layered reactions and decoding processes. Stuart Hall’s model of encoding and decoding can be usefully applied to the analysis of commercials (Hall 1980). Hall differentiates between the encoding and decoding of cultural meaning and thus proposes a new model of communication: while Ferdinand de Saussure posits a linear process of communication (De Saussure 1979[1916]), Hall wants to show that communication is much more complex. He argues that not only the encoding, but also the decoding of a message is an active element in a communication process. Encoding happens at the level of the production of an object and is often connected with a specific aim, in our case a commercial one. The encoding of social meaning in an object may intend a specific decoding and with it, a specific action (as in our case that recipients buy the advertised products). But in fact, as Hall’s model shows, these decoding processes are more complex and multi-layered. So for example if person 1 says A, person 2 may interpret B and may act C, person 3 may understand D and person 4 may construct the evidence as ABCD, even if B and D are contradictory. Following Hall’s model, this means for advertisements that they are produced on a material level and thereby encode social meaning. However, the decoding or interpretation of this meaning can differ significantly from what was intended in the encoding, and therefore it is useful to separate the two in the analysis. The viewers of an ad are active partners in this communication process (cf. Glavac 2011), they react to advertisements in complex ways, e.g. using them as art, or as in the article at hand, as sources for scientific research. As Thomas Schierl argues, one factor of interest regarding these decoding processes is “understanding” (Schierl 2002: 160ff.): what do different recipients understand when viewing an image or watching a film? Which degree of understanding is indispensable on the level of decoding for advertisements to work in the manner intended by the producers? What happens if processes of encoding and

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decoding differ so much that an advertisemeent does not function in the intended way anymore? Which new functions does it take t over? In order to show how encoding and deccoding can differ extensively, I will analyse in more detail a particular example,, the 2004 Marithé et François Girbaud Fashion House advertising campaign (ffig. 1) (cf. Cottin 2006). Fig. 1: Advertisement for Marithé et Françoiis Girbaud Fashion House with the title “Spring 2005 A.D”, 2004. Agency: Air Paris, P France.

The advertisement shows twelve fashionabbly dressed women and a man arranged around a table without legs, sitting onn invisible chairs, and with the number of legs and feet under the table not corrresponding with the number of persons. Also, under the table there is a hand with w a dove perched on it, but it remains unclear, to which woman this hand shoould belong. This irritating composition is probably used to raise attention, buut it is also an interpretation of the original painting by Leonardo da Vinci and its reception in contemporary popular and New Age culture (see below). On the t table there are a chalice, bread, figs, bowls with quinces and a dish. In its aesthetics a the campaign clearly imitates Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural painnting “The Last Supper”: through the frontal arrangement of the table, the numbeer and position of the persons, especially of the woman in the centre, it represeents an adaption of da Vinci’s painting, which is not only one of the most faamous religious images, but also a

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prominent part of contemporary popular culture because of its repeated referencing in in contemporary art, films, other ads etc. (cf. Cottin 2006). But the advertisement does not only refer to da Vinci’s painting, but in its encoding transforms it in a specific manner by associating it with Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code from 2003 (a book that became very popular in 2004) and his theory about da Vinci’s painting which is based on Michael Baigent’s, Richard Leigh’s, and Henry Lincoln’s book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982). The authors speculate that Leonardo da Vinci was the prior of a secret order with the name Prieuré de Sion. This order, according to the authors, is charged with the task to transmit the “truth” that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children with her (Mary Magdalene is according to this theory the holy grail because she carries the bloodline of Jesus Christ). According to the authors, Leonardo da Vinci hid hints about this knowledge in his works and pictures, such as in “The Last Supper”, where John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved” is represented in a very feminine manner (the very light beard is, according to the authors, only there to misdirect the ignorant) and in fact is meant to represent Mary Magdalene (Baignet/Leigh/Lincoln 1982: 293ff.). According to this theory, da Vinci’s painting shows in reality twelve men and one woman. Drawing on this theory, the advertisement reverses the gender roles: Jesus and his followers are transformed into beautiful and fashionably dressed women, while the “beloved disciple”, Mary Magdalene, now is a young man with naked upper body. Regarding the decoding of the complex references in this advertisement, one can note strongly divergent strategies: BBC News online reports that the campaign provoked a court case between the Catholic association Croyances et Libertés and Girbaud resulting in the removal of the posters from public areas in France and in Milan.5 As BBC reports, the Catholic association argued that the use of Christian symbols, such as the dove and chalice, recalled the foundations of the Christian faith and offended the religious sensibilities of parts of the population. One of the plaintiff’s lawyers, Thierry Massis, is quoted saying: “When you trivialise the founding acts of a religion, when you touch on sacred things, you create an unbearable moral violence which is a danger to our children. […] Tomorrow, Christ on the cross will be selling socks.” Bernard Cahen, the Parisian lawyer of the fashion house, is reported to have argued from a different perspective: “The work is a photograph based on a painting, not on the Bible. […] There is nothing in it that is offensive to the Catholic

5

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4337031.stm (12.10.2012). As Cottin explains, in France there was only one poster in public (Cottin 2006).

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religion. It is a way of showing the place of women in society today, which is a reflection of our changing values.” The arguments pro and con the ad quoted here use different definitions of religion in their interpretation of the advertisement: Cahen’s definition is somewhat narrow, focusing exclusively on the Bible, whereas Massis uses a wider definition that includes different forms of media. Nevertheless the conclusion he draws from this view is perhaps more conservative than that of Cahen. This example shows how a specific encoding with a reference to a traditional religious image can provoke different decoding processes: on the level of encoding, the intended addressee of this campaign is an urban, westernized (but not exclusively western), well-off public that is to be encouraged by the ad to go shopping for Girbaud fashion. But on the level of decoding, various different reception processes are at work: Girbaud’s advertisement may lead some people to buy the represented clothes (as intended in the encoding). Some others may react with dismay at the transformation of “their” (as they maybe would argue) religious tradition (Knauss 2010). And some others may find an interest in analyzing this advertisement as the article of Jérôme Cottin (2006) or the one at hand show. These example underlines that images and films – even more than written texts – are polysemous (cf. Beinhauer-Köhler/Pezzoli-Olgiati/Valentin 2010; PezzoliOlgiati/Rowland 2011): the interpretation of visual sources depends on their viewer and his/her socio-religious context and background as well as on individual expectations and aims associated with the visual material or parts of it. Both encoding and decoding are influenced by dynamics of distinction and power: who has the power to show what in a specific manner and to popularize a specific sort of knowledge; and who has the power to fight against such images and their popularization? What sorts of power mechanisms are at work in these processes? The use of traditional religious semantics in advertising promotes a particular kind of popularization of religious content, even creating new “religious knowledge” and thus takes part in the continuous processes of “doing religion”. To return to our first example: the Nespresso clip not only tells us how life after death might be by referring to something I would call “common religious semantics”, but it also adds new semantic material to this “popular common religion”, for example the white sofa and coffee.

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C OMMERCIAL R ELIGION As the examples above show, the way in which religious traditions are used in advertising is interrelated with specific sorts of reception processes on an esthetical and semantic level that normally have no further religious function. In analogy to Robert N. Bellah’s “civil religion” (Bellah 1967), this phenomenon might be called “commercial religion”. I see commercial religion as a specific part of popular culture, characterized by the following aspects. First, commercial religion is part of what I called “popular common religion” earlier: commercial religion wants to address as many people as possible, and thus it does not refer to theological detail, but rather to culture-specific common religious semantics, such as Christmas or Easter in the European context, religious festivals that even atheists celebrate. I would like to illustrate this with the story of Adam, Eve and the apple. In the history of religious art, there is a wide range of visual depictions of this specific interpretation of Genesis 3 (the text itself does not mention an apple). As Stefanie Knauss shows Adam and/or Eve with apple or even the apple alone are common semantics widely used in advertising, with the apple becoming a symbol for advertising itself (Knauss 2010). Also, campaigns for Heinz Fit Ketchup draw on this tradition, using, for example, a tomato instead of an apple with a snake winding around it (fig. 2). The copy “no sin” refers on the one hand to the fall of humankind, to the eating of the fruit which is considered as the first act of disobedience against God’s will, and thus a sin, in the Jewish and Christian tradition. But on the other hand, it reverses the meaning of sin: eating the tomato (i.e. Heinz Fit Ketchup), is, in spite of the snake, no sin: because it is diet ketchup, giving in to the snake’s temptation it is not considered an action to be avoided, but rather to be endorsed. Thus this ad draws on contemporary normative ideas of bodily beauty and thinness and not on a biblical text, using them for a new interpretation of a religious concept, sin (high-caloric food).

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Fig. 2: Campaign for Heinz Fit Ketchup withh the title “No Sin”, 2007. Agency: Mark BBDO, Prague.

Consequently transmission processes in advvertising function by using common social imaginaries, not by referring to concrrete religious narratives or doctrine. With Charles Taylor (who draws on Jean-Paaul Sartre, Jacques Lacan and Cornelius Castoriadis) I define social imaginary ass follows: “I am thinking […] of the ways in which people imagine their social existence, e how they fit together with others” (Taylor 2002: 106). Taylor argues thhat the social imaginary is connected with what I have called common popular knoowledge, and in particular to the visual discursive forms of its transmission: “I speak of imaginary because I’m talking about the way ordinary people ‘imagine’ their social surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical terms; it iss carried in images, stories, and legends” (Taylor 2002: 106). Transmission proccesses in advertising function by using these common social and medial imagiinaries, but they do not only “use” such imaginaries, but – and this is the second characteristic of commercial religion – they also contribute to their constructioon. Thus with regard to religious semantics, contemporary advertisements are suubject to different types of often unintentional reception processes: they attract attention for commercial purposes;

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they trigger (often irritated and unfavourable) reactions from religious groups; and they “feed” collective religious imaginaries. The use of religious visual semantics in advertising stresses the reciprocal relationship between religious traditions and economic systems, when these advertisements popularize selected religious semantics, commercialize them, construct new hierarchies and, as we have seen, even create new fields of common popular knowledge. Thereby, and that is the third aspect of commercial religion, they familiarize addressees not only with this specific use of religious semantics, but also with the values and basic attitudes they represent, or, to quote again Taylor, the social “expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations” (Taylor 2002: 106). Commercial religion thus is highly normative, but the values it transmits are often transformed in respect to their meaning in traditional religious worldviews and become commercialized: advertisements tell us how we should live, how to become happy through a consuming mentality, and what to buy in order to do so. They show how the world should be and how we should behave in it. For example, the 2012 advertising for the deodorant Axe draws on the public understanding of a Maya tradition predicting the end of the world in 2012 with all its accompanying apocalyptic fears.6 It shows a young man building an ark in order to survive a second flood. But instead of following his religious example, Noah, who stowed elephants and giraffes, mice and cockroaches, all animals two by two in his ark, this young man sprays his body with Axe whereupon dozens of beautiful women enter the ark, bewitched by his scent. This clip implies normative thoughts regarding gender roles, constructing female passivity (the women merely react to the scent of Axe) and male activity (the young man takes measures against the flood, seduces the women and so on). It also reinforces normative values regarding happiness found in heterosexual and patriarchal partnership as well as female beauty. These norms are connected with the construction of social hierarchies: ads often imply that to buy the advertised product is important to generate social status. Fourth, commercial religion not only constructs new fields of religious knowledge, but also new fields of identification, for example the identification with a certain brand. But as the examples have shown, they also promote identification with specific sorts of social and cultural imaginaries, based on commercialized values. The knowledge about and understanding of commercial religious semantics can become a marker for the ideal addressees of such ads: a westernized, globalized, well-off public. But advertisements can also initiate identification processes that are not intended by the producers: recipients may for example 6

The clip is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6AH8kznKs (10.3.2013).

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identify with voices critical of commercialism. For example, Solidar Suisse, a Swiss public social aid association,7 transforms the Nespresso advertisement with George Clooney:8 in this version Clooney can avoid to be killed by the falling piano, but he is knocked out by a damaged Nespresso signboard, with the voice of God saying “sorry, George”. A voice over explains then that Nespresso is not a fair-trade coffee brand and that recipients may change that with a letter to George Clooney. This anti-ad is the result of and initiator for identification processes that oppose economic exploitation and maybe also at least an extreme form of commercialization. So, the processes of identification and identityformation connected with commercial religion are as multi-layered and difficult to predict as the decoding-mechanisms we discussed above. Finally, if commercial religion is connected with the creation of emotions, values and a strong brand identity, we could ask, if commercial experiences and the values they create are in their functions so different from religious ones.9

C ONCLUSION : T HE P OPULARISATION R ELIGIOUS S EMANTICS

OF

T RADITIONAL

The examples analysed above show that advertising campaigns use traditional religious motifs and integrate them, with a specific commercial aim, into popular culture. As I have argued, we can speak of processes of popularization of religious semantics in this context. To conclude, advertisements are a part of popular culture; with their intended addressees being rich westernized persons, they try to reach a broad range of people with spending power. To gain attention they include different semantics from religious traditions, for example from Christianity (the focus of this contribution). They do not refer to theological doctrine, but to a popular common religious knowledge which is part of the collective religious imaginary of their cultural context. But although advertisements are part of popular culture, they are not part of popular religion, because in spite of their reference to common reli-

7

See http://www.solidar.ch (7.3.2013).

