Materiality and Global Spiritual Networks: Old and new sacred places and objects

In this article, I am interested in how belief and religious materiality—sacred objects, places, infrastructures and digital media—are entangled in globalisation processes. Drawing on a case study of the John of God spiritual movement, I analyse the ways in which places and objects that have recently acquired sacred status enter into older, more established global spiritual networks, and by doing so are able to travel and ‘settle’ elsewhere. I argue that if we want to make sense of the place of religion in the world today, we need to link two fields of research on religion which have mostly developed separately: the fields of Material Religion and Globalisation of Religion. Furthermore, I contend that it is precisely because of its (mostly mobile) materiality that the John of God movement was able to survive somewhat after its charismatic leader was sentenced and jailed for sexual crimes in 2019.