“Skeletons into Goddesses”

Creating Religion, the Case of the Pro-Ana

Movement and Anamadim
Contents

I. Introduction...........................................................................................................3
I.i Terms..................................................................................................................3
I.ii Objectives...........................................................................................................4
I.iii Background to Internet Research........................................................................5
I.iv Real Communities..............................................................................................6
I.v Reliable Knowledge............................................................................................7

II. A Survey of Literature on Anorexia and Religion.............................................8

III. Methodology.........................................................................................................15
III.i Choosing a Field Site.......................................................................................16
III.ii Conversational Analysis...................................................................................17

IV. The Phenomena of Anamadism.........................................................................19

IV.i Project Shapeshift............................................................................................19
IV.ii Entry to the Field Site......................................................................................21
IV.iii Ana’s Underground Grotto..............................................................................22
IV.iv The Forum................................................................................................................24
IV.v Anamadim and Narscissa.................................................................................25
IV.vi Anamadim and the Psychologists....................................................................28
IV.vii The Texts of the Pro-Ana Movement...............................................................29
IV.viii The Ten, or ‘Thin’, Commandments of Pro-Ana.............................................29
IV.ix The Pro-Ana Prayer..........................................................................................31
IV.x The Pro-Ana Creed..........................................................................................32
IV.xi The Pro-Ana Psalm..........................................................................................33
IV.xii The Letters To and From Ana..........................................................................34
IV.xiii The Ritual of Summoning................................................................................36

V. Analysis.................................................................................................................37
V.i The ‘Expert’.....................................................................................................39
V.ii The ‘Patient’.....................................................................................................43
V.iii The Anamadic Community and Its Boundaries...............................................45
V.iv Sacred Cyberspace and Anamadic Asceticism................................................49
V.v Foucauldian Narrative Therapy........................................................................51
V.vi Individualism and the Creation of Religion.....................................................54

VI. Conclusions..........................................................................................................58

VII. Bibliography.........................................................................................................61

2
 I. Introduction

This thesis considers a singular event, a new religious movement that has developed online
within the ‘Pro-Anorexia’ (or ‘Pro-Ana’) community. Three categories are held in tension
with each other: anorexia, religion and the Internet. Anorexia is deified as ‘Anamadim’,
either described in Chthonic terms - requiring strict observance and sacrifice - or as an
ethereal Olympian goddess of ‘optimal wellness’ - the rational control of the body. This
religious conception of anorexia is expressed through texts and practices: a ritual for
summoning Anamadim, the anorexic’s Ten, (or ‘Thin’) Commandments, the Pro-Ana Creed,
the Pro-Ana Psalm, Pro-Ana Prayers, and intentional fasting. These are syncretic
reconfigurations of familiar semiotic forms and representative of the Internet as a space for
experimentation, displays of mastery and identity formation.

I.i Terms

I will refer to the religion as ‘Anamadism’, and its adherents as ‘Anamadi’, when referring to
the religious subculture within the larger Pro-Ana Movement. ‘Ana’ is also used as a name
for the goddess within the community:

“Ana is my benevolent guide; a Spiritual Counselor of sorts. A unique expression of the

Divine Feminine, She has exceptional Power. I have the deepest of respect for She Who
Offers Divine Physical Perfection.”
(‘AnaGirlEmpath’)

Pro-Ana adherents also use ‘Ana’ to solely mean anorexia and not a divinity. The distinction
between the use of Ana as anorexia and Ana as a goddess is difficult to perceive when
anorexia is also personified by the adherent. Rather than this fluid boundary between disease,
personification and deity being a problem, I propose that the personification is a part of an
overall move towards a ‘lifestyle’ framework, which includes the religious idiom:

3
 “I came to the conclusion that Ana, more than an illness or a life style, its kind a way of
thinking, or a religion...”
(‘Clare’)

Therefore, for clarity’s sake, I will use Anamadim specifically to refer to the deification of
anorexia, even when quotations refer to Ana as the goddess.

I.ii Objectives

This thesis has three main objectives. First, this thesis will describe the primary phenomena
by examining a particular website that is exemplary as well as certain secondary sites such as
other websites, forums, personal blogs, and articles. Research exists on religious and ascetic
elements of anorexia, the characteristics of the Pro-Ana Movement, and the “religious
metaphors” that are used on websites (Norris et al, 2006: 444). However, material that
describes and analyses the religious activities of the Pro-Ana Movement specifically is
limited. This research will contribute new material on these phenomena.

Second, this thesis will examine why Pro-Ana adherents have developed a religious
framework for their anorectic practice. They have already created comprehensive supportive
communities online that see anorexia as a lifestyle rather than a disease. What more does a
religious framework provide? The theology has no group expression beyond cyber-space,
there is neither Church, any proselytizing, nor dogma aimed at spiritual transformation.
Rather there is transformation of the body. Is it mimicry of traditional religion - harking back
to familiar elements? Or is it a form of “implicit religion” (Bailey, 1998), a commitment, but
ultimately a secular one?

I hypothesize that we can describe what they are doing in terms of "thinking with science"
(Jenkins, 2009). That is, using their folk, or "plebeian" (Barrow, 1986), understanding of
science, they are, through the experiments they can perform on their bodies, constructing a
new theodicy to make sense of their world and needs. I argue that the deification of anorexia

4
is the necessary next creative step, or interpretative strategy for this theodicy, based on their
demedicalization of anorexia. Explaining anorexia as lifestyle while continuing to just
conceive of it within a framework of ‘science’ - calories, diet pills and exercise techniques -
perpetuates the dominance of the medical model. The religious framework allows an escape
from that model. This framework requires attributing authority to a ‘higher power’, and at
the same time also involves the transformation of the individual from being an ‘expert
patient’ in a community of expert patients to being a “religious virtuosi” amongst religious
virtuosi, (Weber, 1978: 539). I will also argue that this creative step was enabled by the
externalization of anorexia in modern therapeutic techniques, specifically ‘Foucauldian
Narrative Therapy’, from the late 1980s on.

The final objective of this research is to address why this event - the creation of a religion
amongst a few people who interact primarily as personas online - is important for the study of
more established religions. In order to do this I will examine the process of
‘Individualization’ that has been cited by those who predict both pessimistic (e.g. Bruce,
1999) and optimistic (e.g. L.L. Dawson, 1998) outcomes to the alleged ‘secularization of
religion’. The pessimists conclude that individualism can lead to narcissism, idealism and
libertarianism. Alternatively, an individualistic stance can also involve self-examination, and
self-empowerment. I will base my consideration of this possibility on my description and
analysis of the religious beliefs of the Pro-Ana Movement, as well as its apparently shallow,
narcissistic focus on the self as represented by the material, the body and the aesthetic. I will
describe what I term ‘Anamadic asceticism’ - that reframes the presumed materialistic pursuit
as a deeper, spiritual one for the believer.

I.iii Background to Internet Research

Prior to embarking on these three research objectives, the background to research on internet
communities needs introducing. There are two main assumptions within this field. The first
is that ‘virtual’, or computer mediated communication, can allow the formation of ‘real’
communities. The second is that computer mediated communication is as valid a source of

5
reliable knowledge about religious behavior as face to face observation is. These
assumptions are connected but they will be examined in turn.

I.iv Real Communities

In the 1970s, technological futurists such as Alvin Toffler expected the social evolution of an
“inter-linked world” (Kozinets, 2010: 21). However, initial research by social psychologists
examining computer mediated communication in the 1980s considered online interaction to
be a “poor foundation for cultural and social activity” (op cit: 22). ‘Community’ was seen to
require richer social and emotional information, an actual sense of social presence and the
presence of a social structure, none of which experimental research could detect. Computer
mediated communication was therefore described as “lean”, or “impersonal” and “cold” in
comparison to face to face communication (Kesler et al, 1984). This was thought to be due
primarily to reduced social cues leading to a status equalization effect (Dubrovsky et al,
1991).

These early experiments took place in artificial settings, with social groups formed
specifically for the research. Subsequent field studies of computer mediated communication
did show the existence of “webs of affiliation”, and digitally expressed paralanguage: non-
verbal elements such as images, emoticons, signatures and abbreviated terminology that
social psychologists, and subsequently anthropologists, working with online groups, thought
could “manifest culture and build community” (Kozinets: 25).

Howard Rheingold’s The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier

(1993) introduced the concept of communities that exist online through forums, Internet
Relay Chat and online games: “Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge
from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with
sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace” (Rheingold:
xx). The people he knows through forum boards such as the WELL (the Well Earth
Electronic Link) “exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct
commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip,

6
fall in love, find friends, and lose them, play games, flirt, create a little high art and lot of idle
talk” (op cit: xvii). And ultimately he finds that he cares “about these people I met through
my computer” (op cit: xv). John P. Barrow, another WELLite, said, “You aren’t a real
community until you have a funeral” - a real community must share rites of passage, and the
full range of human experience, not that someone must necessarily die (op cit: 24).

