This study demonstrates how diaspora religious traditions utilized the Internet to develop significant network connections among each other and also to their place of origins. By examining the early Usenet system, I argue that the religious beliefs and practices of diaspora religious traditions were a motivating factor for developing Usenet groups where geographically dispersed individuals could connect with each other in safe, supportive, and religiously tolerant environments. This article explores the new forms of religious practices that began to occur on these sites, focusing on the manner in which Internet technology and the World Wide Web were utilized for activities such as long-distance ritual practice, cyber pilgrimage, and other religiously-motivated undertakings. Through these new online religious activities, diaspora groups have been able to develop significant connections not only among people, but also between people and the sacred homeland itself.
Religion on the Internet is a unique phenomenon. Due to its massive online presence, it challenges traditional academic theories that link the secularization process with developments in modernity and technology. At the same time, it provides scholars with a new environment that can be observed, providing insight into the manner in which religious beliefs and practices adapt to changes in society. When Howard Rheingold wrote The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (1993), he recognized that when people were homesteaders, they brought many things with them to establish their new communities, including their religion. The original homesteaders often left behind the official religion of their places of origin and developed and adapted their religious beliefs to suit the new surroundings. This same trend seemed to occur in the new environment of cyberspace, where hell and brimstone preachers vied with religious zealots for adherents. It was the wired Wild West, and anything seemed to go.
However, within a relatively short period of time, the virtual world has gone from feeling like a wide-open frontier to a crowded city. Cyberspace has become a heavily populated and well-traveled megalopolis, filled with every official church imaginable, live stream religious sermons, and never-ending free GodCasts. Although "homesteading" on the electronic frontier might be a thing of the past, a unique type of religious activity is being developed to accommodate people in diaspora. These are people on the global frontier looking for a connection with their places of origin rather than with the community in which they now live. In many ways, this activity is a reversal of traditional homesteading and reflects a global community filled with transnational beings located throughout the planet who are using cyberspace as a tool to develop networks not only among each other but also with the homeland they have left behind. This article explores the manner in which diaspora groups use the Internet to make these connections. Although people may be in diaspora for a number of economic, social, and political reasons, this article focuses on the religious aspect of this online activity.
When it became apparent that religion was becoming a significant component of the virtual world, a number of research projects were undertaken to evaluate the presence of religion on the Internet. The earliest studies provided some interesting results. For instance, the Time Warner Company estimated in 1996 that there were three times as many sites concerning God and spirituality than there were concerning sex (http://www.time.com/time/godcom/home.html). In the year 2000, more people were using the Internet for religion and spiritual purposes than were using the medium for online banking or online dating services. At that time, it was estimated that 21% of the Internet users in the United States of America went online to undertake some form of religious activity. Within a year, that number had increased to 25%, from two million people a day using the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes in 2000 to over three million a day in 2001. Despite the continued increase in total overall Internet users, a detailed study conducted on Internet use in the U.S. found that the number of people seeking religious information online had nearly doubled by November of 2002 (see Larsen, 2000, 2001; Madden, 2003). The most recent study, conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, found that "64% of wired Americans have used the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes" (Hoover, Clark, & Rainie, 2004).
This demonstrates that religion on the Internet is a common aspect of the new communication medium. People are going online to get information about, discuss, and argue about religious beliefs and practices, as well as to share their religious feelings and concerns, post prayer requests, chat, and even conduct and participate in online religious rituals. This medium has been embraced by most of the world's religious traditions, to the point that not having Internet representation is a rarity for a religious organization, even if it is Luddite in its beliefs and practices.
Religious representation on the World Wide Web is so predominant that within the core categories used by search engines to arrange websites, the second largest subsection category on the entire World Wide Web is the "Religion and Spirituality" section within the Society group. The Religion and Spirituality section, at 109,760 listed websites, contains slightly more sites than the entire Science group combined. The science group contains websites on topics ranging from agriculture and astronomy to biology, genetics, and even computer technology and software. As of May 1, 2006, the Science group had a total of 106,749 sites listed on the Google DMOZ Open Directory Project, about 3,000 less than religion and spirituality. (For the most up-to-date numbers on websites in the religion and spirituality section, see http://dmoz.org/Society/.)
Although this demonstrates that there is a significant number of websites concerning religion and spirituality, it does not reveal what is actually occurring on these websites or how different religious groups and traditions are using this technology for religious activity. In many ways, the search engines are only providing descriptive information. To address the issue of diaspora groups using the Internet for religious and spiritual activity, this article examines the early development of religion on the Internet and explores how the new communication medium was modified and adapted by religious groups to meet their specific religious needs.
