Or, Why Religious Experiences Aren't Always Religious (a.k.a. Enjoy the Power and Wonder of Stories)
Listen to, rather than watch, the following video and follow along with the posted-lyrics:
Ula menida tula oh (Hoary Arbor, Lord of Light)
Tela omnida tula ei (Thine advent quelleth creeping night)
Ona ramuhda deme os (The wicked burn, their pyres bright)
Nola tulama tela ei (Smote by Levin's blinding might)
Soul without a name, heed my call
Sin doth stain the hearts of us all
The worm hath burrowed deep and hath grown
Soon he too shall reap what is sown
Step into the storm, know its mercy
Let the wind and the rain crash down over thee
Lightning bright, thunder bold
Guiding us forevermore
Soul fallen from grace, ware thee well
Judgment thou must face, thine own hell
The worm stirreth within, black as night
Breeding deeper sin, foul its blight
Soul, thine end is nigh. Take mine hand
All life must return to the land
Lingered hath the worm, overlong
Purge thy flesh of fear and be strong
Step in from the storm, praise its mercy
Let the sting of the rain ne'er stray far from thee
Lightning bright, thunder bold
Freeing us forevermore
Now lift thine heavy head and vanquish thy sorrow
Lightning doth strike
Thunder doth roll
Now turn thy gaze ahead and look to the morrow
Lightning shall strike
Thunder shall roll on
Did you spot the religious elements? Are you sure go you them all?
The video is of an eight-player battle versus the Lord of Levin, Ramuh, the god of the fictional race of Sylphs that appear in Final Fantasy XIV, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game produced by Square Enix. The lyrics of a song written specifically for challenging the might of a god are unsurprising in their references to sin, a soul, hell, judgement, and mercy. But there are more religious elements than that.
Another Place, Another Time
As in many video games, you play a hero who goes on a variation of the Hero's Journey, or the Monomyth, which turns up in many cultures past and present. You use props and cue, in this case the game's graphics and sound, to create an atmosphere ripe for suspension of disbelief to enter a different world. That world may be a mythic past or future, or a quasi-historical past, where you vicariously participate in exciting evens which contain humor, tragedy, and other strong feelings and reactions.
These elements predate religion as we know it, but when we find evidence of such props and cues deep in caves used by our ancestors, we still associate such things with could be called proto-religious themes and experiences. Humans are deeply dependent on the virtual reality we individually and collective form in our heads and this sense of reality always has some kind of narrative structure. We create and live in stories that help us to make sense of our experiences, to define our world, and to establish a sense of self. In other words, our reality is dependent on our stories.
This is why those elements mentioned present in certain types of video games can be so compelling and why we can get lost in them for a few minutes or a few hours at a time. Here is another video, this one from Mass Effect 3, in which the hero (your avatar) is concerned for a friend and former ally who was already sick and was then wounded while foiling the plans of violent men to commit mass murder:
Again, I chose something with explicitly religious elements to make it a bit easier to see some of the parallels, but another moment that I could have used from the same game, with no such direct parallels, comes from this scene of a scientist's final sacrifice.
The scenes mean little without context, without getting to know the characters over time, but they are well done. Not all video games are so story driven or immersive, of course. But the ones that are work because they evoke that suspension of disbelief and our feelings. Even the ones that are less story driven still have one, and the music and visuals can still have an effect, like the sights and sounds of being deep in a cave twenty thousand years ago with images of animal-men and hunting parties flickering out of the darkness by lamp light while haunting shouts and chants pressed in as if the very air were alive and full of magic.
Or like the more structured chanting and song, now lost to time, of the original rituals in which the Psalms were performed. Or like the consuming engagement of ancient Greek dramas. Or the elaborate ceremonies and secret initiations of the Buddhism of the Himalayas. Not to mention the primal ferocity of a heavy metal concert. Sights and sounds, some with rituals simple or elaborate, some without, getting into our heads and creating an experience with the potential to shake us.
The sum of religion's parts?
Am I suggesting video games will replace religion? That's too simplistic. We can get immersive stories with familiar characters, morality tales, and the identification of our concerns, desires, hopes, and dilemmas from novels, radio plays, television programs, theater, and motion pictures. The better point is that religion as we tend to think of it, particularly organized religion, is a conglomeration of many elements.
The identifiable characters, the monomyth and other common narrative structures like morality tales origin stories, the unifying rituals that create a new imaginative space linking us to other times and worlds, the use of sights and sounds to rouse and to call to mind such spaces, the political structure for social organization -- these and other elements that are combined on organized religion were never restricted to or owned by such institutions.
Combining those elements together can create something very powerful and inspire faith that fears little or nothing, but all social and cultural institutions rise and fall according to the needs and desires of people. Economic forces in particular have a way of strongly shaping which social groups and institutions have power and which do not, leaving those with power to try to prevent such forces from changing or to gain control over such forces to maintain relevance and influence. Loss of faith and relevance is often about such societal reorganization or negative responses by institutions to such changes.
The decline of organized religion in some post-industrial societies has lead to claims that religion is outdated and will soon be extinct, yet the elements which make up organized religions will continue as they always have, whatever the forms that offer them. This includes the need for imagination and irrational leaps born from "What if...?" Having access to the space of infinitely possible and a sense of greater purpose and meaning that links everything together, whether or not these are explicitly acknowledged as or referred to as the realm of the realm of the sacred, will continue as well. As an older religion reborn, as a new religion for a different age, or in some type of spirituality not yet known.
Same old humans
Yes, there are other hooks for video games such as satisfaction from performing a repeated task that offers a reward, just as there are other hooks for other forms of diversion and entertainment. But if you think that people have somehow become less spiritual or religious, which in the formal sense may be true, consider that we still seek and engage in activities which provide access to the formative elements of spirituality and religion.
We will still live in a world of stories, and seek still more stories to help us process our experiences, open us to and reveal new experiences, and create path to new ways of seeing reality and being human. Each new format for sharing stories borrows something from existing ones and adds something different, but they all work off the complex psychology.
The dedicated fandoms of the Harry Potter books, the Star Wars films, and similar fictional universes popularized in the last few decades are not outliers or oddballs. They are responding to some of the same elements which drew people into caves, mountaintop temples, and cathedrals. This doesn't make such media or their fandoms equivalent or identical religions, nor does it have to make them competitors with religions. It is all a part of our shared human experience and our need to belong to worlds full of wonderful, terrifying, impossible things that exalt and humble us while inspiring us and whetting our curiosity. Embrace it, share it, and let it transform you and open pathways of discovery.
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