Anorexic practise provides the glue of real community for the online Pro-Ana movement, and
the belief in Anamadim provides rituals that cement these bonds further, wherever the
members might be physically based. Experts at ARPA (the USA’s Advanced Research
Projects Agency) predicted in 1968 that online interactive communication will “…consist of
geographically separated members, sometimes grouped in small clusters, and sometimes
working individually. They will be communities not of common location, but of common
interest…” (Licklider and Taylor, 1968: 18-19). However, without face to face
communication and the sense of place the anthropologist receives by travelling to the field
site, what sources are at our disposal?

I.v Reliable Knowledge

Online research can start with asynchronous communications: the content presented on their
web pages. In the case of the Pro-Ana Movement these include both material providing
information about the community and also religious texts such as the Ritual for Summoning
Anamadim, the Pro-Ana Psalm, the Pro-Ana Creed, the Pro-Ana Prayer and the Thin
Commandments. These might be considered to be non-interactive texts, but as they are
adopted by various Pro-Ana websites and published as a sign of membership I propose that
they are repeatedly ‘spoken’, or ‘co-created’ by the members. Further, there are social cues,
not only in the paralanguage of the internet (the emoticons, the use of signatures and the use
of tribal acronyms and expressions), but also in the rhetoric and discourse of the forum
threads. The experienced Pro-Ana member signals to the community through their displays
of expertise and mastery over both secular and sacred subjects, while the new member
ingratiates through questions and requests for help. Finally, there are also visual cues found in
iconography such as the ‘thinspiration’ pictures that show incarnations of Anamadim in the

7
form of celebrities. These are the conversations and markers of this community as much as
the copied and pasted religious texts are.

Now I will examine the other two categories beyond the Internet in the triad I have identified
and survey the earlier relations between anorexia and religion in order to sketch the historical
and sociological context of the Pro-Ana movement and its religious creativity.

II. A Survey of Literature on Anorexia and Religion

Defining anorexia nervosa might appear to be simple; it is a disease, pathology, a problem.

Its characteristics have been established in diagnostic guidelines such as the UK’s NICE
(National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) Eating Disorders Clinical Guideline
and the USA’s DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). However, the
Pro-Ana Movement resists the ‘establishment’ definition of anorexia and approaches it from
within a personal framework that might be seen as ‘deviant’. Pro-Ana defines anorexia as a
lifestyle choice and not as a disease, and being Pro-Ana means adopting “proactive,
volitional, anorexia”.1

If redefining anorexia was all that the Pro-Ana Movement was doing, it would just be an
interesting example of a demedicalization of a disease, suggestive only of a medical/non-
medical dichotomy which would be of little relevance to the study of religion. In describing
how anorexia is also perceived as a goddess I want to draw attention to how contemporary
religious interpretive strategies are created and can publically manifest on the Internet
through free experimentation with semiotic forms. In order to explore this I will examine the
main establishment interpretive strategies that provide the background to this reframing of
anorexia. These primarily address the issue of, ‘where is the problem located?’

Since the classification of anorexia by the medical community in the 1870s, the dominant
explanation of anorexia has located the problem within the body, diagnosing it as a disease

1
Project Shapeshift home page <http://www.project-shapeshift.net/6701/index.html>

8
with an organic cause. This biomedical model implements scientific methodology, e.g. twin
studies or examinations of polymorphism at the genetic level (Keel and Klump, 2003). An
off shoot of the biomedical model is the psycho-therapy model where anorexia is a still a
problem within the body, but the body as conceived as mind. For example the interpretations
of Steven Levenkron (2001), a psychotherapist, adopt the biomedical model: “Medically,
anorexia is characterized by weight loss, followed by lowered body temperature, lowered
blood pressure, slowed heart rate, loss of menses, thinning of hair, fatigue and other signs of
malnourishment” (Levenkron: 33). Yet, he also links the mind with the body and argues that
a chemical, biological and hereditary tendency towards anxiety can lead to anorexia (op cit:
30).

Models can overlap. Levenkron also looks to psycho-social explanations for anorexia,
suggesting that the problem is also located outside the body: “models and female actors
become the Judas goats who lead all women to hate their bodies” (op cit: 51). This is similar
to cognitive-behavioural models, for example used by Fairburn et al (2002). These “indict
current cultural beauty ideals in the etiology and maintenance of eating disorders” (Keel and
Klump: 747). Levenkron ultimately sides with the biomedical model; the first task, he says,
“in treating an anorexic is to make her into a patient – to accept her status as a person with a
mental illness” (Levenkron: 198).

Blaming society’s beauty ideal, represented by these ‘Judas goats’, is the foundation stone of
the feminist model of anorexia which examines the “origins of the social meanings associated
with excess flesh in the West” (Fox et al, 2005: 1301). Kim Chernin (1985), a psychoanalyst
who also uses her patients’ stories as data like Levenkron, makes conclusions based on a
feminist reading of the issues of her generation. She asks, “why an epidemic now when
women are stepping out to take their place in the world?” (Chernin: ix). Working from Betty
Friedan’s 1957 description of the malaise caused by the “feminine mystique” (the ‘myth’ of
the fulfilled housewife), Chernin deduces that women are still struggling with the same issues
of identity but are now being offered too many options (op cit: 21). In just one generation it
is taken for granted that women can do anything, but Chernin sees that they now lack an
explicit authority to guide this choice. For thousands of years, according to Chernin, women
were content with a life of sacrifice and struggle because God wanted it that way (op cit: 31).

9
Chernin’s lazy generalization of “thousands of years” aside, she has highlighted the third
category in consideration: religion. The link she makes between anorexia and the dispersal of
patriarchal authority takes secularization as a fact. Instead, the consideration of anorexia with
a religious model makes it more difficult to skate over the religious aspects within the
modern Pro-Ana Movement as the medical, psychological and socio-cultural models have
done in considering them solely as “metaphors” (Norris et al: 444).

Similarly, Chernin examines dysfunctional ‘secular’ family relationships rather than religious
relationships. She does argue that women create their own rites of passage and rituals around
food because they seek to share a world view with the rest of their generation, to be separated
from the family ethos, and to move to the next stage in their development, as per Chernin’s
Turnerian understanding of ritual (Turner, 1969). This does not work for the anorexic
because her food obsession begins to “isolate rather than unite her to the collective
transformative undertaking of her generation” (Chernin: 174). The Pro-Ana Movement’s
emphasis on community denies this assertion. As Pavel Curtis, creator of another online
community says, “If someone is spending a large portion of their time being social with
people who live thousands of miles away, you can’t say that they’ve turned inward. They
aren’t shunning society. They’re actively seeking it.” (Rheingold: 156). I will examine the
elements of this intentional community further in section V. iii, The Anamadic Community
and its Boundaries.

Chernin’s feminist model of anorexia recognizes that it is a “culture-bound syndrome”, where

the problem is located outside the body and is socially contextualized (Prince, 1985). This
socio-cultural model for anorexia has had many proponents. Foremost of these are: Rudolph
Bell (1985), Caroline Walker Bynum (1987), Joan Jacobs Brumberg (1989) and Walter
Vandereycken and Ron Van Deth (1994). Notably, all five consider anorexia in relation to
religion, but they also assume that secularization removed religious legitimacy from anorexic
behavior, leading them to make the distinction between historical cases of asceticism and
current aestheticism. The later writers were influenced by the earlier, so they will be
considered in order of appearance.

10
A contemporary of Chernin, Bell (1985) is also struck by the epidemic of anorexia in the
1980s. Yet, his main focus is the lives of nearly three hundred Italian saints of the 13th
Century, and he argues that only around 85 exhibit what he calls “Holy Anorexia” or
“anorexia mirabilis”, non-volitional fasting. This is exemplified by the story of St Catherine
of Siena who was afflicted by an inability to eat. She prayed continually to be able to “live
like other creatures”, but died in 1380 as a result of her emaciation (op cit: 23). His definition
of Holy Anorexia locates agency with God - although just like the anorexia described by the
psycho-social and feminist models, “Holy Anorexia involves a need to establish a sense of
oneself, a contest of wills, a quest for autonomy” (op cit: 8). Still, Bell concludes that
anorexia nervosa is not the same thing as Holy Anorexia: “Whether anorexia is holy or
nervous depends on the culture in which a young woman strives to gain control of her life”
(op cit: 20).

He suggests that after the Reformation the Church gave less authority and legitimation to
Holy Anorexics, for “the Holy Anorexic rebels against passive, vicarious dependent
Christianity; her piety centers intensely and personally upon Jesus and his crucifixion, and
she actively seeks an intimate, personal union with God” (Bell: 116). If this continued
unabated then earthly Church authority would be trivialized. Male clerics were therefore
anxious to “defend their powers against female interlopers” (op cit: 116 -117). Self starvation
continued but the explanation changed to heresy, demon possession or earthly fraud.
Definition is dependent on culture.