Early Forms of Online Religion
After the development of the Modem program in the 1970s, religious discourse quickly began to permeate the Internet environment. Beginning with ORIGINS, one of the earliest public bulletin board systems developed, religious discussion and activity became a common occurrence (Rheingold, 1985, 1993). Although there was wide diversity and variations in religious beliefs, commitment, and practices, many of the early BBS that followed allowed for, and in many cases encouraged, religious and spiritual discussions.
Online religious activity passed from one BBS to another and eventually became a significant component of the new USENET network. Discussions on the network were divided by topic and placed into sections called newsgroups. By 1983, some members of USENET began to complain about the large amount of religious-based dialogue that was occurring in the miscellaneous discussion group. As one user stated, "I have to sit through god-knows-how-many-but doesn't care articles on religion every single day." To move religion into its own discussion group, USENET user eagle!karn made the request on January 30, 1983 that a separate section for religion be created—not because he wanted to participate, but rather because he was getting tired of reading posts about the Bible.
Please, Please, PLEASE!
If you want to discuss about the Bible, please create net.religion and move your discussion there.
Thanks in advance (net.followup, January 30, 1983)
This high level of religious discussion and activity actually forced the people participating on USENET into a debate concerning how specialized newsgroups should be. The "MAD Programmer" developed a survey and began taking votes to see if a separate discussion area should be established for religion. Despite there being people strongly opposed to the creation of the new group, the matter was taken seriously. The "MAD Programmer" even stated:
An Additional note: any mail I get Knocking one of the new groups [net.religion and net.philosophy] in a manner even approaching the intolerance of this one: Re: Net.Religion 'Shouldn't discussion of this subject fall under the existing newsgroup net.jokes?' will be sent to /dev/null at top speed. (net.misc, February 6, 1983)
After some debate, on February 6, 1983 the USENET group net.religion was established, and people began posting specifically to this online religious forum. Although a number of the first posts were placed by people who were opposed to the creation of the separate group, the environment quickly became active and by the end of February of 1983 had around 100 posts.
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Within net.religion, discussions ranged across a number of topics and often generated heated debates over religious beliefs and the truth claims made by religious organizations. As with all groups on the USENET network at that time, there were no moderators to limit or censor discussions; participants could post whatever they wanted. Many of the participants were there to argue against other religions traditions or religious beliefs in general. A great deal of debate took place concerning the interpretation of scriptures, creation myths, and the nature of miracles. Although the environment was created specifically for discussing religion, it was not really a religious environment. Rather, it might best be considered an open forum where people would present their personal beliefs and then defend them against an onslaught of criticisms.
A good example of the arguments that occurred in the new group can be seen in a discussion that started on February 11, 1983, only five days after net.religion had been created. The original discussion began as "Christians Should Quote More Often from the Old Testament" and was started by USENET user Floyd!dyl. He defended some of the religious arguments that were beginning to surface in net.religion but refused to call them "Holy Wars." However, he and several other people went on to criticize the Jewish tradition. The case was put forth by several Christians in the group that if Christians accept the "Old Testament" or Hebrew Scriptures as being true and include them in their Bible, then why won't people of the Jewish faith recognize the Christian scriptures as true? The discussion contained a significant amount of religious intolerance and quickly demonstrated the volatile nature of the new USENET group. The final posting came from inuxd!arlan, who stated:
While we are civilly considering why Jews do not accept the (so-called) New Testament, why don't we also consider why (so-called) Christians don't accept the later Revelations--The Book of Mormon, for example? Surely, everyone is always interested in the latest update on the Holy Word? Or don't you all have a loose-leaf Bible? (net.religion, February 20, 1983)
One of the key aspects in many functional definitions of religion is the recognition of the importance of a community of believers. In his classic definition of religion, Durkheim argues that religion is a unified set of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, which unite into one single moral community all those who adhere to them (Durkheim, 1915/1965). In a more contemporary, functional definition of religion, Meredith McGuire (1997) recognizes several aspects or components of religion, which become united and manifest within a community setting:
The religious group—formal or informal—is essential for supporting the individual's beliefs and norms. Coming together with fellow believers reminds members of what they collectively believe and value. It can also impart a sense of empowerment to accomplish their religious and everyday goals. And the nature of the community illustrates the social context of religious meaning and experience. (p. 20)
Since this early USENET religion group was so diverse, there was really no unified set of beliefs and practices available to provide the foundation for the establishment any form of online religious community. Suffice it to say that there was considerable disagreement among the membership concerning everything from ethics and morals to representations of God, gods, or no gods.
Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier
Because the newsgroup was often filled with tension and aggression, there was a significant push among the members of net.religion to begin a separate section for Judaism, keeping the original USENET religion group open and non-denominational. It was initially the Jewish members who felt that they needed a separate newsgroup, based on their tradition, if they were to be able to develop an online environment where they could discuss issues related to their beliefs and practices. When arguing for the development of the separate Jewish group, they made clear that they not trying to develop an exclusive area; rather they were trying to develop an area where "criticism of Jews for being Jews would not be welcome."
Although there were active Jewish postings in the religion newsgroup, the people wanting to develop net.religion.jewish felt that "the plethora of other topics in net.religion creates a climate which is not conductive to discussion of practical Jewish religious matters" (Sherman, 1984). In many ways, by arguing for their own online environment, they were arguing for their own online identity. They wanted to develop a discussion area where it was safe to be Jewish—a place where Jews could talk about their tradition, their rules and regulations, and any other issues related to Judaism from a Jewish perspective. As a diaspora group, they viewed the Internet as a place where they could come together from across the globe, to discuss and identify with others from their tradition.
The desire to create the new group produced a heated debate within the USENET network, with arguments revolving around two main points. The first was technical, since a number of members were fundamentally opposed to the propagation of multiple newsgroups and concerned with the overexpansion of the USENET network. This also upset a number of members who were paying for their connection service, since many did not want to be charged to receive posts from groups they would not be participating in or reading. The second issue involved the religious belief itself: A number of active posters on net.religion did not support the view that Judaism needed its own separate forum, despite the Jewish members arguing clearly that they did.
In the end, 43 people voted in favor of the new group, and on February 27, 1984, permission was granted by the system administrators to begin net.religion.jewish. Although the new Jewish group contained some divisions among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform members, it developed into an environment where people established significant online relationships based on their common religious heritage.
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This Jewish environment became such a stable, active, and vibrant discussion area that other religious groups attempted to copy the format and establish their own USENET areas. However, due to the significant overexpansion of the network, it was increasingly difficult to establish a new online discussion group. A number of religions, including neo-paganism, Buddhism, and Wicca, attempted to do so, but they did not garner enough support to justify having their own groups. However, enough people were in favor of establishing a separate area for discussions related to Christianity, and this new group was created on November 20, 1984. Over a one-year period, between 1985 and 1986, 8,130 messages had been posted to net.religion, 2,970 messages had been posted to net.religion.jewish, and 1,830 messages had been posted to net.religion.christian.
Despite a number of religious groups being declined the opportunity to start their own USENET discussion areas, through some creative maneuvering and determination from a number of active USENET members (who identified themselves as South Asians attending university in the United States), on January 30, 1985 a group called net.nlang.India was established on USENET for discussions concerning all matters relating to Indian culture, including the Hindu religion. The premise for the creation of the original group was to discuss travel to and from India, provide a forum for students coming from India to the U.S., provide information about various Indian restaurants in various parts of the country, supply the latest news from India, and "anything else that is considered interesting to an audience that is potentially Indian" (net.nlang.india, January 30, 1985).
This group became extremely active, and one of its first posts addressed a religious concern. Within hours after starting the group, a non-Hindu in Baltimore asked if people at a local Hindu temple would be offended if he participated in the Puja (worship service). Shortly after posting the question he received a reply from India encouraging him to participate (net.nlang.india, January 30, 1985). In many ways, this posting set a tone that recognized that the new USENET group was an ideal environment for talking about the Hindu religion. Many posts that followed addressed religious issues, with an emphasis on Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the diaspora. Within the first week of its creation, net.nlang.India became one of the top 25 most active news groups on the USENET network, highlighting how important this network was to people from India living abroad.
By the mid 1980s, the USENET religion areas had become very active, with tens of thousands of postings each year. By 1990, after the USENET network had been restructured to allow for significantly more groups (an event sometimes called "The Great Renaming"), religious representation on the network surged. In all, almost three hundred active religious-based discussion groups attracted hundreds of thousands of messages before the Internet had become a popular communications tool.