8

The clip is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8QljHVn_A (7.3.2013).

9

At the University of Zurich, Michael Ulrich focuses on this question in his doctoral research on “The Role, Effects, and Impact of Religious Symbolism in Successful Marketing Strategies. An Inquiry into Functional Analogies Between Religious Motivation and Consumers’ Brand Loyalty”.

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gious knowledge, advertisements are not primarily intended to serve religious functions or to evoke religious experiences; secondarily, however, and depending on one’s definition of religion, one might ask, if they do not nevertheless take over religious functions for example by generating sense in a commercialized world. Maybe this is one10 reason for the surprisingly frequent usage of religious content: both religions and ads are connected with the promise of salvation and can evoke strong emotions through their promises of salvation.11 Together with other parts of popular culture, such as films, music and popular literature, advertisements play an important role in popularizing common religious knowledge based on religious traditions, or at least specific parts of them (e.g. religious images). Commercial religion, as I have called it, popularizes traditional religious semantics in interaction with contemporary norms, values and processes of identification. It shows how the world is, but also, in an economic-idealizing manner, how the world could or should be. George Clooney and the angels in the Nespresso clip are not only part of visualized commercialism, but can also stand for popular normative discourses, for example about the need for a commercial affiliation even beyond our death.

R EFERENCES Baignet, Michael/Leigh, Richard/Lincoln, Henry (1982): The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, London: Jonathan Cape. Beinhauer-Köhler, Bärbel/Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria/Valentin, Joachim (eds.) (2010): Religiöse Blicke – Blicke auf das Religiöse. Visualität und Religion, Zürich: TVZ. Beinhauer-Köhler, Bärbel (2007): “Sacralizing Consumerism? Werbung im Islam”, in: Hermann Jung/Michael Rappglück (eds.), Symbolon. Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Symbolforschung 16. Signaturen des Lebens, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, pp. 199-212. Beinhauer-Köhler, Bärbel (2011): Gelenkte Blicke. Visuelle Kulturen im Islam, Zürich: TVZ. Bellah, Robert N. (1967): “Civil Religion in America”, in: Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96, pp. 1-21. Brown, Dan (2003): The Da Vinci Code, Ney York: Doubleday.

10 Another one might be that the use of emotionally charged religious contents helps to draw attention. 11 For religion as a promise of salvation see Riesebrodt (2007).

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Cottin, Jérôme (2006): “Défendre des images défendues. L’exemple de quelques réinterprétations modernes de la Cène de Léonard de Vinci/Zur Verteidigung verbotener Bilder: Am Beispiel einiger zeitgenössischer Neuinterpretationen von Leonardo da Vincis Abendmahl”, in: Magazin für Theologie und Ästhetik 44: http://www.theomag.de/44/jc01.htm (06.03.2013). De Saussure, Ferdinand (1979[1916]): Cours de linguistique générale, Paris: Payot. Einstein, Mara (2008): Brands of Faith. Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age, London/New York: Routledge. Glavac, Monika (2011): “Viewing and Reconstructing Caricatures. The ‘Other’ in Benjamin Roubaud’s La Leçon de danse”, in: Daria PezzoliOlgiati/Christopher Rowland (eds.), Approaches to the Visual in Religion, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 65-78. Glavac, Monika/Höpflinger, Anna-Katharina/Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria (eds.) (2013): Second Skin. Kleidung, Körper, Religion, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hall, Stuart (1980): “Encoding/decoding”, in: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (ed.), Culture, Media, Language. Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79, London: Hutchinson, pp. 128-138. Hecker, Pierre (2012): Turkish Metal. Music, Meaning, and Morality in a Muslim Society, Aldershot: Ashgate. Hoover, Stewart/Lundby, Knut (1997): Rethinking Media, Religion, and Culture, London: Sage. Hoover, Steward M. (2005): “Media and Religion”, in: Lindsay Jones (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, Detroit/New York: Thomson Gale, pp. 5805-5810. Hoover, Steward M. (2006): Religion in the Media Age, London/New York: Routledge. Höpflinger, Anna-Katharina (2010a): Schlangenkampf. Der Vergleich von ausgewählten Bild- und Textquellen aus dem griechisch-römischen und dem altorientalischen Kulturraum, Zürich: TVZ. Höpflinger, Anna-Katharina (2010b): “Praying for the Death of Mankind. Ein religionswissenschaftlicher Blick auf die Schweizerische Black Metal Szene”, in: Dorothea Lüddeckens/Rafael Waltert (eds.), Fluide Religion. Neue religiöse Bewegungen im Wandel. Theoretische und empirische Systematisierungen, Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 215-241. Knauss, Stefanie (2010), “Sinful Sex Sells Better? Sex und Religion in der Werbung”, in: Jörg Metelmann (ed.), Porno-Pop II. Im Erregungsdispositiv, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, pp. 223-231.

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Kloss, Ingomar (2003): Werbung. Lehr-, Studien- und Nachschlagewerk, München/Wien: Oldenbourg. Laack, Isabel (2011): Religion und Musik in Glastonbury. Eine Fallstudie zu gegenwärtigen Formen religiöser Identitätsdiskurse, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Mäder, Marie-Therese (2012): Die Reise als Suche nach Orientierung. Eine Annäherung an das Verhältnis zwischen Film und Religion, Marbug: Schüren. Parpola, Simo (1997): The Standart Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria (2010a): “Eine illustrierte Annäherung an das Verhältnis von Medien und Religion”, in: Bärbel Beinhauer-Köhler/Daria PezzoliOlgiati/Joachim Valentin (eds.), Religiöse Blicke – Blicke auf das Religiöse. Visualität und Religion, Zürich: TVZ, pp. 245-266. Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria (2010b): “Approaching Afterlife Imagery. A Contemporary Glance at Ancient Concepts of Otherwordly Dimensions”, in: Tobias Nicklas/Joseph Verheyden/Erik M. M. Eynikel/Florentino Martínez García (eds.), Other Worlds and Their Relation to This World. Early Jewish and Ancient Christian Traditions, Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 1-15. Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria (2011): “Jenseitsbilder. Ein religionswissenschaftliches Essay zu unsichtbaren Dimensionen”, in: Ulrike Vollmer/Chris Deacy (eds.), Afterlife, Marburg: Schüren, pp. 47-63. Pezzoli-Olgiati, Daria/Rowland, Christopher (eds.) (2011): Approaches to the Visual in Religion, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Rajewski, Irina O. (2002): Intermedialität, Tübingen/Basel: A. Franke Verlag. Riesebrodt, Martin (2007): Cultus und Heilsversprechen. Eine Theorie der Religionen, München: Beck. Schierl, Thomas (2002): Text und Bild in der Werbung. Bedingungen, Wirkungen und Anwendungen bei Anzeigen und Plakaten, Köln: Herbert von Halem Verlag. Taylor, Charles (2002): “Modern Social Imaginaries”, in: Public Culture 14, pp. 91-124. Ulrich, Michael (2013): The Role, Effects, and Impact of Religious Symbolism in Successful Marketing Strategies. An Inquiry into Functional Analogies Between Religious Motivation and Consumers’ Brand Loyalty. Doctoral research, Zürich. http://www.research-projects.uzh.ch/p17815.htm (26.09.2013).

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4337031.stm (12.10.2012). Axe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6AH8kznKs (10.3.2013). Nespresso: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23j1B4-lroM (21.2.2013). Solidar Suisse: http://www.solidar.ch (7.3.2013). Solidar Suisse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8QljHVn_A (7.3.2013). Bruce Almighty (2003) (USA, R: Tom Shadyac).

Germanic Neo-Paganism – A Nordic Art-Religion? S TEFANIE V . S CHNURBEIN

The world of “Nordic myth” as it is conveyed in late medieval Icelandic sources has provided inspiration for a wide range of (popular) cultural phenomena especially in Europe and North-America, ranging from the patriotic renewal of German and Scandinavian literatures through Wagnerian opera to current fantasy film and literature, online games and role play, as well as the Metal and Neofolk music scenes. It is much less known though that in the last hundred years, these imagined worlds have been supported by small but highly active religious subcultures, i.e. by religious movements that strive to revive what they perceive as a native tradition, the pre-Christian heritage of the Nordic or Germanic tribes. This Germanic-neo-Paganism, Odinism or Asatru1 as it is called today, is often seen as a religion closely connected to right-wing radicalism, while worshipping “Nordic” deities like Odin, Thor and Freya is frequently associated with obscure categories such as blood and soil, heritage and race. This reputation is not completely unfounded. The idea to employ Norse mythology to construct a contemporary religion surfaces for the first time in the nationalist, racist and antiSemitic German völkisch movement and its search for a pure German faith rooted in a deep past, a pure culture and heritage. Up until the 1980s, Germanic neo-Paganism presented as a field in which alternative, dissident spirituality and ultra-nationalist, racist and right-wing ideology met and influenced each other. This picture has changed considerably in the last decades. In many countries, 1

The term Odinism refers to the Norse pantheon’s main god Odin. Asatru is a Scandinavian term meaning the belief or trust in the Aesir, a group of Norse deities. For a more thorough description of modern Asatru see the contribution by René Gründer in this volume.

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Asatru has become an accepted, albeit small religious confession on par with other reconstructionist, neo-Pagan and alternative religious movements. Two main factors contribute to this change. On the one hand, there has been a trend within Asatru to reform one’s own religion and free it from the tainted völkisch and nationalist heritage of a “Nordic ideology”. On the other hand, the gain of public acceptance and respectability is facilitated by a shift within public discourse in Western societies where religion, ethnicity and culture have become more prominent in discussions about identity and foreignness, about immigration and globalisation. There is an increased tendency to employ them as categories, which can explain political issues and conflict, while questions of class and economic difference have moved to the background. In our context it is interesting to note that the three categories are often used interchangeably, that they are conflated and seen as essential political agents. This trend towards what can be described as a culturalisation of religion and a sacralisation of culture facilitates the acceptance of movements which tie religion closely to constructions of cultural heritage. The developments within Asatru and within mainstream discourse on religion are thus related. At the same time, a tension between pop- or countercultural and nationalist or racist impulses not only vexes Asatru, but is characteristic of the discourse of Germanic or Nordic myth on which Asatru is based. Its main components were formed during the era of European Romanticism. In this paper, I suggest that we can gain a better understanding of these phenomena and the underlying tension by looking at modern concepts of the relation between religion and art, or concepts of art-religion.

W HAT

IS

ART -R ELIGION ?

Generally speaking, and maybe surprising to many, it is in modernity and not in ancient or pre-modern times, that religion and art – the spiritual and the aesthetic – appear to be most closely related. This applies in particular to contemporary neo-Pagan religions which tend to perceive their spirituality as a creative process and assign spiritual qualities to art, music, literature and performance. We can understand these aspects of neo-Paganism as popularisations of an art-religious paradigm, connected to its transformation into alternative spiritual practice. It is a paradigm which originates in Romanticism and is re-vitalised in various neoRomantic contexts throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. Nineteenth century thought, not the least by German idealist theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, conceptualises religion as a realm of aesthetic experience tying religion to emotion, experience, interiority and the private sphere; the fields in which

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modern art is located as well. At the same time, art is increasingly assigned religious functions: the artwork itself is imbued with the ability to create transcendent meaning, the process of artistic creation is perceived as a religiously inspired act, the artist is assigned the role of a prophet, priest or saviour, and art itself is celebrated in cultic ways. The German literary critic Heinrich Detering has recently argued that the historical precondition for art-religion, for the adoption of religious functions in art and vice versa, is a differentiation of the spheres of art and religion in modern society as two clearly distinguishable realms. It is the perception of this differentiation that leads to a nostalgic yearning for a restoration of an imagined lost unity, the emphatic invocation of a future unification or a combination of both (cf. Detering 2011; Detering 2007). What is so compelling in our context is the fact that the art-religious paradigm and the discourse of Nordic myth origin in the same era and in the same intellectual constellation, and that they are closely intertwined.

