Considering spiritual dimensions within computer-mediated Heidi Campbell

Considering spiritual dimensions within computer-mediated communication studies

HEIDI CAMPBELL - University of Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

This article explores how the internet is being studied and conceived of as a sacramental space. The internet as sacramental space demonstrates how religious users see the internet as a viable place for presenting their beliefs and practices. In order to understand this model, several other dominant conceptions of the internet are offered: information space, a common mental geography, an identity workshop and a social space. Each of these accents a speciﬁc use of the internet. The internet as sacramental space is further investigated by considering several typologies of online spiritual communities emerging from a recent online community study. Each typology highlights how the internet as sacramental space encompasses traits of the previously stated models and illustrates how the internet is used as a spiritual tool, religious identity, a space for personal spiritual pursuits and a social spiritual support sphere. A survey of current CMC research on religion is also presented.

Key words

CMC • internet • online community • online religion • sacramental • spirituality

INTRODUCTION: DESCRIBING THE INTERNET

What is the internet? How a person sees the internet greatly depends on how they use it. As the ‘network of networks’, the internet encompasses a multitude of technologies allowing for numerous forms of use and practice, each embedded with its own ideology and motivation for use. The internet has provided new ways to think about relationships, the individual and one’s sense of home. Living online is more than having a web page or an email address; being homed in cyberspace carries with it a set of assumptions about the world (Star, 1995). Identifying the internet as having its own unique culture forces the question: what kinds of home are being created online? As more individuals become part of internet culture it is important to consider how their beliefs and practices shape the online environment.

Emergent patterns of life online range from utilitarian information-based pursuits to those motivated by social networking and, interestingly, even religious purposes. In the 1990s many Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) studies emphasized the social side of computing culture. Yet it was not only connecting with people that fuelled the social side of the internet. In the mid-1990s research began to recognize how the internet was being utilized for spiritual activities.

The purpose of this article is to explore how the internet is being studied and conceived of as a spiritual or sacramental space. The spiritual, or spirituality, refers to the human search for ‘meaning signiﬁcance’ (Jones et al., 1986: 50). Contained within the discourse of spirituality is the idea of the sacred, creating a ‘holy space’ that is set apart for religious use. Describing the internet as ‘sacramental space’ presents the internet as a sacred space, set apart as a sphere where religious practitioners can search for meaning and present their beliefs. As sacramental space the internet is recognized as a place where the spiritual can be experienced.

This article investigates how this conception has emerged and been studied in CMC research in the past decade. In order to understand how the internet is being understood as ‘sacramental space’, ﬁrst it is important to put it into context with other uses and conceptions of the internet. Four dominant conceptual models of the internet are presented. Each highlights a speciﬁc trait and use of the internet. Characteristics of each of these models are also evident in the spectrum of ways the internet is utilized as sacramental space. Before this connection is outlined, the internet as sacramental space model is further explored by surveying current trends within CMC research on religion.

This then provides a platform to unpack and illustrate speciﬁc sacramental uses of the internet, by identifying different shapes of online spiritual community. Here, four typologies of online spiritual community are linked to the previously highlighted conceptual models. Each typology illustrates the ways people have imported their spiritual practices online and the Campbell: Considering spiritual dimensions

narratives these communities use to give meaning and cohesion to their membership. These examples are drawn from a recent ethnographic study of online Christian communities, which attempts to identify a range of narratives under which online spiritual communities form and function.

They are referred to as spiritual rather than religious communities, as religion is typically linked to a traditional organization or institutional structures. By using the term online spiritual communities and focusing broadly on motivations for spiritual use of the internet, it is hoped these characterizations can be applied more widely to new religious movements and organic forms of spirituality emerging from the internet, as well as traditional religions.

CONCEPTUAL MODELS OF THE INTERNET

The internet as sacramental space is one of many attempts to deﬁne particular ways individuals operate or live online. Markham (1998) presented one of the ﬁrst set of descriptions related to the ways people visualize cyberspace. She suggested individual’s experience of the internet within a continuum of options, such as a tool, a place or a state of mind. In the same year Agre (1998) in ‘The Internet and Public Discourse’ described the internet as a communications medium, a computer system, a discourse and a set of standards.

Both sets of descriptions provide a helpful starting place to deﬁne the different conceptions of the internet, yet both are limited. Markham’s continuum is quite broad and not clearly deﬁned. Agre’s models focus on legal and political concerns and exclude looking at the internet as a social phenomenon. It is recognized that any attempt at naming speciﬁc models can be problematic, as it will ultimately privilege some conceptions and exclude other possibilities. Yet in order to deﬁne the internet as a sacramental space it is necessary to offer a range of dominant models from which to start such a discussion.

By drawing on the ideas of Markham and Agre, with reﬂection based on a recently completed study of online communities, four models are presented that seek to highlight particular uses of the online context. Here the internet is identiﬁed as information space, a common mental geography, an identity workshop and a social space. These models serve as tools to describe how people use the internet and function in cyberspace. This spectrum shows users can see the internet as being utilitarian,

conceptual, experimental, or social. Characteristics from these then ﬂow into a ﬁfth model, seeing the internet as sacramental space, where the primary motivation for internet use is spiritual, pursuing existential meaning and signiﬁcance. Using the internet as a sacramental space encompasses aspects of these other models, involving the social, creating common space, constructing identity and pursuing information. These connections are New Media & Society 7(1)

introduced here and expounded upon in a later section of the article, relating to traits of speciﬁc forms of online spiritual community.