During "The Great Renaming," a number of groups were moved or placed in new categories. Net.nlang.india became a culture group for discussion of any issues related to India. Although the group still attracted a number of posts concerning religion, they were not necessarily specifically based on Hinduism, but rather also involved people from India who were Christian, Buddhist, Jain, and atheists. In an attempt to establish an online area specifically to discuss Hinduism, expressly with the word Hindu or Hinduism in the title, the Hindu Student Council (http://hscnet.org/index.php) sponsored two discussion groups that were created and maintained by Ajay Shah, a young man who had come from India to the U.S. to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemistry. The purpose of these new groups (alt.hindu and soc.religion.hindu) was to allow for the creation of online communities and discussion networks based specifically on the Hindu religious tradition. This created a moderated environment specifically to "bring the Hindu community from around the world together on one platform" (Zaleski, 1997, p. 222).
These two newsgroups also became an environment where diaspora Hindu workers could discuss and read sacred scriptures, such as the Bhagavad Gita. Many people from India were (and are) working as diaspora labor in Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal to perform any form of Hindu worship or bring the Hindu sacred texts into the country. To bypass this obstacle, the moderators of these newsgroups began to post any religious text that was requested by participants of the group. In this way, people could read the scriptures on USENET and also talk about their religious beliefs without fear of being arrested and deported for their religious activity.
Networking with People, Connecting with Places
In these situations, the members of the Jewish and Hindu newsgroups shaped the technology to meet their specific religious needs. They wanted an environment where they could communicate with other people about their traditions without having to defend their religious beliefs and practices constantly from people who did not respect them. The Jewish and Hindu newsgroups are an example of the social shaping of technology (Mackenzie & Wajcman, 1985). Instead of letting technology limit the way they were using the USENET system, users developed the system to meet their own needs.
Heidi Campbell argues in her recent article, "Spiritualizing the Internet," that through certain discourses, the Internet can be viewed by members of a religious tradition as "a spiritual medium facilitating religious experience, a sacramental space suitable for religious use, a tool promoting religion or religious practice and a technology for affirming religious life" (Campbell, 2005, pp. 9-10). In these two cases, the Jewish and Hindu USENET groups became venues for specific diaspora traditions, and were developed into effective tools for promoting, discussing, and affirming the Jewish and Hindu ways of life. Members of these traditions who were geographically dispersed utilized the Internet medium so that they could come together and engage in discussions and debates about their faith, creating a sense of community and identity via computer-mediated communication.
With the development of the World Wide Web, religious representation on the Internet expanded even further. The Web was developed based on the principle of universal readership. The creator of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, reasoned that if people have mailboxes where they can access their email, why not also give them a website where they can leave public messages for anyone who visits to pick up (Jonscher, 1999). Due to the way the Web was structured, along with leaving text messages at a host computer, websites could also contain images, video clips, and even music. Hypertext protocols were then developed to allow websites to include links that took web surfers quickly to other websites. With the development of the Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers, the World Wide Web became easy to access and user friendly. Individuals and organizations went online and began to build websites at a rapid rate, and within a relatively short period of time, the electronic frontier of cyberspace began to be heavily populated and well traveled.
Due to the significant amount of religious activity occurring on the USENET network, it is not surprising that religious websites proliferated and flourished in the new environment of the Web. However, different types of religious organizations utilized this new technology in different ways. Many of the most impressive religiously-based websites, such as that of the Vatican (http://www.vatican.va/), harnessed the medium to communicate in much the same manner in which they had earlier used the radio, television, and even the printing press (Helland, 2000, 2004). The Vatican website, designed in 1995 by a group of Benedictine Monks from Northern New Mexico, has millions of internal web pages hosted on three super computers named Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel. It is a stunningly impressive site. Available in six languages, it contains a massive archive, information on doctrine and beliefs, the church's history, and just about everything one might want to know regarding the Catholic tradition. However, there are no interactive areas like chat rooms, no bulletin boards where one can post information and ask questions, and no way to communicate through the website. The site also lacked external links (Helland, 2002).
The Vatican and many other official religious websites began to use the Web for one-to-many communication. Much like preaching from a mountaintop to the world below, most religious organizations began by developing closed websites that communicated their message but did not allow for interaction (classified as religion-online, see Helland, 2000). In many ways they broke the two cardinal rules of the Internet. First, they rarely provided external links to other websites; and second, they did not allow for many-to-many communication or the open exchange of information (Zalanski, 1997).
On websites structured in this way, the Web traveler is given information about religion; this includes everything from doctrine and polity to information about practices and beliefs, ethics and morals, religious books and articles, as well as other paraphernalia related to religious pursuit. However, when people go online for religious and spiritual purposes, they often want to do more than just get information about religion. As the Pew Internet and American Life Project found in 2003, "higher percentages of the online faithful report online activities related to personal spirituality and religiosity than activities more related to involvement in traditional religious functions or organizations" (Hoover, Clark, & Rainie, 2004).
