Spirituality and Religion Quiz

Altered States of Consciousness

• Brainwave states:

  • Beta: Waking, consciousness
  • Alpha: Daydreaming, light trance
  • Theta: REM dreaming, deep trance
  • Delta: Deep sleep, unconscious
  • REMINDER: BAT-D!

• Types of altered states of consciousness (ASC):

  • Hypnagogic: State between sleep and wake
  • Hallucinogenic: Psychedelic states induced by drugs -REMINDER: “Hallucinate”
  • Spirit possession: Instills feelings of disassociation
  • Hypnotic trance: Hypnosis/trance/mesmerism
  • REM dreaming: Lucid dreaming can occur

• Brain structures:

  • Left hemisphere: Logical, analytic; linear thinking; sequential time experience
    • Controls the right side of the body
  • Right hemisphere: Intuitive, emotional; holistic thinking; spatial time experience
    • Controls the left side of the body; Is connected to ASC!

Other Information

• Pineal gland: Front of the brain, releases melatonin, "the 3rd eye"
• Reticular Formation: Top of the spine, governs sleep and waking, "seat of consciousness"
• Temporal lobes: Above the ears; stimulating causes visions and feelings of sensed presence/ASC
• Hypnosis: The state of putting someone in a trance; originally called mesmerism after Franz Anton Mesmer (later proven a fraud)
• The God Helmet: Brain stimulation evoking religious experiences using magnetic fields to stimulate temporal lobes.
• Doors of Perception: Book by Aldous Huxley about experiments with mescaline.

Enheogens

• Entheogen: Plants ritually consumed for religious purposes; believed to contain divine life force or energy.
  • Ayahuasca: 2 plants; Used by Amazonian shamans in Santo Daime (Brazil)
  • Peyote: A cactus containing mescaline; Used by Native American churches
  • Ergot: Brain fungus; Consumed in a ritual in Eleusis. Believed to cause visions when eaten infected.
  • Fly agaric: Mushroom; Used by the Tungus Shamans of Siberia, Wasson's “Soma of the Aryans,” and Viking berserkers
  • Cannabis: Hemp/hashish; Used by the medieval Assassins (hashisheen) and OG Rastafari

Syncretism

• Syncretism: A hybrid religion that combines two earlier religions, often of an indigenous group and a colonizing faith (e.g., African x Christian).
• Syncretic religions greatly influenced by Western European spiritualism
• Spiritualism: Began with the Fox sisters' table-rappings in 1848.
  • Believe in progressive afterlife and contact with spirits through mediums
  • Believe in reincarnation and several levels of spiritual existence

Spirit Possession

• Widespread practices: Ouija boards, automatic writing, and table séances
• Theories of spirit possession:
  • Emic theory: Possession involves actual spirit beings
  • Theatric theory: Possession is a performance art
  • Dissociation theory: A temporary displacement of ego
  • Rhythmic drumming and singing can lead to trance states—possessed people may report memory loss or changes in appearance and potential

Afro-Christian Religions

• Vodun: French slaves in Haiti
  • Practitioners: Hougans and mambos
  • Shrines: The peristyle
  • Mediators: Lwa, Legba
  • Controversies: Are zombies real?
• Santeria: Cuban slaves
  • Practitioners: Santeros, Babalaos
  • Shrines: Altars in homes or botanicas
  • Mediators: Orisha, Chango, and Yemaya
  • Controversies: Animal sacrifices
• Candomble: Brazilian slaves
  • Practitioners: Umbandistas
  • Shrines: Altars in homes
  • Mediators: Ogoun (St. Peter), Oloddua (St. Anthony)
  • Controversies: "Surgeon of the Rusty Knife"

Ras Tafari

• Founder: Marcus Garvey in 1930s Jamaica
• Sacred text: The Holy Piny
• Prophecy: “A king will be crowned in the East and then your house of redemption is at hand.”