The internet as information space

The internet as information space is a model highlighting internet communication and information exchange. Focus is on the internet’s ability to allow individuals to utilize a variety of technologies to interact with data. This relates to Agre’s description of the ‘internet as a communications medium’, serving as a communication technology or a ‘meta-medium’ facilitating interaction. He argues this is the dominant conception of the internet (Agre, 1998). The internet exists as a tool for the utilitarian purpose of transferring messages and data.

Compared to other modern communication media (newspapers, television, etc.) the internet is unique in that it allows users to simultaneously be ‘a publisher as well as a consumer of information’ (Rheingold, 1993: 97). With minimal resources individuals can publish their own website or start an email list on their preferred topic, generating and discovering information of personal interest. Internet technology is valued for its ability to retrieve and store data.

CMC research began by focusing on users’ interactions with texts. These studies can be traced to the 1970s, when CMC focused primarily on the technological capabilities of computers by exploring how particular technical, economic and ergonomic characteristics of computers effected organizational efﬁciency and effectiveness (Kiesler et al., 1984). In the 1980s while research grew into the context of computer interaction it still had an informational focus on organizational communication online, and how individuals exchanged information and developed informational networks (Rice, 1987). Studying the net as an information space is still prevalent within discussion of copyright, navigation of information spaces and cyberlaw (Katsh, 1996; Kirsh et al., 1996).

According to Spears and Lea (1992: 40), ‘CMC reﬂects a shift of the attentional focus to the content and context of the message’. The attention is on the message over the producer, the textual creation instead of the text creator. These texts focus individuals on representations of reality. Numes (1995: 326) argues in the virtual world of the internet, ‘our words are our bodies’ where people become known by their words or their taglines. The texts presented become a deﬁning factor of who one is in cyberspace and what one does. Through texts, readers construct mental images of the other.

Information space dictates individuals become known as data producers.

Texts are seen as representing the totality of the particular producer, limiting interpersonal engagement with them at a deeper level. Information becomes abstracted from its author or creator; the focus becomes gathering data.

This model can be used to highlight negative tendencies towards de- personalizing those who generate the text. Roszak in The Cult of Information argues this occurs as those in the information society mistake access to information for knowledge. He states society is now based on an ‘information economy’; those who control information are the new power brokers (Roszak, 1986: 91). The model is often central to debates of the ‘Digital Divide’, advocating the need for more public online access, and to political dialogue about the ‘information rich’ and ‘information poor’ (Gunkel, 2002; Keeble, 2003). The focus is utilitarian, promoting the most access to the most information for the most people.

THE INTERNET AS ‘COMMON MENTAL GEOGRAPHY

The internet as a common mental geography model regards the internet as more than a tool for communication, but a mechanism that individuals can use to construct a common worldview. This can be loosely associated with Agre’s ‘Internet as a computer system’ where computers are identiﬁed as machines representing the world. The internet provides language and resources pointing to ‘real things in the world that the data records are supposed to represent’ (Agre, 1998). Computers supply standardized methods of processing data. These processes in turn link computer operators to a common platform of language and interactions.

This platform provides a common mental geography, a way to describe how the real world functions using computer-ese and technological imagery; the machine is used to understand humanity. This can be associated with ‘technobabble’, where the ‘human condition is frequently explained in terms of technological metaphors’ (Barry, 1993: xiii). Technobabble involves using mechanistic language to describe human processes. The human brain is described as ‘hardwired’ like a computer, talk is referred to as ‘output’ and learning becomes ‘downloading’ information. Mechanizing language about human behaviour also enables individuals to apply anthropomorphic ideas, attributing human characteristics to material objects, to computers and their processes.

This results in a blurring of the human-machine distinction, internet technology becomes a lens, a distinct way of viewing reality; the physical world interpreted through the screen. Research such as the work of Turkle (1985) on hacker culture at MIT and philosophical writings in the early 1990s, such as Benedikt in Cyberspace: First Steps (1994) characterized investigations of this sort. This ran alongside studies of CMC in the areas of group norms and social identity and communication within communities of users (Spears and Lea, 1992). Developments in digital art and cyber- literature also utilize the internet as a new space for creativity. Cyberspace creates a digital canvas for new artistic and technological expressions, from interactive poetry to 3-D game imaging. This merging of technology and

humanity is not just creative or metaphoric. Experimentation with wearable computing, implants and technological extensions bring science ﬁction visions of reality to life. These innovations have also spawned dialogue on cyborg philosophy and post-human discourses (Gray, 1995; Haraway, 1991).

This model brings together elements of science ﬁction fantasy with images of computer networks, giving life to Gibson’s description of cyberspace where people enter the network through ‘a virtual-reality grid space’ (Gibson, 1984: 51). Cyberspace can be seen as an environment shaped as much by story and myth as it is by networked computers. Yet, the reality is that cyberspace is a simulated territory; it does not truly represent actual computer network architecture of computer connections and telephone lines. However, some users choose to let fantasy inform their reality. This extreme can be seen in computer hacker culture, as described by Turkle; individuals obsessed with their computers whose chief aim is to engage the world through this technology.

A common mental geography can evoke a mystical image of the internet facilitating a global consciousness. In writing about the projected potential of VR to share its created reality with the physical world, De Kerckhove states that ‘VR technology would allow many minds to collectively process a kind of group consciousness’ (1995: 47). Seeing the internet as common mental geography supplies those who create computer technology, as well as users, with a common system of communication and a new meta-narrative to be used to make sense of the world. Internet users see the online environment as a place to build utopia or pursue a ‘better’ reality.

