media contribute to these effects, facilitating the processes of globalization and the
destabilization of both individual subjects and communities (Baudrillard 1983;
Giddens 1991; Lash and Urry 1994; Mellor and Shilling 1997; Strinati 1995). Acid
House and rave cultures themselves have been regarded as prime examples of this
process. In an oft-cited passage in which he draws on the work of Jean Baudrillard,
Antonio Melechi likens the rave to a giant void, a touristic ritual of individual and
cultural disappearance: mediated, simulated, hyperreal (Melechi 1993:32).
As scholars of NRMs have recognized, modern consumer cultures are therefore
ideal hosts for the formation of sects, cults and other NRMs. This is why we are
currently witnessing cultural and religious diversity and experimentation perhaps
unprecedented in human history, manifested in such developments as the New Age
movement, alternative lifestyle movements, and mass importation of and
experimentation with other religious traditions. What these experimental cultural
exercises have in common is an attempt to make sense of life, an attempt to
formulate efficacious cultures, an attempt at a re-sacralization or reenchantment of
the world (Maffesoli 1996: xiv; Mellor and Shilling 1997). While, in a sense,
Melechi is right in describing rave as symptomatic of the void of consumer cultures,
what he fails to recognize is that it is simultaneously an adaptational strategy,
conscious or otherwise, to the meaninglessness of existence within them. Ravers,
doofers and trance-dancers have reappropriated from the appropriators, have re-
harnessed the products of consumer capitalism in the drive to recreate community
and meaningful modes of existence. Dance cultures are examples par excellence of
the sociocultural revitalization and innovation stirring within consumer cultures.
Corsten (1999) and Tramacchi (2001) have recognized this, suggesting that
‘youth techno scenes’ and ‘doofs’ should be included in the category of NRMs.
They may be right. To varying degrees, rave and dance cultures contain several
features common to NRMs: cultural and social dissatisfaction and disaffection by
potential members; occurrence within host cultures with decaying and declining
religious symbols, rites and institutions; occurrence within host cultures of religious
and social pluralism and accelerated intercultural communications and technology;
religious iconography appropriated syncretically from other traditions; hallucinatory,
ecstatic or altered consciousness experiences transpiring in embodied, visceral and
emotional states; radical personality transformation as a result of such ecstatic
experiences; the creation of ‘surrogate’ family and community units and support
mechanisms; the formation of ideal or utopian social visions and programmes;
charismatic leadership and the development of cultic formations in the form of the
DJ and his/her followers; and opposition and resistance from existing authorities,
social institutions and power structures (the technique of ‘deviant’ labelling; the
fear, similar to other NRMs, that the practice of raving ‘breaks up families’; and
regulatory measures introduced in many states and metropolitan centres around the
world) and the concomitant adaptation of ritual performances (licensed raves, more
‘underground’ raves).^10
On the other hand, certain features of rave cultures seem to defy the label
‘NRM’. For example, while ‘rave’ as a practice is now universally recognized and has
RAVE AS NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT? 97