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From the beginning, the arts, literature, theatre, film and music have been the main vehicles for conceiving a Germanic or Nordic past and for keeping it alive in the public imagination. This applies to all social classes. In other words: The aesthetic is the main realm in which a discourse of Nordic myth was established and has been transmitted since the late eighteenth century. And it is from this amazingly stable yet malleable discourse of Nordic myth, that modern Asatru takes its inspiration. Asatru is connected to Nordic myth’s multifarious historical manifestations and contemporary varieties including popular cultural phenomena such as fantasy literature and film, role play and computer games, and not the least metal and neofolk music. Neo-Germanic religion and these popular-cultural expressions can therefore serve as suitable examples for investigating transformations of the art-religious constellation from its inception around 1800 until today. Scandinavian historians and antiquarians first began discovering, editing and interpreting medieval Icelandic and other Norse and Latin sources as proof of national greatness around the seventeenth century. But these worlds gained a broader popularity only when literary authors embraced the Old Norse material in the service of literary renewal. In our context, it is striking that the German and the Scandinavian Romantic revival of Norse myth (i.e., the discovery of the

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Eddic lays2 for a renewal of contemporary literature) was inspired by the same authors who also laid the foundation for the modern sacralisation of art. During his twenty years at the Danish court, the German writer Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803) developed a vision of the artist as a seer-priest and of religious texts as works of poetry. At the same time, he made use of the first translations of Eddic lays which he combined with elements from the then popular tradition of Bardic poetry in the spirit of McPherson’s Ossian in order to create an art form inspired by then current conceptions of “national” mythology. This approach was further developed by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) for whom a proper nation was formed by an original organic unity between landscape, climate and nature, language, poetry, and history. This unity is expressed in, or rather based on a common mythology – hence the importance for Romantic nationalism to identify such a mythology in which national identity can be rooted. From the beginning, poetry is seen as the main conveyor of this mythic truth and thus of cultural and religious heritage in general – hence Herder’s suggestion to use medieval Norse mythological texts to inspire a renewal of German poetry (cf. Rühling 1996). Richard Wagner’s concept of the “total art-work”, which was to unite all the art forms in a new whole and serve the (German) people as a sacral centre, is probably the most emphatic and potent expression of artreligious attempts in the nineteenth century. The Ring of the Nibelung as well as some of Wagner’s theoretical writings popularised the idea that a pagan Germanic religion, preserved in the far north, should form the basis for a national renewal of Germany. Moreover, it was Wagner who assigned the artist the role of the herald of this old-new message. He was also the first German artist to 2

Two medieval Icelandic texts named Edda contain the majority of the myths and heroic tales which today are perceived as the core of Norse mythology. In 1643 an inconspicuous manuscript was discovered by the Icelandic bishop Brynjolfr Sveinsson which soon attracted considerable attention and was donated to the Danish king twenty years later. It contained mythological poems about the Norse deities such as Odin, Thor, Frey and Freya, cosmological visions about the origin and end of the world as well as heroic poetry related to the Nibelungen cycle. The find was all the more sensational as it treated the same mythological materials as another medieval work, the Edda, authored by the Icelandic cleric, historian and politician Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241). With the find of the mentioned manuscript, one thought, mistakenly as it turned out, to have identified the source from which Snorri had quoted the interspersed verses in his Edda. Consequently, this untitled manuscript was named Edda as well. It became known as the Elder Edda, Saemundar Edda (after an alleged author) or, (today most common) Poetic Edda. The extent to which these works contain pre-Christian mythological knowledge is disputed up until today.

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make use of the medieval Scandinavian sources of the Nibelungen material which he found more original and thus more apt to express myth’s timeless character than the courtly and Christian setting of the German Nibelungenlied.3 For the establishment of a neo-Germanic religion and the popularisation of Wagnerian images of Nordic myth the further reception of Wagner is even more seminal than his theoretical concept of art-religion proper. His art-religious ideas were taken up by his followers in the Bayreuther Kreis (Bayreuth circle), who combined them with popular Nietzscheanism as well as with those of more obscure, but nevertheless immensely popular figures, such as Julius Langbehn – the cultural critic who prophesised a rebirth of the German nation through art in his Rembrandt als Erzieher (Langbehn 1890). As important as these protagonists of a Nordic art-religious tradition were for the emerging Germanic neo-Paganism in the German Faith movement after 1900 and thus for later Asatru, another novelist influenced the perception of European myth and folk belief after the 1960s in a nearly incomparable way and set the terms for the genre of fantasy literature. His fantastic world has provided material for a whole industry of media, film, and games: J.R.R. Tolkien and his trilogy The Lord of the Rings.4 Tolkien was immediately inspired by the Romantic revival of Germanic myth and scholars such as Jacob Grimm, N.F.S. Grundtvig, and Elias Lönnroth whose influence extended to English nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship and art (cf. Shippey 2002: 64f.). In his middle-earth, Tolkien imagines what we could call a Herderian world of a variety of peoples or races rooted in their soil and with their unique cultures and characteristics – peoples who could and should collaborate in the service of the good cause, but, generally speaking, would and should not migrate or mix. It was Tolkien’s explicit goal to compensate for a lack of a proper myth for England through storytelling, (cf. Arvidsson 2007: 173; Tolkien 2008) and in this effort he made ample use of Norse mythology. It is no coincidence that Tolkien, an accomplished scholar, chose an aesthetic genre for this process of reconstruction. This indicates his art-religious attitude which implies a critique of contemporary civilisa3

For Wagner’s treatment of the Nordic sources see e.g. Böldl (2000: 271-277).

4

Tolkien has received both immense praise, for example, as the “author of the [twentieth] century” (Shippey 2002), who lucidly anticipated green and alternative ideas, as well as equally outspoken scorn for writing trivial, immature boys’ stories with racist and misogynist undertones (see e.g. Schwarz 2003). At the same time his work has been largely ignored by academic literary criticism. The following discussion of Tolkien is based on Schnurbein 2009 and supplemented with arguments from Stefan Arvidsson’s analysis, the most lucid interpretation of Tolkien’s concept of myth currently available (cf. Arvidsson 2007: 142-198).

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tion and its healing through ancient myth. It is not unlike the Richard Wagner’s project Ring of the Nibelung with which Tolkien vividly engaged even though he claimed to detest Wagner and rejected any such influence.5

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Long before Tolkien-mania set in during the late 2000s and converted Tolkinian worlds into popular games and religious practice or any thinkable post-modern blend of the two, leading figures of the neo-Germanic part of the völkisch religious movement, the Germanic Faith movement, forged their own versions of the Nordic art-religious tradition. Central protagonists of Germanic neoPaganism and of current Asatru have been active as writers, painters, theatre people and musicians and have thus contributed directly to a renewal of artreligion in popular culture. It is safe to claim that Germanic Faith and neoGermanic Paganism, which arose within this constellation, were and remain expressions of such a (neo-)romantic art-religion. Ludwig Fahrenkrog, the founder of the Germanische Glaubensgemeinschaft, painted devotional pictures of gods and goddesses as well as authored plays inspired by Eddic texts. Ernst Wachler, one of the first promoters of a German Faith and a leading figure in the Germanische Glaubensgemeinschaft, was an avid promoter of theatre-reform. His open air theatre, the Harzer Bergtheater in Thale, was used as both, a public popular stage as well as a gathering place and site of worship for early Germanic neo-Pagan groups (cf. Puschner 1996; Schnurbein 2004). Wachler and Fahrenkrog produced a number of plays with mythological themes and characters to directly promote their religious ideas in the form of sacred plays. The performances of these religious dramas served a dual purpose and were directed at two audiences simultaneously. On the one hand, they served what could be called a missionary purpose: they were to entertain a broader public and indirectly win it over to the religious and ideological German Faith messages. On the other hand, they were directed at members and sympathisers of German Faith groups capable of decoding their message and experiencing them as an immediate expression of their own religious convictions and thus as a religious ritual.

5

For a good overview over parallels between Wagner’s and Tolkien’s “Rings” see Arvidsson 2007: 148f. The two works are primarily united through the main symbol, the ring, as a sign of the misuse of power. It also deserves attention that Tolkien, in contrast to Wagner, did not combine his cultural critique with anti-Semitic sentiments, although his work is otherwise not free from racist imagery.

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The same is true for the era’s popular visual arts which aimed at conviction and persuasion and which were crafted by artists associated directly with the German Faith movement of the era. Their work, also aimed directly at a religious experience, served to convey völkisch religious messages and contributed to the creation of “congregations” of like-minded followers (Schuster 1999: 276f.). Popular artists associated with the German Faith movement who used mythological and German Faith themes in their art included Fidus (Hugo Höppener), Ludwig Fahrenkrog himself, Franz Stassen and Herman Hendrich – all of whom are re-discovered today in Germanic neo-Paganism and, as we shall see, in the Neofolk music scene. Today, leading Asatruers such as Diana Paxson and Stephan Grundy make a living as authors of fantasy novels based on “Germanic” themes, particularly on the Nibelungen material. They take their inspiration directly from the protagonists of a Romantic art-religion, such as the Grimm brothers, Wagner, and Tolkien, whom they acknowledge as important precursors of their own cause. They stylise themselves as the heralds of such a Nordic art-religion and imbue their own work with a religious message – a self-stylisation mirrored in the role assigned to the poet or story in the novels themselves. Diana Paxson ends her Nibelungen trilogy Wodan’s Children with a prophecy about the return of the gods: “Wodan still walks the world, though men no longer recognize him, learning, experiencing, testing the new ways of thinking to which they turned when they abandoned their old gods. He is very curious, that one, and will follow the path to its end. When that time comes, perhaps he will seek a new way of knowing, and take up his conversation with Erda once more. [...] The ravens still fly, and to whom do they report, if not to the god? In every word that you speak and thought that you think, in the ecstasy of every new idea he is there, whether or not you know his name…” (Paxson 1996: 366f.).

The direct address to the reader at the end makes it clear that this prophetic ending is written with the purpose of convincing readers that the just finished story and its religious message are relevant for the present as well. Considering the fact that the rituals depicted in the novel are based on the author’s own experience,6 it becomes clear that Paxson aims her writing at a double audience in a similar way as we have seen with Ernst Wachler’s sacral plays: a general audience that might be won over to pagan world views, and an “initiated” one that 6

Cf. Grundy 2011 who writes in a reply to a questionnaire by the author: “A number of the rituals that she describes were taken directly from rituals practiced by her divinatory group Hrafnar.”

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will recognise their own beliefs and practices in the text or gain inspiration for the design of their own religious practices from it. A similar blend of references to a Romantic tradition of myth-revival and artreligion based in personal religious experience can be found in the work of Stephan Grundy who, writing as Kveldulf Gundarsson, has provided much of the scholarly background for the religious beliefs of the American Asatru group The Troth. Grundy’s debut novel Rhinegold is also centered on the Nibelungen material and the god Wodan. In accordance with Grundy’s interest in runes and magic, Wodan appears as the god of the runes which are understood as an expression of cosmic forces weaving together earth, gods, humans and fate. The human part of the magic runic web, which Rhinegold’s world is based in, is cast in metaphors of blood and earth. It is Wotan’s blood which curses through the Wälsungen’s veins. It serves as the store for ancient genealogical and magical knowledge and roots its members in the holy earth.7 The prophetic vision which Grundy provides at the end of his novel is based on blood and genealogy as well. After Gudrun has sunk the last parts of the dragon’s treasure in the Rhine river, she hears Wotan’s voice sounding through her head: “‘Though the new ways may seem to bode the death of our kin, I have wrought so that our foes’ works shall not last forever, nor our voices be forever stilled. Do not weep, but watch and learn.’ [...] She could feel the rushing of her blood in the riverways of her body, the might running unseen through her, flowing unbroken from him who had named himself Mannaz to father the first of humankind. The same might whispered in every breath she drew, as she knew it always had, though she had never marked nor thought of it till now; and she knew that no Christian dew-sprinkling nor Latin prayers could still Wodan’s gifts in her children, or the children who would come of her folk, though the god’s own kin forsook his memory” (Grundy 1994: 853).

Wodan then prophesies that the stories just told will not be forgotten, “and live through the long northern nights, even to the very doors of the White Christ’s church” (Grundy 1994: 854). Grundy’s art-religious prophecy is thus directly connected with the cosmic web of ancestral blood and runic power as well. The author implicitly ascribes such a prophetic function to himself and thus counts himself among those “who first in our time brought the gold forth from the dragon’s mound and the dark waters of the Rhine to awaken our memories of our northern forebears” (Grundy 1994: v) – Richard Wagner and J.R.R. Tolkien to whom he dedicates his book.

7

For a more detailed discussion of these elements in Rhinegold see Schnurbein 2009.

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Fantasy novels set in contemporary – often urban – contexts in which the gods start (re-) appearing are another branch of the fantasy genre that has been relevant for the popularisation of Norse mythology and that has provided Asatru with inspiration. Similar to the völkisch sacral plays at the beginning of the twentieth century, and to the historical novels that are often located in the era of the religious shift of Christianisation, they make use of the idea of a turn of eras, the potential for a new age. Frequently, they turn to the motif of Ragnarok, the apocalyptic battle of the gods and their adversaries and the demise of an old world followed by a new one – a battle in which contemporary Asatru groups are featured as well.8 A recent and complex example of this genre is the award winning Norwegian novel, Gudenes fall (The Fall of the Gods) (Jakhelln 2007) by Cornelius Jakhelln. Not only does it take up almost all of the themes, motives and philosophies relevant for Nordic art religion, it also leads us to our final example, Metal music and Neofolk. The Fall of the Gods is a rather wild dystopian fantasy about the return of the Nordic gods to the earth from whence they had retreated to the underworld after the Christianisation of Iceland in the year 1000. The political message is broken by irony and ambiguities, hard to pinpoint exactly, but still discernible. Odin and his best friend, the dwarf Hornbore, share the cultural pessimist outlook of artists and thinkers like Wagner, Nietzsche, Heidegger as interpreted by the Conservative Revolution9 and the contemporary New Right.10 This 8

An example from Asatru contexts is Paxson’s novel Brisingamen (Paxson 1984), a more widely sold and refined specimen of the genre is Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (Gaiman 2001).

