Rave Culture and Religion

<p>The collection provides insights on developments in post-traditional religiosity (especially 'New Age' and 'Neo-Paganism') through studies of rave's Gnostic narratives of ascensionism and re-enchantment, explorations of the embodied spirituality and millennialist predispositions of dance culture, and investigations of transnational digital-art countercultures manifesting at geographic locations as diverse as Goa, India, and Nevada's Burning Man festival. Contributors examine raving as a new religious or revitalization movement; a powerful locus of sacrifice and transgression; a lived bodily experience; a practice comparable with world entheogenic rituals; and as evidencing a new Orientalism. <em>Rave Culture and Religion</em> will be essential reading for advanced students and academics in the fields of sociology, cultural studies and religious studies.</p> <p>1. The Difference Engine: Liberation and the Rave Imaginary <em>Graham St John</em></p><p>2. Ephemeral Spirit: Sacrificial Cyborg and Communal Soul <em>Hillegonda C. Rietveld</em></p><p>3. Raptures: the 'Instituant' Religious Experience of Rave <em>François Gauthier</em></p><p>4. 'Connectedness' and the Rave Experience: Rave as New Religious Movement? <em>Tim Olaveson</em></p><p>5. The Flesh of Raving: Merleau-Ponty and the 'Experience' of Ecstacy <em>James Landau</em></p><p>6. Entheogenic Dance Ecstasis: Cross-cultural Contexts <em>Des Tramacchi</em></p><p>7. The 'Natural High': Altered States, Flashbacks and Neural Tuning at Raves <em>Melanie Takahashi</em></p><p>8. Selecting Ritual: DJ's Dancers and Liminality in Underground Dance Music <em>Morgan Gerard</em></p><p>9. Sounds of the London Underground: Gospel Music and Baptist Worship in the UK Garage Scene <em>Ciaran O'Hagan</em></p><p>10. <em>Gamelan</em>, Techno-Primitivism and the San Francisco Rave Scene <em>Gina Andrea Fatone</em></p><p>11. Techno Millennium: Dance, Ecology and Future Primitives <em>Graham St John</em></p><p>12. Global Nomads: Techno and New Age as Transnational Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa <em>Anthony D'Andrea</em></p><p>13. Hedonic Tantra: Golden Goa's Trance Transmission <em>Erik Davis</em></p><p>14. Goa Trance and Trance in Goa: Smooth Striations <em>Arun Saldanha</em></p><p>15. Dancing on Common Ground: Exploring the Sacred at Burning Man <em>Robert V. Kozinets</em> and <em>John F. Sherry, Jr.</em></p>