Soul Search

Everyone loves a ghost story. It’s a genre that exists across history and in nearly every society. In certain forms of Buddhism, accruing bad karma puts you at risk of coming back as a horrifying and pitiable hungry ghost — figures quite different to the spectres found in Western folklore.

Shehan Karunatilaka is the author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, winner of the 2022 Booker Prize. He is appearing at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 5 May, the Brisbane Writers Festival on 10 and 11 May, and Sydney Writers Festival on 24, 25 and 26 May.

Andy Rotman is Professor of Religion, Buddhist Studies, and South Asian Studies at Smith College, Massachusetts, and the author of Hungry Ghosts.

Death is a core feature of most video games — for the player’s avatar at least. In fact, games might be one of the last, mainstream cultural spaces that regularly grapple with questions of mortality and the afterlife.

What questions and longings as human beings are explored in this burgeoning industry?

Dr Frank Bosman is a researcher in the School of Catholic Theology, Religion and Practice at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands. He is the author of Gaming and the Divine: a new systematic theology of video games.

Dr Heidi Campbell is Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University, and director of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies. Heidi’s many books include an edited collection on Playing with Religion in Digital Games.

More on digital religion on Soul Search:

• Islam and the internet
• Digital religion — an overview

It's been 100 years since Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's burial chamber, focusing the world's attention on ancient Egypt and its preoccupation with what happens after death. But can we excavate the afterlife, or at least how past societies thought about it?

Dr Stan Florek is a Collection Officer at the Australian Museum in Sydney and the author of several articles about the museum's collection from ancient Egypt.

Dr Sven Ouzman is an archaeologist at the University of Western Australia.

Disability theologians are asking, what does resurrection and renewal mean if Jesus’ wounds remained after he rose from the dead? 

It’s a question that challenges our received notions about disability and identity – not just for Christians, but potentially for anyone affected by disability. That’s one in six people in Australia and, in the end, almost all of us at some point in our lives.

The Rev Professor John Swinton is founder of Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability, and Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. His many books include Dementia: Living in the Memories of God.

Dr Louise Gosbell is a ministry leader with Our Place Christian Communities, and the author of The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind and the Lame.

More from Soul Search on Disability: The world’s largest minority.

Samson: a problematic hero from the Book of Judges, whose superhuman strength does nothing to protect him from his own flaws.

It’s a fraught story of liberation and redemption – in a manner of speaking – which are prominent themes during Passover and Easter. Samson isn’t usually associated with either festival, but Handel’s oratorio of the story will be performed on Holy Saturday at the Sydney Opera House by the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs.

Rabbinat Ellyse Borghi is a Jewish Orthodox rabbi living in Melbourne.

Brett Weymark OAM is Music Director of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs.

Every Ramadan, Muslims recite all 114 chapters of the Qur’an. That’s more than 6000 verses, all in classical Arabic. But some will not have to read it from the page – they will have it memorised. They’re known as Hafiz, and they commit years of their lives devoting their holy book to memory.

Professor Halim Rane teaches Islamic Studies in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University.

Imam Ensar Cutahija is imam of Rochdale Mosque in Brisbane and so far the only hafiz among Bosnian Muslims in Australia.

Amr Ahmed memorised the Qur’an at age 10. He is now in year 9 at an Islamic school in Melbourne.

ABC Religion and Ethics is running a special Ramadan series by Susan Carland and Saara Sabbagh. Read the first instalment.

Disney is one of the world’s most pervasive story telling corporations – the creator of iconic films, beloved characters, and the most popular theme parks in the world.

After 100 years of operation, Disney has become a cultural phenomenon. For its biggest fans – sometimes called “Disney adults” – it evokes something like devotion.

Dr Jodi Eichler-Levine is Professor of Religion Studies and Berman Professor of Jewish Civilization at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, USA. She also writes Faith in Disney, an online newsletter about the intersection of Disney and religion. She is writing a book on the same topic.

Joel Callen is a self-confessed ‘Disney nerd’, originally from the Central Coast of New South Wales, now living in Los Angeles. He says Disney is a significant part of his life, verging on the sacred.

Join Meredith Lake and Brother Phap Hai on a mindful walk around Mountain Spring Buddhist monastery – a community of mostly Vietnamese monastics in the Plum Village tradition, founded by the late Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh in 2020.

Brother Phap Hai is the senior teacher at Mountain Spring Buddhist monastery and author of The Eight Realisations of Great Beings. Originally from Australia, Brother Phap Hai has been a Buddhist monk since 1997.

Further listening: Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh: Founder of engaged Buddhism and father of mindfulness.

Dr Muneera Bano and Mariam Mohammed are two incredible leaders who’ve each embraced an unconventional education. Working in vastly different fields, they are both examples of women who have broken through the “concrete ceiling” and are making a world more hospitable to women.

Dr Muneera Bano is Principal Research Scientist within the Diversity and Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence Program at CSIRO’s digital data arm, Data61.

Mariam Mohammed is a speaker, facilitator, entrepreneur and coach. In 2019 she co-founded Moneygirl, a social enterprise fostering the financial literacy of young women.

The digital revolution has transformed our lives, including those of the world’s nearly two billion Muslims. How are Muslims using the internet to enrich their religious practise, and how can Islam help us develop more ethical ways of developing this technology further?

Hussein Kesvani is a media producer, podcast host and author of Follow Me, Akhi: The Online World of British Muslims.

Dr Junaid Qadir is Professor of Computer Engineering at the Qatar University in Doha.