2012/07/19 by Rachel Morgain · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · Psychology · #Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices #Religion and Society Interactions #Religious Tourism and Spaces #Uncanny #Power (physics) #Illusion #Aesthetics #Sociology #Ethnography #Uncanny valley #Psychoanalysis #Psychology #Philosophy #Epistemology #Anthropology #Cognitive psychology
paper · doi:10.1080/0048721x.2012.707802
openalex publication_date 2012/07/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In ‘The Future of an Illusion’, Freud suggested that religion allows a person to ‘feel at home in the uncanny’ – that unsettling interplay of suppression and memory that arises from living subject to fears and anxieties in an unpredictable world. Here, the author examines a ritual called the ‘Wild Hunt’ that occurred during her ethnographic research among contemporary Pagans to explore how uncanny encounters within religious rituals can help participants come to terms with fears and anxieties, transforming inchoate emotions stemming from trauma or dislocation. Following Otto, the author suggests that such a sense of the uncanny can be central to the power of religious ritual. These uncanny elements within religious ritual provide an illustration of how religious experiences can help participants to feel ‘at home in the uncanny’, thereby bringing together the seemingly disparate accounts of Otto and Freud on the relationship between religion and uncanny experience.