Virtual Taiwan Temple

A Canadian social scientist has assembled a virtual Taiwan temple on the web, with text and videos. Are you moved by the spirit?

+++++++++++++++

H-ASIA
August 23, 2006

RESOURCE: WWW site: Lingji (Spirit Mediums) Temple Project, Brandon
University

From: A Marshall

This is an announcement of the completion of SSHRC funded research by Alison R. Marshall, Associate Professor, Religion (principal investigator) and Gery Dueck, Associate Professor, Computer Science (co-investigator), Brandon University.

The Lingji virtual temple project is now complete and can be found at
http://lingji.brandonu.ca

Cyberspace offers many opportunities to be religious and to learn about religions. One can visit on-line temples, join cyber-sanghas, and ask cyber-monks for advice. This project evolves out research about a Taiwanese new age religion with mediums called lingji (diviners of the spirit). In the project we created a virtual temple to stimulate individuals in cyberspace to have religious experiences.

Lingji enter trance when they are moved by a spirit. This experience is a kind of semi-possession in which individuals are directed by spirits to move in different ways. We attempt to stimulate individuals to have religious experiences in cyberspace by placing television screens in the virtual temple that play clips of lingji in trance. In theory, when individuals see and hear the clips, they will see and hear the ling (spiritual essence) embedded in those clips that initially caused lingji to enter trance. This theory is supported by lingji beliefs.

The completed interactive virtual temple (http://lingji.brandonu.ca) contains Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian imagery and designs. There are also gods displayed within the temple from the various different temples that Lingji visit. The site also includes publications on the Lingji, as well as researched articles about the different gods who appear in the temple, the temple architecture, wall art and temples in cyberspace.

In addition to including images of different types of temples and their gods, the virtual temple also displays clips of fieldwork footage of Lingji performances and interviews. Each of the clips is displayed randomly and is generated by a database at the bottom of the temple screen. Clips are generated based on the god whose image is displayed at the time the on-line user enters the temple. New clips are generated each time a user clicks on a particular clip. These clips are generated based on keywords that have been assigned to each of the clips. For instance, clicking on a clip that has been given the keywords Lingji, fire dance, and jitong will generate clips that are related to that clip.

Now that the virtual temple is complete we are collecting data to investigate whether virtual users feel that they are responding in a spiritual way to the images and video clips generated in the temple.

Please note that the virtual temple part of the site does not currently run on Macintosh computers. [Ed. note--it will also be more readily appreciated if a higher speed connection is available. FFC]
--

Alison R. Marshall
Associate Professor, Department of Religion
Brandon University
270-18th Street
Brandon, Manitoba
R7A 6A9
Canada
e-mail: marshalla@brandonu.ca
phone: 204-727-7322
fax: 204-726-0473
Research site: http://lingji.brandonu.ca/
Faculty web page:

++++++++++

[Taiwan]