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.