Page 227 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense
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212                  Carly Machado

         According to Marshall’s studies (2001), celebrity status gives structure
       to meanings, crystallizes ideological positions and works to provide sense
       and coherence to a culture. Being a celebrity provides distinction and con-
       fers discursive power to the person: the celebrity is a voice imposed over
       other voices, a voice channeled by the media systems as legitimately mean-
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       ingful (Marshall, 2006).  The fame acquired by Raël through the mass
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       media, even though relative in quantitative terms,  is realized as an exten-
       sion of his self, a capacity to develop spatiotemporal relations that extend
       beyond the self (Munn 1992), expanding its dimensions of control. At the
       start of my ethnographic research, my initial “contact” with Raël was
       mediated by his online image and his printed word; likewise, others inter-
       ested in the movement can make contact with “Raël’s person” through
       these same mediations.
         Munn (1992, 116) conceives “fame,” in the Gawan case, as an extension
       of a person’s immediate influence beyond the minds and actions of his or
       her partners, reaching others located further away in the network. “Fame”
       is therefore characterized as the potential to influence the acts of distant
       third parties: “As iconic and reflexive code, fame is the virtual form of
       influence” (117). Taking the relation between fame and influence as a par-
       adigmatic feature of the figure of Raël allows us to pursue a deeper analysis
       of the effectiveness of the link between the spread of his image through
       mass communications, associated with the circulation of his person (fame),
       and the amplification of his influence in creating positive and sacred val-
       ues associated with his image. The virtual presence of the diffused image,
       associated with its potential to influence, generates the effect needed to
       attribute sacredness to the prophet’s amplified powers. Circulation of the
       person, extra-bodily mobility, virtuality, and extended influence are ele-
       ments held in common by mediatic and sacred effects, and as such can mix
       to the point where they end up defining the same phenomenon. 12
         Like the category of “fame,” the position of “celebrity” confers “other-
       worldly” qualities to the sacred figure of the prophet. According to Marshall
       (2001), the celebrity occupies a position without history and without great
       cultural importance or prior baggage: “Celebrity draws its power from
       those elements without tradition. This power, however, has a certain

       liquidity, much like the mobility and exchangeability of capital” (6).
       Hence, Marshall continues, the celebrity exists above the real world in the
       domain of symbols that gain and lose values like merchandise on the stock
       market.
         While at first sight the reports produced by the RVP team seem to be
       targeted toward the outside public, the biggest effect of these images is to
       feed the internal imaginary of the movement’s members who, through
       what they see and how they see, legitimate Raël’s status as a prophet. The
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