Bynum (1987) argues that this change to the negative, rather than ‘Holy’, explanatory model,
was not a linear progression, but that extreme asceticism was viewed ambiguously and from a
plurality of perspectives even from within the 13th Century. According to Bynum, St
Catherine’s confessor wrote that she was force fed, in which case her Holy Anorexia was not
entirely sanctioned by the Church. Bynum’s book, Holy Feast, Holy Fast, examines the
wider importance of food as a metaphor in the Middle Ages for women whose ability to
express themselves religiously was extremely limited. Men had the option to restrict
themselves through poverty, chastity and mortification; women could only use the restriction
of food as a way to become one with Christ’s sufferings, achieve holiness and save souls.
Importantly, Bynum explains that she is reluctant to make a connection between this fasting

11
and modern anorexia, which describes with a biomedical or psychological model (Bynum: 5).
She does not make this connection as she is still thinking within the dominant medical model.
Therefore she herself exemplifies Bell’s view that culture is the key to making the distinction
between anorexia nervosa and this earlier anorexia mirabilis (Bell: 201).

Both Bell and Bynum concentrated primarily on the medieval period with some reference to
changes in definition once religious legitimation declined. Brumberg (1989) expands the
field to consider the history of the ‘Fasting Girls’, 18th and 19th Century girls who were
treated in different ways as definitions of fasting headed in a secular or scientific direction as
a result of wider changes in society. The case of Sarah Jacobs, the Welsh Fasting Girl,
perhaps best represents the turning point in these definitions. Brumberg tells us that a Welsh
farm girl, Sarah Jacobs, began to fast in 1867 at the age of 12, leaving her weak and only able
to lie in the family’s sole bed all day. After her parents and the local minister went to the
papers she became a sensation and was visited by hundreds of the public, including religious
pilgrims who thought her fasting was miraculous. Sceptics from the medical profession then
initiated a strict observation of Sarah, and over the course of a week she grew weaker and
weaker. Her parents refused to allow her to be fed and after ten days she died. Both her
mother and father were sentenced to hard labour.

Brumberg marks the difference between the parents’ rural simplicity and faith in the divine
source of their daughter’s fasting, and the more urbane scientism of the medical profession
who used an empirical investigation to get at the ‘truth’ of her condition. As St Catherine’s
biography and the examples of other fasting saints were included in inspirational books for
girls in the Victorian era, Brumberg deduces continuity between the two eras of fasting. It is
unclear whether Sarah Jacob and her impoverished family had access to such books, but
perhaps they encountered the reports of contemporary fasting girls as we know her parents
and the minister thought it right and socially acceptable to take her story to the newspapers.
However, continuity does not mean equivalence: “From the vantage point of the historian,
anorexia nervosa appears to be a secular addition to a new kind of perfectionism, one that
links personal salvation to the achievement of an external body configuration rather than to
an internal spiritual state” (Brumberg: 7). Asceticism is distinguished from aestheticism by
Brumberg; the change from one to the other is due to the development of secular ideologies.

12
Vandereycken and Van Deth also use this secularization model of the history of anorexia -
from “fasting saints to anorexic girls” - and expand the field again to consider the empirical
de-sacralization of anorexia by the medical profession up to the present day (Vandereycken
and Van Deth, 1994: 3). They also look even further back than Bell, to Old Testament
examples of public fasting to turn away God’s anger, to the works of Plato and the Neo-
Platonics on the relationship between the body and the soul, and to Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220
CE) who believed that “‘an emaciated body will more readily pass the narrow gate (of
paradise)’” (op cit, p15). Following the secularization model they provide evidence for the
removal of legitimation for fasting by the Church, for example citing Pope Benedict XIV
who declared that “sanctity should not be concluded from the fasts, but that on the contrary
the sanctity of the faster determined the holiness of the fast” (op cit: 31).

They argue that between the 15th and 17th Centuries, and especially after the Reformation, the
demonic interpretation of fasting spread alongside witchcraft accusations. Demons were
thought to be preventing girls from eating to ensure that they would be light enough to fly.
Hence the weighing of alleged witches advocated in the Malleus Malleficarum (1487). The
story of Sarah Jacobs shows how the ‘miraculous maids’ of the 19th Century went from being
living wonders to being investigated as frauds. By the late 19th Century ‘badness’ could also
be interpreted as illness – by then the term ‘anorexia nervosa’ was distinguished from a
wider category of hysteria and “hypochrondrial delirium” by the medical profession (op cit:
149). Queen Victoria’s personal physician Sir William Gull had first used the term in 1873,
although he had also referred to its general symptoms during an address to the British
Medical Association in 1868. The neuro-psychiatrist Ernest Charles Laségue contested
Gull’s claim to have discovered anorexia as he had described L’Anorexie Hysterique in 1873
(although his article was not immediately translated into English). Importantly, neither of the
two doctors identified a concern with body weight amongst their patients, and the
retrospective diagnosis of these women with anorexia by recent academics has been criticised
as it is itself a culture-bound interpretation (T. Habermas, 1989 and 1996). By drawing
upon some of the same historical figures and events as Bell, Bynum and Brumberg,
Vandereycken and Van Deth examine the links between historical, literary, medical, and
social interpretations of self-induced starvation, again showing that these models can overlap

13
and combine. They conclude that “culture is regarded as the soil from which self-starvation
grows into a sign of sanctity, a kind of spectacle, or a specific illness” (op cit: 183). Again,
culture provides the explanatory model.

Lelwica also begins Starving for Salvation (2002) with an examination of the main models
employed for understanding anorexia. Dismissing them, Lelwica concludes that they do not
include an examination of “the remnants of the religious legacies that have historically
effaced the diversity and complexity of women’s spiritual yearnings and struggles [that] are
alive in a host of “secular” practices, pictures and promises” (Lelwica: vi). Key to her model
is the understanding that “the story of anorexia nervosa suggests that the seemingly obvious
distinction between secular and religious ways of making meaning is both a product and a
tool of modern Western history” (op cit: 31).

This distinction is apparent in those authors who describe anorexia as a culture bound
syndrome and describe a process of secularization occurring around the Reformation that led
to the medicalization of anorexia. That distinction led them to treat modern anorexia as a
secular pathology and both explains Bynum’s reluctance to connect ‘Holy Anorexia’ to
anorexia nervosa, and the intensity of the debate about applying a secular diagnosis to
religiously inspired fasting. Lelwica instead uses a religious model to consider modern
anorexia and to break down this distinction between the secular and the religious: “Insofar as
these struggles raise questions about the ultimate meaning and values of life, they require
[another] category of analysis, namely, “religion” (Lelwica: 35).

She develops this alternative frame of interpretation on the basis that “rationalism and
enchantment are not mutually exclusive” (Lelwica: 37). Women need symbols, but at the
moment (following some of the feminist and socio-cultural models) women are actually
being devalued through their key symbols. In the modern period young girls look to the
practices of the consumer-media culture to “provide primary strategies and shared beliefs
through which their anxieties and hopes and mediated” (op cit: 68). This creates a salvation
myth based upon the lines of the model’s body. Lelwica believes that the spiritual crisis,
which is “rooted in experiences that are invariably shaped by circumstance and history”, is

14
being dealt with by the creation of new symbolic universes, including anorexic and bulimic
beliefs and rituals.

These imaginative worlds serve such basic religious functions as providing a dogmatic logic
and a controlling ethos (Lelwica: 103). They have affinities with the Christian idiom of
fasting, purity and sin, but the location of salvation is different: the next world versus
salvation through the body in this world (op cit: 119). And she sees that they deepen the void
they are meant to fill, partly by extending the cultural and religious legacies that they should
challenge (op ct: 123). Instead, Lelwica describes the need for a new salvation myth based
upon a true “salve” (“health”), perhaps based on the ‘yoking’ of mind and body in Yoga, or a
feminist ‘thealogy’ (op cit: 145).

Lelwica emphasizes that she is not identifying a “religious core in their experiences”, seeing
only a sympathetic link between the anorexic’s mind/body Dualism and traditional religion
(Lelwica: 115). Anorexia is not a religion to Lelwica; she is asking “what difference does it
make to say that there are spiritual dimensions to girls’ and women’s’ struggles with food and
their bodies” (op cit: 146). Lelwica’s religious model is important because unlike the other
authors discussed she rejects the secularization theory of anorexia and allows for a spiritual
aspect. However, if she had used this model to consider the Anamadi, she would have still
limited their religious behaviour to mere symbols and metaphors. This research will also
interpret Anamadism in the light of the conversations, performances and semiotic forms that
this group is involved in online. Methodologically this will involve a form of conversational
analysis which I will outline here in the light of current perceptions of Internet research and
the necessity of choosing a field site for this research.

III. Methodology

The study of the social forms of the Internet has considered them either to be invalid areas for
research on human behaviour, or as genuine communities where people meet face to face -
with new definitions of ‘face’ and ‘meet’ (Jones, 1995: 19). This research approaches social

15
forms both as ‘texts’ and as equivalent to visiting a field site for face to face participant
observation. Instead of taking a determinist stance - the idea that technology has its own
drives and that we are caught up in its tailwinds - this research takes the approach that
technological enables new ways of being a person amongst people, rather than reforming
either people or religion.