9

The term was coined by Armin Mohler (1950), the most prominent post-war apologist of this heterogeneous extreme right-wing movement, in an attempt to distinguish it from National Socialism proper which many of its adherents regarded with a mixture of fascination and skepticism. Although it has been hotly debated, not the least because of the mythic and idealising quality which Mohler’s use gave it, the term has become established and is useful for our purposes. While conservatism is traditionally understood as a political movement aimed at preserving existing political, social and cultural structures, Conservative Revolutionaries are convinced that modernisation has already proceeded too far, so that there is little or nothing left that is worth preserving. They conclude that what is to be preserved (a new holistic state structure, a new organic culture, a new man) first has to be created or restored in a violent revolutionary effort that will destroy existing structures. These “politics of cultural despair” (Stern 1961) are not exclusively retrogressive or anti-modern, but combine a rejection of an allegedly “degenerate” modernity with modernist elements in shifting combinations which lend them their peculiar dynamic.

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becomes especially clear in their contempt for the uncontrolled breeding of the human masses and their simultaneous admiration for the genius of the few. The result is a political aestheticism for which the German prophets of an art-religion stand. This depiction of a Nietzschean super-man is however ironically broken by the fact that Odin appears as an unreliable narrator, a failing spouse and distant father, far from the perfect embodiment of ideal values and rather human himself. However, the self-stylisation of the narrator as a knowledgeable, divine philosopher and an unpredictable equally divine jester mirrors the cultural pessimist outlook of other modernist and post-modernist writers some of whom (for example Knut Hamsun) stood in political proximity to nationalist, anti-Semitic, Conservative Revolutionary or even National Socialist ideology as well.11 In the novel, this art-religion is tied to musical discourse starting with Wagner and ending with Norwegian (Black) Metal. It is not hard to relate this to the author’s other activities and interests. Just as the book itself, Black Metal combines an apocalyptic world view, a fascination for war and warrior ethics, a misanthropic attitude and rejection of modern capitalist society with an interest for an ancient mythic heritage and its revival. Jakhelln is a musician as well, and plays in two bands, Solefald and Sturmgeist, named after one of the nature spirits in Goethes Faust which he himself once characterised as “grim Germanic thrash metal” (Jakhelln 2011).12 Jakhelln traces his project of aesthetic violence back to his studies in Paris and his experiences from the suburb where his confrontation with “anti-white racism” motivated him to embrace anti-Islamic and racist ideologies. This furthered his interest “to find out what suited my own heritage. To play Black Metal with a Germanic edge, so that it became poems by Goethe, a 10 The scattered movement that constitutes the European New Right goes back to an initiative in the late 1960s around the French philosopher Alain de Benoist and his organisation GRECE (Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation européenne – Research and Study Group for European Civilization). The New Right goes directly back to Conservative Revolutionary thinkers and fashions itself as a reaction against the leftist “ideas of 1968”. It adopted political strategies and tools from the New Left in order to instigate a “culture war” (Kulturkampf) from the right (cf. Minkenberg 1998). One of its main innovations of right-wing ideology consisted in replacing the tainted paradigm of “race” with that of a cultural essentialism (cf. Balibar/Wallerstein 1988). 11 For a discussion of Hamsun’s reactionary modernism see for example Schnurbein 2011. 12 This quote is taken from an article which Jakhelln published in the Norwegian weekly Morgenbladet shortly after the bombing and killings in Oslo and on the island Utøya on July 22, 2011.

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fascination with German military history, singing in German” (Rem 2010).13 His aesthetic can be characterised as the search for a Northern white male identity rooted in myth, tradition, and heritage – a search which does not question the assumption that German military history, Goethe’s writing and Norse myth belong to the same “heritage”. With this turn from a more general occultism and Satanism14 to a philosophically and literary based interest in Germanic and Norse heritage, Jakhelln is a typical representative of the contemporary music scene, in which European, mainly “Germanic” or “Nordic” pagan themes play a prominent role.15

D ARK H EIRS OF A N ORDIC ART -R ELIGION : M ETAL AND N EOFOLK As mentioned in the beginning, Asatru is precariously situated in a controversial political field, formed by alliances with and the rejection of right-wing radical thought and fierce debates about the significance of ethnicity or race for religion and culture. The Euro-Pagan music scene is an illuminating example where these controversial political aspects of Asatru intersect with the discourse on a Nordic art-religion. Its discussion can thus help us shed light on potential political consequences of art-religion as well. The term “Euro-Pagan” music scene16 indicates that it is an aesthetic formation not held together by a particular musical style but by common references to “Germanic” and “Nordic” pagan themes, or to put it in the frame of this discussion, by the Nordic art-religious tradition. In particular the Norwegian Black Metal scene became notorious due to the involvement of, among others, Burzum’s Varg Vikernes in church-burnings and two murder cases in the early 1990s. Vikernes later also turned to an explicitly anti-Semitic, racist, Germanic

13 From an interview with Jakhelln in Rem 2010: 243. 14 For the intertwinement between the occultist movement of Satanism and Asatru see the contribution by René Gründer in this volume. 15 Up until 2011, Jakhelln perceived his own project as a primarily artistic and religious one, denying any interest in politics. However, the aesthetic and religious, or rather, art-religious concepts he employs, always already have (meta-)political implications, for example, through the aesthetisation of totalitarian political ideologies (cf. Lillebø 2011). 16 The term was coined by Stéphane François (2007).

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paganism. However, he is a fairly marginal figure in Asatru today, and thus only of indirect importance for our argument. In order to understand the intertwinement between Asatru and the “EuroPagan” music scene, it is worth taking a closer look at the book that first made the events around Norwegian Black Metal available to a broader public, Lords of Chaos (first published in 1998) by Norwegian journalist Didrik Søderlind and Michael Moynihan.17 Moynihan is a musician himself in a band called Blood Axis. He is furthermore an active Asatruer and rune magician in North America. In their book, Moynihan and Söderlind take a mythicising approach to both Vikernes’ music and to his crimes. These appear as the irrational and unchannelled breakthrough of archetypal pre-Christian forces. This is an approach which another musician, Gerhard Petak alias Kadmon from the Austrian neofolk band Allerseelen, takes as well. In an essay published as an appendix to Lords of Chaos, Kadmon praises musicians who take “Nordic cosmology seriously, linking ariosophic mythology together in their work with a mental attitude of self-respect and resistance, uniting them in a Nordic Nietzscheanism… Here Black Metal becomes a pagan avant-garde, a Nordic ‘occulture’ reconciling both myth and modern world” (Kadmon 2003: 387). Ariosophy is a branch of völkisch religion, an overtly racist “Germanic” version of theosophy which originated in Austria and Germany in the early 20th century (cf. Goodrick-Clarke 1985). Here, Kadmon evokes this radical variety of the spiritual world of modern Asatru and links it directly to the idea of an aesthetic avant-garde. Moynihan and Petak are younger members of the Neofolk music scene which already in the 1980s gathered around Asatruers and rune occultists such as Freya Aswynn and a little later Ian Read, the current leader of the initiatory ariosophically inspired Rune Gild in Britain (cf. Dornbusch 2002: 147). After having abandoned the provocative anarchism of punk/industrial/noise, this music scene turned towards the revolutionary right, embraced ideas of the artist as a Nietzschean superman and emphasised fascist, Satanist and militant imagery – although never in an unambiguous way (cf. Gardell 2003: 296; François 2007: 38; Speit 2002: 11). This change was accompanied by a gradual move away from synthetic sound to the use of more “natural” acoustic instruments, including the use of medieval and pagan themes as well. These were merged with fascist and occult, but increasingly also ariosophic and German Faith elements. We find allusions not only to Italian fascist occultist philosopher Julius Evola, to

17 This argument is fully developed in Heesch (2011).

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Ernst Jünger and Friedrich Nietzsche,18 but to early twentieth century völkisch artists such as Ludwig Fahrenkrog and Fidus as well.19 The use of fascist and ariosophic imagery and ideology has earned the Neofolk scene passionate political critique especially from anti-fascists within and outside the subculture of metal and dark wave.20 Most of these authors agree that the political intentions lying behind such projects are not outright National Socialist or fascist, but can be compared to the political or rather meta-political approach of the Conservative Revolution and the New Right with whom they share a number of interests and values. Less critical explorers of the scene such as Andreas Diesel and Dieter Gerten (2007) advocate taking the music and its overall presentation in word and image seriously as an aesthetic not as a political program. Consequently, the ambiguities with which many of the artists surround their own production should be understood as a “legitimate strategy of obscuring” which creates an “ambiguous legibility” (Diesel/Gerten 2007: 25, cf. 105). It is true that we should approach an aesthetic product on its own terms. Many artists within the broader scene of dark music indeed work with modernist means that deliberately leave their audience in an ambiguous space: They are confronted with the impossibility of deciding whether the display of totalitarian themes, Germany’s “brown past” and the occult (Diesel/Gerten 2007: 33-35) is meant as a provocation or subversion or if it is supposed to convey a deeper truth. Mattias Gardell characterises this deliberate obscurity of the “Asatrú/Satanic underworld” as a projection of “different faces, [a] mix [of] seriousness with pose, and use [of] smoke screens and distorting mirrors to enact a Nietzschean masquerade” (Gardell 2003: 284). This elitist Nietzschean masquerade appears as a deliberate return to and transformation of a (neo-)romantic art-religious attitude combining a modernist aesthetic with an anti-modernist political attitude. It might very well serve a purpose described by Cornelia Klinger (1995): She claims that the merit of modern aesthetics is the synthesis of a simultaneous orientation towards the past and towards modernity. It is a synthesis, an attempt at reconciliation which acts as a 18 For the role of these thinkers within the music scene see the article by Patrick Achermann in the appendix of Diesel/Gerten 2007: 461-487. 19 Illustrations by Fidus and Ludwig Fahrenkrog are used for example by the bands Strength Through Joy and Blood Axis (cf. Diesel/Gerten 2007: 135; Raabe/Speit 2002: 87, 92). 20 The anthology by Speit 2002 and the volume by Dornbusch/Killguss 2005 as well as the work by François 2006, François 2007 are examples of outside, politically critical or anti-fascist perspectives on neofolk, while the activities by groups like Grufties gegen Rechts bear witness of the anti-fascist engagement of insiders.

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surrogate for material gratification and social emancipation or participation. It offers a sense of totality, unity and meaning; the yearning for which modernity excludes and illegitimates. Klinger goes on to argue that fascism offers a dangerous answer to this most important blind spot of modernity – dangerous because it enables an adaption to modernity on the aesthetic level while excluding social modernisation and justifying social and economic inequality as eternal laws. I suggest reading the aesthetic strategies found in Neofolk as a kind of reenactment of the ideologically ambiguous art-religious constellation. This thesis is supported by the fact that Neofolk evokes exactly the protagonists of this formation ranging from Wagner and Nietzsche to Ernst Jünger, Ludwig Fahrenkrog, Fidus, Hermann Hendrich etc. Not infrequently, the race-theoretical implications of völkisch religion are invoked as well. Ian Read from the Odinic Rite and the Rune Gild promotes his music as part of his esoteric rune magic activities. He relates this musico-religious activity directly to ancestry and genetic constitution when he calls “folk music [a part of] our sacred way” which has “a deeper resonance for those of common European descent: DNA will out, as it were” (Buckley 2002: 164f.).

C ONCLUSIONS The discussion of the more problematic and obscure examples of Asatruers involved in neofolk, including their affinities to racial thought or thinking in ethnic essences, points to the fundamental ambiguity that has vexed Nordic art-religion from its beginnings up until today. In all the transformations and disparate political alliances, some central problems connected with this constellation have remained rather stable. These can be summarised as follows: 1. There is a tendency to connect myth, poetry and art to seemingly stable entities anchored in a deep mythic past, such as nature, landscape, ethnicity and race. 2. There is a tendency to see art and culture, as well as aesthetic proficiency, as expressions of such deep völkisch essences and not as evolving and transforming practices shaped in constant contingent exchanges. 3. Finally, there is a tendency to focus on the aesthetic as a kind of compensation for social and economic modernisation. While this discourse of Nordic art-religion has moved back and forth between different segments of culture, it is interesting to note that its central topics and the mentioned problems have remained fairly stable. Our example shows, that popularisation works in subtle

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processes of exchange. Rather than distinguishing between the realms of elite culture and popular culture, the discourse of Nordic art-religion shows surprising and often unacknowledged parallels between the two.

