13 Hurley (Bataille 1989:52) translates the French ‘fête’ as ‘festival’. While ‘festive’ (or
even ‘celebration’) refers to some extent to the semantics of Bataille’s ‘fête’, ‘festival’ is,
I find, too mellow and too highly determined to express thoroughly what is meant
here: images of summer festivals, for example, can spring to mind, hinting more
towards light-hearted entertainment than sacrificial consumption and orgiastic
behaviour. I will therefore retain ‘fête’ or the more versatile ‘festive’.
14 This scheme, which I have explored briefly elsewhere (Gauthier 2001a), has also been
noted by Petiau (1999).
15 ‘Postmodernity’ is still synonymous with an individualistic culture (Lipovetsky 1983:
2002), only more inclined towards what Maffesoli (1998) calls an affective tribal
behaviour.
16 The institutionalization and normalization of raves have struck a serious blow to this
ideal, but more clandestine scenes still hold this to be a fundamental characteristic of
their events.
17 As is abundantly illustrated in Collin (1998) and Reynolds (1999), for example, in the
case of the UK. See Gauthier (2001 a) for a hypothesis as to the reasons for the resort
to so many of these often highly religious symbolisms.
18 It is important to note, as further support to a religious studies reading of rave, that
commitment is one of the defining axioms of Edward Bailey’s (1997) ‘implicit religion’.
19 Consider the pride and/or shame that is felt when passing ‘normal’ people on the
street on the way to the party, for example.
20 For the sake of this discussion, we can recognize the delicate nature of the question of
drugs and keep to the best-case scenario (which is not so rare an instance) in which
drug intake supports rave’s total experience. For further discussion on the question
of drugs and ritual intake, see Gauthier (2001a). (See also Peterson 1996; Saunders
and Doblin 1996; Fontaine and Fontana 1996; Collin 1998; Reynolds 1999; Fallu
2001).
21 The French language opposes the verb ‘consumer’ (to burn: excessive consumption in
the sense of Bataille) to ‘consommer’ (to ingest: consumerist consumption), making this
articulation somewhat clearer. See Gauthier (2001a) for more on this ‘consumption
logic’ as opposed to a consumerist conservative order.
22 Following the scheme given by Fontaine and Fontana (1996), the first phase of
consciousness altering is fear, felt during the temporary (but, especially in the case of
ecstasy, extremely intense) transition between states. This is where letting go is most
difficult but also most important. The second phase involves maintaining the rupture
and restructuring this new consciousness. A third phase could be added, this being the
(sometimes very difficult) comedown from the altered state. Ecstasy and other drugs
thus enable individual de-conditioning, making it possible to see and feel the world
otherly.
23 It can be noted that, following this definition, it need not be specified to what (super-
natural being or suchlike) the offering is vowed, in the same way that the definition of
religion can spare reference to the otherworldly The space here is obviously not suited
for a detailed argumentation of this point, but the reader can refer to Bataille (1988,
1989) and Gauthier (2001b).
24 Which is exactly what Eliade (1992) defines as a hierophany, central to his archetypal
theory on the sacred.
25 On the unnecessary status of these ‘phantoms’ in a comprehensive and functional theory
of religion, see Ménard (1999).
THE ‘INSTITUANT’ RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF RAVE 79