Chapter Seven Collective Effervescence, Numinous Experience or Proto-Religious Phenomena? Moshing with Durkheim, Schleiermacher and Otto Mark Jennings

The sun is bright over the coastal city of Fre- mantle in Western Australia. The bitumen my feet crunch over is familiar—I often come here with my daughters when we visit the Esplanade. But it doesn’t feel familiar today. It has been transformed into the entrance portal into the West Coast Blues & Roots Fes- tival (WCBR). On the left is the Little Crea- tures microbrewery and beer tent, directly opposite the Crossroads stage, where punt- ers can gulp down an ale and enjoy perfor- mances. Further in on the Esplanade grass, where previously I have played chasy with my eldest daughter, two enormous stages are set up—the “Big Top,” under a blue canvas circus canopy, and the “Harbour Stage.”

More and more participants will arrive as the sun retreats and the encroaching darkness lends anonymity to the proceedings. They come to spend the evening with friends, to enjoy the presence of their favourite musi- cians and, most of all, for the music. Many will participate in an indescribable experience, 108 • Mark Jennings a connection with something transcendent, made possible by among other things, the crowds, the atmosphere, drugs and alcohol, and the music.

The significance of the deep experience of music at the WCBR is the subject of this chapter. I attended the WCBR for five days over the course of three years (2007-2009), taking detailed notes of my own observations and recording a number of interviews with participants. In this chapter, I will draw on the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim and theologians Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto to help illuminate the significance of the experience of music at the WCBR. This phenomenological analysis will comprise a sketch of each respective thinker’s contribution. Following this, I outline some specific eth- nographic examples, based on my participant observation at the WCBR.

Emile Durkheim: The Sacred and Profane and Collective Effervescence

In his classic work The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) developed his ideas on the phenomena of religion in society. Durkheim perceived religion as a social—rather than a spiritual—reality, resulting in observable religious behaviour. This reflected his commitment to interpreting “social facts” by means of the social itself. For Durkheim, the importance of religion is not in articulating “truth,” because religion cannot provide “scientific” knowledge. Rather “it is a system of ideas with which the individuals represent to themselves the society of which they are members”, and its function is to provide devotees energy and strength.1

Significantly, Durkheim’s position separated the utility or function of religion from the truth of what religion claimed to represent. The result is that religion itself is changeable and even expendable. Durkheim believed, as many sociol- ogists did, that scientific knowledge would one day result in a secular world. However, for Durkheim this would potentially come at an enormous cost, as morality was based on religion. The only solution was for society itself to be

1 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary forms of the Religious Life, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1976, p. 226; W.S.F. Pickering, “Emile Durkheim,” The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Emotion, edited by John Corrigan, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 443.