R EFERENCES Arvidsson, Stefan (2007): Draksjukan. Mytiska fantasier hos Tolkien, Wagner och de Vries, Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Balibar, Étienne/Wallerstein, Immanuel (1988): Race, nation, classe. Les identités ambigues, Paris: La Découverte. Böldl, Klaus (2000): Der Mythos der Edda. Nordische Mythologie zwischen europäischer Aufklärung und nationaler Romantik, Tübingen: Francke. Buckley, Joshua (2002): “The Saxon Songwriter: An Interview with Fire & Ice's Ian Read”, in: Tyr. Myth – Culture – Tradition 1, pp. 159-166. Detering, Heinrich (2007): “Religion”, in: Thomas Anz (Ed.), Handbuch Literaturwissenschaft. Band I. Gegenstände - Konzepte – Institutionen, Stuttgart: Metzler, pp. 382-395. Detering, Heinrich (2011): “Was ist Kunstreligion? Systematische und historische Bemerkungen”, in: Albert Meier/Allesandro Costazza/Gérard Laudin (Eds.), Kunstreligion. Ein ästhetisches Konzept der Moderne in seiner historischen Entfaltung. Band 1. Der Ursprung des Konzepts um 1800, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 11-27. Diesel, Andreas/Gerten, Dieter (2007): Looking for Europe. Neofolk und Hintergründe, Zeltingen-Rachtig: Index. Dornbusch, Christian (2002): “Von Landsertrommeln und Lärmorgien. Death In June und Kollaborateure”, in: Andreas Speit (Ed.): Ästhetische Mobilmachung. Dark Wave, Neofolk und Industrial im Spannungsfeld rechter Ideologien, Hamburg: Unrast, pp. 123-160. Dornbusch; Christian/Killguss, Hans-Peter (2005): Unheilige Allianzen. Black Metal zwischen Satanismus, Heidentum und Neonazismus, Hamburg: Unrast. François, Stéphane (2006): La musique Europaïenne. Ethnographie politique d'une subculture de droite, Paris: L’Harmattan. François, Stéphane (2007): “The Euro-Pagan Scene. Between Paganism and Radical Right”, in: Journal for the Study of Radicalism 1.2, pp. 35-54. Gaiman, Neil (2001): American Gods, New York: Harper Collins. Gardell, Mattias (2003): Gods of the Blood. The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, Durham: Duke University Press.

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Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (1985): The Occult Roots of Nazism. The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany 1890-1935, Wellingborough: Aquarian Press. Grundy, Stephan (1994): Rhinegold, New York: Bantam. Grundy, Stephan (2011): Personal correspondence with author, replies to a questionnaire. Heesch, Florian (2011): “Die Wilde Jagd als Identitätskonstruktion im Black Metal”, in: Katja Schulz (Ed.), Eddische Götter und Helden. Milieus und Medien ihrer Rezeption. Eddic Gods and Heroes. The Milieux and Media of Their Reception, Heidelberg: Winter, pp. 335-366. Jakhelln, Cornelius (2011): “Æren og demokratiet”, in: Morgenbladet, 29/7/2011, www.morgenbladet.no/kultur/2011/aren_og_demokratiet#.UP5vNvUvPAw (Last access 22/1/2013). Jakhelln, Cornelius (2007): Gudenes fall, Oslo: Cappelen. Kadmon (2003): “Oskorei”, in: Michael Moynihan/Didrik Søderlind: Lords of Chaos. The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, revised and expanded Edition, Port Townsend: Feral, Appendix II, pp. 382-389. Klinger, Cornelia (1995): Flucht Trost Revolte. Die Moderne und ihre ästhetischen Gegenwelten, München: Hanser. Langbehn, Julius (1890): Rembrandt als Erzieher. Von einem Deutschen, Leipzig: Hirschfeld. Lillebø, Sandra (2011): “Dr. Jakhelln og Mr. Hyde”, in: Klassekampen, 2/12/2011. Minkenberg, Michael (1998): Die neue radikale Rechte im Vergleich. USA, Frankreich, Deutschland, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Mohler, Armin (1950): Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932. Grundriss ihrer Weltanschauungen, Stuttgart: Ares. Moynihan, Michael/Søderlind, Didrik (2003): Lords of Chaos. The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, Revised and expanded Edition, Port Townsend: Feral. Paxson, Diana (1984): Brisingamen, New York: Berkley. Paxson, Diana (1996): The Lord of the Horses, New York: William Morrow. Puschner, Uwe (1996): “Deutsche Reformbühne und völkische Kultstätte. Ernst Wachler und das Harzer Bergtheater”, in: Uwe Puschner/Walter Schmitz/Justus H. Ulbricht (Eds.), Handbuch zur “Völkischen Bewegung” 1871-1918, München: De Gruyter Saur, pp. 762-796. Raabe, Jan/Speit, Andreas (2002): “L'art du mal. Vom antibürgerlichen Gestus zur faschistoiden Ästhetik”, in: Andreas Speit (Ed.), Ästhetische Mobilma-

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chung. Dark Wave, Neofolk und Industrial im Spannungsfeld rechter Ideologien, pp. 65-122. Rem, Håvard (2010): Innfødte skrik. Norsk svartmetall, Oslo: Schibsted. Rühling, Lutz (1996): “Nordische Poeterey und gigantisch-barbarische Dichtart. Die Rezeption skandinavischer Literaturen in Deutschland bis 1870”, in: Helga Eßmann/Hugo Schöning (Eds.), Weltliteratur in deutschen Versanthologien des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin: Erich Schmidt, pp. 77-121. von Schnurbein, Stefanie (2004): “Religiöse Ikonographie – religiöse Mission. Das völkische Weihespiel um 1910”, in: Hermann Danuser/Herfried Münkler (Eds.), Kunst, Fest, Kanon. Inklusion und Exklusion in Gesellschaft und Kultur, Schliengen: Edition Argus, pp. 85-97. von Schnurbein, Stefanie (2009): “Kontinuität durch Dichtung. Moderne Fantasyromane als Mediatoren völkisch-religiöser Denkmuster”, in: Uwe Puschner/G. Ulrich Großmann (Eds.), Völkisch und national. Zur Aktualität alter Denkmuster im 21. Jahrhundert, Darmstadt: WBG, pp. 245-265. von Schnurbein, Stefanie (2011): “Knut Hamsun's Narrative Fetishism”, in: Ståle Dingstad/Ylva Frøjd/Elisabeth Oxfeldt/Ellen Rees (Eds.), Knut Hamsun. Transgression and Worlding, Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, pp. 4764. Schuster, Marina (1999): “Bildende Künstler als Religionsstifter. Das Beispiel der Maler Ludwig Fahrenkrog und Hugo Höppener genannt Fidus”, in: Richard Faber/Volkhard Krech (Eds.), Kunst und Religion. Studien zur Kultursoziologie und Kulturgeschichte, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, pp. 275-288. Schwarz, Guido (2003): Jungfrauen im Nachthemd – blonde Krieger aus dem Westen. Eine motivpsychologisch-kritische Analyse von J.R.R. Tolkiens Mythologie und Weltbild, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Shippey, Tom (2002): J.R.R. Tolkien. Author of the Century, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Speit, Andreas (Ed.) (2002): Ästhetische Mobilmachung. Dark Wave, Neofolk und Industrial im Spannungsfeld rechter Ideologien, Hamburg: Unrast. Stern, Fritz (1961): The politics of cultural despair. A study in the rise of the Germanic ideology, Berkeley: University of California Press. Tolkien, J.R.R. (2008): Tolkien. On Fairy-stories. Expanded edition, with Commentary and Notes by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas A. Anderson, London: Harper Collins Publishers.

Neo-pagan Traditions in the 21 st Century: Re-inventing Polytheism in a Polyvalent World-Culture R ENÉ G RÜNDER

I NTRODUCTION European societies in the late 19th and early 20th century not only saw tendencies towards de-Christianisation as a result of an ongoing secularisation of social life and the rise of atheism, but they were also confronted with new religious and esoteric movements which established new ways of constructing traditions and rituals. In addition to a growing interest in so-called Eastern wisdom (e.g. Buddhist and Hindu religions), the interest in ancient religions of a European origin became popular in anti-modernist circles of the educated upper classes. Traditional Christian discourse since the early middle-ages has summarised all religious, political and scientific forms of knowledge which were identified as dangers to the institutions of the church and the predominance of Christian religion in the World under the label of paganism. The term (Neo-)Paganism was firstly defined in the late 19th century by the missionary authorities of the Catholic church in order to label all forms of societal change which contributed to deChristianisation in modernity, including political ideologies and atheism. However, the concept was soon adopted by individuals and groups who dedicated themselves to alternative constructions of religious traditions in European countries based on narratives of national and/or racial identity, such as Neo-Celtic, Neo-Germanic, Neo-Roman or Neo-Slavonic religions. In particular, the remarkable influence of so called völkisch (folkish) religions on the ideology of National Socialism in Germany (Puschner/Großmann 2009) led to a societal per-

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ception of neo-pagan (especially Neo-Germanic) religions as political and potentially right-wing extremist movements after 1945 (see Puschner 2006 and von Schnurbein in this volume). Although some of the recent (Neo-)paganism(s) of the 21st century are historically rooted within nationalist, racist and anti-Semitic interpretations of tribal cults in pre-Christian Europe, there was an remarkable shift towards a critical emancipation from these ideological bases after World War II and under the influence of the so-called counter culture of the 1970s. In this paper the reasons for the unbroken popularity of non-Christian European folk religions, even amongst individuals and groups who do not define themselves as anti-Semitic, nationalist or racist at all, will be given. Based on ethnographic fieldwork within contemporary groups of Neo-Germanic Asatru pagans1 in Germany and Switzerland (Gründer 2010), I will explain the changes in contemporary constructions of alternative, polytheist and pre-Christian traditions of autochthonous European religion by three processes: 1.) the pluralisation of the neo-pagan field, 2.) the experiential turn within neo-pagan spirituality and 3.) the polytheistic shift of religious knowledge. 1. The pluralisation of Neo-Paganism: After the end of World War II under the influence of the global New Age and alternative culture movement of the 1960s and 70s, a pluralisation of traditionalist folkish religions was introduced by generational changes in their membership (and the dominating mentalities within). Neo-pagan religion became popular amongst educated middle class students in the USA and GB (e.g. the Wiccan witchcraft mysteries religion), and was associated with new issues (feminism, deep ecology, liberalism) that changed their understanding of tradition (e.g. shamanism/animism as a universal foundation of all pagan religions). The re-importing of these influences into Europe led to the pluralisation of the field and the formation of heterogenous

1

Asatru is an artificial term, created in the 19th century, for labelling the different attempts to renew the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic tribes in Scandinavia/Northern Europe since the 1970s. Asatru first became popular in the USA and in the meantime has even spread to many non-European countries. Asatru means “trust in/believe in the Aesir” which is the family of Norse Gods and Goddesses as they are described in the poems of the Icelandic Edda and skaldic literature from the early 13th century. Since the 1990s, neo-pagan groups in Germany have imported this concept in order to describe their religiosity and to make a distinction between this concept and older descriptions of “Germanic faith” or “neo-Germanic religion” which today are rather used for explicitly folkish and/or racist groups (see also the chapter by von Schnurbein in this volume).

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strains and the ongoing conflict of “ethnic” vs. “non-ethnic” definitions of NeoPaganism (Kaplan 1996). 2. The experiential turn: The trend towards the spiritualisation of religious worldviews (Heelas/Woodhead 2005, Knoblauch 2009) in the educated middle classes and the popularisation of highly individualised “experience-based religions” has led to a shift in the ways of creating religious meaning within neopagan groups since 1980. The importance of literal sources and dogmatic interpretations of “pagan heritage” declined, while the impact of (inter-)subjectivity in the mystical experience of natural forces or beings in the context of rituals became more important. 3. The polytheistic shift: These experience-based changes of religious knowledge in Neo-Paganism and the transformation of its hidden (nationalist and/or anti-Semitic) monotheisms into true polytheism can be understood as functional answers to the spiritual needs of the “flexible human” (Sennett 1998) and the polyvalent challenges of everyday life. Many neo-pagan religions went through a process of re-definition from being strictly anti-modernist to the affirmation of contemporary European culture as an expression of polytheist paganism itself. National cultures are no longer relevant frameworks for even “ethnical” neo-pagan movements: Today there are neo-Germanic Asatru groups to be found in countries of South America, Australia and Africa2 as well as Greek Neo-Hellenismos, and reconstructions of Roman polytheism (religio romana) are popular in Central Europe. Neo-Paganism should therefore no longer be understood as an anti-modernist project (as it was in the 20th century), but as a consequence of spiritual tribalisation within a polyvalent world-culture. It is an expression of, and functional answer to, globalisation: as a patchwork of new religions with “ancient roots”.

1. T HE

PLURALISATION OF

N EO -P AGANISM

1.1 Terminology of tradition Etymological analysis show that the term “traditions” in the meaning of “to bequeath something” was introduced within German-speaking cultures after the first half of the 16th century in order to label forms of Christian religious knowledge which were not derived directly from the Bible, but which made reference

2

See the list on recent international Asatru web pages at: http://www.irminsul.org/ aw/awworld.html (last access 26.06.2013).