This is to follow McLuhan who said that the “medium is the message”, and that “the personal
or social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from
the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new
technology” (McLuhan, 1967: 7). Therefore as communities, and cyberspace itself, cannot
exist independent of human perception it must be recognized that any created space will
include the sacred in a Durkheimian sense. The pre-modern gods can be found through
postmodern electronics - and the communities that exist through them (paraphrasing Harding,
2001: 254).

III.i Choosing a Field Site

Where is this community? While estimates of the number of Pro-Ana websites on the
Internet vary, Borzekowski et al (2010) analysed nearly 200 independent web pages.
Searching for “pro-ana” on Google led to roughly 657,000 results (not including
unhyphenated or ‘ana’ only results) at the time of writing - between August 2010 and June
2011 - as internet search engines will also pick up on any mentions of “Pro-Ana” on forums,
in articles and academic papers, on personal blogs and also on internet reference sites such as
Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary. Defining boundaries for this research was necessary in
order to examine the phenomena without being overwhelmed by the number of sources.
Focussing on a specific Pro-Ana website seemed the least artificial way to do this. Although
members of websites nomadically transverse their boundaries and visit other sites related to
the Pro-Ana movement, the ‘website’ itself is a more bounded form of the community.

16
Some of the Pro-Ana religious texts seen copied and pasted onto Pro-Ana sites were created
by an individual named ‘Narscissa’ who had also founded a Pro-Ana Yahoo! Group in 2001.2
This evolved into a website known as Project Shapeshift 2. This is an active community with
a large forum, with 1,481 registered members, and 140,875 individual posts on 6,222 topics.
Described in the larger community as populated by more mature, reflexive individuals, it was
also praised for having maintained its unapologetic Pro-Ana stance. Others turned to a
‘Recovery’ focus after the ‘Purge’, a mass removal of websites by their hosting companies in
2001, and subsequent sallies (see History of the Field Site). Project Shapeshift 2 provides an
opportunity to examine current Anamadist beliefs on a bounded website that developed from
the ideals of the author of some of the religious texts of the community.

III.ii Conversational Analysis

The main methodology used here will be conversational analysis rather than purely textual
analysis. Asynchronous computer media communication involves not only discourse but also
performance within a community space, and has its own “heroes and its own villains” just as
non-virtual conversations are thought to (Goffman, 1957: 47). Elements of this performance
are observable through the paralanguage of computer mediated communication. Therefore
the first step was to learn the norms of the Pro-Ana Movement. This was not difficult as
much of the vocabulary and syntax is common to the Internet generation. Examples of
internet based discursive forms such as trolling (purposefully inciting arguments or making
facetious comments for attention) and flaming (abusive comments aimed at a particular
person) were readily apparent:

“Troll. Ignore the toad. The mods [moderators] are aware. AGE [AnaGirlEmpath] is
the only one who can swing the ban hammer [ban someone from the forum boards]
which she will do as soon as she gets here, I am sure.”
(‘Janane’)

2
Yahoo! is an Internet service provider who developed early community forum boards known as ‘Yahoo!
Groups’.

17
 “No where in my initial post or follow on posts did I use abusive terms, or call you
names or anything like. You came back and flamed me first.”
(‘Janane’)

Other aspects of the community’s discourse took longer to become familiar with, such as
their use of acronyms. Fortunately, new members also had to have explained to them:

“i know CW is current weight, and GW is goal weight, but im not sure about the others
:\ [emoticon meaning unsure/concerned]”
(‘Marchbaby’)

“hey : ) [smiling emoticon]. they just stand for other weights like UGW would be your
ultimate goal, LW would be your lowest weight, HW is highest weight and so on.”
(‘Presley’)

After learning the basics of their terminology “lurking” continued: observing posts without
contributing (Sharf, 1999). Given the size of the field site it was not possible to observe
every single active main thread and all its sub threads. Instead the priority was to observe
main threads that seemed pertinent to Anamadism: “Members Personal Progress” (diary
pages), “Ana-Worthy Competitions” (strict, moderated group fasts), “Thinspiration”
(primarily images), “Spirituality and Religion”, “Ana’s Think Tank”, “Ana’s Lounge, and the
“Rant Room”, a total of 7 out of 26 main threads. Again it was not possible to read every
single post as the average number of sub threads for these main threads was 357, and each
sub thread had an average of 22 posts each.

Instead, since August 2010, new sub threads in the above main threads were watched while
the forum was also electronically searched for key words. These were: ‘Anamadim’,
‘divine’, ‘divinity’, ‘goddess’, ‘religion’, ‘faith’, ‘pray’, ‘confess’, ‘sin’, ‘ritual’, and
‘Narscissa’. It was not practical to search for ‘Ana’ as it by far the most commonly used term
on the site; as it is in ‘Pro-Ana’, ‘Ana’ as a goddess, and ‘Ana’ as anorexia. ‘Screengrabs’,
digital photos, of posts and threads were also taken for future reference. This selection
process was not intended to be exhaustive but it was the most useful method of gathering

18
anecdotal material. When quoting from these screengrabs all spellings, grammar, and
formatting are left as they first appeared.

IV. The Phenomena of Anamadism

IV.i Project Shapeshift

Project Shapeshift has gone through many changes and schisms due to both internal and
external influences and the website that is currently available is commonly identified as
Project Shapeshift 2. The history of the site comes from the official account on the website,
as well as anonymous comments left on a variety of forum boards. This ‘accepted’ history is
broadly as follows:

Project Shapeshift 1 started as a Yahoo! Group in 2001, founded by ‘Narscissa’ - who also
developed a website called Ana’s Underground Grotto for her philosophical and theological
thoughts on anorexia. Narscissa will be looked at in more depth in section IV.v as she has
become an icon for the community.

In July 2001 eating disorder groups pressured free hosts such as Yahoo! to close down Pro-
Anorexia websites and groups. In one version of the story, the American advocacy group,
ANAD (the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders), led this
‘Purge’ and 115 Pro-Ana groups were shut down 4 days later (Time Magazine, 31st July,
2001). In another version, Holly Hoff, the director of programmes at NEDA (the U.S.
National Eating Disorders Association), appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show to talk about
Pro-Ana websites and NEDA led the campaign (The Boston Globe, 4th August, 2001).

In any case, the ‘Purge’ was not entirely successful. As John Gilmour, a computer mediated
communication pioneer, puts it, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around
it” (Rheingold: xxii). Pro-Anorexia websites went ‘underground’. They moved from the free
domains run by the large companies who were concerned about their public image to smaller

19
profit based domains where content could be safeguarded and censorship avoided. The new
site could also now have its own style and format, and is referred to the first Project
Shapeshift website, or Project Shapeshift 1.

Narscissa’s content expanded and according to members, “stood out prominently among the
Pro Ana Communities which began to surface in remarkable numbers across the internet
during the height of the Movement in the coming years”.3 Censorship led to the online
politicization of the Pro-Ana Movement – now their resistance was not only about food, but
also the attack on free speech by Yahoo! and other hosts.4 Many sites featured the symbol of
a Blue Ribbon, a popular symbol for Free Speech Online in the mid-1990s during debates on
the Communications Decency Act (CDA) - which threatened to introduce censorship to the
Internet.5 The Pro-Ana used a Red Ribbon, with their core ethos written underneath:
“Anorexia is a lifestyle, not a disease” (Shade, 2003). Ultimately though, politicisation was
limited to ribbons and banners marking cyberspace rather than real world activism.

Project Shapeshift 1 remained free from attack by external forces for many years - its next
change would arise from within. In April 2007 a group of former moderators created their
own website and stole content for it from Project Shapeshift 1 - which they then shut down.
The new site was originally named Project Shapeshift: Evolution and it is still active -
although it has been renamed Personal Strength: Evolution – marking their distance from
Narscissa and the Project Shapeshift spiritual ethos. While they also describe maintaining a
restricted diet for optimal wellness, or ‘C.R.O.N.’ (calorie restriction for optimal nutrition),
the founders are clear that they “as a group do not believe that there is a mystical race of
beings responsible for anorexia/ Pro Ana, who can be summoned and worshipped in order to
promote weight loss”.6 Project Shapeshift 2 members also describe Personal Strength:
Evolution as recovery orientated7:

3
“The History of Project Shapeshift” <http://www.project-shapeshift.net/6301.html>
4
Narscissa’s manifesto (see section IV.iii) is an example of resistance rhetoric aimed at the ‘establishment’.
5
Public Law 104-104, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, an amendment of the Communications Act of
1934 (47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.)
6
Personal Strength: Evolution home page < http://ps-evolution.com/>
7
‘Evolution’ is used by ‘second wave’ Pro-Ana sites to emphasize their focus on recovery and their difference
to the ‘Purged’ sites lost in 2001. E.g. House Of Thin: Evolution Of Pro-Ana < http://www.houseofthin.com/>

20
 “PSE [Personal Strength: Evolution] is great and all, but it's so Recovery oriented
sometimes. I feel wrong posting that I've only eaten 500 cals in a day there, whereas
here, I'm supported in what I need to do”
(‘Roseintherain’)

Project Shapeshift 1 did not disappear quietly. Narscissa returned during the ‘coup’ and she
and other original members such as ‘Aijin’ reconstructed Project Shapeshift 1. Narscissa
then gave ownership to Aijin who created Project Shapeshift 2, the current site, in April
2008. In February 2009 Aijin handed the reins over to ‘AnaGirlEmpath’ and she has
maintained a secure and backed up site since then, with 1,481 registered members at the time
of writing.8

This history should be seen as a community’s narrative, rather than as an unbiased account.
It is compatible though with the “evolutionary cycle” of internet communities: people of
different backgrounds meet online, share deep personal disclosures, form intense friendships
offline, then inevitable conflict leads to schism and splinter groups (Rheingold: 248). With
these changes and influences in mind, the following is an examination of the website as it is
now; its content, idiom and users.