THE INTERNET AS AN ‘IDENTITY WORKSHOP

The internet as ‘identity workshop’ presents a model enabling people to use online space as a place to learn and test new ways of being (Parks and Floyd, 1996: 83). The internet is characterized as a space of freedom and experimentation. Individuals are able to ‘re-present’ themselves by either highlighting certain attributes or hiding others, or even creating new persona for themselves. The focus here is on personalized use, seeing the internet as a forum in which users can re-create themselves.

Changing one’s identity online can be done easily as electronic communication allows certain social cues, such as status, power and prestige to be hidden (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). Individuals construct their online persona by the texts they generate and the online sources or sites they link themselves to. Online people are often described as ‘disembodied’, detached or freed from the constraints of the physical. This is said to present the internet as a mecca of ‘multi-personality possibilities’ where the internet unties the mind from the body, offering new ways of expression and opportunities for equality. This not only allows for experimentation, such as

gender swapping, but also creates a space in which prejudices are seemingly eliminated (Stone, 1994). People are judged on the basis of their text response, not their status or appearance.

One popular discussion area in CMC research in the 1990s centred on distinguishing real from virtual identity online by exploring the question of ‘embodiment’. How users identify their body online can inﬂuence how they see themselves and communicate with other net users. This is demonstrated by research in the mid-1990s focused on individuals and communal identity construction within online environments, ranging from describing patterns of life found on MUDs or MOOs such as described by Bruckman and Resnick (1995) and Mnookin (1996), to the development of community on Usenet and IRC systems done by

individuals such as Reid (1995). Many researchers were drawn to investigating these groups because they included a unique mixing of aspects of the ‘real’ social world with a computer-created ‘virtual’ world. The intersection of the ‘real’ and the created ‘virtual’ offered individuals the opportunity to create new personas utilizing options often unavailable to them in their embodied social context. Here, particular characteristics shaping online social behaviours and personal presentation were often identiﬁed and investigated (Baym, 1997, 1998).

While options for anonymity and reduced social cues online allow individuals a sense of freedom, they have also created some unpleasant social by-products. The dissolution of boundaries can result in de-individualization, or ‘loss of identity and weakening of social norms and constraints associated with submergence in a group or a crowd’ (Spears and Lea, 1992: 38). Thus, the online anonymity, which promotes equal participation within a group, can also lead to reduced self-regulation and promote

uninhibited behaviour, dishonesty and deception (Donath, 1998). Dibble’s (1996) classic account of ‘A Rape in Cyberspace’ demonstrated this, as well as showing how identity construction in fantasy-based online environment can have real-world psychological and sociological effects on participants. This model highlights a tendency of online users towards egocentric perceptions and behaviour. The internet as identity workshop focuses on the empowerment of individuals, which can lead to both positive and negative social outcomes.

THE INTERNET AS SOCIAL NETWORK

The internet as social network model portrays the online context as a social space where making connections with people is the primary goal. This model focuses on relationships formed online; individuals see their main purpose for being online as connecting with others. The internet is a place of unlimited connections, where through a few clicks of a mouse or punches of a keyboard people ﬁnd themselves in communication with others, and not just exchanging information.

Agre’s model of ‘the internet as discourse’ describes the internet as tied to a hermeneutic process; ‘as technology is used in new ways we gain deeper understanding of the ideas that motivate it’. He refers to the internet as discourse in order to point towards the internet’s social origins by considering the process of social discovery that is part of all technology adoption. Discourse produces conversational communities. As people try to explain and manage new technologies, their discourse on ideas creates boundaries and connections with others, which highlight the social dimension.

The 1990s saw the pioneering and establishment of social CMC research.

This was particularly noted in the emergence of virtual or online community studies pioneered by the likes of Rheingold (1993), Smith and Kollock (1998) and Wellman (1997). Questions of communication of social information, group meanings and identities, forms of relationship and social negotiation were explored. Seeing the internet as a social space enables researchers to treat the online environment as an experimental observation sphere. The internet is characterized as ‘made by people and thus as the “new public space” it cojoins traditional mythic narratives of progress with the strong modern impulses towards self-fulﬁlment and personal development’ (Jones, 1997: 22).

Much has been written on the social nature of the internet. Studies have found people use email and other forms of CMC to socialize, maintain relationships, play games and receive emotional support. While some see online relationships as shallow and impersonal illusions, others argue that the internet liberates inter-personal relations and creates communities. ‘One vision is of relationships lost, while the other is of relationships liberated and found’ (Parks and Floyd, 1996: 81). Seeing the internet as a social network model has a communal orientation. It involves not just creating individual social connections, but a social web (Wellman and Haythornwaite, 2002). Research into the social nature of the net often focuses on online communities, online groupings that allow individuals to select their neighbours and seek out new friends with common interests. Borders are erased, as the person in the next room or on the next continent is only an email away. Many people are drawn to online relationships, as they can appear less risky than real world interactions (Block, 1996). Yet the internet as a social space does have its problems.

Online the veil of the screen separates individuals from each other. With freedom comes complications as ‘communicators must imagine their audience, for at a terminal it almost seems as though the computer itself is the audience’ (Kiesler et al., 1984: 1125). If individuals wish to move past this veiled interaction, they must reach beyond the screen. This is often a disappointing move (Katz and Aspden, 1997).

INTERNET AS SACRAMENTAL SPACE

The internet has been described as a place: to seek information, develop a philosophical worldview and for personal empowerment and social interaction. The internet as a sacramental space model presents the internet as a sacred space and encompasses aspects of all of these models. Using the internet as a sacramental space reconﬁgures activities or experience online to be understood as part of one’s spiritual life, whether these pursuits are individual, communal or informational.

