As presented at the Conference for Religion and Spirituality in Society at U.C. Berkeley, April 18, 2018

1. FIREFLY DAKINI
Jean-Paul DuQuette, Ed.D
University of Macau

2. LINDEN LAB’S SECOND LIFE:
AVATAR CHAT AND CONTENT
CREATION

3. CYPRIS CHAT EFL
(DUQUETTE, 2017B)

4. INITIAL QUESTIONS ABOUT CYPRIS:
• Who prefers to learn in virtual worlds?
• What attracts them to the
environment?
• What keeps them active in a
community?
• How does language learning take
place?

5. THE FIREFLY COMPANION’S GUILD
IN SECOND LIFE

6. ‘REVERSE GAMIFICTION’ IN AN
INTERCOMMUNITY
ROLE-PLAY FINISHING SCHOOL

7. FIREFLY
• Broadcast by Fox in 2002-2003
• Joss Whedon’s “space-western”
• Serenity released in 2005
• Browncoats fan base stll strong (Firefly,
n.d.)

8. INARA SERRA
• Played by Morena Baccarin
• A Companion (courtesan)
• Socially elite
• Skills focusing less on sex and more on
psychological nurturing and emotional
well-being, etiquette and performing
arts (Firefly, n.d)

9. METHODS
• Participant observation
(1/2016 – present)
• Class and event recordings
• Interviews
• Extraplatform interactions
(Facebook, Ning)

10. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
• Virtual world ethnography
(Boellstorff, Nardi, Pearce & Taylor,
2012)
• Digital Habitats
(Wenger, White & Smith, 2009)
• Practice-oriented spirituality
(Grieve, 2017; Wuthnow, 1998)
• Transmedia as religious world
building
(Wagner, 2012)

11. GUILD CURRICULUM AND EVENTS
• Core courses
• Member suggested courses
• Open houses
• Social events
• Fire Ceremony
• Grading Day
• Wo Men Da Kai (Graduation)

12. GUILD MEMBERSHIP (N=188)
Guild Sponsor (n=2)
Companion Patron (n=188)
Companion Acolyte (n=125)
Peacock Acolyte (n=50)
Flamingo Acolyte (Females) (n=31)
Hummingbird Acolyte (Males) (n=9)
Phoenix Acolyte (n=37)
Registered Companion (n=27)
Priestess (n=6)
High Priestess (n=1)
Extended family of participants (n=400
approx.)

13. A PIVOT: FROM EDUCATION TO
SPIRITUALITY

14. HIGH PRIESTESS VARAHI

15. INFLUENCES OF FIREFLY CANON
• Use of Mandarin Chinese
• Courtesan as councilor/negotiator
• Geisha culture
• Sex positivity
• Matriarchal Guild structure (implied)

16. INFLUENCES OF KADAMPA
BUDDHISM
• 1. Meditation
• 2. Spiritual intermediaries
• 3. Dakini Land and Charnel Grounds
• 4. Buddhawheel
• 5. Four enjoyments

17. 1. FOCUS ON REGULAR MEDITATION

18. 2. EMPHASIS ON SPIRITUAL
INTERMEDIARIES

19. 3. DAKINI LAND AND
CHARNEL GROUNDS

20. MANDALAS OF VAJRAYOGINI
• A Tantric Buddhist goddess and dakini
(“a Tantric term for female practioners,
adepts, spirits and dieties” (Shaw, 2006,
p. 359)).
• An unselfish deity that strives for the
well-being of others and the
destruction of their egos
• Appropriate for those people with
passionate natures (which she can
change into more enlightened virtues)
(Gyatso, 1996; Shaw, 2006)

21. 4. BUDDHAWHEEL

22. AVATAR AS GAME PIECE

23. MEMBER THOUGHTS ON
BUDDHAWHEEL
• “During the last session I played in, it struck me that one's
progression through various types of being wasn't a locked-in
hierarchical thing. You had things to learn and do regardless of
whether you were a Hell beast or god. Varahi pointed out that
one of the revolutionary aspects of the Buddha's teachings was to
give the untouchables and other low-caste Hindu a path to
enlightenment the brahmin claimed didn't exist for them.”
• (Lysana, private communication, 13/4/18)

24. 5. THE FOUR ENJOYMENTS:
ROLE-PLAY ELEMENTS WITH
DEVOTIONAL SIGNFICANCE
• Gazing – “like visiting a shrine”
• Smiling – “showing appreciation
through the sharing of ritual…doing the
practice of the diety”
• Holding hands – “working with the
diety as friends”
• Union – “becoming one with the diety”
• (Varahi Lusch, interview, 3/12/18)

25. VIRTUAL TRANSMEDIA HYBRIDS AS
NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

26. POP CULTURE HYBRIDS
The Jedi Church
(jedichurch.org, n.d.)
The Church of the Latter-Day
Dude (Dudeism, 2018)

27. SIDHEVAIR (SHEE-VAIR)
• A 501(c)3 non-profit in Second Life
• “Sidhevair is specifically interested in
how virtual worlds can enrich
participants' lives both "inworld"
and "outworld". This is encouraged
via fantasy, imagination, fairy tales,
and a "rhetoric of the fantastic“ (The
Sidhevairs: A Virtual Vision of
Westernesste, 2017).

