Preliminary Note (1): In this quite lengthy article, I will point to a number of important parallels between mimetic theory and themes as they are found in spiritual literature. The spiritual teacher I will focus on is Jiddu Krishnamurti. One of the subjects I will address is the temporary sojourn outside the world of one’s own self, or what I will call “ego-suspension”. This suspension is found in numerous places in spiritual literature and is also part of René Girard’s story.
Preliminary note (2): In the article below, I repeatedly link spirituality with avoiding rivalries and with some caution I venture to claim that in the world of Girard studies such a thing is not just a part of theory but also a part of practiced. As a source, I would like to quote a few words from the speech Martin Girard, René Girard’s eldest son, gave during the COV&R conference in Rome:
One of the things that has made COV&R so special is its atmosphere: welcoming, open, always curious, non-rivalrous. Whenever I tell my mother about colloquia I’ve attended, she always asks, “Is that atmosphere still there?” I believe it is—I’ve enjoyed the benefits of it myself.
At the COV&R, this speech was given in the bus driving back from Castel Gandolfo to the center of Rome. I could barely hear Martin’s words, but later on in the COV&R Bulletin his full text appeared under the title “René Girard’s Legacy, Ten Years On“.
1. Teachers and Lecturers
Here is a first reflection on the COV&R 2025 in Rome. The COV&R stands for Colloquium of Violence & Religion and is the annual international conference dedicated to the mimetic theory of René Girard. This year’s theme was ‘Spirituality, Religion and the Sacred’.
For some time now, I’ve been unable to resist the urge to attribute a spiritual or mystical experience to René Girard (à), and further at the end of this series I will elaborate on that. Also in Rome, I went so far as to bring up his spiritual experiences, and I want to begin my story by stating that Girard did not become a Teacher. By Teacher—with a capital letter—I mean someone who has traveled the world or who has settled in a place to help people on their spiritual journey. Girard did not systematically exceed the limitations of academic lecturing, and in his theorizing, he also remained within the framework of academic discourse, which primary goal is to draw attention to a theory, that is, to its scientific plausibility and possible philosophical respectability.
Nevertheless, I argue, Girard’s theory has a spiritual impact, and it can bear fruit in less academic settings, such as in workshops or other practice-oriented activities among some of his followers. Girard’s theory aims to demonstrate how much people are driven by mimesis or imitation, how much imitation of certain others—the models—plays a role in their lives and in shaping their desires. Another central hypothesis in this theory is that culture arose from the channeling of contagious violence, which has always taken the form of victimization, or a scapegoat mechanism.
However faithful mimetic theory wants to be to academic discipline, these two basic propositions are nevertheless regularly—not in the least by Girard himself—bent toward critical questions about the self. For, of course, we can see sheep and other herds grazing all around us, but what we constantly tend to forget is that we ourselves are made of the same DNA. A similar bending back toward the ego can be found in Girard’s approach to the scapegoat mechanism. Indeed, we also see the scapegoat mechanism all around us, and as soon as we discern it, we are given the opportunity to show our solidarity with the victims and sometimes may even assume the role of victim ourselves. But don’t forget that we too are persecutors, that we too often “don’t know what we’re doing,” or that we are perpetrators, while not having clearly grasped the underlying scapegoat distinctions in our way of thinking.
With these emphases, mimetic theory becomes—many followers and interested parties explicitly use this term— self-inclusive. It is a theory that offers anthropological and psychological truths in the guise of hypotheses for scientific consideration, but in principle, these same propositions easily permeate the recipient’s private self—mimetic theory is always also about me, and about the sometimes less honorable aspects of me. Without having Girard ever truly resorting to admonishing Teacher-speak, nevertheless I am urgently invited to reflect on such issues or inclinations as the urge to imitate and fall back to scapegoat thinking, and to improve myself wherever possible. And then I must say—that has certain effects, both psychologically and socially. In a sense, at a COV&R conference, one often seems to find yourself in what you might call the shelter from ruthless academic competition. It’s always dangerous to suggest that your specific group—Girardians among themselves, non-medical psychiatrists among themselves, Christians among themselves, those interested in spirituality among themselves—does some things better than others, yet a certain emphatic self-inclusivity is sometimes palpably present in the presentations and corridors of the gatherings of Girardian groups. Or, as Michael Elias and André Lascaris once wrote with due modesty about the small Dutch Girard Study Circle in the preface to “our” anniversary publication Rond de Criris: “Because mimetic theory pays so much attention to rivalry and ‘scapegoating’ it, during the meetings, somewhat protects us from the tendency to give in to that”