It is crazy to think that Elvis religion can be percieved as an actual example of a religion. I just feel like it is so different from any other religions that we have studied. Before we starting analizing the article, I thought for sure that it wouldn’t have nearly enough elements needed to be a religion. But after looking at the elements it became clear that most of the elements are clearly there. This religion definitely has rituals, ultimate reality, myth, community, worldview, material expression and moral code. They also have a pilgrimage to Graceland. The pilgrimage has a lot of examples of both the Turner and Eliade model. There is communitas, limin, metaphorical death, and return. There is also sacred space, relics, axis mundi, ritual, and reenactment. We discussed in class how a pilgrimage can only be a pilgrimage if you actual believe in the sacredness of the journey and are actually changed by the pilgrimage. If you don’t experience either of those than you are simply just a tourist.
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I agree with your argument. I also could not think of this “tradition” as a religion before gaining all this information about what a religio is, in this class. As you said the pilgrimage to Graceland could be categorized as a religion because it has all he features of a real religion (although arguments may arise on some of them). People go to Graceland for spiritual reasons and to heal and there have been many ill or injured people who have said they have felt better after coming back home from their pilgrimage. Although these may all be imagination or the truth, I find the pilgrimage to Graceland really interesting.
I agree with both of you on the Elvis pilgrimage as well because when I heard we were going to study this I thought there was no way it could be even close to a religion, but as we began to talk about it and see what people do that follow the Elvis pilgrimage it began to prove my expectations wrong. Going through the reading the main aspects of a religion that Elvis religion had were sacred space, relics, axis mundi, ritual, and reenactment described directly from the reading making this an obvious example of a type of religion and fitting our definition of a religion as well.
I agree that this meets a lot of the requirements to be a religion but I am still not sold that it is a religion. The man was one of the most famous singers ever but that doesn’t mean it makes him divine and that we should make a religion in his image. I think you could do this with other people and argue that it could be a religion.