28. THE COMPANIONS GUILD AS A
TRANSMEDIA HYBRID NRMS
• 1. Implicitly connects established
author-centric world building with fan
fiction, role-playing and the ‘lore’ of an
established tradition.
• 2. Reportedly has an impact on
psychological well-being outside of the
magic circle of role-play (Huizinga,
1955).
• 3. Practice-based / dogma-light
interactions in role-play provide an
opening for participants initially averse
or ambivalent to religion / spirituality.

29. 1. LEGITIMACY THROUGH A
CONNECTION TO ‘CANON’

30. 2. PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF
VIRTUAL LOVE

31. MEMBER TESTIMONIALS
• “I came to finally realize more deeply than ever that I am lovable and deserve love.”
• “The people in the guild are family to me and have such a profoundly good effect
on me.”
• “I’m steadier, warmer, more relaxed and confident – and have a stronger ability to
believe that life is no problem.”
• “To say it has had profound impacts upon my life has been an understatement.”
(DuQuette, 2017a)

32. HEIGHTENED EMOTIONS
• “One of the reasons the
emotional bonds of social play
can be so intense is because in
these liminal zones people can
‘let their hair down’” (Pearce,
2009, p. 245).

33. 3. IDENTIFICATION WITH A CHARACTER
AS A GATEWAY TO NEW RELIGIOUS
EXPERIENCE

34. ROLE-PLAY AND EXPERIMENTATION
• “(B)ecause this is a liminal space,
framed by make-believe,
experimentation and subversion are
accepted as part of the territory.”
(Pearce 2008, p. 245).

35. “PERFORMATIVE SPIRITUALITY”
(GRIEVE, 2017, P. 81)

36. REGISTERED COMPANIONS ON
SPIRITUALITY IN THE COMPANIONS
GUILD
• “While the Guild hasn't turned me into a Buddhist by any stretch, I
do know I'm operating under a perception of concepts like
attachment that I didn't have before.” (Lysana, private
conversation, 13/4/18)
• “The Guild training, particularly the meditation element, gave me a
social self-awareness that my previous meditation training hadn't
addressed. Varahi is not only a gifted teacher but an originator
and has effectively created a new spiritual tradition.” (Beeflin,
private conversation, 13/4/18)

37. THE COMPANIONS GUILD:
WHERE IS IT LEADING US?
• New forms of play: the nexus of role-
play, dating, education and spirituality
in virtual worlds
• Exploring “authentic spirituality” in
immersive environments.
• Role-play opening participants up to
new religious perspectives.

38. FINAL THOUGHTS:
VARAHI ON FIREFLY DAKINI
• “We are so bloody lucky in this degenerate time to achieve anything…and how
wonderful also to work in the charnel grounds of the Dakini. You know of it? The
story of the Dakini? The Dakini is originally from India. There, baby girls in the past
were of no value. In fact less than that. This has been a fact in many
countries…Companions are to do with feminism and empowerment. So this story is
very important. In India, people who did not want their baby girls, they would take
them to the burial grounds and leave them there. Some would manage to survive
and be found by others who had been abandoned. These Dakini would grow and
live in the burial / charnel grounds and their wisdom was of the Sky and not of the
human world. A yogi wishing to know of enlightenment would therefore travel
hoping to meet the Dakini, who if he asked nicely, would convey wisdom of the Sky
Dancer coming from a place of non-human grasping. It is like that.”

39. • “Companions also come from
this place, really, because their
world is so different. It is a
visualization of the future by a
feminist. It is also from the Sky.
‘You can’t take the Sky from
me.’” (Varahi Lusch, interview,
3/12/18)

40. PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• FionaFei: Slide 2, 4, 11, 13, 17, 19, 21,
22, 28, 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 37, 40
• Varahi Lusch: Slide 18
• Flynt Firebrand: Slide 18
• Aleeri Li Chuo: Slide 33
• Mystie Slade: Slide 3

41. REFERENCES (1)
• Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C. & Taylor, T.L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds: A handbook of
method. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Dudeism (2018). The Church of the Latter-Day Dude. Retrieved from http://dudeism.com.
• DuQuette, J. (2017a, June). The Companion’s Guild: Role-play, education and spirituality in a Second Life
community. Paper presented at the International Scientific Conference on Cultural Group Behavior, Kaunas,
Lithuania.
• DuQuette, J. (2017b). Cypris Village: Language learning in virtual worlds. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation).
Temple University: Philadelphia, PA.
• Firefly (TV series) (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)
• Grieve, G.P. (2017). Cyber Zen: Imagining authentic Buddhist identity, community, and practices in the virtual
world of Second Life. New York: Routledge.
• Gyatso, G.K. (1997). Guide to Dakini Land: The Highest Yoga Tantra Practice of Buddha Vajrayogini. USA:
Tharpa Publications.
• Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo ludens: A study of the playielement in culture. Boston, MA: The Beacon Press

42. REFERENCES (2)
• Jedi Church (n.d.). The Jedi Church. Retrieved from https://www.jedichurch.org.
• Pearce, C. (2009). Communities of play: emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual
worlds. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
• Shaw, M. (2006). Buddhist Goddesses of India. Princeton, MA: Princeton University Press.
• Sidhevair (2017). The Sidhevairs: A virtual vision of Westernesste. Retrieved from
https://www.sidhevair.org.
• Wagner, R. (2012). Godwired: Religion, ritual and virtual reality. New York: Routledge.
• Wenger, E., White, N. & Smith, J. (2009). Digital habitats: stewarding technology for
communities. Portland., OR: CPSquare.
• Wuthnow, R. (1998). After heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950’s. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.