Enacting religious submission: between doing religion and being done by religion
Religion February 10, 2026 Michal Pagis, Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli
Religious practitioners actively cultivate experiences of being overtaken by a divine or transcendent force. Through ethnographic studies of Buddhist meditation retreats and Torah study in a Haredi yeshiva, the paper shows that achieving submission requires deliberate, embodied effort. In Torah study, students alternate between vigorous debate and surrendering to 'divine thinking' within partnerships. In Buddhist meditation, practitioners shift from conscious bodily performance to passive synchronization with 'ultimate reality.' This paradox—exercising agency to reach states that negate it—reveals how religious doctrines become personally felt through practice, making religious experience an accomplished, interactive achievement.