This model gives recognition to the growing phenomenon of people using the internet as part of their religious practices. This includes searching out religious information and communities, as well as spiritual enlightenment and experiences online. It also acknowledges technology’s ability to alter individual and communal religious practices as they are brought online. The idea of something being sacramental means to be set apart for holy use. Many religious traditions have been proactive in advocating the internet as a sacred sphere. One of the ﬁrst demonstrations of this was in 1996, when Tibetan monks performed a special ceremony in New York to pronounce a Buddhist blessing over cyberspace using a tantric ritual (The Blessings of Cyberspace found online at: http:/ /www.namgyal.org/blessing.html) . While some in contemporary society often feel isolated and disconnected, the internet has come to represent an other-worldly space allowing people to re-engage with spirituality in their daily lives (Barna Research Group, 2001). Wertheim argues cyberspace, as a non-physical space, allows people to re-connect with ideas of the spiritual, immaterial world that have often been silenced by the dualistic cosmology of western science.

The ‘spiritual’ appeal of cyberspace lies precisely in this paradox: It is a repackaging of the old idea of Heaven, but in a secular, technologically sanctioned format. The perfect realm awaits us, we are told, not behind the pearly gates but the electronic gateways labelled .com and .net. and .edu. (Wertheim, 1999: 21)

Locating themselves in the seemingly timeless, boundless realm of computers, a new breed of spiritual pilgrims has emerged. Some choose to seek out traditional forms of religious expression from the thousands of religious websites existing online (Horsfall, 2000; Lawrence, 2000). Beliefnet, (http://www.Beliefnet.org/), a resource website for various religious traditions, exempliﬁes this search and diversity. On their own terms and in the privacy of their own homes online pilgrims visit cyber-cathedrals or temples (Brasher, 2001). Others experiment with newer forms of religious expression, altering and adapting ancient beliefs towards a technologically mediated environment (Davis, 1998).

Like the world beyond the screen, religion online exists as a marketplace of multiple options. Every major religion, from Islam (Bunt, 2000) and Christianity to Zoroastrianism, has some type of representation in cyberspace (Zaleski, 1997). Ancient religions, such as Wicca (NightMare, 2001) and new religions unique to the internet, such as technopaganism – neo-paganism adapted and celebrated in a technological context – have also found homes online (Davis, 1998). Trying to summarize and categorize cyber-spirituality can be challenging.

Bauwens identiﬁes three ‘spiritual attitudes’ towards computer networks (Bauwens, 1996). First, as The God Project, technology can be seen as a ‘crude substitute for spiritual powers’ or as empowering a search for a literal ‘Machine-God, Deus Ex Machina’. This can be seen in technopagan practices.3 As Electric Gaia technology is ‘a necessary adjunct to make improvements in consciousness possible’. Cyberspace becomes a realm for utopian hopes for a better world. This is illustrated by the online following of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his writings on the ‘noosphere’, an evolving global consciousness that is prophesied to bring harmony to humankind.4 Finally, Sacramental Cyberspace presents the internet as a place to further the aims of traditional religions, by presenting a digital environment that facilitates an active spiritual life. This is exempliﬁed by Virtual Jerusalem,5 created to enable Jews to re-engage with their faith and culture by exploring information or even ‘Emailing a Prayer’6 to be placed in the cracks of the western Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

Helland also provides two helpful classiﬁcations of how people use the internet for spiritual purposes: religion-online and online-religion (2000: 214–20). Religion-online occurs when religion transports traditional forms of one-to-many communication into the online environment, such as through establishing a religious organizational website. Online-religion refers to how religion adapts itself to create new forms of communication through many-to-many networked interaction, such as online prayer or worship services. Both Bauewens and Helland agree that online religion gives religious practitioners the ability to re-present their beliefs and practices online, leading either to religious innovation or re-packaging.

The internet as a sacramental space is being introduced here as a new and alternate characterization of how some people use online technology and see its primary purpose. Identifying this model allows for discussion on how the internet is seen to create space for new forms of spiritual networking, speciﬁcally in spiritual online communities. These communities can serve either as tools for transmitting spiritual activities or as spaces for cultivating personal spiritual experience, relational support or communal identity. Yet before looking at the different spiritual expressions of community online, it is essential to address in more depth how the internet has been studied as a sacramental space in the past decade. This analysis illustrates the diversity of Campbell: Considering spiritual dimensions opinions people hold about how the internet can or should be approached as a sacramental space.

STUDYING THE INTERNET AS SACRAMENTAL SPACE

In the 1990s cyberculture became an area of interdisciplinary interest in many ﬁelds, including cultural, theological and religious studies. Yet it was not until the mid- to late-1990s that signiﬁcant scholarly study of religious use of the internet began to be produced. Researchers interested in spiritual or religious dimensions of CMC have taken a number of different approaches, which can broadly be described as: religious responses to the internet, surveying online religion, spiritualizing, internet technology and analysing religion online. Each of these labels identiﬁes ways the internet has been described, studied and analysed as sacramental space.

Religious responses to the internet

Religious responses to the internet refer to those reﬂecting on or critiquing internet usage from a speciﬁc religious perspective. Those particularly interested in religious aspects of CMC often initially approached the topic as either a critic or advocate of technology. This is especially evident by critiques produced from those in the Christian tradition. As with the emergence of most new technologies, praise came from early religious adopters about the ability of the internet to revolutionize proselytizing and religious rituals. Advocates, who encourage involvement online, (Dixon, 1997; Wilson, 2000) speculated about the positive outcomes of utilizing the internet in Church ministry. This came alongside responses by critics, concerned about issues such as the authenticity of online relationships and the effects disembodied communication might have on religious activity imported online. Critics (Brooke, 1997; Jantz, 1998) argued that the internet and VR have a tendency to lead towards a dark spiritual landscape where people are encouraged to hide from reality and play God.

