Phantomatic Presences and Bioreligiosity

Abstract

This article explores the mimetic analogies between the twentieth-century Mexican order of the Legionaries of Christ and the Jesuits in their historic and current Atlantic reproduction. It argues for a line of study of the translocality of the Roman Catholic Church that pays attention to phantomatic presences, changing bioreligiosity and affective histories. Moreover it shows as a close focus on the “psychic glue” between different religious orders can shed light on the affective power of eroticism and mysticism within the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council.