Religion & Spirituality in Society Conference University of Athens, June 21, 2023

1. RITUAL AND ROLE-PLAY IN THE
METAVERSE:
BUILDING COMMUNITY,
SUSPENDING DISBELIEF
Dr. Jean-Paul DuQuette
University of Macau
Religion & Spirituality in Society Conference
University of Athens, June 21, 2023

2. OUTLINE
• 1. My Starting Point and Second Life
• 2. Religious practice in virtual environments
• 3. Ritual in virtual environments
• 3. RQ: Engagement in SL religious
communities
• 4. Methods
• 5. A ritual trio: Meditation, role-play and
spectacle
• 6. Conclusion: Quality not quantity
determines the efficacy of online ritual
communities

3. MY STARTING POINT
• 1. Ed.D (Edtech / curriculum design)
• 2. Initial research on best practices in
virtual worlds education groups.
• a. Are there unique affordances to the
SL platform?
• b. What practices maximize
engagement?
• 3. Exploration of a role-play ‘school’ in
Second Life led me to look at religious
education and ritual in the same light.

4. SECOND LIFE:
A PROTO-METAVERSE
• Released in 2003 by Philip Rosedale’s
Linden Lab (Au, 2008)
• A persistent, contiguous, 3D graphical
chat environment
• Resident-based economy with its own
currency
• Arguably still the most popular (non
MMORPG) MUVE online

5. 1. VIRTUAL RELIGIOUS PRACTICES
•A. Technophobia
•B. Technomediation
•C. Technomonism
• (Wagner, 2012, 112-118)

6. A. TECHNOPHOBIA
Notre Dame Borobudur Yogyakarta

7. B. TECHNOMEDIATION

8. …OR SOMETHING MORE
•Father Wyatt
performing mass
at/for Notre Dame in
SL – May 16, 2019
(Slade, 2019)

9. C. TECHNOMONISM
• “Virtual reality (is) a legitimate and
authentic new space into which
human beings can actually enter in
some meaningful kind of way, and
which they can enter in plural and
hybrid ways.
(Wagner, 2012, pp. 116)
• Not a separate virtual reality but a
“theater of the imagination”
(Helland, 2013, pp. 30)

10. ONLINE RITUALS:
A NOTE ON THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
• Sidestepping the question of
authenticity
• Ritual: “A purposeful engagement with
the sacred” (Helland, 2013)
• Technomonistic ritual activity allows
digital architecture to be seen as sacred
(Jacobs, 2007)
• Online ritual should be examined in
terms of transformation, invention and
exclusion in interpretation of offline
ritual (Miczek 2008).

11. COMPARING THREE TYPES OF
RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN SL
• 1) Buddhist (and essentially secular)
meditation groups
• 2) The Companion’s Guild, a role-playing
group with Tibetan Buddhist and monastic
undertones
• 3) A patchwork (Radde-Antweiler , 2006)
community encompassing Hare Krishna,
Buddhist, pagan, wiccan and new age
spiritual practices.
• Exploratory and descriptive.
• A focus on levels of engagement and how
that impacts community popularity.

12. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• RQ #1: How can we classify SL religious
communities using the lens of
engagement?
• RQ #2: How does the type of
engagement required for ritual
participation correlate with community
efficacy?

13. METHODOLOGY
• Qualitative and ethnographic, focusing
on participant observation.
• In the CG (2016-2020). All other
research was done (2022-2023).
• Discourse analysis of semi-structured
interviews, classes, informal activities,
and recorded ceremonies with
participants and event leaders.
• Methodologically atheist (Berger, 1967)
not concerned with truth propositions
or authenticity

14. A LOOK AT THREE TYPES OF
COMMUNITY

15. BUDDHIST GROUPS IN SECOND LIFE:
SHAMBHALA SANCTUARY
Activity: Silent Meditation
I feel that my boat
has bumped, there at the bottom,
into something big.
And nothing happens!
Nothing... quiet... waves...
Nothing happens?
Or has everything happened, and we are already at rest,
in something new?
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Shambhala Sanctuary at Satori
Estates South

16. BUDDHIST GROUPS IN SECOND LIFE:
THE SELF-HEALER’S JOURNEY
Activities: Meditation and
Reading
• Silent meditation plus extensive
notecard ‘sermons’
• In text only
The Self-Healers Journey at
Healing Muse Meditations

17. BUDDHIST GROUPS IN SECOND LIFE:
CENTER FOR MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
(3)
Daily Mindfulness Meditation
and Hypnosis
• Guided meditation
• In voice
• Nondenominational
Center for Mindfulness Meditation
at Peaceful Minds

18. ENGAGEMENT:
HIGH PASSIVITY, LOW INTERACTIVITY
• Technomediation (not
technomonism)
• Minimal emphasis on
participation
• Only a skeletal framework of
traditional ritual
• Little or no communication
between members at events
• Small group size

19. THE FIREFLY COMPANIONS GUILD
• A role-play finishing school loosely
based on Joss Whedon’s Firefly
• Incorporates Tibetan Buddhism and
Japanese geisha culture into their
curriculum
• While there were more than 100 active
members at its peak of popularity, as of
2021 it hovered around 30-50 members

