Paper short abstract:

SCREENING of two scenes from a forthcoming film about luminosity and a new spiritual movement in post-revolutionary Egypt. DISCUSSION of how microphenomenological interviews and audiovisual media can be applied to describe socalled religious experiences with precision and in detail.

Paper long abstract:

Having worked for seven years on jinn possession, Islamic exorcism, and radicalization among Danish Muslims, I reached a point of exhaustion finding it impossible to work in the toxic political climate of escalating hatred and fear between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe.

An Egyptian friend gave me a simple advice: "Stop focusing on the darkness in this world: Look at the light"; an approach to life he himself had learned after having been in and out of Salafism as well as through two failed revolutions before he found relief in a different form of religious devotion that is rising in post-revolutionary Egypt.

I took the advice and together with the Egyptian filmmaker Mohammad Mustafa, the photographer Amira Mortada, and the philosopher Omar Rakhawy, I embarked on a search for the light in the Egyptian capital. Recorded between 2014-2020, this film documents our journey through the lights of the city, the Nile, and the desert. In addition the film documents an inner search for answers; what is the light, what does it do, how can there be so much darkness and light in this world and inside ourselves, what is the significance of these beings of light that sometimes present themselves in the midst of rituals, in our everyday lives, and in our dreams?

The film is a product of a long term visual anthropological research project that applies microphenomenological and audiovisual research tools to examine subjective experiences of light in meticulous detail.