In cases where the Internet was being used to its full potential, in that it allowed for many-to-many, non-hierarchical communication and interaction among participants, a new form of computer-supported religious participation appeared to arise (classified as online-religion, see Helland, 2000). Individuals interacted with the religious belief systems presented on the Internet; they contributed their personal beliefs and received personal feedback. In this new use of the online environment, participants were not simply passive recipients of information; rather, they became actively involved in a dialectic process.
In the early stages of the Web, the most active and dynamic online religious environments were those that provide information about the religion, such as history, ethics, myths, etc., and also allowed people to come together from across the globe to discuss the religion being presented. These types of sites provided both religion-online and online-religion, creating a unique religious environment (Helland, 2005). A primary example of this activity can be seen at the website called "The Global Hindu Electronic Network" (http://www.hindunet.org). This website was started in November 1996 and provided massive amounts of information about Hinduism and other religions in India. The site also catered specifically to Hindus in the diaspora by providing information about temples in different countries and their locations, information about Indian food and lifestyle, news concerning human rights issues, and up-to-date news from India. Along with providing this information, the website hosted a vibrant discussion area where people could talk about their religious beliefs and practices.
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The Global Hindu Electronic Network site was not unique, in that many diaspora religious groups also developed websites providing information about their beliefs and practices along with discussion areas where people in diaspora could go online to talk with other members of their tradition. For example, very early in the development of the Web, a number of Tibetan Buddhist groups used the technology to create online areas where people could meet, discuss their tradition, their situation in diaspora, and also be kept informed about events in their homeland without being censured by the Chinese Government.
The Web thus provided several benefits to religious communities living in diaspora. First, it allowed them to present information about their religious beliefs, practices, and ethics to the communities in which they were located and also to the world at large. For a religious movement in a minority position, this represented a unique opportunity to present their religion to the public. Although in the past this had been done through a number of different media, the Web was an inexpensive and effective way to communicate religious information on a scale that could not have previously been imagined. Another benefit of the early Web was that it easily allowed people to come together from across the globe to network based on their diaspora religious tradition. This resulted in the creation of a number of "cybernetic safe places" that could be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection (Mitra, 2007). The USENET system certainly provided this opportunity; however, it was made more accessible on the Web.
However, if individuals within a religious community wanted to go online to engage in activities related to personal spirituality and religious practice, there were limitations. In particular, the environment was (and remains) biased toward textual representations of religious beliefs. While many religious traditions are focused on Scripture, others also assign a central role to devotion and ritual. To overcome this limitation, new technologies were again shaped by particular religious groups to meet specific religious needs.
Diaspora communities, in particular, tend to place an emphasis on maintaining close ties with a homeland and often a place of religion origins (Berns McGowan, 1999; Vertovec, 2000, 2003). While many definitions of diaspora exist, a key characteristic is the relationship between globally dispersed yet collectively self-identified ethnic groups and their countries of origin and settlement (Vertovec, 1999). As the Jewish and Hindu newsgroups demonstrated, the Internet can provide diaspora communities with an environment where they can develop relationships and connect with each other despite being located in different nations (Cohen, 1997; Ignacio, 2005; Mallapragada, 2006; Wilbur, 1997). However, the Web was developed as a tool that would potentially connect anything to anything, providing the ability to develop networks on a scale that had never before been imagined. Within many diaspora religious traditions, people began to use the technology not only to stay in touch with each other but also to get in touch with their homeland or perceived place of origins. In effect, the Web became a medium that allowed for new relationships to develop between people and places.
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An early example of this form of activity occurred in 1998, when the Web was still relatively new. At that time, 20,000 people were going online daily from outside India to witness Durga Puja in Calcutta (Bannerjee, 1998). In advertising for the event, the company that provided the online service stated, "no matter what part of the world a Bengali might be in, a strong tug at the heart strings around Durga Puja time is inevitable." In 1999, Hinduism Today stated:
Come September, every expatriate Bengali falls homesick, longing to make the rounds of the puja mandals, the giant temporary temples erected in Calcutta's streets and byways for the five-day celebration of Durga Puja. It's not quite like being there, but www.westbengal.com/puja/puya98/ is close. This elegant web site takes you on a visual journey through the days of hectic preparation, the markets overflowing with eager shoppers, the busy designers, the lights, the glitter, even the sound of drums. (Hinduism Today, April 1999)
Online broadcasting of religious festivals became so popular that in January 2001, the Kumbha Mela festival was broadcast online on an even larger scale, not especially for people in India but rather for people in the UK and North America (Beckerlegge, 2001). The live broadcasting of the event was sponsored by the Himalayan Institute (a Hindu ashram and religious center located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania) and used to promote their own religious website.
