Inglid ja Inglipesa internetifoorum uue vaimsuse kandjate ja legitimeerijatena

• Authors: Marko Uibu

Title variants

EN

ANGLES AND THE NEST OF ANGLES INTERNET FORUM AS CARRIES AND LEGITIMISERS OF THE VALUES OF NEW SPIRITUALITY

• Languages of publication: ET

Abstracts

EN

The article observes angels as figures important for the contemporary spiritual milieu. The article focuses on an Estonian spiritual Internet forum, The Nest of Angels, and demonstrates how angels help to share virtual social support and create/confirm spiritual meanings. The forum, explicitly opposing the consumerist side of new spirituality, has become popular and demonstrates the nature and various roles of contemporary spiritual angels. Angels constitute a salient example of a recent religious change, becoming the symbols of human-centeredness and this-worldliness of modern religiosity. By asking why angels and why in the internet environment, the study identifies two main modes in which the Nest and the presence of angels have found their place in people’s lives. Firstly, emotional support is shared, either by fellow users directly or by confirmations that angels will definitely help. Secondly, the Nest allows people to acquire knowledge both on spiritual and practical issues. As the Nest is dialogical, users can pose questions and find confirmations for their otherwise deviant experiences. Discussions in the Nest encourage everybody to interpret some situations and objects (like feathers) as signs from angels. This interpreting process might change people’s perceptions of the world by adding a layer of positive emotions. The study demonstrates how the angelic presence (or at least endeavour towards the presence) helps to establish and keep the tonality of benevolence, which functions as the cornerstone of this virtual space. The ideology of the Nest and the community interactions support “connected knowledge”: being empathic, intuitive, and individualistic. As a rule, commenters do not aim to challenge diverging views (common elsewhere in Internet communication), but attempt to understand and support each other. The trustful virtual relationships actualise the influence and the authority of people similar to users themselves, and increase distrust towards traditional authorities, especially those that do not accept people’s free choice and subjectivism. Therefore, although quite opposite to a feminist empowerment ideology, new spirituality and angels support a subjective feeling of self-confidence that is framed with ‘feminine’ softness. In addition to active moderation and the strongly perceived normativity of keeping the place “high-vibrational”, the angels themselves are guardians and guarantors of this intimacy, so knowledge and emotional support can be shared. The angels’ divine nature supports people directly, but more importantly, makes them speak in a language of goodness and guarantees that fellow users, although not real angels, are trying to be at least slightly angel-like. Angels as symbolic figures unite power and benevolence; they legitimise values and epistemological positions characteristic to the milieu of new spirituality.

Keywords

EN

angels; new spirituality; online ethnography; religious syncretism; virtual community

• Publisher: Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian Institute of Folklore, EKM Teaduskirjastus
• Journal: Mäetagused
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 56
• Pages: 181-204

Contributors

author

Marko Uibu

• University of Tartu, Ülikooli 18, 50090 Tartu, ESTONIA