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to older sources. The Latin origin of the verb tradere, being composed from the prefix trans (= by, through, over) and the verb dare (= to give) designates a process of delivering (something) at hand, being rather used for artefacts or substances instead of verbalised knowledge or symbols. The interpretation of tradition as ancient lore from things that happened in the past, or as myth, saying or narration that influences contemporary culture (e.g. as normative values) are products of 17th and 18th century (Pfeiffer 2003: 1444). The use of the term “tradition” regarding religious knowledge and rites which are labelled as somehow “pagan” has to be defined in order to avoid misconceptions. The concept of (neo-)pagan traditions is part of (at least) four different discourses: 1) within academic discourse in historical/cultural sciences (e.g. to denote remnants of the antique Roman religion within early Catholicism) 2) within theological discourses (regarding non-Christian beliefs as challenges for missionary work) 3) within late 19th century esotericism, occultism and new (national) religious movements (as an affirmative reference to heterogeneous historical sources used for legitimating attempts to reconstruct ancient tribal religions of pre-Christianised Europe) 4) within religious sciences (Pagan Studies) for analysing the development of, and changes within, different undercurrents of neo-paganist movements since the late 19th century. In this paper the latter concept will be addressed, for I neither want to validate the differences between historical sources on pre-Christian religions and their modern reconstructions, nor do I want to embed it within the struggle between theological and esoteric interpretations of a suitable understanding of (neo-)pagan religiosity. 1.2 The concept of Neo-Paganism The use of the term “(Neo-)Paganism” indicates the historical dimension of the issue as well as its semantic implications in the field of religious policy. Firstly, it addresses the consequences of secularisation in modernity from the perspective of a missionary theology. As confessional institutions lost their importance within formerly strictly Christian societies, the call for re-evangelisation under the label of “competing with the growing danger of Neo-Paganism” was a task for the missionaries in late 19th/early 20th century. The churches’ fight against the secular state (“Kirchenkampf”) and the growing secularisation amongst their formal members were also connected with the challenge of new national and “racial” religions that sprouted in the educated middle-class milieus of nearly every European country in the late 19th century. As these new religious (and also cultural and political) movements gained more and more influence after World

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War I, the conflict with the churches adopted elements of a rhetorical warfare from both sides of the frontline. The term Neo-Paganism was coined by opponents in the power struggle over definitions of the appropriate foundations of national religion and culture in the age of the European nation state. Recalling the experiences with the anti-Semite and “völkisch” ideology (also labelled as “neopagan” by the church) in Germany during National Socialism, after 1945 the Christian Churches have focused especially on the nationalist, racist and antiSemitic elements of völkisch/neo-pagan religions. However, although the scenery has changed since the early 20th century in some respects, the problem of the “pagan” semantic as a label for uncivilised behaviour, superstitious beliefs and generally somehow “evil” ways of “having the wrong faith” remains unsolved. Although the contemporary pagan perception of the prehistoric or early medieval past of Europe strongly differs from older “völkisch” readings, there is still the positive reference to archaic, pristine tribal societies in Europe of Late Antiquity that causes dispute. Even today the issue of Neo-Paganism raises the question of the legitimacy of certain predominating narrations of “cultural origins” (e.g. the Christian Occident) and by doing so questions the legitimacy of contemporary societal institutions and orders. Applying a post-colonial approach to history of “Western societies” (and the role of Christian Mission for establishing political power structures in late antiquity), the significance of such questions becomes evident. What is often overseen today when discussing the case from its ideological implications is the threefold character of most neo-pagan movements. They are not only 1) defined by their ideological (as well anti-modernist/traditionalist as affirmative) relationship with modern society, but also by 2) their antiinstitutionalism and 3) their foundation in personal experiences with spiritual entities such as gods, goddesses and other spiritual beings. Going back in the younger history of Neo-Paganism we find that these three elements varied very much in their importance for pagans’ self-understandings. Within a process, mainly started in the 1970s, the understanding of neopagan religions as “doctrines of salvation” (from the “burden of JudaeoChristian decadence”) for ethnically defined collectives declined, and the influence of subjectivity and universalistic approaches to an animistic “pagan worldspirituality” became dominant. It was within this interpretative shift that the neopagan religions tended to become more polytheistic. This process can be observed within most strains of Neo-Paganism and in nearly all countries, although with some shifts and lags in time. Since the beginning of the 21 st century European societies in general have been faced with the growing importance of “experience-centred religions”, often summarised under the concept of “spiritual

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revolution” (Heelas/Woodhead 2005) that negates conventional narrations of tradition by focusing on the involvement of the personal psyche within extraordinary, transcendence-related or religious experience.3 Neo-Paganism can be seen as a pioneering function for this development. 1.3 The history of Neo-Paganism as a process of diversification A brief look at the underlying diversification within neo-pagan religions explains why the contemporary field of Neo-Paganism is so polymorphous. NeoPaganism started with the merging of national-romanticism and the uppermiddle classes’ fascination in “Asian wisdom” that gave birth to the foundation of the Theosophy movement by Blavatsky in New York (USA) in 1875. The following revival of “Western esotericism” was characterised by a more or less visible emancipation from the former Christian framings of mystical but experience-based practices and spiritual belief in magic, spiritual knowledge and selfperfection. Theosophy developed some of the elements that later on became relevant for early neo-pagan groups (e.g. principles of spiritual hierarchy, belief in superiority of older faiths and mythology), but it remained itself a more occult and esoteric movement. The main idea behind new religious movements in Europe between 1900 and 1930, which later on were characterised as neo-pagan, was to create a nationalist approach to “theosophical wisdom” on the basis of ancient native knowledge instead of its import from Asia. This strategy characterised German Ariosophy4 as well as the new ethnic religions within the broader “native-faith-movement” in the Baltic States and the countries of Eastern Europe (see Aitamurto/Simpson 2013). Although many attempts were made to connect the “European traditions” via the linguistic concept of a common “IndoEuropean heritage” to Asian religions, the ethnocentric and racist perspective of many founders of new ethnic religions tended to reproduce neocolonialist views on the matter. With the development of evidently nationalist and folkish/ethnic religions (especially in Germany, but also in Scandinavia and Great Britain) in the 1920s, the collectivist approach of early Neo-Paganism was established. In 3

In chapter 2 of this paper an example for the construction of spiritual experience with-

4

Ariosophy is a racist and strictly anti-Semitic cult which was created by Austrian na-

in a neo-pagan ritual is given. tionalist writer Guido List (1905) and Jörg Lanz (von Liebenfels). It was conceptualised as a Germanised form of Theosophy, addressing the ancient wisdom of the Arier as ancestors of the Germans. One of the main goals was to proclaim the cleansing of the “white race” by condemning interracial marriages as dangerous for the integrity of the “Germanic folk-soul” (Goodrick-Clarke 1985).

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Germany, anti-Semitic and racist overtones within so called “Germanic Faith Communities” characterised their role in the time before the raise of National Socialism. In addition to these characteristic developments within the German Reich, it has to be mentioned that “Gods of the blood” (Gardell 2003) became popular in other national societies as well. Moreover “blood-gnostic” (Gründer 2010a) approaches to religion (as a spiritual knowledge which is bound to the “purity of the blood” as a symbol for pure biological and cultural descent which is believed to be necessary for the contact with pagan gods and entities as ancestors) have characterised a certain type of neo-pagan worldview up until today. This is true for the concept of Hereditary Witchcraft (a form of witchcraft that is believed to have been continued since Ancient Roman times within clandestine circles of certain families and which mysteries have been handed over from mother to daughter) as well as for some (folkish) Asatruar, who define their religion as being rooted in their “genes”5 , or groups of the Roman Tradition who trace their practices back to ancient family lines who have worshipped the gods of the Roman Empire in secrecy up until today (Hakl 2009). Early forms of Neo-Paganism are characterised by the social structures of the groups emerging or adapting themselves from freemasonry, theosophy and occultist orders (such as the Order of the Golden Dawn). Most of these groups which defined themselves as (magical) “orders” had more or less charismatic leaders and were built on principles of spiritual hierarchy, inauguration and dogmatism (in ritual as well as in the form of religious worldviews). These attributes describe the neo-Germanic orders of the Ariosophy6, Germanic-folkish religion7 as well as Odinists groups in Australia, USA and Great Britain, or the ethnic religions from the Baltic States8. As “Hereditary Witchcraft” in England was seen as a residue of an ancient Celtic paganism, the British Traditional Wicca (BTW) group (established as an initiatory cult in the 1950s by Gerald B. 5

The US-American Asatru movent split in 1986 over the discussion of the importance of racial issues for membership. Some groups formed a “universalist” branch where membership was only bound to personal interest, belief and trust in the Germanic gods and mythology, while others formed “folkish” Asatru, interpreting their religion being based on genetic descent from European peoples (Kaplan 1996). The parascientific concept of “Metagenetics” proclaimed by folkish Asatru leader Stephen McNallen in the 1980s tried to establish an connection between spiritual abilities (e.g. having experiences of gods) and biological descent.

6

Guido von List Gemeinschaft [founded 1907], Goden-Orden [1957], Armanen-Orden [1976].

7

Germanische Glaubensgemeinschaft [1907/12], Artgemeinschaft [1951].

8

Dievturiba of Latvia [1922], Romuva of Lithuania.

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Gardener) conforms with these types of group-formations. Things changed significantly with the impact of new age movements, the leftist/anarchist counterculture, women’s liberation and the ecological movements of the 1970s. While the early denominations of Wicca (Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca) were initiatory mystery traditions that demanded a personal teaching and practicing of the rituals in coven contexts and which depended on hierarchical structures of priests and adepts, most Wicca denominations founded after 1968 (such as Dianic Wicca [founded by Zusanna Budapest in 1971] or Reclaiming Witchcraft [started by Miriam “Starhawk” Simos in 1979]) were less clandestine, less initiatory, more eclectically and tended to have egalitarian structures. Since the end of the 1980s, the popularity of solitary witchcraft (including self initiation and solitary practicing) has emerged, as can be seen from the wide distribution of relevant literature (Davy 2007: 151-154). Since 1996 some reports have spoken of a “pop culture Wicca”, which means that new phenomena such as “Teen Witches” have become popular in most western countries as a result of popular youth literature, knowledge of Wiccan symbolism and a growing recognition in pop music, TV series and films. Very similar developments have characterised the diversification of neoGermanic religions in continental Europe and the USA since 1970. The concept of Asatru derives from the national romanticism of Scandinavia in the late 1890s, but it was in 1972/73 when, in Iceland as well as in the USA, the first groups of Norse polytheists gathered. In Iceland the foundation of Asatru was (amongst others) a reaction by countercultural activists towards a perceived influence of evangelist groups from the USA. The US Asatru groups firstly consisted of (predominantly male) members of Wicca covens and from orders of occultists (such as the satanic order of the “Temple of Set”, which dedicated itself to the so-called “left hand path” of magic, trying to evoke the primordial drives of civilised humans by “ancient pagan rituals”). In the 1980s such influences were, for example, adopted to the religious worldview and ritual forms within universalistic Asatru for which personal experience of Germanic gods (and individual belief) became the essential criteria for membership, and not the biological or ethnic descent of the member. The idea of a functional form of communicating with spiritual entities was introduced into the Asatru scene in the USA by Stephen Flowers, who has published under the pseudonym of Edred Thorsson since the 1980s. Flowers/Thorsson is an American graduate and occultist who not only has done research into German Ariosophy, but has also been engaged in the so-called “left hand path” of magic through his initiation into the “Temple of Set”. He was also one of the founding figures of the modern universalist Asatru concept. In 1987

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the “The Ring of Troth” emerged from the splitting of the US “Asatru Free Assembly” because of the different opinions regarding the importance of “race” for membership (Kaplan 1996; Strmiska/Sigurvinsson 2005). Thorsson, representing the non-racist wing, established universalist Asatru, which was imported to Germany and Scandinavia in the 1990s. Due to the still significant influence of his publications on the Asatru faith and ritual (e.g. the “Book of Troth”), the successful implementation of “personal gods and goddesses” and the ritualistic worship of a pantheon of different gods with equal standing by modern Asatruars can be understood as a consequence of influences from personalised beliefs as established in the occultist orders of ceremonial magicians and occultists in the 1970s. However, we have to search for the framing conditions which allowed for the relative successes of polytheism within the younger neo-pagan field. Consequently, two dimensions can be reconstructed: an “aesthetic” and a “pragmatic” one. As stated above, the adoption of a belief (or trust) in the existence and relevance of different, particularly even conflicting forces (gods/goddesses) with the power to intervene in everyday life, reflects complexity. It successfully deals with the problem of theodicy, and encourages the subject to merely change the receiver of the religious adoration without the subject losing faith or giving up pagan spirituality. So, in fact, the autonomous subject, interacting with personalised transcendent forces “at eye level” represents the essence of modern NeoPaganism. The “price” one has to pay for giving up the adherence to religious institutions and social contacts to legitimise and strengthen the evidence of personal beliefs is nonetheless relatively low: Network-based social communication in large international pagan communities and regular participation in religious rites at the quarterly feasts within the “wheel of the year”, or the communication with the spirits of deceased ancestors (grand parents, friends), represent important social functions as well as the production of a coherent religious worldview. When the idea of a modernised form of worshipping Norse gods was reimported from America to Germany in the 1990s it fitted in well with the interests of people from ecological groups, Natives American supporters as well as spiritual feminist and leftist esoteric groups. In fact there was (after the disappointment of the revolutionary hopes from “1968”) a turn to spirituality within the educated middle classes. Included was a growing interest in the ancient native spirituality of Europe outside of blood-gnostic, anti-Semitic and racist cults. The newly imported liberal Neo-Paganism answered these requirements by introducing the new age concept of “changing personal worldview” instead of (and in preparation for) the political changing of the world. On the institutional level, the detachment of former members and cult participants from the racist arioso-

