This book's more journalistic work follows in the steps of scholarship such as David Chidester's Authentic Fakes in applying the tools of religious studies to American popular cultures. After an introductory anecdote regarding author Tara Elizabeth Burton's own religious participation in "intense subcultures," she starts by reviewing the demographics of the "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) who make up a large and growing portion of the American population. In particular, she observes the prevalence of the "faithful nones" who maintain "spiritual" identities while distancing themselves from "religious" institutions and traditions. She advances the label "Remixed" to designate the adherents of the sort of secularized quasi-sacred value systems and communities that propagate themselves through the consumerism of 21st-century mass society, with an emphasis on their customizable individualism.

Burton categorizes the faiths of the Remixed as "intuitionist religion," and her thumbnail history of this phenomenon considerably overlaps the "Metaphysical religion" chronicled in Catherine Albanese's Republic of Mind and Spirit. She traces one vector from 19th-century New Thought through 21st-century wellness culture; another of sexual revolution from Free Love to kink, polyamory and "consent culture" over the same historical span; and a yet another of neopagan occultism through the New Age and eventuating in a "Magical Resistance" in Trumpian America.

All of these past trends have had consequences in the three "postliberal paganisms" (246) that Burton sees as durably emergent from contemporary American culture. While some readers may be accustomed to noticing these alignments as political valences, this book observes (accurately, I think) that their political potency is a function of their differing and compelling religious visions. The first of these, already touched on in her prior discussion of activist witchcraft, is the social justice movement with its aim of moral renewal and measures to redress sexual and racial oppression. The second is the right-libertarian techno-utopian culture valorizing "rationality" and transhumanism. The third is the reactionary authoritarianism and chauvinism of a burgeoning neo-atavist movement. Burton notes perceptively that although adherents of these faiths may profess affection for or opposition to inherited theologies or metaphysics, none of them are incompatible with the starkest mechanistic materialism.

This book published in the first half of 2020 was then up-to-the-minute in its cultural assessments, but it predated the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, the protest wave following the police murder of George Floyd, and the US Capitol riot of January 2021. Each of these watershed events could be viewed as a manifestation of one of Burton's three contending para-religions. The protests were clearly a development of the social justice movement. The lockdowns forced commerce and culture online, accelerating various techno-utopian projects (and enriching and empowering their proponents). The attempt to violently overturn Trump's electoral defeat was an authoritarian disruption that demonstrated social cohesion among ideological actors previously characterized by "lone wolf" reactionaries.

(I couldn't help recalling my reading of Mary Farrell Bednarowski's New Religions and the Theological Imagination in America, where I correlated her three religious genera to the chapters of Liber Legis. In this case, I think it is fairly evident that Burton's understanding of the social justice movement corresponds to the first chapter, her techno-utopians match the second, and her apocalyptic atavists fit the third.)

Tara Isabella Burton has been a journalist, a contributing editor of The American Interest (in 2023,on hiatus as a print publication since late 2020), and a novelist. Strange Rites/i> is a book for a general audience which expands on her essay in the Washingon Post in August 2019 “For Marianne Williamson and Donald Trump, religion is all about themselves”.
She does not use the academic language of new religions studies. She uses some terms in an idiosyncratic way. Ms. Burton relies on narratives about what people said on social media or other Intenet platforms, and in books and articles.
In the first chapter, Ms. Burton refers to Pew Research Center reports on religion indicating that many Americans are not affiliated with any religion or do not believe what religions teach. She refers to “the Remixed”:
1. spiritual, not religious persons,
2. “faithful nones” – persons not affiliated, but holding a some religious belief or feeling, and
3. “religious hybrids” persons interested in witchcraft, pagan religion, alternative healing, paranormal powers or spirit.
In the second chapter, Ms. Burton discusses, briefly, the history of “intuitional religion” in American society – the Great Awakenings - in America in the 18th and 19th centuries, usually discussed by historians as cultural or popular history. She discusses early 19th century social and new religious movements including the Oneida commune, and a literary and philosophical movements with a spiritual sensibility - transcendentalism. She discusses the 19th century New Thought movement, the 20th century book The Power of Positive Thinking and self-help culture. She identifies a modern Awakening of spirituality in people interacting online. Ms. Burton writes about the Internet and social media as channels of personal expression. She cites a techno-utopian writer (Seth Godin) who maintains that cheap internet communications promote, freedom, wealth and happiness.
The book does not discuss how some people affiliated to institutional religions accepted the social gospel while others developed prosperity theology.
Ms. Burton devotes several chapters to sympathetically discuss the growth of Wicca, witchcraft, Satanism, sexual variety, swinging, polyamory, BDSM, kink, gender fluidity, wellness and other non-normal things as Internet and social media topics, and as markets. She appears to be happy when the weird and woke use social media. She expresses concern about the commercialization of these practices and beliefs on the Web, and the lack of authentic support for these causes in commercial practices and popular culture. She does not discuss why people in a competitive culture might intuitively chose this kind of spirituality. She sympathetically discusses social justice culture. She does not express concern about the commercial celebration of intuitive decision making or the absence of more difficult decision making strategies.
Ms. Burton is critical of the book Bronze Age Mindset, the “misogynist” “shitposting” on social media, dark web thinking, Jordan Peterson, Curtis Yarvin and neofascist nihilism. She is unhappy with the way some people use social media to express and promote their views.
She does not argue that social media should or could be regulated to allow speech to be unrestricted, cheap and persuasive. The book is generally informative. ( )

Many of the chapters are very good -- well researched, interesting, and original. I learned a lot. My skepticism is more about the takeaways. She seems to pit some of these ideas against each other in the conclusion without addressing the obvious point that if these movements are caused by increased individualism in the West then there is little risk of a Clash of Civilizations here. I just didn't buy it. ( )

An insightful exploration into the world of religiosity in the Western world in the early 21st century.

The author has deeply investigated a lot of religious trends and presents them well. She begins with a version of Hamlet that is interactive and how so many were drawn to it. She asks what religion is and what it's supposed to look like, and introduces her claim for religiosity in the 21st century: the Remixed, those who are quite skeptical of inherited authority and institutions but take a bit here and there and develop a spirituality that works for them. She explores the heritage of the esoteric and the intuitional, the kind of awakening that is going on in America with the spiritual trends of the time, how the Internet has facilitated community and spiritual groups, the spiritual dimensions of wellness culture, the growth of magic and Wicca, the spiritual side of modern sexuality, and then the connections with political movements: the "religiosity" of social justice vs. the redpill and blackpill cultures in the right-wing web. She concludes by suggesting we do not live in a godless secular society, but one full of spirituality that does not take well to institutions.

I've never seen "bespoke" used more often in a work, but this is a great work to help understand religious trends in the twenty first century. Highly recommended. ( )