TY - BOOK ID - 85719922 TI - Handbook of hyper-real religions PY - 2012 SN - 1280495944 9786613591173 900422694X 9004218815 9004226923 9789004218819 9789004226920 PB - Leiden ; Boston : Brill, DB - UniCat KW - Religion and culture. KW - Popular culture KW - RELIGION / History. KW - TRAVEL / Special Interest / Religious. KW - Culture and religion KW - Culture KW - Religious aspects. KW - Religion and culture KW - Popular culture - Religious aspects UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85719922 AB - Today a new trend is clearly discernable, that of ‘hyper-real religions’. These are innovative religions and spiritualities that mix elements of religious traditions with popular culture. If we imagine a spectrum of intensity of the merging of popular culture with religion, we might find, at one end, groups practicing Jediism appropriated from the Star Wars movies, Matrixism from the Matrix trilogy, and neo-pagan rites based on stories from The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. At the other end of the spectrum, members of mainstream religions, such as Christianity can be influenced or inspired by, for example, The Da Vinci Code . Through various case studies, this book studies the on- and off-line religious/spiritual consumption of these narratives through a social scientific approach. ER -