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Paper short abstract:

How do devotees transform digital spaces into spaces of religious practice? This presentation aims to understand the formation of an on-line devotional community his authority and the modalities to interact with the supernatural entity, with a focus on the cult of Sousa Martins.

Paper long abstract:

How do devotees transform digital spaces into spaces of religious practice? How in these spaces, through the sharing of religious experiences and their "materialities", is the on-line community structured?

This presentation focus specifically on the cult of Sousa Martins, a great Portuguese doctor of the 19th century, considered a supernatural entity by some groups in Portugal. This intervention is based on an ethnography conducted in Portugal (2022) as well as on a net-ethnography on Facebook groups dedicated to the devotion to Sousa Martins.

Starting from a reflection on the production, use and sharing of digital writings, and votive images, this study of online devotion to Sousa Martins aims to understand the formation of—an online community, a digital authority, and the transmission of the modalities to interact with the supernatural entity.

Thanks also to the interviews conducted with the members of this Facebook group dedicated to the devotion of the Portuguese doctor, we will explain the religious practices and the modalities of devotional interaction with Sousa Martins in the digital. This analysis will be completed by an observation about the existing circulations between the online and offline spaces of devotion.

This study allows, therefore, to identify the modalities of online interaction with the supernatural entity and of the formats of sharing between individuals in a religious and informal online community. For this purpose, I propose an analysis that shows the aesthetic codes, the offline/online relationship, and the contemporary modalities of rituals; in a cult evolved outside institutions.