A middle-of-the-road response, between dystopian and utopian, also surfaced and can be identiﬁed under the label of ‘critical friend’ (Nardi and O’Day, 1999: 27). Critical friends consider both positive and negative outcomes of internet use, suggesting individuals embrace technology with caution. This approach is demonstrated by Schultze’s Habits of the High-Tech Heart (2002) considering the seductive power of information technology which he argued needs to be unmasked lest it thwart attempts at virtuous living. Also addressed is how the internet is inﬂuencing general culture as well as considering speciﬁc theological and ethical implications (Veith and Stamper, 2000). Yet some efforts at reﬂection and offering ‘principles of discernment, such as Groothuis (1997), admit towards a tendency to ‘include more rant than rave’ about cyberspace (p. 155).

This category shows that classifying the internet as a sacramental space is contentious. Strong reactions have come from various religious spokespersons, from those concerned about the perceived dangers, to those stressing the beneﬁts of internet technology and others calling for guidelines for acceptable use/practice from speciﬁc religious persuasions. These publications have typically been written for a popular general religious market.

Surveying online religion

Surveying online religion is characterized by those studies offering general surveys of how the internet is being used in spiritual pursuits. They are focused on observational analysis, commenting on the general phenomenon of online religion. These books primarily evaluate online religion through an examination approach, combining website analysis with online observation and interviews of webmasters and users. A key question asked is how the internet is shaping individual beliefs and practices. These projects offer comment on how traditional and non-traditional religions are being transformed online. Some provide surveys of major religious traditions (Zaleski, 1997). Others focus on speciﬁc religions such as Bunt’s work on Islam in cyberspace (2000), Hammerman’s writing on Judaism online (2000) and Lochhead’s description (1997) of how Christian computer enthusiasts have used the internet as a tool for ministry in the past two decades.

Descriptions of the overall emergence of online religion are exempliﬁed by Brasher (2001) who explores online religion ‘as a crucial contemporary cultural outlet for our meaning heritage from the past’ (p. 6). She argues that cyber-religion is invigorating concepts of the sacred through presenting a tour of virtual shrines, religious websites and stories of cyber-pilgrimages, which seek to provide justiﬁcation for her argument that cyberspace is a public domain ﬁt for religious expression.

Surveys of online religion demonstrate the diverse ways the internet is being utilized as sacred space and how speciﬁc groups try to connect this technology with their spiritual life. The internet serves as a platform for new expressions of faith communities. Distinct understandings of how the internet is sacramental are linked to the particular religious tradition of the user or researcher. These studies offer a rich variety of examples of the forms of religious worship or gathering that exist online.

Spiritualizing internet technology

Spiritualizing internet technology is demonstrated in those studies investigating spiritual or philosophical conceptions of technology related to the internet. These examinations analyse philosophical foundations that support certain understandings of how this technology can be used to reconnect people to spiritual ideas or beliefs. They often focus on a single

issue or concept, such as grace or conceptions of space, and examine how the digital world re-informs them or calls for their re-examination. This approach tries to examine spiritual and ontological grounding of technology.

Several clear examples exist. Davis’s (1998) work on technopaganism looks at the similarities between online usage and magic. He describes how computers become for many pagans the holding grounds for myths of the ‘ancient ways’, and ‘spiritual powers’ are sought out online. Cobb (1998) attempts to present a ‘theology of cyberspace’ by using process theology, which places focus on the process or journey towards sacred vision, to demonstrate how the internet provides a path leading us to the Divine. By arguing, ‘the sacred is present in computers’, she presents cyberspace as a place for society to ﬁnd healing by reconnecting

the spheres of science and religion. Wertheim’s (1999) study of the development of the concept of space argues that cyberspace revives a medieval understanding of physical and spiritual space in which the immaterial soul was central. She demonstrates that the internet can be understood as re-connecting people with the spiritual side of life by drawing examples from the history of art, science and religion. Spiritualizing internet technology helps to uncover how various theological and religious

persuasions may dictate and inﬂuence internet usage. It also helps elucidate the basis for advocacy or criticism of certain forms of online spiritual practice, as demonstrated by Zukowski and Babin (2002). They reason from a Catholic theological perspective as to why and how the Church must undergo a shift in practices of education and evangelizing to include new technologies if it is to retain its audience. The internet is interpreted as a new ‘mediasphere’ that calls for re-packaging of the unchanging message of the Church.

Spiritualizing internet technology focuses on the technology as a conduit for spiritual engagement. The internet is presented as a realm in which the spiritual side of life can ﬂourish and provides a re-deﬁnition of certain concepts and ways of perceiving religiosity. Here, writers and researchers argue that cyber-religious practice is not only a valid and acceptable use of this technology; it should be recognized and encouraged as it provides unique and innovative forms of spiritual expression.

Analysing religion online

Analysing religion online is represented by those seeking to present a systematic or theoretical evaluation of religious practice online. These studies recognize the need for developing conceptual frameworks and theoretical research to aid in interpreting religious practice as part of wider social- cultural trends taking place online. These studies seek to provide tools and structures for interpreting data that may apply to a variety of CMC studies, but have speciﬁc relevance to studies of religion online.

The study of religious life online is still in its infancy, relatively few in- depth CMC studies exist. Several recent books have raised the proﬁle of CMC studies of online religion (see Dawson and Cowan, 2004; Wolf, 2003). This includes Hadden and Cowan’s book (2000), the ﬁrst noteworthy collection of studies covering how organizations and individuals present religion online, considering both traditional and new religious movements are included. The Barna Research Group (1998, 2001) and the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Larsen, 2000, 2001; Hoover et al., 2004) have also produced research studies on such topics as traditional churches’ use of the web, evaluating the experience of online spiritual seekers and ways in which the internet might provide substitutes for ofﬂine worship experiences.

