Connectedness, sociocultural revitalization and new religious
movementsAs I discussed above, Émile Durkheim and Victor Turner both viewed ritual and
the extraordinary, ecstatic experiences common to religious rituals as real and
important sociocultural phenomena. For them, such experiences as connectedness,
in its ecstatic, non-rational, embodied, humanizing and utopian dimensions, are
fundamental to sociocultural revitalization. In fact, they saw all societies operating
according to dialectics of structured, norm-governed states and ecstatic, effervescent
experiences of connectedness. There is no question that they would not be surprised
to witness the rave phenomenon were they alive today; nor would they wonder, as
so many politicians, anxious parents and even social scientists currently do, why the
rave experience so strongly attracts contemporary youth.
Durkheim and Turner were not the only writers to think about ritual, the
connectedness experience and sociocultural revitalization. Anthony Wallace (1956,
1966), a psychological anthropologist who specialized in North American native
cultures, formally developed the concept of the revitalization movement. Like the
former theorists, Wallace saw religions and entire cultures following patterns of
alternating states of religious and cultural intensity and innovation, and
routinization and stagnation. He viewed revitalization movements as conscious and
deliberate efforts to construct a more satisfying culture, and saw such objects of
social scientific study as cargo cults, messianic movements, new religious sects and
revolutions as examples (Wallace 1956:265).
Wallace argued that revitalization movements occur when a culture or religion no
longer adequately meets the needs of its members, a phenomenon that could
manifest itself as increased individual stress, decay or decrease in the efficacy of
religious symbols and rituals, and a general cultural malaise such as that which
Durkheim lamented was affecting France while he was writing The Elementary Forms.
Without such revitalizing rituals, he wrote, a society is apt to disintegrate as a system
(Wallace 1966:160). Revitalization occurs with the formulation of a new, utopian
or idealized vision of society (often embodied in a charismatic leader and fresh
ecstatic experience), its dissemination and ritualization, and then its routinization
into a formal code of behaviour. Once this code begins to lose its efficacy for the
group, a new code will appear in a rash of ecstatic practices, and the process will
begin again. Wallace thought that all societies follow this cycle.
Wallace’s ideas on revitalization movements were coloured and limited by his
historical functionalism. However, the revitalization movement as a concept has
received renewed interest lately, for example in the analysis of new religious
movements such as Soka Gakkai and Shambhala (Dawson and Eldershaw 1998;
Eldershaw and Dawson 1995; Shupe 1991), and within broader theoretical projects
(Laughlin et al. 1990). Wallace’s ideas, along with those of Durkheim and Turner,
have also found their way into new religious movement (NRM) theory. For
example, Eileen Barker states that one of the reasons why NRMs are significant is
‘that they may occasionally function as a barometer of what at least some members
RAVE AS NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT? 95