20. ROLE-PLAY AS A ‘GATEWAY DRUG’
TO BELIEF
• “While the Guild hasn't turned me into a Buddhist by any stretch, I
do know I'm operating under a perception of concepts like
attachment that I didn't have before.” (Lysana, private
conversation, 13/4/18)
• “The Guild training, particularly the meditation element, gave me
a social self-awareness that my previous meditation training
hadn't addressed. Varahi is not only a gifted teacher but an
originator and has effectively created a new spiritual tradition.”
(Beeflin, private conversation, 13/4/18)

21. ENGAGEMENT:
HIGHLY INTERACTIVE, PARTICIPANT-LED
MONASTIC ORDER
• Emphasis on ritual mastery to augment
role-play mastery
• Frequent classes and events requiring
active participation
• Use of Tibetan Buddhism and geisha
culture to legitimize sci-fi role-play
• Technomonism? Yes, but from the
clergy’s perspective, not the
layperson’s.
• Also relatively small size.

22. THE SHAMBHALA SIM RITUALS

23. NEO-PAGANISM AND NEW AGE

24. HINDUISM / HARE KRISHNA

25. WESTWYTCH: WICCA

26. SHAMBHALA WEEKLY SCHEDULE
(MARCH 2023 EXAMPLE)
• MONDAY
• 10am MEDITATION SAMPLER - Zanth
• 2pm ASTROLOGY - Kara Foxdale
• 7:30pm SLEEP MEDITATION - Brooklyne
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• TUESDAY
• 5pm TAROT - Kara Foxdale
• 7:30pm SLEEP MEDITATION - Brooklyne
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• WEDNESDAY
• 10am MEDITATION SAMPLER- Zanth
• 5pm RESERVED FOR UPCOMING EVENT
• 7:30pm SLEEP MEDITATION - Brooklyne
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• THURSDAY
• 2pm MUTUAL LEARNING - Lucian Eldar (Paradox Demonista)
• 7:30pm SLEEP MEDITATION - Brooklyne
• FRIDAY
• 10am MEDITATION SAMPLER- Zanth
• 7:30pm SLEEP MEDITATION - Brooklyne
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
• SATURDAY
• 12pm Kirtan - Shambala Kimono
• 6:30pm Drumming Circle - Jethro Baudin
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
• SUNDAY
• 9am Sacred Circle Dance & Ceremony - Shambala Kimono
• 2pm Gateway to the Mystical Realm of Tarot & Divination &
Egyptian Shadows - Kara Foxdale
• 5pm Crystal Chat - Tara Baudin

27. ENGAGEMENT:
SPECTACLE AND THE ILLUSION OF
MANDATORY PARTICIPATION
• Egalitarian patchwork approach
• Multi-modal communication
• Music and dance animations that
‘possess’ your avatar
• Stagecraft
• Enthusiast ‘assistants’
• Regularly scheduled
• Large turnout, large membership.
• Technomonistic.
• Non-ritual social events

28. FIRST IMPRESSIONS ON ENGAGEMENT:
GOLDILOCKS SYNDROME
• Groups centered on meditation have
small congregations, were asocial,
required only attendance to participate.
They represent technomediation.
• The group centered on education and
RP was also relatively small and
required massive engagement and the
ability to lead as well as follow
established rituals (comparable to
clergy members). However, it was able
to foster interest in religion for
hesitant/uninterested members.
• Groups that encouraged but did not
require participation were well-
attended, and were best at recreating
the ecstatic feeling of an offline ritual.
They are essentially technomonistic.
• The level of engagement definitely has
a correlation to community popularity
and efficacy. But why is Shambhala so
effective at creating virtual sacred
spaces?

29. MEDITATION VS. ROLE-PLAY VS.
SPECTACLE IN SL GROUPS
• Meditation has the tendency to shut-down
your imagination and return you to your
offline self. This form of ritual pulls you out
of the virtual environment.
• SL religious expression intertwined with
ludism exposes the analogies between
role-play (suspension of disbelief) and
belief; this may diminish feelings of wonder
or the sacred within online ritual (Laycock,
2015).
• SL religion focused on spectacle and the
illusion of active participation enhances the
technomonistic sense that a virtual space
has become a sacred space.

30. QUALITY, NOT THE QUANTITY OF
ENGAGEMENT

31. REFERENCES
• Au, W.J. (2008). The making of Second Life.
HarperCollins.
• Berger, P. (1967). The sacred canopy. Anchor.
• Helland, C. (2013). Ritual. In H. Campbell (Ed.),
Digital religion: Understanding religious practice in
new media worlds. Routledge.
• Jacobs, S. (2007). Virtually sacred: The performance
of asynchronous cyber-rituals in online spaces.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,
12(3).
http://jcmc.Indiana.edu/vol12/issue3/Jacobs.html
• Laycock, J. (2015). Dangerous games: What the
moral panic over role-playing games says about
play, religion, and imagined worlds. University of
California Press.
• Miczek, N. (2008). Online rituals in virtual worlds:
Christian online services between dynamics and
stability. Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the
Internet, 3(1). http://archive.ub.uni-
Heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2008/8293/p
df/nadja.pdf
• Radde-Antweiler, K. (2006). Rituals Online:
Transferring and Designing Rituals. Journal of
Religion on the Internet, 2(1). http://archive.ub.uni-
Heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2006/6957/p
df/Aufsatz_Radde_Antweiler.pdf
• Wagner, R. (2012). Godwired: Religion, ritual and
virtual reality. Routledge.