Inner Role-taking and Emotion in New Religious Movements and Contemporary Spirituality

In Finland, kirtan—communal call-and-response singing rooted in Indian devotional traditions—has become a diverse practice across both new religious movements and contemporary spirituality. This article asks how culturally learned symbols come to be experienced as dialogical interaction with more-than-human counterparts, and how emotions contribute to such role-taking. Drawing on 112 semi-structured interviews with kirtan practitioners conducted in 2020–25, I apply thematic content analysis informed by role theories of Hjalmar Sundén and Nils G. Holm in the psychology of religion. Participants came from 14 religious guru movements (n = 55) and unaffiliated practitioners (n = 57) who self-identified as independent of religious traditions. The findings distinguish two main role systems: one characteristic of religious guru movements and the other found among unaffiliated practitioners. They show how singing may facilitate dialogical role-taking with culturally bestowed more-than-human religious role counterparts. This article argues that kirtan offers a favourable contemporary setting for inner role-taking by bringing culturally bestowed role relations into contact with embodied affect, situations of personal need and affective memories in various ways. The article extends role-theoretical approaches by showing that role-taking in contemporary spirituality and new religious movements is sustained not only through texts but also through musical practice.