Abstract
In ‘Erring Acculturation’ (1960) Van Baal made a plea that we not shut our eyes to some puzzling and less creditable aspects of religious movements. Van Baal (Ibid.,p.108) noted, for example, that certain cargo cults in Melanesia contributed little if anything to modernization. The Papuans supporting such movements did not behave with the rationality so characteristic of their behaviour under normal circumstances. The author then continued to distinguish between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. In ‘normal situations’ people do not go against the dictates of experience and common sense, but try to enhance the chances of success by religious means, as no human undertaking is believed to succeed without supernatural assistance. But in the ‘abnormal situation’, the cargo cult, “people suddenly decide to stake everything” (Ibid.,p.110).
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van Velzen, H.U.E.T., van Wetering, W. (1975). On the Political Impact of a Prophetic Movement in Surinam. In: Van Beek, W.E.A., Scherer, J.H. (eds) Explorations in the anthropology of religion. Verhandelingen. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4902-2_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4902-2_13
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