know-how to the local population—a type of religion that has been described
at several locations in the Pacific region since the late nineteenth century
(Lawrence, 2005).^9 The history of the splinter group (the reform movement)
was marked by a series of emotionally laden rituals, which intended to elicit
the eschatological return of the ancestors of the villages (Whitehouse, 1995,
pp. 89–154). However, since members of the movement dedicated their entire
time and considerable resources to the rituals they ended up completely
exhausted and without food, at which point they were received back into the
larger community. Based on his observations about the rituals and history
of the movement, Whitehouse (2004, pp. 63–85) described twomodes of
religiosity by means of fourteen variables (see Table 5.1). In theimagistic
mode, emotionally charged, high-arousal rituals are repeated with low
frequency. Rituals in the imagistic mode influence episodic memory (includ-
ing the formation offlashbulb memories). Movements that operate in the
imagistic mode have a non-centralized social structure, and their rituals have
spontaneously generated, non-standardized meanings. In thedoctrinal mode,
of which the original Pomio Kivung movement is an example, emotionally
not-so-arousing rituals are repeated frequently. Rituals in the doctrinal mode
influence semantic memory. In this mode, the religious group is centralized
and its theology isfixed and elaborated.
The Modes Theory has been tested in the context of various religion
traditions, including ancient religions (Uro, 2007, 2011d; Whitehouse &
Martin, 2004) but also received much criticism, to which Whitehouse
responded by making various adjustments over the years, which we cannot
discuss in detail. We have to note, however, that the most important issue
from a cognitive perspective is related to the generation of episodic memories
in the imagistic mode, a problem to which we will return later. Another
question is whether the doctrinal and imagistic modes characterize different
religious traditions (for example, are there“imagistic religions”?), different
phases of a single religion, or perhaps rituals within a single religious group.
Let us use the Modes Theory to examine the situation of the Corinthian
Church as reflected by Paul’s remarks in his epistles. From a number of hints
we can gather the information that the congregation practiced emotionally
arousing rituals, including healing, performing miracles, speaking in tongues,
prophecy, and visionary experience (1 Cor.12–14; 2 Cor.12:1–12). We can also
infer that leadership hierarchies were unclear and the congregation was
lacking a consistent power structure (1 Cor. 1:10–17, 3–4; 2 Cor. 11:1–13):
“What I mean is that each of you says,”Paul writes,“‘I belong to Paul,’or
‘I belong to Apollos,’or‘I belong to Cephas,’or‘I belong to Christ’”(1 Cor.
1:12). In such circumstances the community probably did not have a shared
(^9) The ethnographic concept of“cargo cult”has been criticized as colonialistfiction in recent
scholarship, see Kaplan (2005).
108 Cognitive Science and the New Testament