I really like the term "raver spirituality" to describe a loose constellation of affects borne out of a particular social context.
Maybe it might be read as dismissive but to me it feels like a solid characterization :)
@starkatt this makes sense. I don’t think anyone who’s done raves would find it dismissive. Which makes sense; raves and furry cons are the closest most modern Americans get to those big preindustrial festivals, there to address key spiritual needs. You’ve read “Dancing in the Streets” right?
@Leucrotta I haven't read nor heard of it!
@Leucrotta also I was gonna write a followup post about how raver spirituality becoming a thing is a sign that there's a huge spiritual vacuum in our culture as a whole.
@starkatt Okay so Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a ton of stuff; "Dancing in the Streets" is simply my favorite of her books. It's basically about how ecstatic festivals - and the invariable way the establishment tries to cash in on them - are a feature of humanity through the ages. She's *dismissive* of raves, weirdly enough (she's a Boomer, insert especially foul Russian swears here) but I feel they map to that experience *exactly*.
@starkatt I think that humanity NEEDS paganism in the sense of staying up late dancing, wearing costumes, and getting hopped up on whatever happens to be most available. Seeing a divinity moving through the universe - as interpreted by the individual who might simply be a very humanist atheist - seems to be innate to this experience of being part of a divine whole.
@starkatt With sterility, none of the big religions are antithetical to ecstatic experience (we have a holiday where you're SUPPOSED to dance with the Torah; we have a holiday where you're supposed to laugh, wear costumes and get hopped up), but all of them play out so BADLY in the USA - and it doesn't help that Christianity's become intrinsically linked to political repression. I'm reminded of what King says about young people leaving the church in droves, in Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
@Leucrotta I very much agree.