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phic Armanen-Orden to the formation of eco-spiritual groups such as the Heidnische Gemeinschaft (1985) or the Yggdrasil Kreis (1987) illustrates this. Because of the relevance of some folkish concepts within ecospiritual groups, in 1994 the foundation of the Rabenclan as an umbrella organisation for all anti fascist pagans marked a significant break with the past. Most of the universalist Asatru groups established in Germany later on (e.g. the Eldaring in 2001, The Nornirs Aett and the Asatru Ring Frankfurt in 2005) dissociate themselves from racist and folkish interpretations of Norse mythology and pagan religion (Gründer 2008: 87-99) Further similar developments characterise the change in Norse paganism in Scandinavian countries such as Norway, where the acceptance of Asatru as a religious community by the administrative authorities led to a forced exclusion of racist concepts (and members) from the groups in the 1990s (Asprem 2008). Similar catch-up processes can be observed today in Eastern Europe nations, although the downfall of the iron curtain gave way to a strong development of folkish, or at least new ethnic, religions (see Aitamurto/Simpson 2013 and Nakorchevski 2009). It is significant, that the “World Congress of Ethnic Religions” as an umbrella NGO for rather traditionalist and re-constructionist European pagan groups was set up by adherents of Lithuanian Romuva paganism in Vilnius in 1997/98. Recent tendencies towards more liberalised forms of Neo-Paganism in Eastern Europe are emerging, while universalistic approaches towards a more general nature spirituality dominate as a basis of re-constructed folk religions (Nakorchevski 2009: 32). 1.5 Neo-Paganism in the 21st century: structures of a heterogeneous field As a conclusion, the described process of differentiation was initiated and driven by generational changes in the adherents of Neo-Paganism as well as changed societal experiences, and shifted spiritually framed requirements from alternative religions. As the concept of paganism has always worked as a blank screen for projections of spiritual utopias, the emerging criticism of folkish, nationalist and racist roots by contemporary pagans led some adherents to found “enlightened” pagan groups or those encouraging human rights. Nevertheless there are still powerful movements of folkish paganism and New Ethnic Religions (NER), which were closely related with nationalist and anti-liberal political forces in the states of Eastern Europe e.g. the Russian Pagan Movement (Shnirelman 2013), the Dievturiba movement of Latvia (OzoliƼš 2013; 2009) and the RUNvira in the Ukraine (Nakorchevski 2009). It is true that also within most Western European states, groups and networks of racist cults and folkish religions since their foun-

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dation in the early 20th century still exist and/or even newly emerge.9 They do not so much differ from liberal pagans in their symbols and references to certain pantheons, but in their goals (the establishing of an ethnic and culturally homogenous society, the repulsion of all “foreign” influences, and a more or less hierarchical system of castes). In fact, the process of pagan diversification has not been an evolutionary one, but rather a process of sedimentation. Today different layers of interpreting one and the same “pre-Christian” religion co-exist within the same society. These layers are often isolated from each other and form better integrated sub-scenes within the loose network of pagan groups and actors. Therefore since the late 1980s, the differentiation of the neo-pagan field into conservative “new ethnic religions” and “liberal Neo-Paganism” (Nakorchevski 2009) makes sense because the adoption of new ways of expounding new problems of modernisation (e.g. the role of women, the importance of environmental issues, criticisms of an unsustainable, throw-away-culture and McDonaldisation) has led to new associations. A subjectivist turn was the result: personal epiphany (unverified personal gnosis/shared personal gnosis) replaced dogmatic definitions of pagan spirituality; the importance of “Guru-like spiritual leaders” faded and spiritual self-responsibility became important; the collectivist ethnic approaches were replaced by an individualist spirituality: A pagan is everyone who hears and answers the “call of the ancient gods”. At the very least, the more or less “hidden monotheism” of the older concepts of folkish and ethnic religions was changed to a personalised pantheon in the lived religiosity of younger generations of neo-pagans: this individual turn gave way to a truly practiced Polytheism that understands the world and nature as a stage of conflicting transcendent forces which emerge nonetheless from the same holistic order and which can be individually addressed in mediation and ritual. This very brief overview of the complex processes in the field of pagan movements illustrates that and how the older forms of nationalist, ethnic, collectivist, dogmatic and hierarchical definitions of Paganism were not simply replaced by newer forms (although they became rather pushed aside, nonetheless), but that they have formed different layers of neo-pagan scenes. Therefore it is – from an analytical perspective – not helpful to research Neo-Paganism by only 9

One example for such a development was the foundation of the “Allgermanische Heidnische Front” (Heathen Front) by NS-Black-Metal musician Kristian (Varg) Vikernes in Norway in 1997. This folkish subcultural movement was dedicated to the concepts of “blood – soil – spirituality” and formed national “divisions” in several Europan countries. It existed until 2006 when it was abandoned due to lacking activities by its members.

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analysing the historical systems of references (e.g. the nationalist interpretations of Celtic, Germanic or Slavic religions in the early 20th century), but rather it is important to understand the ways religious knowledge has been created within different strains, and how the strains understand pristine religions of “European heritage”. From such a perspective, re-constructionist folkish Asatru has more in common with British traditional Wicca or Hereditary Witchcraft than with Universalist Asatru, and the latter is similar to “Teen-Witches” or newer forms of “Hellenismos” or “Celtoi” religion than to (neo-Germanic and anti-Semitic) Ariosophy. Neo-pagan re-inventions of historical religious traditions contribute to the construction of a contemporary new religious system of knowledge (e.g. by certain interpretations of rituals, symbols and transcendence). These elements are based on very different sources extending from western esotericism, belletrist literature, archaeology, linguistics, philosophy to modernist concepts such as social Darwinism, feminism or deep ecology. Depending on the question of either the “historically proven roots” or the imagined sources of contemporary paganism, different horizons of cultural transfer and ways of constructing identities come into view. Today a growing number of pagans believe that the ancient narrative traditions of their beliefs do not meet any historical reality (Hutton 2010), nonetheless the deconstruction of Neo-Paganism as a new religion based on invented traditions did not lead to its decline. This means that the importance of a historical continuity for neo-pagan commitment is less than it was in the time of their foundation in the 20th century. Today different strategies of avoiding the “historical tradition gap” can be found. Some (folkish) groups claim a biopsychological continuity that enables modern people to re-awake the spiritual dispositions of their ancestors because of descent and unbroken blood-lines. Apart from this rather ethnic or even racist argumentation, attempts at the recreation of ritual and putting oneself into states of trance and ecstasy in order to reach the ancient gods are very popular. The latter strategy has been closely interlinked with the growing popularity of neo-shamanic practices in most strains of Neo-Paganism since the late 1980s (Mayer 2003). To sum up, there are four significant developments within most strains of Neo-Paganism which can be explained by the effects of the changed societal experiences of the (academically) educated middle classes who have always been the protagonists of neo-pagan religions. These four changes resulted in the diversification of an alternative religious spectrum in the sedimentation of different layers of constructing (new) religious tradition by forming new groups with broader definitions of paganism than the existing older right-winged groups:

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1. Individualisation: the development of experience-centred spirituality from hierarchical, dogmatic and collectivist national/racial supremacist religions of the early 20th century; 2. The growing importance of spiritual subjectivity (mysticism, personal gnosis) as a commonly accepted reference system within the neo-pagan field; 3. The decline of “blood-gnostic” (Gründer 2010a) and biological definitions of pre-Christian spirituality and the shift towards rather liberal interpretations of a pagan lifestyle as part of the ongoing enhancement and pluralisation of NeoPaganism; 4. The change from an anti-modernist and romanticist longing for a “golden age of pre-Christian culture” towards a more affirmative relationship between contemporary pagan groups and modernity. Neo-pagan movements are subject to, and protagonists of, the tendency towards spiritualisation of religiosity under the conditions of global modernity (Heelas/Woodhead 2005). Moreover, there are signs that neo-pagans can be seen as pioneers of such trends towards spiritualisation. Since experiences are always based on and framed by knowledge in order to become understandable and communicable, the new forms of Neo-Paganism also need to create a framework of knowledge by interpreting the past that allows for the explanation of collective or individual experiences.

2. F RAMING

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES BY COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE : A FINDING FROM ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK IN CONTEMPORARY ASATRU (G ERMANIC PAGANISM )

For Michael York, contemporary Neo-Paganism is “(…) an affirmation of the interactive and polymorphic sacred relationship by the individual or community with the tangible, sentient, and nonempirical” (Davy 2007: 7). The description of Neo-Paganism as a “polytheist this-worldly nature religion” (Davy 2007: 7) says that in Neo-Paganism divinity is embedded within and expressed by a symbolic system associated with nature. Transcendence in this context is therefore limited to the realm of anticipated, invisible but personal spiritual beings (gods, goddesses, spiritual entities, spirits, ancestors etc.), that emerge from the enhanced natural context. Most of all, broader strains of Neo-Paganism consist of different “layers” of religious systems of knowledge which are not only formed by the societal experiences of their members in daily life, but are also heavily dependent upon personal experience both within and outside a ritual context. One essential

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concept therefore is the relationship with “nature”, which often works as a counterpart to the urbanised areas where the experiences of daily life are made. Have you ever – while walking through a forest – been led to a place which excited your attention in a special way? Perhaps there was a uniquely formed stone or a tree at this place? Possibly you felt like you would experience an unexplainable kind of presence at this place. Many of us have a strong affinity for nature and associate it with a form of spiritual experience. Those of us that dedicate their life to this natural spirituality and draw inspiration from pre-Christian traditions call it ‘old rite’ or ‘old custom’. We interpret the timeless value of the old traditions and integrate them into our current living conditions. (URL: www.asetro.de, last access 28.07.2011; German translation by R.G)

The following example illustrates what is meant by “experience-based shared gnosis” in neo-pagan groups. It is the translation of an audio document recorded during fieldwork in preparation of my doctoral thesis (Gründer 2010b) within the ethnographic research project “Staging the Germanic in contemporary paganism”, which was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) 20062009. The original audio file includes a sacrificial ritual (Blót) of an Asatru group held at the 2007 summer solstice in central Germany. The participants were three families with their eight children (aged between four and twelve). The venue was at a small hut in the woods high above a river. The weather was overcast the whole day, and light steady rain had soaked the place so that the participants had installed a tarpaulin in front of the hut to protect themselves from it. As rain stopped in the late afternoon, the participants prepared the site for the ritual and gathered in circular form around a bonfire which later within the rite would be lit to take the sacrificial gifts (home-baked cookies, cherries and raw steak flesh) to the gods. The following transcription (translated from the German by R.G.) represents one minute of the opening passage. It starts with the last lines of a longer invocation of several Norse gods with their attributes. The invocation, written on paper, was read by the wife of the ritual leader of the group. [Timeline: 0:00]: Woman, citing from a sheet: (…) Aesir, we call upon you to come to the feast! From Asgard come, riding with the stormwind, with steed and wagon: Wodan – ruling one, wise man! Donar – weather-bringer! Protector! Freyja – knowing one, caring one; to bread and beer we invite you, thank you for a good year [0:20 rains starts falling] and blóting [sacrificing, R.G.] for a better one. Hail you, Asir! [heavy rain shower] [Man, ritual leader]: Step back, ‘cause this is no longer just a drizzle! [0:34] [Woman shouting, waving hands up]: You shouldn‘t come all at once! But one after another!

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[Man]: O Shit! The fire! [covering the dry wood at the fireplace] [0:54] [Heavy rainfall stops as suddenly as it began] [Woman speaking]: Well.. if this wasn‘t a sign!? [Man]: Yes, exactly. [Woman]: This was … well..? [1:00][Woman]: They have followed the invitation. … Good, to have you here! (laughs)

Detailed analysis of this sequence suggests that such a collective experience of meaningful coincidence (from a neo-pagan perspective) are based on a) the setting, b) collectively shared knowledge e.g. on the “nature of gods”, c) actors who have the authority to define the situation for the others, but also d) the significance of a physical occurrence which is strong enough to be collectively interpreted as something remarkable (e.g. the singularly heavy rain shower of 20 seconds which was the strongest during the whole day, and the fact that the whole hour-long ritual was not again disturbed by rain). In this example the social dynamics of collective experience as knowledge-based interpretations of the world become evident: The first reactions to the rain starting at the end of the invocations were only interpreted as a disturbance of the script. Consequently the ritual leader undertakes measures to protect the participants by calling them to go under the tarpaulin. Seconds later and within the same semantic of “disturbing rain” he remembers the unprotected dry wood for the fire which has to be covered. Even the first reaction of the woman during the heavy rainfall, when every participant stepped back under the tarpaulin, was rather ironic. The final evidence for interpreting the rain shower as a “sign of the presence of the gods” was given by its abrupt ending after 20 seconds. In the light of this latter experience, the participants were able to collectively interpret the meaningful coincidence of the rain within the semantics of their ritual: as a “response” from the gods or as “success” of the invocation which might strengthen their idea of the essence of the gods as being nature-related invisible forces. In the same moment it also becomes clear that without such a shared preliminary knowledge, the whole collective religious experience of the group would not have been possible. One firstly has to know something about the essence of gods in order to understand their signs in the natural world or to have any spiritual experience with or of them. Even if every experience is knowledge-driven, and presumptions about the essence of spiritual beings contribute much to the process of framing personal perceptions, there was a change towards an increasing importance of such subjective experiences for the self understanding of neo-pagan religions (Mayer/Gründer 2011).

