Our Virtual Materials: The Substance of Buddhist Holy Objects in a Virtual World (original) (raw)

Sacred realms in virtual worlds: The making of Buddhist spaces in Second Life

Critical Research on Religion, 2019

Second Life, a virtual world, has been heralded by some scholars and transhumanists as a sacred, "heavenly" space. Through detailed ethnographic work on Buddhist religious spaces in Second Life, this article argues instead that just as in actual life, virtual life is comprised of both sacred and profane spaces. By demonstrating different types of Buddhist spaces, community-practice-oriented and individual-practice-oriented, and the meaning that these spaces hold for practitioners, readers come to understand that the sacrality in Second Life is just as contingent and constructed as it is in the actual, physical world.

Virtual Buddhism: An analysis of aesthetics in relation to religious practice within Second Life

Online-Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, 2010

Up to this point the majority of studies on religion and the internet has focused on Christianity (Campbell: 2007), Islam (Bunt: 2001, 2003) or identity (Turkle: 1995) and there has been very little attention surrounding Buddhism and the internet. This article will focus on the analysis of the senses in relation to religious practice undertaken by avatars visiting the Buddha Centre within Second Life. I will examine two interconnected aspects; the virtual environment and the senses. I will illustrate and consider why the aesthetics of the virtual environment imitates the offline environment. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that the virtual environment provides not only a rich visual and aural experience but also includes the sense of virtual touch, thus capturing three of the five senses within online religious practice. I will use an inter-disciplinary methodology including ethnography and visual analysis to examine the sensory practice in Second Life. Accordingly, the analysis of ...

Rhetoric of the Holy in the Online Virtual Environment of Second Life

This paper discusses three examples of rhetorical holiness from the online virtual world of Second Life. The rhetorical holiness is compared to the representation of beliefs and practices in physical settings. By examining representation of the holy in Second Life it is possible to discuss the shift from older to new media forms in established and therefore comparative contexts. How these movements reflect and affect practices and beliefs is argued as highlighting networks of power and meaning.

Play and pray: Spiritual enlightenment in virtual worlds

2013 IEEE International Games Innovation Conference (IGIC), 2013

Second Life as one of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) allowed users to create things. One of the areas is religion. USATODAY and the Christian Post reported that Leaders of Christian, Jewish and Muslim sites estimate about 1,000 avatars teleport into churches, synagogues or mosques on a regular basis while hundreds more list themselves with Buddhist, Pagan, Wiccan and other groups [1, 2]. This study explored users' experiences inside the religious site in Second Life.

Virtual Shamanism and the Sacred-Cyber-Space

Virtual Shamanism and the Sacred-Cyber-Space A. Airò and W. J. Costello V Abstract: Sacred space has typically been understood as a physical location with specific characteristics and qualities, which differentiate it from mundane (profane) space. Chosen to represent the link between mortals and gods, a sacred space usually undergoes specific “architectural events” (Jacobs, 2007). These events include enclosing the space through stone circles or walls, and imbuing it with spiritual or religious significance. Verses from the Quran, written on mosque walls, or frescoes in Christian churches, depicting the Stations of the Cross, demonstrate this ascription of religious significance to reinforce the sanctity of the space. Shamanistic practices call for a similar process in order to deem a space sacred. The construction of tents, teepees or yurts prepares a space for ritual and, just as church bells or a call to prayer announce when to engage in prayer, time and sacred space are unified in shamanism by using the lunar calendar. Antithetical to the civilized and highly organized setting of a church or mosque, shamans generally choose a forest clearing for a ritual site. The woods have always acted as an initiation spot where young boys are brought by the tribe’s shaman to be reborn as men and warriors. In choosing a sacred space, shamans designate the center of the space, first by digging the omphalos and then setting the axis mundi, which allows the shaman to traverse the three levels of the universe. The shaman then performs his or her function “as an intermediary between a worldly and a spiritual or supernatural world with the aim to help people of his society.” (Schlottmann, 2007). The fact that shamans travel cross-dimensionally for the betterment of their society is, in fact, integral to their role in the community. Upon request, a shaman will attempt to make contact with the spiritual world and try to resolve “an imbalance due to transcendental powers” (Schlottmann, 2007) This communal need of shamanic intervention is stunningly depicted in the short film “The Shaman” (2015) directed by Marco Kalantari. Set in a dystopic future, a long-fought war rages between two groups of humans. Instead of engaging in person-to-person combat, each group commands intelligent machines of death and destruction. However, both sides also employ shamans who are used to cross over to the “Netherworld” where they engage the machines’ souls in psychological warfare. Only in this cyber-spiritual world can these shamans hope to convince the machines’ souls to change sides. Coincidentally, it is also only in cyberspace that you can access this film. Gazing through the computer display, we now have the ability to journey away from our terrestrial dimension and into one decidedly more virtual. This mode of accessing the virtual realm mimics the liminal threshold made of water, which shamans often cross during their passage into the spiritual world. This connection is made eerily apparent by the fact that most displays used today (either LCD or LED) work by shining light through liquid crystals. While the virtual world has been described as being a “spaceless space” (Castells 1996) this has no bearing on its capacity to be used in a sacred event. In place of tangible materials, digital code defines the parameters of cyberspace. As shown by S. Jacobs (2007), virtual churches and temples exist online, which replicate the experience of physically visiting these sacred spaces. Jacobs details the versatility of these sites in allowing visitors to go through the stages of religious practices, namely cyberprayer and cyberpuja, at their leisure. Referring to this new phenomenon as “asynchronous” cyber-ritual, Jacobs demonstrates how our concept of time has drastically changed as a consequence of “computer-mediated communication” (Jacobs, 2007). Thanks to the Internet, one simply needs to search “shamanic ritual” on YouTube to find a plethora of videos dedicated to guiding users through asynchronous cyberséance. Meanwhile, Facebook groups and websites like Reddit also host thriving communities of cybershamans and their followers. Yet while extremely useful, these avenues do not preserve the sensation of a collective “live” religious experience. Given the technological advances since Jacobs’s research, we intend to demonstrate the evolution in this realm of “synchronous” cyber-ritual, and specifically in reference to cybershamanism. Services such as Facebook Live, Periscope and Skype along with super-fast cellular networks have given us the ability to broadcast our lives in any place and any time. In response to our initial satisfaction with worldwide asynchronous communication, today we see an increased focus on simultaneously spending our most valuable resource—time. In the modern sacred cyberspace, time has become the universal binding structure, reinforcing spiritual significance not through “architectural events” but through temporal ones. Finally, we will give our tentative predictions on how developments in virtual reality may signify the coalescence of traditional sacred space and the new location of the shamanic cyberséance of the 21st century.