By the late 1990s this type of activity, sometimes referred to as virtual pilgrimage, began to become quite popular and could be undertaken to a number of destinations. People could travel through cyberspace, becoming virtual tourists at some of the most sacred events occurring on the planet. Virtual pilgrimages were even developed to provide people with an opportunity to see a sacred place that they could never visit in real life. For instance, a non-Muslim can travel through virtual reality to experience the Hajj, people can walk deep inside the Vatican to view a sacred chapel, and through virtual reality it is possible to travel to sacred sites that no longer exist, such as the Second Temple at Jerusalem, or that exist only in mythical narratives.
Viewing a festival online certainly has its advantages; one saves on airfare and there are no crowds to compete with for hotel rooms. However, it also has its limitations, and there is a disconnect that occurs between an individual and the event when it is being watched through the screen of a computer. Mark McWilliams (2004) examined this new form of religious activity in his study of virtual pilgrimages. By focusing on the example of the virtual pilgrimage at the "Reek" of Croagh Patrick, McWilliams argues that through a panoply of images, which include photographs, video-clips, and in some case real-time streaming video, and also through recordings and messages, people can have a unique experience that connects them to the sacred site.
At the same time, despite the significant appeal and popularity of online pilgrimages, McWilliams recognizes that they differ from traditional pilgrimages in a number of respects:
[V]irtual pilgrimage is not the same as 'the real thing.' First, it is almost instantaneous—travel to the site is a click of the button away. Second, it takes place figuratively, not literally. The arduous journey to the distant place, the ascetic practices that are so important in penitential pilgrimages, do not exist virtually. (2004, p. 234)
In many ways, this form of online activity lacks a tangible connection between the avatar, or the virtual traveler, and the real-world site. People could certainly watch the event, and experience it through the computer, but they are disembodied. Online pilgrimage is typically a solitary practice, undertaken alone, and witnessed by no one but the online participant. People at the site are not aware of the virtual presence of the online pilgrims. They are invisible to the community that has gathered at the sacred site to conduct the pilgrimage, and because of this invisibility, they are not part of the activities that occur.
In a traditional pilgrimage, often something is left behind and something is taken away. In the case of the "Reek" of Croagh Patrick, one would leave behind one's blood (and sins) as one climbed the mountain barefoot, and one would take away a clean slate and a new start on life. Often, a pilgrimage involves some form of personal sacrifice. Pilgrimage is a complex ritual process; it may be a rite of passage, it could be a social rite of intensification or a revitalization ritual, or it may be a therapy ritual undertaken for healing. In the spiritual world of give and take, nothing is free. The sacrifice could be the costs and time incurred in undertaking the trip (to be a pilgrim literally means to be "far a field"), or it could be something as small as lighting a candle and making a donation to the organization that maintains the pilgrimage site. At the end of the pilgrimage, the traveler also usually takes a memento; they collect a sign to show that they completed the journey. This could be a pilgrimage badge or an ampulla, a certificate detailing the activity or a trinket from the gift shop. It could be dirt from a sacred site or water from a sacred spring or sacred river. Pilgrims do not leave empty handed; they leave with a symbol that connects them with the sacred site.
Although it would at first appear that this limitation could not be overcome through the use of the Internet and virtual reality experiences, the social shaping of technology, or as Heidi Campbell calls it, "the spiritualizing of the Internet" (2005), should not be underestimated. People in different religious traditions have begun to develop the medium so that a stronger connection can occur between the virtual traveler and the sacred place. An example of this is the virtual tour offered at the Lourdes official website. A person can log on and experience all the aspects of a virtual reality pilgrimage, including images, recordings, 3D representations, and real time 24/7 live video feed from thirteen webcams. The virtual pilgrim can also connect with the real place by submitting a prayer petition that will be placed within the grotto and read during a special service (http://www.lourdes-france.org/multimedia/images/intentions.jpg). By doing this, the pilgrim has traveled through the Internet to undertake a significant religious activity. They have connected with the site and left tangible proof of their visit. In the case of Lourdes, they will also receive an email response certifying that the event took place. The participant is not just watching a computer screen to view the activity; they are manipulating the actual environment by leaving tangible proof of their connection.