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3. T HE

SHIFT TOWARDS POLYTHEISM AND THE CHANGES OF SOCIETAL EXPERIENCES

As Wolfgang Essbach (1995) stated, historical renewals of religion are heavily dependent upon the societal experiences of certain social milieus. Therefore the intensity and direction of religious changes raise questions and illustrate perceived risks for which new religious systems of knowledge offer answers. In the case of emerging Neo-Paganism in 19th and 20th century Europe, we have to ask about the problems of the educated upper and middle classes which the “old Christian god” no longer seemed to give suitable answers to. Such problems derived from fears of marginalisation and degradation that resulted from the dissolution of traditional orders in society, and by science-driven secularisation. The question regarding suitable forms of dealing with the consequences of nationalist as well as imperialistic capitalism by developing religions of “national gods” (masked by invented traditions of ancient wisdom) with ethics based on social Darwinism was evidently answered by the new ethnic religions of the early 20th century over the whole of Europe. To a certain extent some of these motifs are still relevant within contemporary paganism, but strong tendencies towards individualisation have led to significant modifications: The collectivist “gods of the nation” or “gods of blood/race” were firstly transformed to “gods and goddesses of the gender” and “gods of the landscape” (in eco-spiritual paganism), and later on into a psychological “pantheon within the self” (in universalist strains of NeoPaganism). Modification and plurality of neo-pagan beliefs therefore manifest in changed patterns of interpretation (Deutungsmuster) of pre-Christian European history and the ways they are created. Such patterns interpret and explain the (social) world, the cosmos and the self. They were, and are, in the case of NeoPaganism essentially based on imagining the past as mirrors of contemporary experience and a criticism of modernity. The increasing scientism of westernised world cultures has contributed much to the imagining of pre-Christian religions in Europe. Today members of universalist or liberal neo-pagan groups are often very literate and carry academic degrees in social and natural sciences. On the other hand, the older folkish or racist groups tend to attract more people from the lower classes or individuals relegated from the middle classes.10 Therefore the changes in religious systems of

10 Ethnographic fieldwork amongst neo-Germanic groups in Germany (e.g. the Armanen-Orden and the völkische Artgemeinschaft) led to this conclusion because several leaders of evidently racist groups spoke of problems in financing their regular

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knowledge within modern paganism (e.g. the establishing of homosexual pagan groups and the opening up of the Asatru religion for people of non-European descent) represent the changes within the very same social stratum that once established new ethnic religions. We finally have to ask, assuming this is the case, which traits of Neo-Paganism still attract younger people so much that they take the risk of social stigmatisation by adopting religious concepts, that continue to be labelled “suspect” (as racist, satanic, occult or primitive.) even in contemporary society. I would like to give an explanation using two arguments regarding: a) the unbroken attractiveness/functionality of social Darwinist ethics under the conditions of late capitalism, and b) the symbolic accordance of true polytheist religions with social experience within the highly individualised and particularised Lebenswelt (lifeworld) of the upper/middle classes. Neo-pagan systems of knowledge tend to explain the contingency of significant experiences in everyday life by means of magical influence, or, more often, as products of conflicting spiritual forces (gods, spirits, and/or other invisible beings). The key concept for managing or reducing contingency is therefore to establish and stabilise personal “friendship” with spiritual beings by making offerings to them. By strengthening the gods with symbolic sacrificial offerings, pagans try to strengthen their influence and power in the world as well as their powers within their individual selves. Pagan transcendence is of “medium range” (following Knoblauch 2009: 60) and therefore mirrors evidently immanence. The transcendental order of neo-pagan belief systems seems to therefore be closely bound to the complex, inconsistent and arbitrary order of modern society. The overwhelming experience of plurality (of opportunities, risks and chances in life) which seems characteristic of postmodernist societies is mirrored by the diversification of pagan pantheons and the inclusion of polytheistic practices in personal religiosity. Basically, human beings have two ways to cope with the rising complexity of modern everyday life in the sphere of symbolic (religious) knowledge: a) straight reduction or b) reproduction of complexity. The emergence of true polytheisms in the field of newer neo-pagan religions after the 1980s points precisely to the latter option, while the hidden monotheism of the older ethnic religions of the early 20th century belongs to the first solution. The crucial point is that ethnic, gatherings because of their members’ lack of resources. The leader of the Armanen order spoke of his group as being the “order of the poor” because unlike in earlier years there were no longer people who could give money from a wealthy background in the group. On the other hand, leaders of liberal, universalist groups spoke of their ability to increase membership fees because of the well-financed and educated background of their members. (Gründer 2010b: 66-70).

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racist or even ethnic religions have been typically constructed by adopting the concept of a “national Christendom” and the replacement of the “foreign” God of the Old Testament by “national” or ethnic Gods (such as the Germanic Wotan/Othinn). The perception of ancient polytheism in these often blood-gnostic religions interpreted the diversity of deities as in fact representing a unity which is the father god of the pantheon. Another important feature of many neo-pagan denominations is the normative impact of social Darwinist descriptions and explanations for societal order. The legitimacy of self-responsibility in questions of daily life and the denial of altruism (replaced by nepotism) as guiding principles for pagan ethics are not just relics from the early 20th century, but also the main corresponding features that connect pagan spirituality with the neo-liberal worldviews of today. Self concepts such as the “entrepreneurial self” (Bröckling 2007) are typical of modern forms of esotericism and paganism, especially within middle classes milieus which fear social relegation (Barth 2011).

C ONCLUSION A forthcoming sociological theory of the neo-pagan field needs to keep in mind that social stratification, educational levels and political background of the protagonists shape and transform neo-pagan systems of religious knowledge and how they do this. From this perspective it can be understood how a growing number of liberal and progressive interpretations of Neo-Paganism emerged from the beginning of the 1980s within the USA and nearly ten years later in the 1990s also in Germany. This development is among other elements marked by changed opinions towards “nation”, homosexuality or rigidity in religious questions (fundamentalism vs. open mindedness and openness towards “foreign” influences). The crucial point is that the framework of neo-pagan religions by definition is not limited to a certain understanding of authentic practices, sources, values and spiritual entities, but that it rather works as a black box or blank screen onto which different understandings of culture, history and spiritual ways of living are projected. Attributed as, or associated with, concepts of primordiality, cultural heritage or even ethnic ancestry, these forms of knowledge were transformed into a religious worldview that seems to have less in common with the beliefs and rites of humans in pre-Christian cultures, but much more with the experience of individual estrangement that have characterised functionally differentiated societies in modernisation.

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The strategy of communicating new paganism by terms such as the “contemporary form of the old religion of our ancestors” has always attracted people who feel personally alienated from traditional Christian beliefs and worldviews and even reflect this religious alienation. This alienation is an effect of rising global rationalism and capitalism which led to the process of so-called secularisation, as well as to the spiritualisation of ways of searching for religion. Modernity is understood as an expression of the idea of progress which seems to be implicated within the Christian model of linear time. Paganism responds here with cyclical models of repetition (wheel of life, wheel of the year). Today the popularisation of such neo-pagan worldviews and belief systems is closely related to the question of whether, and if so, then to what extent, “metaphysics of ethno-cultural identity” or “the spirituality of belonging” are still important for modern human beings’ self-understanding. Evidently the leading social milieus (individualist, experimental, highly educated, multiculturally orientated) within modernised European societies produce very different types of Neo-Paganism from a) traditional milieus in the very same societies and b) similar milieus within societies that are still more traditional. Undertaking a closer examination of the crucial points in history where certain issues entered into the process of generating new pagan movements or led to the differentiation of existing strains, we often find uncertainties regarding the conduct of life which are typical for collective societal experience among certain classes or milieus of people in phases of societal change. Seen from the theoretical perspective on “religious innovation” in neo-paganism beside theories of spiritual individualisation a post colonialist approach on understanding the phenomenon seems also instructive (see Wiench 2013). For most popular narratives on legitimation of neo-pagan or native-faith movements refer to the idea, that hidden behind and/or suppressed by the dominating religious definitions of cultural history in the “Christian Occident” other experience-based forms of personal spirituality might exist. Thus, within neo-pagan movements, questioning the binding character of Christian predominance in the Western definition of religious tradition from the indigenous perspective of Pre-Christian tribal-cults in Europe, the post colonialism debate in the field of religion finally returns “home”.

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List of Contributors

Peter J. Bräunlein is an anthropologist and religionist and currently senior researcher at the University of Göttingen. His actual research project on “Spirits in and of Modernity” is part of the BMBF-funded area studies network “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia” (DORISEA). Between 1986-1988 and 1996-1998, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in the Philippines (on cosmology and shamanism of the Alangan-Mangyan on Mindoro Island; on the cult of the saints and passion rituals in the Province of Bulacan). His main research topics include the anthropology of Christianity, theory and method in the study of religion, visible and material religion, film and religion, museums. René Gründer is Professor for Social Work in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Heidenheim, Germany. He studied sociology, historical anthropology and philosophy at the University of Freiburg. In 2010 Gründer received a doctorate with a fieldwork-based ethnography on contemporary Asatru-Neopaganism in Germany and Switzerland. He is member of the departments for the Sociology of religion and knowledge in the DGS (German Association for Sociology). Ariel Heryanto is Associate Professor and Deputy Director (Education) at the School of Culture, History and Language, The Australian National University. He is the author of State Terrorism And Political Identity In Indonesia: Fatally Belonging, London: Routledge (2007), editor of Popular Culture in Indonesia: Fluid Identities in Post-Authoritarian Politics, London & New York: Routledge (2008), and co-editor of Pop Culture Formations Across East Asia, Seoul: Jimoondang (2010). His new book Politics of Identity and Pleasure in Indonesian Screen Culture will be published by NUS Press and Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies (2014). His current research investigates Indonesia’s postcoloniality.

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Anna-Katharina Höpflinger, Dr. sc.rel., studied theology and the study of religion in Zürich. She received her PhD in 2008 from the University of Zürich. Presently she is engaged in research on media and religion, clothing and religion, gender and religion, the dragon-slayer motif in image and text, religions in the ancient world, and heavy metal and religion. Homepage: http://www.religions wissenschaft.uzh.ch/medien/hoepflinger.htm Hubert Knoblauch is Professor for General Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin. His research interests include the sociology of knowledge, communication and religion, particularly contemporary Western religiosity. Major book publications on religion include, next to a range of articles in various languages, books on the Sociology of Religion (“Religionssoziologie”; Berlin/ New York 1999); Qualitative Methods in Religous Studies (“Qualitative Religionsforschung”, Paderborn 2003) and Popular Religion (“Populäre Religion”, Frankfurt/ New York 2009). Kristin Shi-Kupfer is head of the research group on Chinese media, society and culture at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin. In between her academic positions at the Universities of Freiburg (2011-2013) and Bochum (2002-2007), she worked as a freelance journalist in China for four years. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on spiritual-religious groups on the People’s Republic of China after 1978. She has published widely on Christianity, media, and human rights issues in China. She can be reached at kristkupfer[at]gmail. com. Anthony Reid is a Southeast Asian historian, once again based at the Australian National University after serving as founding Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA (1999-2002) and of the Asia Research Institute at NUS, Singapore (2002-7). His recent books include Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce (2 vols. 1988-93); An Indonesian Frontier: Acehnese and other histories of Sumatra (2004); Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and political identity in Southeast Asia (2010), and To Nation by Revolution: Indonesia in the 20th Century (2011). Evamaria Sandkühler studied Social and Cultural Anthropology, Geography, and French at the University of Freiburg. In 2010 she finished her Magistra Artium with a thesis on Historical Culture in Indonesian senior high schools. Her regional focus is Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. Her general research in-

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terests include Historical Culture, revitalisations of traditions, youth cultures, and school cultures. Since October 2010 she is part of the DFG-funded research group “History in Popular Cultures of Knowledge”. Within this group she works on the PhD project “Popular Historical Cultures in Indonesia: Current References to the Past in the Context of Democratisation and Decentralisation”. Judith Schlehe is Professor in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She has published widely on religious dynamics, popular forms of representing cultures, cultural globalisation and intercultural issues, gender, the anthropology of disaster, and new approaches to transnational collaboration. Schlehe is a member of the DFG research group “History in Popular Cultures of Knowledge” and of a BMBF-funded interdisciplinary research group on “Grounding Area Studies in Social Practice: Southeast Asian studies at Freiburg”. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in several parts of Indonesia and in Mongolia. Stefanie von Schnurbein is Professor for Modern Scandinavian Literatures at the Department for Northern European Studies at Humboldt-University Berlin. Her fields of research include Scandinavian 19th and 20th century literature; gender, sexuality, masculinity and theories of embodiment; the reception of old Icelandic literature and Norse myth in literature, art, popular media, and religion (neo-Paganism); the history of scholarship and ideology; literary anti-Semitism; figurations of hunger, disorderly eating and economy in Scandinavian literature. She is currently finishing a book manuscript on “Norse Revival. Transformations of Germanic Neo-Paganism”. Ehler Voss received his PhD in anthropology and is currently researching nineteenth century European spiritualism at the Institute for Media Studies of the University of Siegen (Germany). He is part of the research project “Social innovation through the ‘non-hegemonic’ production of knowledge. ‘Occult’ phenomena at the intersections of science, media history, and cultural transfer, 1770– 1970”. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and is located at the Universities of Siegen (Germany), Freiburg (Germany), Berlin (Germany), Fribourg (Switzerland), Basel (Switzerland), and Strasbourg (France).