Revitalization Movements

• Revitalization movement: A deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture that is usually found in cultures suffering from European colonization. These movements aim to expel new influences and restore authentic cultural traditions—it can be either secular or religious.
• Characteristics of revitalization movements:
  • Nativist and nationalist
  • Millenarian and apocalyptic
  • Messianic
  • Prophetic
  • Syncretistic
  • Reactionary or traditionalist
  • Anti-colonial
  • Non-progressive; focused on the past
• Examples of revitalization movements:
  • Ghost dance: Jack Wilson and Paiute Indians (19th-century Plain Indians), rituals included dancing, chanting, and wearing ghost shirts. Beliefs included reviving buffalo herds and ancestors.
  • Cargo cults: Post-WWII Pacific Melanesians, used statues to compel cargo. Beliefs were attacking colonial powers for holding back cargo.

Serpent Handlers

• Practitioners in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Oklahoma (the “Bible Belt Buckle” states)
• Rituals: Handling poisonous snakes and drinking strychnine
• Beliefs: “By faith, you will be saved” (Fundamentalist Protestant); The Garden of Eden and the snake

Zapatista Revolt

• An uprising that occurred in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994. Called a secular Mayan revitalization movement. Some say it might have been rooted in earlier movements such as The Caste War or The War of The Talking Crosses.

Christianity

• During Christ’s time, Judean institutions were distributed and crumbling, so they wanted to “purify the land” by driving out Hellenism and Roman occupation.
• Zealots of Masada: Confrontation! Guerilla warfare!
• Essenes: Withdraw from the corrupt! Rebuild ourselves!
• REMINDER—Two C's (Caste War + Talking Crosses)

Shamanism

• Shaman: Master of the spirits (from Tungus [Saaman])
• Roles:
  • Diviner: Finder of lost souls
  • Healer: Sucks evil "spirit darts"
  • Judge: Sorts out village disputes
  • Prophet: Visionary of the future
  • Medium: Communicated between material and spirit worlds
• Eliade: Master of the archaic techniques of ecstasy. Shamanism began 100,000 years ago in Siberia, experimenting with fly agaric

Witchcraft

• Evil eye: A certain gaze/power (mainly possessed by witches) that can cause misfortune, curses, or hexes.
• Mobility hypothesis: Accumulation of private property + inheritance = women viewed as interfering + intensifying witchcraft accusations
• Malleus Maleficarum: Book published causing death to millions of women; it warned that witches had intercourse with the devil

Other

• Sun dance: A ritual by Native Americans around the summer solstice. Entails a 4-day dance and entering a trance state.
• Devil's Tower: A small mountain in Wyoming where Native Americans held rituals.
• Salem Witch hunts: Tituba, a black slave, taught local girls “root charms”, leading to witch hysteria in Massachusetts in the 1690s.
• Wicca: Founded by Gerald Gardner; Beliefs include ecology, feminism, and a god/goddess duo. Practices include belonging to covens or groves, or being a solo practitioner.
• Misunderstandings about Wicca: Horned god = antler-horned “Master of the Hunt,” Pentagram = symbol of the five elements, Threefold Law and Wiccan Rede = no harmful magic against others.
• Rituals: A fixed sequence of actions (culturally & cyclically determined) that serve a purpose, like obtaining specific ends (also called praxis); Separates sacred time from secular time; Includes life cycle, calendrical, and funerary rituals

Rituals - Collective and Social; Mysticism - Individual and Introspective

• Types of Rituals:
  • Temporal: Orienting of time (e.g., time, calendars)
  • Spatial: Orienting of space
  • Body: Physical transformation
  • Fertility (both crops and people)
  • Divination: Foretelling the future
  • Healing: Curing sickness
  • Taboos: Negative prohibitions
  • Body alteration: Elongation, distortion
  • Body painting: Tattooing
  • Body marking: Branding, scarification
  • Incision: Circumcision (both male and female)
  • Clothing: Using costumes or headwear
  • Fasting or Flesh mortification
  • Sadomasochism: Boundaries of pleasure/pain

