6 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 3 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 7 lar to such extent that it can compete other religions. As the author says (Geraci 2014, 32), there are just a handful of religious denominations in the USA that have more followers than WoW. Jose Vallikatt (2014, 62) spent several years studying the phenomenon of videogame calledWorld of Warcraft and for three months spent three hours a day playing it. He also interviewed some players in several places in India. In this videogame, Vallikatt specifically focused on presence of religious phenomena, such as myths, rituals and establishing of communities that are typical also in traditional religions. In the first case, Vallikatt found many myths that are very similar to usual myths. In the introduction to the game, on its web site, he found a mythological introduction to the story. It was a narrative about the beginning of the world (game) and about the player’s role to re-create the world. In case of a new version of the game he found explanation of the changes that were implemented in the world, usually outbreak of chaos, disruption of the kingdom of Azeroth and the player’s quest to establish order. In the WoW videogame, the fight between “light” and “darkness” usually takes place on the mythical Mount Hyjal, and usually includes defence of the “world tree”. Beside cosmogonic myths, there are also various heroic myths. In the game, the player is transformed to his avatar, who is alone in the beginning of the game, and faces various quests. If the avatar – hero – succeeds, he gets a reward – he reaches higher degrees of skills and gains appreciation from the community. Vallikatt (2014, 164) says that myths in WoW constitute an important part of the game and set the way facts are perceived and the world is understood. Moreover, the players identify themselves deeply with their avatars and start to live their lives. Deep identification with avatars is visible for example when one exclaims, “I was killed” rather that “my avatar was killed”. Another important part of WoW is in rituals that, according toVallikatt (2014, 104), share some features with rituals in religions. He sees rituals in a broader context, as unchanging actions and expressions that repeat in certain sequences. The goal of each of them is to get desirable results. Vallikatt (2014, 108) sees a great deal of rituals in challenges the player is faced with, challenges that are based on rules but also on ritual ways of succeeding in the missions. Some of the rituals are closely bound to myths, for example the ritual of healing the “world tree”, ritual of player’s revival and similar. The third important part of WoW, according toVallikatt, is community. Similarly to religions, various communities are established in order to better cooperate in the fight against monsters and generally against spread of chaos in the players’ world. Valikatt comments (2014, 141) that the players naturally become members of communities because they want to share their experience and values. When asked, many players even stated that players’ communities are often better than traditional communities based on family or religion. One of the players (Muji) even said that the players’ community is very real for him and that he was never able to separate online playing time from real life. Vallikatt (2014, 168) claims that the WoW game offers its players mysterious and transcendent experiences and the player walks, consciously or unconsciously, into the world that has a religious character. In this respect, the WoW game can offer some spiritual satisfaction and the newly arising cyber-spirituality can represent religion for the hyper-modern generation. What possibilities are there for religion in the cyberspace of digital media and, more specifically, videogames such as WoW? We agree with both authors that virtual reality is something unphysical, yet physically real in certain aspects. Connection between virtual reality is realized through our sense-perception, it can also trigger some neuroplastic response in our brain (Gálik and Gáliková Tolnaiová 2015, 12). Similarly, J. D. F. Tuckett and David G. Robertson (2014, 100) state that religion in videogames is taken as real. They refer to approach taken by Wiliam James and Alfred Schutz, who claim that if something exists in a meaningful relation to people then it is real (Tuckett and Robertson 2014, 88). It means that when people assess a situation as real, then this situation brings real consequences (Tuckett and Robertson 2014, 99). Since our fantasy can be taken as something unreal, it may also be understood as virtual reality. For example, if we have a feeling that something is moving in the darkness, then this “idea” will trigger real consequence in the form of fear, racing of the heart and similar symptoms. It is similar in the case when we are involved in a videogame in the cyberspace of digital media. In this sense, reality includes also virtual reality. It means that a spiritual experience online can be as intense as a spiritual experience offline. For this reason, World of Warcraft, for example, can satisfy the religious needs of a present hypermodern man. Despite this, there are still some differences that we will try to explain in the following chapter. 4 Spiritual Limitations in the Cyberspace of Digital Media Human body, we believe, still constitutes a significant boundary between reality and virtual reality and consequently between traditional and virtual religion. We see the boundary here in two cases, which we determine as external limitation and internal limitation. External limitation. In traditional religion, for example in Christian religion, sacraments, especially baptizing is conditio sine
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