Religious Experience and Ritualisation
Abstract
In Christian theology, the word ‘conversion’ refers to a religious experience that causes a life-changing transformation. This understanding, applied by Evangelical Christians for several centuries, fits within the Pauline paradigm associated with Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus (Rambo, 2003:213). However, Hindu traditions understand conversion differently, for they think it is often the ritual practice that affects people. In the same vein, my work demonstrates the transformative power of ritualisation on individuals, a power very different from Paul’s sudden conversion experience. In this article, I seek to examine the relationship between ritualisation and conversion and will propose an analytical framework that may be useful for identifying the powers of ritualisation that influence an individual’s entry into groups that are rooted in everyday rituals. To analyse the observations emerging from my fieldwork in European centres of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) from 2011 to 2013, I mainly draw upon C. Bell’s theory of ritualisation and P. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus.
References
Beck, G. L. 1995. Sonic theology: Hinduism and sacred sound. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications.
Bell, C. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Berger, P. L. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Doubleday.
Bhaktivedanta, A. C. Swami. 2012. The Complete Teachings.
[CD-ROM]. Sandy Ridge, NC: The Bhaktivedanta Archives.
a. The Bhagavad-gita As It Is; b. Lectures; c. Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita; d. Bhagavata Purana; ; e. Sri Isopanisad; r. Audio Transcripts, 1966-1977.
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Broo, M. 2003. As Good as God. The Guru in Gaudiya Vaisnavism. Abo: Abo Akademi University.
Cole, R. J. 2007. Forty Years of Chanting. In: G. Dwyer and R. J. Cole, eds. 2007. The Hare Krishna Movement. Forty Years of Chanting and Change. London: I. B. Taurus & Co. Ltd, pp.26-53.
Flood, G. 1996. An introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Fuller, C. J. 1992. The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in India.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Goswami, S. D. 1980. A Lifetime in Preparation. Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita, Volume 1, India 1896-1965.Los Angeles: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.
Goswami, T. K. 2012. A Living Theology of Krishna Bhakti. Essential Teachings of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. G. M. Schweig, ed. 2012. New York, Oxford University Press Inc.
Kertzer, D. I. 1988. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lipner, J. 1994. HINDUS Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London: Routledge.
Olivelle, P. 2003. The Renouncer Tradition. In: G. D. Flood, ed., 2003. The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp.271-287.
Rambo, L. R. 2003. Anthropology and the Study of Conversion. In: A. Buckser and S. D. Glazier, eds. 2003. The Anthropology of Conversion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., pp.211-222.
Reader, I. 2005. Cleaning Floors and Sweeping the Mind: Cleaning as a Ritual Process. In: G. Harvey, ed. 2005. Ritual and Religious Belief, A Reader. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd, pp.87-104.
Richardson, J. T. and Stewart, M., 1978. Conversion Process Models and the Jesus Movement. In: J. T. Richardson, ed. 1978. Conversion Careers: In and Out the New Religions. Beverly Hills: Sage, pp.24-42.
Robinson, R. and Clarke, S. 2003. The Many Meanings of Religious Conversion on the Indian Subcontinent. In: R. Robinson and S. Clarke, eds., 2003. Religious Conversion in India. Modes, Motivations, and Meanings. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.1-17.
Rochford, E. B. 1985. Hare Krishna in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Shinn L. D. 1989. The Search for Meaning in Conversion to ISKCON. In: D. G. Bromley and L. D. Shinn, eds. 1989. Krishna Consciousness in the West. London: Lewisburg Bucknell University Presses, pp.117-134.
Smith, J. Z. 2005. To Take Place. In: G. Harvey, ed. 2005. Ritual and Religious Belief, A Reader. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd, pp.26-50.
Tambiah, S. J. 1968. The Magical Power of Words. Man, n.s. 3, no. 2, pp.175-208.
Thompson, J. B., 1984. Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Valeri, V. 1985. Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Van Gennep, A. 1960. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.
The Journal for the Study of Religious Experience is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal. All journal content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors and the Journal for the Study of Religious Experience. Authors would need to request the reuse of the article in case they want to publish it elsewhere and they should acknowledge the initial publication in JSRE.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) a link to the Journal’s website where the article may be downloaded for free.
Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables, etc. which are supplied from an outside source.
