Another significant breakthrough was Bella and her colleagues’ study of the phenomenon of individual religion, which began to grow in attractiveness in the “blossoming sixties” in connection with the crisis of utilitarian individualism, “unable to provide a meaningful model of personal and social existence.” Perhaps Bella’s most famous book, The Habits of the Heart (1985), analyzes the turn from “institution to individual”, from “tradition, churchliness to human subjectivity, to self-realization, the inner world of a person for whom the main authority is himself.” This phenomenon (whose forthcoming appearance was welcomed by Herbert Spencer) even got its name – Sheilaism, on behalf of Bella’s respondent, nurse Sheila Larson, who did not go to church, but believed in God, loved herself and listened to her “inner thin voice.” And although Bella himself noted that Sheilaism ultimately leads to self-centeredness and human disunity, his work initiated a wide interdisciplinary study of individualized “spirituality” as the main form of religiosity in the postmodern era.
Bella went to her main book, one might say, all her life. Back in 1964, in his essay “Religious Evolution”, he proposed a five-term classification of religions, dividing them into: primitive (for example, the views of Australian aborigines), archaic (Polynesian cults, Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc.), historical (ancient Judaism, Confucianism, Buddhism, traditional Christianity, Islam), early modern (Protestant Christianity) and modern (religious individualism). Subsequently, under the influence of the famous book by Karl Jaspers “The Meaning and Purpose of History”, historical religions were characterized as axial – in the full sense of the word, that is, as those that can be called the axis of human civilization. The matter was left to “little”: to give a detailed description of the axial worldviews, showing their genesis not only from archaic and primitive cults, but also from the evolutionary even earlier forms of activity that we have in common with primates and other animals. In other words, to combine evolutionary biology with studies of ancient Greek and ancient Chinese texts in a broad cultural perspective.
Like few others, Bella was ready for this. He spoke fluent Japanese and competently in Chinese, French and German, studied Arabic and Wenyan, and could read ancient Greek and Hebrew. As, by his own admission, a “convinced Durkheimian”, he was influenced by Max Weber, Talcott Parsons and Eric Fegelin (author of the fundamental five-volume “Order and History”), collaborated with Clifford Geertz and Shmuel Eisenstadt, another researcher of axial civilizations. When working on Religion in Human Evolution (which, incidentally, took thirteen years) Bella relied on so many different sources that at times it seems as if the author’s voice is drowning in this collection of extensive quotations. The impression is, of course, mistaken. It’s just that when you are over seventy and you are a recognized expert in your field, you are more concerned not with the originality of thought, but with its conscientiousness. However, we are primarily interested in Bella’s independent views. How are they expressed?
Primarily on a breathtaking scale. Bella is a supporter of the so-called Big History, which does not separate history and evolution itself, so she begins the story about the origin of religion with … the Big Bang. But, of course, we really get to the point when animals (fish, reptiles and especially mammals) have parental care – an ability “which is fundamental to the development of empathy and ethics … as well as religion.” Parental care creates a “stress relief area,” a critical term for Bella, meaning that the pressure of natural selection on the young is relaxed. Freed from the difficulties of the struggle for survival, they “invent” play – an amazing activity characterized by relaxation, ease, egalitarianism and has a high heuristic potential. Play for Bella – as well as for the famous author of “Homo ludens” – the cornerstone of all future constructions. Not being a daily activity, play creates a “parallel world”, an alternative way of life, similar to sleep, but, in contrast, much more social and creative. The game is a real start.
Calling such types of human activities as religion, art and science “serious play” (Johan Hazinga’s term), Bella is talking at least about the fact that they all arise in the “area of relieved tension,” the constant expansion and filling of which is cultural evolution of humanity.