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Vol. 7 (2) 2020 ISSN 2311 – 3448 and RELIGION STATE, ARTICLES BOOK REVIEWS CHURCH ATION R STATE, Alexander Panchenko. Svetlana Belorussova. Orthodoxy Channeling, Agency, and Strategic on the Internet and the Internet in Information: The “Semiotic Orthodoxy. Review of: Mikhail Suslov. DMINIST Ideologies” of New Age Culture ed. 2016. Digital Orthodoxy in the A Post-Soviet World: The Russian RELIGION Elena Stepanova. Leo Tolstoy’s Faith: The Equivalence of State of Orthodox Church and Web 2.0. Mind and Content Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag. — 321 pp. UBLIC P Daniil Melentev. Ethnography Sofya Ragozina. Persistent and Orientalism: How Does the West View AND and Eroticism in Russian Turkestan Islam on the Internet? Review of: Danila Rygovskiy. Technology and Gary R. Bunt. 2018. Hashtag Islam. Its Representation as a Source of How Cyber-Islamic Environments Religious Experience for Old CONOMY Are Transforming Religious Authority. E CHURCH Believers of Yenisei Region Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. — 234 pp. ATIONAL N OF CADEMY A Vol. 7 Vol. 7 (2) 2020 ESIDENTIAL R P (2) 2020 USSIAN R ISSN 2311 – 3448 STATE, RELIGION and CHURCH Vol. 7 (2) 2020 Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Russian Presidential Academy of National Moscow, 2020 editors Dmitry Uzlaner (editor-in-chief ), Patrick Brown (editor), Alexander Agadjanian, Alexander Kyrlezhev design Sergei Zinoviev, Ekaterina Trushina layout Anastasia Meyerson State, Religion and Church is an academic peer- reviewed journal devoted to the interdisciplinary scholarly study of religion. Published twice yearly under the aegis of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. editorial board Alexey Beglov (Russia), Mirko Blagojević (Serbia), Thomas Bremer (Germany), Grace Davie (UK), Vyacheslav Karpov (USA), Vladimir Malyavin (Republic of China), Brian Horowitz (USA), Vasilios Makrides (Germany), Bernice Martin (UK), Alexander Panchenko (Russia), Randall A. Poole (USA), Kathy Rousselet (France), Kristina Stoeckl (Austria), Marianna Shachnovich (Russia), Mikhail Smirnov (Russia), Roman Svetlov (Russia), Olga Vasil’eva (Russia), Alexander Verkhovsky (Russia), Paul Werth (USA), Alexey Yudin (Russia). Address: State, Religion and Church Editorial Office. Institute of Public Administration and Management. Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Prospekt Vernadskogo 84. Building 8, Room 2023. 119606 Moscow, Russia. Website: www.srch.ranepa.ru E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2020 Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the editor. The opinions of the authors expressed in this journal are their own and do not necessarily coincide with those of the editorial staff. Indexed in Erih Plus and ATLA Religion Database. Table of Contents Articles Alexander Panchenko. Channeling, Agency, and Strategic Information: The “Semiotic Ideologies” of New Age Culture . 4 Elena Stepanova. Leo Tolstoy’s Faith: The Equivalence of State of Mind and Content . 24 Daniil Melentev. Ethnography and Eroticism in Russian Turkestan. 48 Danila Rygovskiy. Technology and Its Representation as a Source of Religious Experience for Old Believers of Yenisei Region . 75 Book Reviews Svetlana Belorussova. Orthodoxy on the Internet and the Internet in Orthodoxy. Review of: Mikhail Suslov. ed. 2016. Digital Orthodoxy in the Post-Soviet World: The Russian Orthodox Church and Web 2.0. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag. — 321 pp. 97 Sofya Ragozina. Persistent Orientalism: How Does the West View Islam on the Internet? Review of: Gary R. Bunt. 2018. Hashtag Islam. How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. — 234 pp. 103 Reference Information Authors . 112 VOL. 7(2) · 2020 3 Articles Alexander Panchenko Channeling, Agency, and Strategic Information: The “Semiotic Ideologies” of New Age Culture DOI: https://doi.org/10.22394/2311-3448-2020-7-2-4-23 Alexander Panchenko — Russian Literature Institute (the Push- kin House); Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint-Petersburg, Russia). [email protected] One important aspect of religious practices and representations con- cerns the way information is handled. This article understands reli- gion as a form of imagination, giving human properties to “nonhu- man” agents (and vice versa), and thus, the rules of communication and interaction with such agents play a special role in religious cul- ture. Webb Keane’s theory of “semiotic ideologies” is one tool that fa- cilitates the study of religious norms, expectations, and rules. In New Age culture, practices of “information exchange” with imaginary su- perhuman agents and transpersonal forces are based on specific psy- chophysical techniques, often called “channeling” or “contact.” The analysis of specific ethnographic examples related to ufological chan- neling demonstrates that this practice forms new types of collective agency, a distinctive feature of New Age culture itself. Keywords: semiotic ideologies, cognitive religious studies, agency, New Age culture, ufology, channeling. This article was prepared with the support from a grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 18-509-12017 (“New Religious Culture in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia: Ideology, Social Networks, Discourses”). 