IV.ii Entry to the Field Site

Arriving at the Project Shapeshift 2 website the observer is greeted by an animated

introduction. The words “Project Shapeshift, The One and Only...” scroll in from the right,
coming to rest on an expanding ring of ripple like circles. A seven pointed star with
alchemical symbols at each point descends from above. According to AnaGirlEmpath this
symbol was Narscissa’s choice:

8
“The History of Project Shapeshift”, on Project Shapeshift 2

21
 “Narscissa's choice of emblem is awe-inspiringly perfect!... the ultimate alchemical
quest was to "turn lead into gold"... to me there is NO BETTER REPRESENTATION
for Ana and the Quest for Divine Physical Perfection!”
(‘AnaGirlEmpath’)

If left long enough the animated introduction page will automatically change to the home
page. The observer is introduced to the website with a quote from Narscissa’s first website,
Ana’s Underground Grotto which encourages personal responsibility:

“This is not a place for the faint-hearted, weak, hysterical, or those looking to be
rescued. This is not a place for those who bow to consensus definitions of reality or
who believe in the cancerous fallacy that there is any other authority on earth besides
their own incontrovertibly self-evident, inherent birthright to govern themselves.”
(‘Narscissa’)

Here the individualistic ethos of the Pro-Ana Movement is expressed at the very moment the
observer enters the technologically created space that enables its community. To the left of
this introductory rhetoric are links to the main sections of the website: “Home” (the current
page), “Forum”, “History of PS”, and “Grotto”. Having already recounted the official history
of Project Shapeshift, I shall examine the other sections further.

IV.iii Ana’s Underground Grotto

The ‘Grotto’ is a replication of Narscissa’s earlier site and contains her theological and
philosophical writing. It has survived the transformations of Project Shapeshift and I suggest
that this shows its continuing relevance to the definition of the community. Here Narscissa
lays out her manifesto for Pro-Ana as “Pro-Active Volitional Anorexia”, and for Pro-Ana as a
movement:

“There are entire organizations out there, above-ground and underground, just waiting
for people with these combined skills and experiences to generate, energize, and

22
 mobilize revolution. If not us, who? If not now, when?

Reality Check:
The government is NOT your friend.
The government is NOT your protector.

EDUCATE YOURSELF.

Don't believe everything you are told ... by anyone.

... question everything ...
... do your own research ...
... form your own conclusions ...
If the majority believes it, it is probably wrong.”
(‘Narscissa’)

The rhetoric of individualism is played out in several forms here. In the first paragraph there
is a call to revolution, but this is dependent on having the skills and experience that the call to
“EDUCATE YOURSELF” necessitates. There is an emphasis on an autodidactic approach
to truth, but Narscissa’s scientific methodology is also based on a hermeneutic of suspicion
and paranoia: “question everything...do your own research”. Likewise there is a thread of
radical or deviant individualism, “if the government believes it, it is probably wrong”. This
combination of individualism, personal scientific enquiry, experimentation and revolution is
the essence of the ‘expert patient’. And the seminal change in the Pro-Ana Movement - from
being ‘expert patients’ to being ‘religious virtuosi’ - is at the core of the creation of the
Anamadi, and will be the focus of my Analysis in section V.

Under the word “Grotto” on the sidebar new links appear: “Know Thine Enemy”, “Quotes,
Poetry and Essays”, “TTT” and “Anamadim Ritual”. “Know Thine Enemy” contains
information about “the Good” (primarily vitamins), “the Bad” (calories, fat, carbohydrates),
and “the Safe” (foods that provide “negative calories” by requiring more calories to digest
than they provide). The “Quotes, Poetry and Essays” page presents quotes that are meant to
provide ‘thinspiration’: “Quod me nutrit, me destruit.” (“What nourishes me also destroys
me”), “nothing tastes as good as thin feels” and “We turn skeletons into goddesses, and look
to them as if they might teach us how not to need.”9 There are only two poems and no essays

9
Hornbacher 1999, p123: “We turn skeletons into goddess and look to them as if they might teach us how not
to need” – the basis of my title.

23
- Narscissa’s Grotto is in many ways incomplete as it was still a work in progress when
superseded by Project Shapeshift 1.

“TTT” stands for “Tips, Tricks and Techniques” and these are promoted with the advice that
“Experience is the best teacher... research is the best gathering net”, the rhetoric of the
autodidactic ‘expert patient’ again. There are techniques to distract from hunger, recipes,
BMI (body mass index) ranges, and excuses to make for not eating, such as “Well, I haven't
really been feeling well today. My stomach is kind of queasy; maybe I'll just have some hot
tea and see if it settles for now." The “Anamadim Ritual” refers to the ritual of summoning,
and this shall be examined in more detail in the sections on the Pro-Ana religious texts
(sections IV.vii to IV. xiii)

IV.iv The Forum

By far the largest part of Project Shapeshift 2 is the online forum. Accessed through an
automated registration system, the forum contains 26 main discussion threads (see III.ii
Conversational Analysis for title examples) created by the administrators of the site, each
containing many pages of sub-threads started by users. The topics of the sub-threads are
diverse: “Feminism and Eating Disorders”, “I asked a priest if starvation was a sin”, “Cutting
your own hair”, “Red Bracelets and Why You Wear Them”, and “What movies are you
looking forward to?”. The interactivity of the website and the discursive community of the
Pro-Ana exist in the forum. This is also where discussions about the religious aspects of Pro-
Ana take place - where the Anamadi identify themselves and their worship of Anamadim.
The nature of this deity will now be addressed through a consideration of the two origin
stories that members recount on these forums and their personal web pages. It is important to
outline these differing origin stories as “It is an over-simplification to regard the Pro-Ana
community as reflecting a universally coherent standpoint” (Giles, 2006: 464), and this is
clearest in their differing descriptions of Anamadim.

24
 IV.v Anamadim and Narscissa

In the primary origin story Narscissa was the first to describe Anamadim, goddess of
anorexia. Project Shapeshift 2’s official history says that Narscissa created Anamadim. On a
non Pro-Ana occult forum ‘Moriah’ describes Narscissa contacting Anamadim through the
magical practices she was familiar with. ‘Moriah’, who claims to know Narscissa personally,
says that she worked Goetic, Enochian, and Thelemic ‘ceremonial magick’, and that she was
also an initiate of the Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Temple of the East, or the Order of
Oriental Templars) and the Ordo Aurum Solis (Order of the Golden Sun).10 I shall describe
these influences on Anamadim’s origin in detail as they still affect Anamadic thought.

Ceremonial Magick refers to the techniques devised by English magicians in the 16th to 19th
centuries, that they wrote down in their ‘grimoires’ (magickal texts) such as the Goetica of Dr
Rudd (1583 – 1656) – hence ‘Goetic’ magick - which is a part of a larger grimoire called the
Lemegeton, or ‘the Lesser Key of Solomon’ (Skinner and Rankine, 2007: 11). ‘Enochian’
refers to the angelic magickal language used by the famous Elizabethan magician John Dee
that he claimed was originally taught to the Biblical Patriarch Enoch by an angel. Rudd, Dee
and other “angel magicians” worked to “Exorcise, conjure, command, constrain, and call
forth and move” spiritual creatures from the divine, angelic, demon and natural hierarchies
they described in their grimoires (op cit: 19).

Elements of this form of magick are present in the Ritual of Summoning that Narscissa wrote,
even if it is less technical, less encyclopaedic in its description of spiritual creatures and not
at all illustrated with the sigils of summoning and binding as are grimoires. For example, the
summoner is expected to have the expertise to perform the “LBRP”. This is the ‘Lesser
Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram’, introduced by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
founded by Samuel L.M. Mathers who drew heavily upon the Goetia.