Liminality and Solstices & Equinoxes

• Liminality (Van Gennep): The state of “social in-betweenness” that rituals help address and resolve (examples: quinceañera, marriage, funeral).
• Solstices & equinoxes: They establish the 4 seasons based on astrological events, marked by rituals worldwide, e.g., Summer solstice: Longest day of the year.; Winter Solstice: Shortest day of the year; Fall & Spring equinoxes

Mayan Calendar

• Mayan 2 Calendars:
  • Halve: Similar to our 365-day one
  • Solcan: Sacred calendar, 265 days long
• Realigns every 52 years

Pilgrimages

• Pilgrimage: Travelling to a sacred spot for purposes of devotion
• Omphalos: A sacred stone in a region; represents the axis or center point of the world
• Pilgrimage Sites:
  • Santiago de Compostela (Spain), importance: a site where St. James’ bones were found
  • Al Aqsa (Israel); Importance: A 3rd holiest place in Jerusalem (believed to have stood on the original temple mount)
  • Glastonbury (England), Beliefs: Jesus visited, King Arthur buried there, Glastonbury Thorn, Chalice Well (site of the Holy Grail)

Totem and Taboo

• Totem: Ancestor, person, or tribe; Meaning ancestor. Most were clan animal symbols believed to be the legendary ancestor of the clan
• Manitou: A personal totem or guardian spirit, found through vision quests
• Totemism: A clan animal believed to be the legendary ancestor of the clan. Example: Killing or eating this animal is forbidden
• Taboo: A forbidden thing
  • Prohibitions on action (food, clothing, objects, etc.)
  • Prohibitions in association (marriage, intercourse, friendship, etc.)
• Hinduism: You can’t switch castes. Dalits have lowest societal standing. Caste structure guides lifestyle.

Religion and the State

• Theocracy: Religion = Law
  • Islamic Rep. of Islam, Ancient Israel, Egyptian pharaoh, Japanese emperor, Medieval Europe.
• Divine Kingship: Religious officials control a “divine” or “demigod” king.
• Dual state: Religion and state = “separate but equal”
  • Medieval Europe, U.S.
• Secular state: Religion and state = separate
• Atheist state: Religion = forbidden
  • China, Old Soviet Union

Religion vs. The State (continued)

• Fundamentalism: Religious writings are legitimate and inerrant. Mistakes aren't possible.
• Modernism: Religious texts need not be interpreted literally because ideas change over time.
• 1st Amendment Clauses
  • Establishment Clause: No state-sponsored church
  • Free Exercise Clause: Freedom to practice any religion

Techgnosis

• Techgnosis: The seeking of knowledge (gnosis) through technology
• Techgnostic Religions:
  • Extropians: Believe there is a force (extropy) opposed to entropy (self-organization) known as technology. Technology will reverse entropy and advance infinitely to help us evolve. They're transhumanist (i.e., transcend humanity) because they believe in tech innovations making us more than human or godlike.
  • Raelians: UFO-based religion; Rael claimed he met aliens. They believe human cloning will lead to immortality. REMINDER: R-aliens
  • Church of Scientology: Founded by L. Ron Hubbard. It's techgnostic because they monitor spiritual progress through an e-meter.

Miscellaneous

• Christian Nationalism: Belief that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, therefore our laws should be based upon the bible
• Manifest Destiny: The belief that God chose the United States for a purpose.
• Singularity (Ray Kurzweil): The idea that AI will become sentient and change human societies until they become unrecognizable
• Dalai Lama: The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists
• Clash of Civilizations (Samuel Huntington): Talks about the clash between civilizations including Islam and Western civilizations after 9/11

Test your knowledge on various spirituality and religion topics, including psychedelic substances, beliefs of Spiritualist churches, and Afro-Christian practices. This quiz explores the intricate relationship between culture and religion through questions about syncretic religions and revitalization movements.