4 State, Religion and ChuRCh (2020) 7(2):4 – 23 alexander Panchenko NE IMPORTANT aspect of religious practices and represen- tations concerns the way information is handled. If one under- Ostands religion as a form of imagination, giving human prop- erties to “nonhuman” agents (and vice versa), one can expect that the rules of communication and interaction with such agents play a spe- cial role in shaping religious culture. Indeed, the ritual norms, expec- tations, and rules that anthropologists of religion study can be viewed as the study of the needs (and problems) of that exchange of informa- tion between people and certain “otherworldly” (that is, nonhuman) be- ings and forces. This approach is equally applicable to prayer and for- tune-telling, sacrifice and demonic possession, and child “summoning” and Spiritualist séances. Webb Keane’s concept of “semiotic ideologies,” which shifts a researcher’s attention from the process of meaning and interpretation to its social prerequisites, conditions, and consequenc- es, presents a convenient analytical tool for studying the aforemen- tioned norms, expectations, and rules in this context (Keane 2003, 419). Keane’s ideas facilitate the analysis of local and historically-conditioned methods of communication with the transcendent, as well as the com- parison of different perceptions of media and material carriers of “oth- erworldly information.” Below I will try to demonstrate some of the per- spectives of this concept in relation to contemporary New Age culture. In New Age culture, practices of “information exchange” with imagi- nary superhuman agents and transpersonal forces are based on specific psychophysical techniques, mainly “channeling” or “contact” (Hanegraaff 1996, 23–41; Wood 2007; Hammer 2001, 369–73, 393–401). “Chan- neling,” as defined by British sociologist of religion Matthew Wood, is “a form of spirit possession in which the spirit is held to be a religious mas- ter of some sort (rather than an ordinary deceased human, as in spiritu- alism, or a deity, as in paganism or Pentecostalism), whose primary pur- pose is to deliver messages of general interest to humans regarding the current state of, and future changes to, the world and our place within it” (Wood 2007, 101). Researchers of New Age culture have long recognized the prominent place of channeling. According to Wouter Hanegraaff: “ There can be no doubt about its central importance in the genesis of New Age religion. Many of the fundamental New Age beliefs . have first been formulated in channeled messages. It is therefore fair to say that, in spite of the tendency among New Age believers to emphasize person- al experience as the exclusive basis of religious truth, New Age religion must to a large extent be considered a religion of revelation [Offenba- rungsreligion] (Hanegraaff 1996, 27). Vol. 7(2) · 2020 5 Articles In such a generalized perspective, channeling, of course, does not dif- fer much from prophecy, including prophecy as depicted in the Judeo- Christian tradition. At the same time, it has a number of specific fea- tures and properties as an emic category. The genesis of channeling is closely related to the history of Spir- itualism and Theosophy, which proliferated in Western culture at the end of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth century. In essence, channeling is a logical continuation of the Spiritualist tech- nique, with the only difference being that it does not require any spe- cial devices, (e.g. a table with a pencil inserted in it), ritualized “séanc- es,” or the presence of a virtuoso pretending to possess the charisma of a “medium.” Conveniently, anyone can be a channeler, although spe- cial abilities or training under an experienced mentor may also be re- quired. This “democratism of revelation” in New Age culture is compa- rable to the perception of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Pentecostalism. Nevertheless, in both cases, the information transmitted by prophecy becomes a discursive field for social competition and