of a society feel they need but is not being supplied by other means’ (Barker 1999:
26). In other words, they show us the ‘gaps’ in cultures. This same point has been made
by a number of other scholars of NRMs. George Chryssides, among others, notes
that people who join NRMs are usually those who are ‘disaffected’ or ‘alienated’
from the generally accepted norms of their society (Chryssides 1999:5). Similarly,
Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge’s theory of NRMs and religion in general is
based upon the premise that as religions and cultures begin to secularize and
stagnate (a perennial, evolutionary process), individuals seek out or form sects and
cults in the search for more vivid and consistent ‘supernatural compensators’
(Bainbridge 1997; Stark and Bainbridge 1985, 1987). And finally, in his
explanation for the current explosion of NRMs, Lorne Dawson encapsulates
Wallace’s and Durkheim’s sense of a ‘general cultural malaise’ and decline in
meaningfulness as a precursor to the irruption of revitalization movements:
In the private sphere everything is seemingly now a matter of choice. There
are no set and secure behaviours with regard to courtship, marriage,
childrearing, sexuality, gender relations, consumption, vocation and
spirituality. Consequently, many individuals are left yearning for more
guidance. In the public sphere, all are compelled to conform. Guidance is
manifest, but in ways which belie the meaningfulness of participation.
Institutions are guided increasingly by a strictly formal rationality geared to
the satisfaction of the functional requirements of social systems, with little or
no regard for the desires, needs, or even character of the individual members
of these institutions. In the face of this social dissonance, the proliferating
NRMs provide a more holistic sense of self; a sense of self that transcends the
constellation of limited instrumental roles recognized by modern mass society
and anchored in a greater sense of moral community and purpose.
(Dawson 1998:582; see also Robbins 1988)Thus, from the writings of Durkheim at the turn of the last century right up to
current scholarship on NRMs, there has been a persisting recognition that religious
and cultural innovation and revitalization constitute a perpetual and dialectical
process in which intense, embodied, communal, ritualized experience plays a key
role.
Rave as NRM?Many would argue that Dawson’s description of both public and private life in
Euro-American societies hits the mark. Modern consumer cultures are routinely
critiqued for their alienating impact, their absence of meaning and superficiality. It
has also been argued that extreme levels of individual stress and adverse health result
from these features, and are an effect of the relativization or outright deterioration
of particular sociocultural contexts due to the process of globalization (Dawson
1998:587). The advance and proliferation of technology and communications
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