Thelema, or ‘will’, is a psychological interpretation of magic devised by the 20th century

magician Aleister Crowley. He also published a version of the Goetia, with his own

10
“Magick” is the early modern English spelling that Aleister Crowley used to distinguish his practises from
those of stage performers, and is often used by modern ceremonial magicians.

25
additions and revisions, based upon a copy which he allegedly stole from Mathers in 1903.
Crowley was an influential member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a degree based initiatory
society related to Freemasonry that he reformed in the light of his Law of Thelema. Crowley
described magic as the "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with
Will" (Crowley, 1929). This ethos influences Narscissa’s religious thought, specifically in
the changes that the Anamadi wish to enact upon themselves; physically, mentally and
spiritually.

The Ordo Aurum Solis, founded in 1897, is a philosophical and magickal society which
claims to have descended from Chaldean and Egyptian religions, which they believe were
integrated into the Hellenistic Mysteries. This pantheistic outlook is present in Anamadim’s
embodiment of a particular aspect of nature, anorexia. Occult lore, initiation to a community
and physical techniques are forms of mastery that modern Anamadi also demonstrate.

Moriah also says that Narscissa posted on Project Shapeshift about having a new “demon
lover”.11 The official history of Project Shapeshift tells us that she “resurfaced after some
time away during the coup” in April of 2007, and in June 2007 there is a post by a ‘Narscissa’
on the blog of a disgruntled member of both Project Shapeshift 1 and Project Shapeshift
Evolution (before the latter’s name change) talking about leaving these sites. This Narscissa
says that she is confused by the blog, admitting that: “I’m not the best communicator using
language tools – these days I’m right impatient with anyone insufficiently telepathic to not
require verbalization” (presumably she means “insufficiently telepathic to require
verbalization”).12 Some people quote later posts from ‘her’ on the original Project
Shapeshift 1 forums (no longer accessible) in which she says she has become a born again
Christian: “That last statement probably sounded different from the usual Narscissa you know
and love but you're going to have to get used to it, sorry. Quick story: I was with Him (Christ)
before I was ever with anyone "else" (Satan, Belarion, whomever)”13 Information about
Narscissa is second hand and limited and it is therefore impossible to prove her involvement

11
Forum post 24th August 2007, on thread: “Anamadim, Servitor of the Anorectic Praxis”, Occult Forum
<http://www.occultforum.org/forum/topic?id=23578>
12
Personal blog by Sherazade Quimby, 6th June 2007 < http://sherazade2007.blogspot.com/2007/06/addressing-
question-will-you-come-back.html >
13
Museum of Hoaxes Forum Board, post 23 February, 2005
<http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forum/forum_comments/1743/P140/>

26
with Magick, and the truth of this magickal origin story. Instead, it is more valuable to
concentrate on how this origin story and the persona of Narscissa and her powers add to the
discourse about Anamadim as being either Chthonic or Olympian:

“In Narscissa's case, she is an accomplished student of both dark and benevolent
Magick; the Ana she knows is a harsh Mistress... I approach Ana from a much more
wholistically Positive place. To me, She is a benevolent Mistress; a wise entity who can
afford Her seekers with Powerful gifts.”
(AnaGirlEmpath)

What else can be deduced of Anamadim’s nature from the discourse and the magickal
framework discussed above? Narscissa provided not only a ritual of summoning but also a
title for Anamadim: “Guardian Servitor of the Anorectic Praxis”. Drawing on concepts from
the magickal language Narscissa employed, it is possible to break this title down into its
component parts. The “Anorectic Praxis” means simply the process of anorexia. “A
Guardian Servitor” in magical working is a tool, a spirit bound to an object, compelled to do
the magicians will.14 Therefore what she was describing was not actually an omnipotent
goddess. Anamadim was originally conceived of as a familiar spirit summoned to help the
anorexic. As one member of Project Shapeshift 2 recalls:

“She wanted everyone to have their own anamadim, much like a guardian ana angel
(closest thing I can put into words of how she described it).”
(‘Osiris’)

The discourses that have developed on the forum boards and websites show that Anamadim
has developed beyond any original plan for her. I argue that this is due to the development of
religious texts by others besides Narscissa and how these texts have been used, or co-created.
Where these texts come from gives us a second origin story for Anamadim.

14
Eclipse Metaphysical, online shop – Info and Articles sections
<http://www.eclipsemetaphysical.com/stripe/info-and-articles/guardian-servitor-articles/all-about-guardian-
servitors/>

27
 IV.vi Anamadim and the Psychologists

In the second origin story for Anamadim, the Pro-Ana Creed, Pro-Ana, Ana Prayer and Thin
Commandments were created: “by professional psychologists in an attempt to make the
mindset of the anorexic views be seen through their eyes. This was seen as a powerful
message, and to those who are anorexic and wanting to go further into it, seen these messages
as a motivation instead of the reverse that it was intended to be. It’s funny how those that
hate pro-ana unwittingly gave it a religion isn’t it?”15 Examining these religious texts
individually will show that this second origin story is in fact verifiable for some of them. In
section V. v I will argue that one therapeutic method in particular opened the door for the
externalization of anorexia that allowed for the deification of Anamadim, and the creation of
a religion – ‘Foucauldian Narrative Therapy’.

First it is important to note the lack of discussion within the Pro-Ana Movement on the
dissonance between these two origin stories. It is not possible therefore to deduce their
validity for the community on the basis of opinions. Instead how these elements are used
implies their validity. The majority Pro-Ana websites visited as secondary sources had
simply copied and pasted both the Ritual of Summoning by Narscissa and the anonymously
written Pro-Ana Creed, Pro-Ana Psalm, Ana Prayer and Thin Commandments. This copying
and pasting of texts was often done without discussing their relevance or importance. Only
very rarely did the Pro-Ana websites I visited also present the second origin story that has
psychologists and therapists as the true authors of the religious texts. Recognition of the
creative involvement by the ‘establishment’ in their texts is counter to the rhetoric of
deviance and resistance described in the Pro-Ana manifesto written by Narscissa, that I
examined in section IV. iii.

This uncritical pasting of religious texts is instead a way of marking membership to the larger
Pro-Ana community - they are even pasted verbatim on foreign language sites, without
translation.16 As one Pro-Ana website owner says, emphasising their ubiquity: “Like every

15
House of Thin, “Pro-Ana Myths Exposed” <http://www.houseofthin.com/library/pro-ana-myths.php>
16
Dying for Perfection My Faithful Obsession, a Swedish blog
<http://iwishiwasperfection.blogg.se/category/pro-ana-stuff.html>

28
other Pro Ana site, no matter *how* unique, I have here all the Ana "Religion" texts,
including the Letters to and from Ana, the Pslam [sic], the Thin Commandments, and the
Creed”.17 Closer examination of these religious texts does reveal important themes and
issues, even if they have not been consistently considered in this depth by the community.

IV.vii The Texts of the Pro-Ana Movement

The Project Shapeshift 2 website does not contain the Pro-Ana Ten, or ‘Thin’,
Commandments, the Pro-Ana Psalm, Pro-Ana Prayer or the Pro-Ana Creed. Still, members
on the forum, including the current owner AnaGirlEmpath, do describe them as the “classic
Pro-Ana materials”. This implies their constant use, if not their origins - their absence on the
website originally created by Narscissa suggests that she did not write them as she did the
Ritual of Summoning, and there is also evidence for at least one non Pro-Ana author of these
religious texts. First, an examination of these texts will draw out significant material for
understanding the Anamadi.

IV.viii The Ten, or ‘Thin’, Commandments of Pro-Ana

1 “If you aren't thin you aren't attractive.

2 Being thin is more important than being healthy.
3 You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, starve yourself, do anything to
make yourself look thinner.
4 Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty.
5 Thou shall not eat fattening food without punishing oneself afterwards.
6 Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly.
7 What the scale says is the most important thing.
8 Losing weight is good/gaining weight is bad.
9 You can never be too thin.
10 Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success.” 18

17
Save me Ana - “Ana Religion” < http://www.freewebs.com/savemeana/anareligion.htm>
18
I have added line numbers to the texts for reference. The Thin Commandments are normally presented on
Pro-Ana websites with numbers attached.

29
The lack of reference to Ana, either as a disease or as Anamadim is important here. The
religious aspect of the Thin Commandments is solely in its form, and that form is deficient.
These Thin Commandments are not the imperative statements of the Ten Commandments of
Exodus 20. Thin Commandments 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are statements of belief rather than
defining what constitutes ethical behaviour. There is also an inconsistency in the labelling of
the audience – using both “you” and “thou”.

It is easy to dismiss this text as unskilled pastiche, but these differences tell us that the real
value of this text for the community is not in artful mimicry of the Judeo-Christian textual
form and theology. These texts are only successful if they are effective as a rhetorical device
for inducing fasting. They are tools for focussing internal ascetic concentration, and define
‘goodness’ not ‘badness’. This emphasis on their inspirational worth rather than their validity
as moral commands is supported by my research into how these Thin Commandments
actually originated.