Other examples of analysing online religious practice include Schroeder, Heather and Lee’s study of prayer in multi-user virtual reality environment (1998) and Houston’s (1998) attempt at developing an ethical interface between ‘Christian realism’ and virtual reality technology described as a ‘Virtual Morality’.

At the ﬁrst international gathering of religious internet researchers, Religious Encounters with Digital Networks Conference at the University of Copenhagen in November 2001, a call was made for ‘more substantive research’ to be carried out. In this wave of emerging theoretical development and scholarship is the work of Linderman and Lo¨vheim (2003) on religious identity and community formation online. Using aspects of social interactionism with social semiology, they employ a model Linderman developed in the mid-1990s in order to study the construction of meaning in relation to media reception. Lo¨vheim takes this

model and further develops it for use in analysing religious identity construction online, applying it to a study of web masters and creators of traditional and non- traditional religious websites. Application of this framework brought about the conclusion that ‘the degree of social trust experienced in computer- based social networks seems to be signiﬁcant for the construction of identity and meaning in CMC’. Their continued work seeks to outline how religion and CMC affects existing

theories of late modernity and develop the model in relation to theories of social trust. Also an increasing number of studies of online religious communities are being produced (Campbell, 2003b; Dawson and Hennerbry, 1999). Whether they are observation ethnographies, scrutiny informed by theoretical analysis, or informant ethnographies, charting beliefs and opinions through questionnaires and interviews, these studies have begun to provide useful data for serious analysis of religious community life online (Bainbridge, 2000). Online ethnographies are often microanalytic, emphasizing questions of social information, group meanings and identities, forms of relationship and social negotiation particular to religious contexts.

Analysing religion online investigates religious communication and social processes online in order to explain the larger social implication of such practices. Emphasis is placed on examining processes such as meaning making, network-creation or identity-formation. Researchers try to identify behaviour patterns and analyse social processes that occur within online religious interaction, to see how these phenomena might be similar or differ to those in other forms of online communication and community.

This section demonstrates the growing interest in and study of religious uses of the internet. It also highlights the different emphases taken on the study of the internet as a religious or spiritual landscape. As sacramental space the internet is promoted and defended as a viable space to explore and create religious practice and expression. The online environment challenges religions to adapt their traditional methods and practices to a new context, while also enabling and encouraging new spiritual expressions to emerge. A call has been made for more in-depth theoretical and investigative research on religious dimensions of the internet, concerning not only religious interpretations of internet culture, but also how communicative process online might shape religious culture. A signiﬁcant research interest among those who explore the internet as sacramental space is the issue of community. How do religious communities use the internet? How does the online context shape and inﬂuence religious online communities? How does online community inﬂuence ofﬂine religion?

The ﬁnal section of this article looks at a range of forms of online spiritual communities that exist online. Up to this point, how the internet has been studied and utilized as sacramental space has been discussed in general terms. Now we will consider speciﬁcally how online community can serve as a spiritual platform, facilitating a variety of sacramental expressions, including serving as a tool, a common identity, a space for personal spiritual pursuits and a social support sphere. This is done through examining several narratives of online spiritual community life identiﬁed in a recent research study.

SHAPES OF ONLINE SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY

Online spiritual communities represent one manifestation of how the internet is used as sacramental space by a variety of faith communities. Online communities congregate around an issue of faith, from a general topic of spirituality or mysticism to a speciﬁc focus on denominational beliefs or religious emphasis (Episcopal, Baptist, Hindu, Jewish, etc.). They are interactive groups, facilitating two-way interaction through various forms of technology. While many websites refer to themselves as online communities most only provide interaction with hypertext and images.

Some online communities use IRC or chat rooms, members are able to join others on a designated channel and engage in ‘typed’ conversations with

like-minded believers. (Connection hubs for different religious groups can be found on various websites such as: Beliefnet.com, Crosswalk.com and Gospelcom.net). IRC is also used to host online prayer meetings, where members gather at a speciﬁc time for moderated, group prayers. (Such as Reapernet Chat <http://chat.reapernet.com/> or St Sams Chat <http:/ /www.stsams.org/IRC.html>) Another form of online community is an email list, gathering around a common theme and typically managed by an individual or group through a central computer database. Members receive list postings and can also exchange personal mail with other members. (For examples of religious and spiritual email list-servs see <http:/ /www.harekrsna.com/science/namhatta/listserv.htm>) All these forms of spiritual online community revolve around common themes of shared experience, beliefs and interaction of spiritual themes.

In this ﬁnal section description of several shapes or typologies of spiritual community online are presented, taken from a study of Christian email communities (Campbell, 2001, 2005). This ethnographic investigation of online relationships utilized a three-phase case study research strategy of online participant-observation, online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews with selected community members. This methodology proved effective for identifying individual and communal online communication patterns and drawing conclusions of how online relationships inﬂuence involvement within ofﬂine communities and the Church. The study surveyed a range of examples of online religion and online religious communities. Detailed attention was given to three Christian email communities, selected on the basis of common online practices, yet representing diverse theological groups. The Anglican Communion Online is a group with links to the Anglican Church. The Community of Prophecy is a Charismatic-Renewal group focused around the gift of prophecy. The Online Church is an evangelical group of sensory impaired individuals. This study investigated how individual’s involvement in these online communities inﬂuenced their conception of community and the church, as well as their involvement in online and ofﬂine communities.

