Noise and Other Frequencies of Life: A Study of Online Religious Congregations in India

The rise of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a notable increase in online religious
gatherings spanning various faiths worldwide. Against this backdrop, a modern
religious community in India named Satsang, situated in the city of Deoghar,
Jharkhand, has embraced the practice of what they call e-satsang or online satsang
whereby the disciples participate in the collective rituals of sound and listening
through online live streaming applications. Focusing on the case of e-satsang in
Deoghar, the paper investigates how disciples of the Satsang community experience
technical disturbances or jaantrik golojog in online meetings. Through an in-depth
study of technical disturbance and noise in online satsang, the paper develops the
concept of Noisification, which contends that noise is not a preexisting entity in the
spiritual world of Satsang. Instead, noise is produced through practices of
techno-spiritual disciplining, whereby disciples learn to discipline their environments
by silencing the unwanted frequencies of life.
Keywords : Noise, Noisification, Technical Disturbance, Digital Religion, E-satsang,
Deoghar.