Rave Culture and Religion

Contents

List of illustrations vii

Notes on contributors ix

Foreword xii

Acknowledgements xv

Introduction

GRAHAM ST JOHN

1

PART I Techno culture spirituality 16

1 The difference engine: liberation and the rave imaginary

GRAHAM ST JOHN

17

2 Ephemeral spirit: sacrificial cyborg and communal soul

HILLEGONDA C.RIETVELD

45

PART II Dance, rapture and communion 61

3 Rapturous ruptures: the ‘instituant’ religious experience of

rave

FRANÇOIS GAUTHIER

62

4 ‘Connectedness’ and the rave experience: rave as new

religious movement?

TIM OLAVESON

83

5 The flesh of raving: Merleau-Ponty and the ‘experience’ of

ecstasy

JAMES LANDAU

105

6 Entheogenic dance ecstasis: cross-cultural contexts

DES TRAMACCHI

123

7 The ‘natural high’: altered states, flashbacks and neural

tuning at raves

MELANIE TAKAHASHI

144