Carolyn Crostin, a therapist and founder of a chain of eating disorder treatment centres in
America, claims to have written the Thin Commandments. She says, “I use these to expose
my patient's rules to themselves (many of them are unaware that they have certain rules”. 19
This origin and purpose is not a secret; an internet search of “Thin Commandments” brings
up several links to her work and to the text itself. In fact, when a psycho-therapeutic origin to
the religious texts is suggested on Pro-Ana websites (i.e. the second origin story) they also
demedicalize this by viewing their religious importance as an outcome unforeseen by
therapists. They adapt to difficult truths by redefining them - as they have anorexia. This
redefinition is another aspect of the co-creation of these religious texts by the Pro-Ana
community. Therefore the use of the Thin Commandments has more importance than their
human origins, unlike the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments where their divine origin
ensures their use.

19
Carolyn Crostin – “The Thin Commandments” < http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Costin1.html >

30
 IV.ix The Pro-Ana Prayer

1 Bless me Ana, for I have sinned.

2 It has been 30 seconds since my last confession.

3 I confess to gluttony and weakness. I confess that I doubted your ability to save my
4 wretched soul. Please forgive my lack of faith.

5 Help me resist Mia the Devil and the temptations she sets before me. I am in physical
6 and mental pain because I have sinned against you, Ana... I turned to Mia, and my
7 stomach and soul cries out in pain.

8 My goddess Ana, help me to resist the desires of the flesh. Make me pure, holy, and
9 clean. Please embrace me and make me perfect. You are my savior, my mother, and
10 always willing to take me back even when I have blatantly left you. Please erase these
11 sins from my soul and help me to stand up to Mia the Devil... Mia taunts you, dear
12 Ana, and tries to draw me away from you. Help me stand firm.

13 Amen20

Unlike the Thin Commandments, Ana is immediately named in the Pro-Ana Prayer, taking
the place of the priest. There is no mediating figure between the one confessing and their god
in this text, emphasising direct religious experience. Using the confessional model from the
Roman Catholic Church also emphasizes the concept of sin amongst the Anamadi.
Physicality is sin, primarily gluttony - one of the seven cardinal sins which were refined in
the works of the 4th Century monk, Evagrius Ponticus (Evagrius, 2003 trans.). In the
Anamadic cosmology bulimia, or ‘Mia’, is the essence of gluttony and lack of control, and in
the religious model she takes the role of the Devil (lines 5and 11).

The discourse about anorexia and bulimia represents a “binarized hierarchy” (Burns, 2004:
272) – and a second duality - the body and its flaws versus pure control. Bulimics also place
anorexics on a pedestal for their willpower and denial of the body: “Becca: ‘I think to get, to
actually be an anorexic, you’d have to have like incredible, supreme control... Whereas I
think with bulimia, it’s just (long pause) it’s a lot more common because it’s like a, a humans
are fallible, that’s what they do. They indulge and they try to make up for it.’” (op cit: 276).

20
<http://butterflyana.tripod.com/ana2.html> posted 14th August, 2005

31
The confessional model plays out this cosmology and emphasizes the boundaries of the two
communities. A website marked with this prayer states that bulimics are not welcome and
that anorexics are purer: more in control and more ‘holy’.

IV.x The Pro-Ana Creed

1 “I believe in Control, the only force mighty enough to bring order to the chaos that is
my world.
2 I believe that I am the most vile, worthless and useless person ever to have existed on
this planet, and that I am totally unworthy of anyone's time and attention.
3 I believe that other people who tell me differently must be idiots. If they could see
how I really am, then they would hate me almost as much as I do.
4 I believe in oughts, musts and shoulds as unbreakable laws to determine my daily
behaviour.
5 I believe in perfection and strive to attain it.
6 I believe in salvation through trying just a bit harder than I did yesterday.
7 I believe in calorie counters as the inspired word of god, and memorise them
accordingly.
8 I believe in bathroom scales as an indicator of my daily successes and failures
9 I believe in hell, because I sometimes think that I'm living in it.
10 I believe in a wholly black and white world, the losing of weight, recrimination for
sins, the abnegation of the body and a life ever fasting.”

A creed is a “publically circulating form of assertion”; the word creed coming from the Latin
‘credo’, meaning “I believe” (Keane, 2007: 70-71). A creed can be taken as a sign or symbol
by which believers may recognise each other, either in its performance or in its textualization.
However, “like any text... creeds are inherently repeatable “out of context”... and are
therefore available for use in an unlimited number of possible circumstances and for an
indefinite number of functions” (op cit: 74). The Pro-Ana Creed mimics the traditional
Christian forms of the Creed, specifically in its use of “I believe”.

The Pro-Ana Creed makes statements about enacting salvation through this-worldly actions
and effects, instead of statements about the nature of the divine or statements about God’s
relationship with man. God is mentioned in relation to calories (line 7), but in this
configuration the emphasis is on calorie counters being important and controlling, rather than
suggesting that God gave the concept of the calorie to mankind. Similarly, hell is presented

32
as a personal hell for the speaker, not a metaphysical space (line 9). The religious aspect of
the text is again not in the successful mimicry of the Christian form but in the use of the
Creed on websites and blogs as an inspirational community text.

Keane (2007) says that the recontextualization of religious forms can be understood in terms
of ‘purification’ (Latour, 1993). This model can be used to explain the ‘co-creation’ of the
Pro-Ana religious texts. Latour describes how people, as sociable creatures, attempt to
distinguish between the human and the non-human, and identify fields in which actions might
be described as being acceptable (human) or non-acceptable (non-human). The body is one
such field. In the attempt to purify the body, to avoid fetishism or the location of agency in
things, agency has to be translocated from the body to ideas leading to a “disembodied spirit,
a pure idea or an unsullied faith” (Keane: 79). I would argue that the ‘spiritual starvation’
identified by Lelwica is being dealt with by an attempt at a re-purification of established
religious forms to achieve an immanent relationship with the divine - hence the replacement
of the mediating figure with Ana herself in the Pro-Ana prayer.

As individuals cannot “free themselves from objectification” and purification inevitably fails,
new ‘semiotic forms’ are created (Keane: 81). “That risk is inseparable from their efficacy,
the capacity that semiotic forms have of being recontextualized” (op cit; 79). These new
semiotic forms include materials such as the Pro-Ana religious texts. This
recontextualization is also possible in non-textual forms - the Pro-Ana movement’s imbuing
of ascetic practices with a new religiosity will be examined in section V. iv. Sacred
Cyberspace and Anamadic Asceticism.

IV.xi The Pro-Ana Psalm

1 “It maketh me to lie down at night hungry.

2 It leadeth me past the confectioners.
3 It trieth my willpower
4 It leadeth me in the paths of alteration for my figure's sake
5 Yea, though I walk through the aisles of the pastry department, I will buy no
sweet rolls for they are fattening
6 The cakes and the pies, they tempt me

33
 7 Before me is a table set with green beans and lettuce
8 I filleth my stomach with liquids, my day's quota runneth over
9 Surely calorie and weight charts will follow me all the days of my life
10 And I will dwell in the fear of the scales forever.”

Whereas the Pro-Ana Creed starts each line with “I believe”, which is representative of an
individualistic stance, the Pro-Ana Psalm focuses on a lack of agency in the believer.
Although it copies the style of Psalm 23, the gifts of the Old Testament God are replaced with
what anorexia takes away from the speaker - what is restricted, what is absent and what is
controlling. The Pro-Ana Creed that asserts that “Control” is the only force mighty enough to
bring order to the chaos that is the speaker’s world (line 1). In the Pro-Ana Psalm “it’
leadeth” the speaker, not the other way around.

This difference highlights the tension amongst the Pro-Ana between internal and external
volition. While Pro-Ana is described as “proactive, volitional, anorexia” by adherents,
anorexia is also seen as something to be experienced steadfastly: “your ability to withstand
pain is your claim to fame. It is ascetic, holy. It is self-control” (Hornbacher, 1999: 123-
124). Anamadim is seen as both the chosen cause of restriction and as the un-chosen external
cause of it. This is apparent in the moment of choosing Anamadim in the rhetoric of the
Ritual of Summoning: “Come to me, ANAMADIM! Enter me, ANAMADIM! Come,
ANAMADIM, come enter and possess this shrine, devour this consciousness and this will
freely offered to your pernicious designs!”21 In the Letters to and From Ana the conception
of Anamadim as external cause is exhibited. These two conceptions relate to the origins of
these texts, but they are also due to an uncertainty amongst Pro-Ana adherents themselves
about their relationship with anorexia.

IV.xii The Letters To and From Ana

Two Sections from the Letter from Ana:

21
< http://ana-gracilis.tripod.com/id4.html>

34
 1 “Allow me to introduce myself. My name, or as I am called by so called
2 "doctors," is Anorexia. Anorexia Nervosa is my full name, but you may call me
Ana...