These email communities utilized the internet as a sacramental space. As communal networks they encourage members to emotionally invest in forming online relationships. These groups viewed the internet not only as a suitable space for religious discourse, but consciously constructed sacred space through their activities. Each online community possessed a unique narrative informing spiritual aspects of community life, which was used to bring cohesion and identity to these communities. As members identiﬁed with the narrative, they found communal purpose and sense of worth. Narratives were both social and spiritual, shaping conceptions of the group and the member’s role in it. By considering the narratives represented in

these case studies, and others noted in observational research, several typologies of how online spiritual communities utilize the internet as sacramental space were identiﬁed.

ONLINE COMMUNITY AS RELIGIOUS IDENTITY

The Anglican Communion Online could be characterized as a religious identity network, tying their communal identity to a particular religious tradition, theology or style of worship. Here the internet became a space to build communal identity. As an Anglican network, members demonstrate their commitment to the beliefs and practices of the Anglican Church. This community identiﬁed itself as a microcosm of the larger Anglican Communion. One member described this Anglican connection as ‘a real core

of what we believe in and the church that we love.’7 In her opinion the Anglican Communion Online connects members with the Anglican Communion, helping people understand how different parts of the Church function. Members often join the community to gain understanding of the Anglican Church and stay because of the relationships they form with others who share their allegiance to Anglicanism. The Anglican network narrative enabled individuals to see their online involvement as an opportunity to be ‘interconnected sacramental’ with others from the Anglican tradition who share an allegiance to Anglicanism.8 Online

community as a religious identity network characterizes the online community as a group committed to each other through their shared faith and chosen liturgical expression or religious tradition. Identity comes from reinforcing a particular set of beliefs or rituals that are transported online. Members encouraged one another in their shared convictions and supported this unifying narrative through supportive discussion on their choice of religious identiﬁcation. This relates to the internet as common mental geography, which uses the network to promote a sense of shared identity.

ONLINE COMMUNITY AS SPIRITUAL NETWORK

The Community of Prophecy could be identiﬁed as a spiritual network, where the internet is used for cultivating personal spiritual experience. In the Community of Prophecy the internet was described as a space shaped by God for Divine purposes. The term ‘spiritual networking’ came from a face-to-face meeting with a couple from the community’s leadership core during week six of the case study. During the conversation they described a spiritual networking emerging in forums such as the Community of Prophecy, explaining it as ‘God is weaving connection and creating relationships between people all over the world’ for prayer and support.

They felt connections within the online community would lead to opportunities for members to become involved in others’ ‘real world’ lives

and ministries.9 They also stressed that connections were designed and initiated by God and were internationally diverse, forming an overlapping network of online and ofﬂine communities. Members characterized themselves as ‘pioneers’ on a divine mission and the community having potential to inﬂuence the ofﬂine world as well as the online setting in this quest. Members were also characterized as involved in ‘warfare’ against an enemy seeking to sabotage the community potential and destiny through computer problems. The spiritual network narrative empowered members to understand their community as possessing power from God to inﬂuence the global Christian community. Thus online community as a spiritual network characterizes the online community as designed and initiated by God for a speciﬁc purpose. This ﬁts in with the idea of the internet being an identity workshop. The internet is seen as a place to be used to search out personal spiritual destiny that can be interpreted though a narrative of shared experience. It highlights the desire for freedom and spiritual experience, within the community network that can be shared (Campbell, 2003b).

ONLINE COMMUNITY AS SUPPORT NETWORK

The Online Church as a support network portrays a community as a support group where an individual’s problems become the community’s problem. Here the internet is used to cultivate relational support for like- minded believers. Support, which typically involves posting positive messages or afﬁrmations, is ingrained in the foundations of the Online Church as stated in the introductory email to new subscribers, ‘Be nice to everybody because everybody is having a tough time.’10 This relates to the description of the church as the body of Christ in the Bible where or when one member hurts, they all share the hurt and

when one rejoices, all rejoice.11 The community promotes positive support, with correctional advice and criticism being discouraged. Many members have common physical and visual limitations. Members are encouraged to discuss these struggles with the community, implying they will ﬁnd empathy and understanding online which they may feel is lacking from ofﬂine friends and family. The support network narrative allows members to see this community as a place offering ‘blind love’ and acceptance to those coming from similar experiences, providing care for members in ways unavailable to them ofﬂine. The online community as a

support network characterizes the online community as existing to provide a spiritually and emotionally supportive atmosphere, emphasizing transparency and disclosure in its membership. These communities use the net as a support structure facilitating personal and spiritual growth for its members. This relates to the internet as social network – emphasis is on cultivating relationships in order to form a social support structure. Campbell: Considering spiritual dimensions

ONLINE COMMUNITY AS WORSHIP SPACE

Online spiritual community can also be characterized as creating a worship space. The internet becomes a tool for transmitting spiritual activities. This model can be observed in several different online contexts. The online community as a worship space occurs when individuals sacralize cyberspace as a place to practice online rituals. This is demonstrated by both traditional and non-traditional religions. Buddhists, according to Zaleski (1997: 164), were the ﬁrst major world religion to duplicate online and in full a traditional form of religious practice. Dharma Combat, a form of unrehearsed dialogue which tests Zen practitioners in their understanding of Zen truth, has taken place online since 1996 hosted by Zen Mountain monastery in New York.