In a similar manner, within the Jewish tradition, people can log on to websites such as http://www.aish.com/wallcam/Place_a_Note_in_the_Wall.asp and have their prayer placed in the Western Wall of the Second Temple. Along with a live video feed that can be set as one's desktop screen saver, http://www.aish.com/wallcam/default.asp, people can use the Internet and Web to connect with the sacred sight in a manner that was not available in the past. From any Internet connection, anywhere on the planet, individuals can now have a close connection with sacred sites that may be thousands of miles from their real world location.
Real Temples, Virtual Connections
Within a number of diaspora traditions, the Internet and Web are being used by people not just to travel in virtual reality to sacred sites, but also to connect tangibly with their sacred homeland. One group for whom this activity is becoming particularly significant is Hindus. Several years before Lourdes developed its website to allow for a more complex and connected form of online pilgrimage, the website http://saranam.com was created to "do whatever it takes to help Hindus around the world meet their own needs in the realm of religion, spirituality, morality and the Hindu value system" (emphasis added). This included allowing for "puja to be performed in your favorite Indian temple."
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One of the primary ways in which this is accomplished is by enabling people to connect, through the Internet, with hundreds of the most sacred temples in India. This provides people with the opportunity to request specific rituals, which are then conducted especially for the virtual traveler. Although saranam.com offers a number of other services and items, including gifts, music, and books, their primary goal is to allow Hindus to have access to temples within India from any place on Earth. This site has become extremely popular, and thousands of people use the service on a regular basis.
To help with this service, Saranam.com also provides scholars who answer ritual and religious questions and also a "Puja wizard" program, which helps determine the proper ritual and sacrifice for a particular situation or event. Due to the overwhelming numbers of people using the site, Saranam.com now has enough "customers" that it can request very sacred and specific rituals to be conducted specifically for its clients. A new feature called "exclusive temple events" also provides Saranam.com clients with the opportunity to partake in rituals that they would have been excluded from in the past, unless they could have traveled to particular temples in India on rare and auspicious days. In many ways, the temples are now catering to the religious and spiritual needs of Hindus in the diaspora through their online activity.
One concern of Saranam.com is to ensure that people receive the rituals they are paying for and that they get an authentic ritual event, even though they are only present at the temple as an avatar. Addressing this issue, the website states:
You can be assured of the authenticity of the offering and the puja. Customer satisfaction is paramount at Saranam.com. If for any reason you feel you are not satisfied with the puja offerings that you received, Saranam.com will refund the entire amount you spent – no questions asked. (http://www.saranam.com/company/authenticity.htm)
To confirm that the ritual has been conducted, the puja receipt given from the temple is mailed to the customer. In the case of certain rituals such as homams, it is easier to verify because Saranam.com is allowed to videograph the ritual and the video CD is sent along with the offerings. Although this is done by the company to insure authenticity, it also provides a tangible connection between the online participant and the sacred temple and ritual activity.
Through this service, Web surfers can connect through the Internet to almost any temple in India. They can chose a specific ritual and have it conducted specifically for them. It is a unique online experience, because after the ritual has taken place, the prasad (vibuthi, kumkum, chandan, or turmeric), flowers used in the ritual, puja certificate, or sacred ash, or even a video recording of the event is sent to the customer. For an extra fee, the material can be shipped special delivery and be received within days. Thus the Internet acts as a powerful tool to connect individuals with the sacred temple and also with the ritual. Although they are not there in person, their Web presence is felt, and they are conducting an authentic religious activity and receiving the benefits of that activity. Thousands of people would not use this service on a regular basis if they did not feel that it was genuinely meeting their religious or spiritual needs.
In the Hindu diaspora, the temple itself becomes a manifestation and a representation of the sacred homeland (Waghorne, 2004). The Hindu temple within the community goes to great lengths to insure its authenticity and to present that authentic religious environment to practitioners. The Hindu temple in diaspora is a unique space that is often made with material brought from India; in some cases the entire building may be taken from India and shipped to a location in North America or Europe. The statues of the deities are from India, the priests are from India, and because of this, the environment becomes a manifestation of the sacredness of the homeland within the diaspora. Even if someone has never been to India, the temple brings India to them.
