Logging-On to Sai Baba

Navigation through the religious landscapes of the World Wide Web provides researchers with a provocative portrayal of sacred globalization, a 21st century manifestation of "technosocial collaboration." §Advancements in technology have allowed for increased global interconnectivity and cultural exchange. The sacred sphere of religious belief and practice is being shaped by a global telecommunications infrastructure that promotes the pluralism of the modern world. The Sathya Sai Baba Organization is utilizing the Internet as a global stage to define, perform and transmit the universalistic philosophies of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. This monograph seeks to uncover some of the objective "truths" of religious practice in the realm of cyberspace. By applying an anthropological lens to the extensive web presence of the Sathya Sai Baba Organization, the use of technology as a vessel for sacred space will be revealed as not only a socio-cultural event, but as a "cyberperformance" shaped by the poetics of sacred globalization. An examination of the organization as a form of online religion is advantageous to the study of new "cyberliterate" anthropological practices.