Christian groups have also used the internet to facilitate online prayer meeting. Using IRC or chat rooms, individuals gathered for online meetings on various channels designated as religious meeting places and exchange typed prayers with others. Extensive observation of these groups illustrates their innovation in symbolic language used to communicate spiritual content. In a charismatic prayer meeting religious emoticons were frequently used, typed random key strokes such as

‘josrhsaoinvlkdnruojiaurfa’ were used to represent glossalia12 and \o/ used to signify the lifting up of hands to ‘praise the Lord’ (Campbell, 2001). A study of prayer meetings in a multi-user virtual reality environment found ‘a prayer meeting in the virtual world may not provide the same type of religious experience as a conventional church service, but it certainly reproduces some of the essential features of the latter – albeit in novel way’ (Schroeder et al., 1998).

Using the internet as a worship space has also enabled new religions such as technopaganism to ﬂourish. Technopaganism allows individuals to practice ancient and newly created pagan rituals online. The Technopagan Blessing (<http://www-nmr.baffcentre.ab.ca/Artists/scaredsacred/ TECHNOPAGANPRAYER.html>) and rituals such as ‘Cyber Samhain’, a digital version of the Celtic celebration of the dead, allows pagans to combine myth and fantasy with technology. Davis in Techgnosis, (1998: 18) says computers become for many pagans the holding grounds for myths of the ‘ancient ways’, and ‘spiritual powers’ can be sought

out online. Whether it is used as a space for connection or as a ‘ritual technology’, the internet becomes magical as it ‘acts as portals into another world’. The online community as worship space sees the internet as a tool or place for worship. This also can lead to adapting religious beliefs; so that engaging with the technology becomes an act of worship. This is similar to aspects of the internet as information space. The internet is used primarily as a tool for seeking out or transmitting spiritual content.

These four examples of online community narratives illustrate a range of ways online spiritual community can employ technology in unique ways for

a particular purpose or mission. Online community as religious identity sees the internet as an opportunity to engage in building relationships from a similar religious tradition and promote a like-minded sense of belief. Online community as spiritual network sees the internet as part of spiritual manifest destiny to experience the Divine in ways that inﬂuence life online and ofﬂine. The online community as a support network sees the internet as a safe place to build spiritually and emotionally supportive relationships. The online community as a worship space views the internet as a space where ritual and

communal expressions of worship can take place. Identifying with a particular narrative helps an online community promote internal order and maintain coherence. Each model emphasizes a particular motivation for technological use, while highlighting a shared belief that the internet can be set apart for sacred use. While these typologies do not address every form of online spiritual community pursuit, such as ‘making converts/disciples’ (see Mayer, 2000), they provide a starting point for describing, and potentially critiquing, dominant manifestations of online spiritual practice.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Individuals go online with a variety of motivations, from utilitarian to aesthetic: to gather information, for identity experimentation, in search of social cohesion and, as this article has stressed, even with spiritual motivations. People’s reasons for living online are often supported by the beliefs they form about how the online world does or should function. This article has sought to examine differing perspectives with which people have approached the internet and conducted CMC research as a way of introducing the conception of the internet being shaped and used as a sacramental space.

The internet as sacramental space model illustrates how individuals set apart internet technology as a place where they can explore and engage with the spiritual side of life. Using the internet in spiritual pursuits has not been without controversy (Barna Research Group, 2001). Yet increasing numbers of people are seeing the internet as sacred space and internet technology as possessing a spiritual quality. Exploring a range of narratives of religious life online, represented by several examples of

online spiritual community, has helped provide a picture of differing interpretations of online religion. How individuals build online spiritual communities and their reasons for belonging to them are closely linked to their conceptions of internet technology. As sacramental space the internet can be used to help form religious identity, as a space for personal spiritual pursuits, as a social spiritual support sphere and as a spiritual tool. These four typologies – online community as religious identity, spiritual network, support network and worship space – have been presented as categories potentially helpful to other online community studies seeking to describe spirituality online.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the support of the Pew Younger Scholar Mentoring Program and the following individuals who read and commented on a preliminary draft of the manuscript: Clifford Christians, Tania Smith, Annalee Ward and Barry Wellman.

Notes

1 Metaphoric image taken from Michael Benedikt (1994: 2). 2 Terminology attributed to Amy Bruckman’s study ‘Identity Workshop: Emergent social and psychological phenomena in text-based virtual reality’ found at: http:/

/media.mit.edu/pub/MediaMOO/Articles/indentity-workshop/ 3 For a more thorough explanation of technopaganism consult: Erik Davis (1997) ‘Technopagan’, WIRED: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/ 3.07/technopagans.html> 4 For related information consult Noosphere, The Expanding Web of Consciousness. <http://www.technoetic.com/noosphere/index.html> 5 Bonnie Rothman Morris, (28 January 1999) ‘Surﬁng Their Way to the Holy Land,’ The New York Times on the Web:

<http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/ 99/01/circuits/articles/28jeru.html>; Virtual Jerusalem.com <http:/ /www.virtualjerusalem.com/> 6 Aish Ha Torah’s Window on the Wall <http://aish.com/wallcam/> 7 Personal interview with a member of the Anglican Communion Online, St Joseph, Michigan (USA), 31 August 1999; cited in Campbell (2001). 8 Personal interview with a member of Anglican Communion Online, Charlottesville, Virginia (USA), 6 July 1999; cited in Campbell (2001). 9 Recorded during an email interview with Community of Prophecy Core Leaders, March 1998. 10 Email sent to new subscribers of the ‘Online Church Email List’, From: ‘L-Soft list server at St. John’s University (1.8c)’ LISTSERV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU, Subject: Usage guidelines for ECHURCH-L; cited in Campbell (2001). 11 New International Version of Bible, I Corinthians 12.26 12 New Testament ‘Gift of the Spirit’ commonly referred to as ‘speaking in tongues’.

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