I'd say religion was anasthetic and religious
experience another name for confidence trick, however
*spiritual experience* is most definitely an aesthetic
experience. All direct gnostic experiences of reality
heighten aesthetic sensibility, and no doubt our
imagination fills in the gaps left in 'revelation' :)
The performance part is not surprising either as
western theatre(tragic and comic) arose from the
Dionysian Mysteries and further back still from
Shamanic possession. I suspect some similar evolution
applies to all theatrical traditions of the world.
Steve Ash
p.s in responce to the poster who suggested background
intros from list members I've updated my occult
profile and attached a signature URL to it at the foot
of this message :)
>>Caroline Tully <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I've
been toying >>with the idea that
religion,
so-called religious experience, is really aesthetic
experience, an "art
experience" if you will - even when it involves
aniconic religions,
>>it's
>>still an aesthetic...
>or anaesthetic? Seriously, for me as a former
performer and >performance studies scholar, I believe
that the religious experience that comes from ritual
work is similar to theatrical experience. When I was
running rites and participating in rituals as part of
my group, it fulfilled a certain part of me that had
been startving ever since I stopped giving up theatre
(I cite a high school production of Pippin as my first
pagan religious experience).
>What I mean here by perform! ance is not the surface
elements: >the sense of spectacle (like props,
costumes, lighting - though those can be elements of
ritual) or that ritual is 'performing' for an
audience, but that (good) ritual for me involves
exploring the spirit and pushing yourself to be
present and embody something, which is exactly what
was happening when I was in (again, good) theatrical
productions. So for me, the aesthetic part which is
the religious part is the performance-oriented part,
though a better term should be invented, since most
(non-Performance Studies) people associate
'performance' with inauthenticity (see Andy Letcher's
essay in Researching >Paganisms).
>JLW
Occult CV : http://www.trismegistus.org.uk/occult%20cv.htm
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