This is Why Your Fandom is Your Religion
I am reading about religious psychology, and I am meant to be preparing to teach a class on it, but instead I am writing this article. Because once you get past the bits about psychedelic drugs and sensory overload/depravation in conjunction with religious experiences you actually find something in my textbook (Religionspsykologi (Swedish. Originally Psychology of Religion. Classics and Contemporary Views) by David M. Wulff, Studentlitteratur 1993) which is relevant to my current interests.
First, though, just a small disclaimer to say that I’m not posting this to mock “real” religion (see what I did there?), but I simply find the descriptions interesting. Besides; it fits so well. Also, a lot of stuff here is freely translated, so don’t shoot me for anything you might think is misquoted. The behaviouristic theory I’m going to talk about here is later in the text said to be out-dated and mostly disregarded theories among modern day behaviourists, but that doesn’t make them any less interesting.
Wulff quotes Harry Hollingworth (1926) to say that “any behaviour is religious if it significantly contributes to the achievement of the things one perceives to have the highest value”. This is very interesting on its own and is really the main point of this article, but let’s break it down.
Please, click through to read the full article.
(Source: mostly10)