One concern is that when people use the Internet to connect with some of the most sacred temples in India, they may decide to have the rituals conducted for them there rather than in diaspora. By having a puja wizard and scholars available to answer questions, sites such as http://www.saranam.com are intruding upon the activities normally conducted by the temple in the diaspora community. At this point it is too early to determine if temple participation in the diaspora is decreasing due to online ritual activities. Hinduism has a rich tradition of home-based worship, and the home computer may be turning into a new form of home altar. Mahesh Mohan, the co-founder of http://www.saranam.com, stated in an interview that "many people who order with us want to know when exactly a homam or a puja is being performed so that they can pray or meditate at the same time wherever they are." If this is the case, then this type of online religious activity may develop into a significant supplement to Hindu religious life in the diaspora as a form of virtual worship. As long as the person has a computer with an Internet connection, they can undertake an authentic and significant religious activity.
Another powerful way in which people in the Hindu diaspora are using the Internet to connect with their homeland is through diaspora religious philanthropy. Members of diaspora communities are now using the Internet to create awareness, inform diaspora members of the needs in their homeland, raise money, distribute funds and supplies, organize volunteer labor, assess the effectiveness of their philanthropic ventures, and communicate the results of their efforts to other members of the diaspora. This activity has been engaged in by both individuals and organizations to support a number of philanthropic ventures such as rebuilding temples and sacred sites, providing medical and educational assistance, supporting ashrams and rural communities, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, income generation, and women's empowerment.
Historically, much of the philanthropic activity in the diaspora was controlled by the authorities of the local temple and utilized for projects in the diaspora community. In some cases, these authorities used the money to support politically affiliated religious organizations in India. For the most part, people would donate to the temple and the temple authorities would decide how to use the money. However, the Web has provided the opportunity for alternative forms of philanthropy to occur (Anand, 2004; Sidel, 2005), and this appears to be having noticeable implications in a number of situations.
Although these philanthropic activities had all been carried out in the past, the Internet is being used as a powerful tool that allows people to connect with the activities in a way that was not possible before. Participation can be hands-on, despite participants being thousands of miles from the site where the activity is taking place. In this situation, the Internet is acting as a tool that shrinks space and creates a sense of intimacy and connectedness with the country of origin. People can feel active in the environment through their online diaspora philanthropy.
Online philanthropic activity is also playing a significant role in disaster relief. For example, shortly after the Asian tsunami of December 2004, a number of diaspora religious groups and organizations in Canada utilized the Internet to raise money for disaster relief, to distribute funds and materials to devastated areas, and to coordinate volunteer efforts on the ground to aid survivors. In the case of diaspora Hindu groups, a number of temples and organizations in North America were able to use the Internet to bypass the bureaucracy of the government of India to provide direct and timely disaster relief to the victims. By utilizing Internet networks for philanthropy, diaspora groups are able to function as transnational institutions with the ability to circumvent many national barriers that traditionally may have prevented them from becoming active in their homeland (Guarnizo, 2003). This activity is also representative of the complexity of the transnationalism issue (Waldinger & Fitzgerald, 2004), since much of the diaspora philanthropy taking place was based on conflicting principles (both religious and secular) and not situated around one vision of Hinduism.
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As stated earlier, one of the limitations of early virtual pilgrimages was that they were instantaneous; they were only a click of a mouse button away. However, in the case of diaspora philanthropy, immediacy may be one reason for its success. It can become a crisis ritual—when the individual feels a deep desire or urge to become involved with an activity, they can do so instantly. The Internet provides an immediate and intimate connection with the religious relief effort.
With the development of the Internet and the Web, members of diaspora religions have adopted the medium to stay in touch each other and also with people in their homelands. This form of mediated communication has developed network ties and strengthened community relationships, despite the fact that the people involved are geographically dispersed across the planet. With new developments in Internet technology, these same people are also increasingly utilizing the online medium to stay in touch with the homeland itself. Individuals are using the Web to take virtual tours of sacred temples, undergo virtual pilgrimages, and even have rituals conducted in real time in their most sacred temples and places. To accommodate this new activity, temples are being wired with high-speed Internet connectivity and people are being employed to develop and maintain the new networks. This new form of religious activity is having significant impact on members of the diaspora and also on the sacred areas that are being wired.
This article has argued that this form of online activity creates a sense of immediacy, which shrinks distances and allows for a level of interactivity and accessibility that has not been available in the past. This is a new dimension to the growing and developing context of religion on the Internet, one that is having significant impact on real-world religious activity. In the rapidly developing world of computer-mediated communication, however, the full implications of this activity have yet to be determined.
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is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Religion at Dalhousie University in Canada. His doctoral research examined and classified online religious participation, establishing a distinction between "online religion" and "religion online." He has continued to research the manner in which people use the Internet and World Wide Web to "do" religion and has several publications on this phenomenon along with publications on other topics related to sociological study of religion.
Address: Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS Canada, B3H 4P9