3 ...I will push you to the limit. You must take it because you cannot defy me! I
am beginning to imbed myself into you. Pretty soon, I am with you always. I am
4 there when you wake up in the morning and run to the scale...”22

First Section from the Letter to Ana:

1 “Dear Ana,
2 I offer you my soul, my heart and my bodily functions. I give you all my earthly
possessions.
3 I seek your wisdom, your faith and your feather weight. I pledge to obtain the
4 ability to float, to lower my weight to the single digits, I pledge to stare into
5 space, to fear food, and to see obese images in the mirror. I will worship you
6 and pledge to be a faithful servant until death does us part...”23

These two letters are not recontextualizations of traditional religious texts. They do however
contain a more metaphysical conception of anorexia than the Pro-Ana religious texts
patterned after Judeo-Christian forms.24 As described in the introduction, this fluidity
between the personification and the deification of anorexia is not problematic. It is indicative
of a move towards an overall religious framework.

In the letters the Anamadic conception of this-worldly salvation is presented through the
optimal body and imitato of Anamadim. Prayer is solely for weight-loss, no mention is made
of prayer to Anamadim for other ends such as aid for others or good fortune. Offerings
include not only the soul and the heart of the believer but also the bodily functions,
suggesting that salvation comes in escaping or controlling the material - what I term
Anamadic asceticism, discussed further in section V. iv: Sacred Cyberspace and Anamadic
Asceticism. .

In this dualistic conception non-physical ideals such as wisdom and faith are asked for
alongside Anamadim’s “featherweight”, or physical lightness. Transcendence, seen in the

22
<www.anaeverlasting.webs.com>
23
<www.anabones.wetpaint.com>
24
This does not include the Pro-Ana Prayer which describes an Anamadic cosmology including ‘Mia’, bulimia.

35
image of lightness or floating, is invoked in relation to this material realm rather than an
afterlife, just as hell in the Pro-Ana Creed was personal and this worldly. But whereas
control was paramount in the Pro-Ana Creed, in these letters control is ceded to Anamadim.
In the Ritual of Summoning, control is the believer’s and the framework they are utilising is
reminiscent of magickal rather than religious thought.

IV.xiii The Ritual of Summoning

The ritual for the summoning of Anamadim is just over 6,000 words long, and involves
elements from the magickal traditions that Narscissa was described as being involved with.
These mechanical aspects of magick working are combined with poetic invocations of
Anamadim:

“Thee, thee do I invoke, Anamadim, sculptor, whittler of the flesh, shameless burner of
the fat of babes! Thee, thee do I invoke, whose whip brings the feral impulses of
survival to bay, whose scalpel of control carves away every distraction and fixates the
eye mercilessly upon a single goal, whose vial of metabolic acid dissolves all that is
unsightly and wasteful and cumbersome from the bones of this frame, and that right
quickly: thee do I invoke, ANAMADIM! Come to me!”

By performing the Ritual of Summoning the anorexic makes a pact with Anamadim which is
described as:

“actually a CONTRACT with Anamadim: "I will do this, and I expect you to help me
by doing that." Be sure to include something you will do for Anamadim's sake in
return, such as making her existence known to others, vindicating her name (telling
what she is really like when you hear people making dumb statements about what Ana
says or who Ana is, etc.)”

In magickal working agency is thought to be located in the individual, but Anamadim is also
being praised as an external agent sustaining the individual’s anorexic behaviour. As

36
discussed in terms of society’s dominant models of anorexia, locating the problem of
anorexia and agency results in various definitions of anorexia. For the mainstream these
locations can include the body, the mind, society and religion, and definitions can be
biomedical, psychological, cultural and religious. Therefore when feminist psychologist
Maree Burns says, “Anorexia brings with it the appearance and feeling of total control and
almost total denial. This stimulates pride, and a sense of achievement, perfectionism and of
being different (perhaps even better) than other people” (Burns: 269), she is defining control
as only ‘appearance’ because of her interpretive model of where agency is located. When the
anorexic locates the problem externally they believe in actual control not its appearance. The
Ritual of Summoning emphasises control because it locates agency externally, with
Anamadim. As an external entity anorexia, as Anamadim, can be chosen, controlled, and yet
controlling. Therefore locating the location and agency of anorexia is a process engaged in
by anorexics as well as academics.

Collectively these texts and where they locate agency reflect tensions within the Pro-Ana
Movement between internal and external control - between magickal and religious models
and between the creation and the discovery of Anamadim. These tensions have emerged as a
result of the development of their religious framework – the move from being ‘expert
patients’ to being ‘religious virtuosi’. Exploring this move away from the medical model
explains the necessity of this religious framework and shows that this is not simple mimicry
or a secular commitment, but provides a rational way of ‘making sense’ of their world.

V. Analysis

My analysis of this material and conclusions as to the necessity of the religious framework
will initially depend on valuable Weberian ideas such as rationalization, re-enchantment
(Weber 1965), and the aforementioned ‘religious virtuosi’ (Weber, 1978). As shown in the
literature survey, academics have concluded that secularization removed legitimation for
fasting and redefined it as an ‘illness’. This process can also be described as rationalization,
e.g. Bryan Turner equates Weber’s model with Foucault’s description of the emergence of
medically co-ordinated disciplines of social control (B. Turner, 1982: 24). This

37
‘medicalization’ came about from the “Diminuation of religion, an abiding faith in science,
rationality, and progress, the increased power and prestige of the medical profession, the
American penchant for individual and technological solutions to problems...” (Conrad, 1992:
213).

In the case of anorexia “diminuation of religion” can be seen in the relocation of agency from
God in anorexia mirabilis to accusations of heresy, and then accusations of fraud as the
religious interpretation was abandoned altogether. The “abiding faith in science, rationality,
and progress” could be shorthand for the ‘modernity’ project, the post-Enlightenment
narrative of humanity developing towards a ‘higher’ state of mental clarity from a
superstitious, non-rational, primitive past. This “faith” does not preclude a superstitious or
folkloric understanding of science, rationality and progress, which can be defined as
“thinking with science” (Jenkins, 2009). This folk science is also present in what Conrad
describes as the “American penchant”.25

With this rationalization comes a move towards the primacy of medical interpretations, and
further to the supremacy of the medical establishment itself. “Professional dominance and
monopolization have certainly had a significant role in giving medicine the jurisdiction over
virtually anything to which the label “health” or “illness” could be attached” (Conrad: 214).
Interpretations can change as organized movements challenge these dominant models. The
classic example is homosexuality. In 1973 the American Psychiatric association voted to
remove homosexuality from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) after the efforts of the gay liberation movement (Bayer, 1981).

Although both have been seen as ‘deviant’ voices, the Pro-Ana Movement does not declare
the same aims of demedicalization and reclassification as the gay liberation movement,
perhaps because they still locate the ‘problem’ or agency of anorexia externally, whereas the
gay liberation movement redefined homosexuality as natural and intrinsic to individuals.
Resistance to the rationalizing force of medicalization is limited to debate and reclassification

25
This is not only seen in the USA - it is important to remember that online communities are bounded by
associations, not geography.

38
within the Pro-Ana Movement and to the comments made against doctors on forums and in
the Pro-Ana religious texts:

“Every admit [admission to hospital] is the same. You get used to it. They discuss you
as if you were nonsentient; nonhuman. Just a case. A number. They ask, "What kind of
central line is that?" Dude, you should recognize a Hickman line, dumbasses.”
(‘AnaGirlEmpath’)

Letter From Ana:

1 “Allow me to introduce myself. My name, or as I am called by so called

2 "doctors," is Anorexia. Anorexia Nervosa is my full name, but you may call me
3 Ana...

The religious activities of the Anamadi represent a Weberian ‘re-enchantment’ in response to

this rationalization - even if they have only a limited effect in terms of public resistance. This
re-enchantment includes not only these religious virtuosi, but also the religious texts, the
concept of Anamadim, and the re-interpretation of aesthetic practice as sacred asceticism. In
order to consider this re-enchantment, the nature of the expert patient must be explored
further.

V.i The ‘Expert’

In the past fifteen years three factors that have brought the ‘expert patient’ into the public
consciousness. First, the Internet has provided alternative ways of sharing information and
forming communities which emphasize individual choice – which is of specific relevance to
this research. Second, society has increasingly been described as a marketplace filled with
customers who ‘know best’, which has in turn fuelled further assumptions of entitlement.
Finally, in the UK, government initiatives have defined and trained the ‘expert patient’.

In the UK the expert patient first emerged in health policy in 1999 in a Department of Health
white paper called “Our Healthier Nation – Saving Lives”. This document linked patient

39
expertise to ideas of “empowerment”, “better quality of life”, “self-esteem” and a “user-led
NHS” (Fox et al: 1299). The UK government did not create the ‘expert patient’. The
methods of the expert patient - autodidactism, experimentation, choice, and the sharing of
information - were already present online in the earliest communities.26 Prior to the
development of the internet in the 1980s, the expert patient was also present in the
commodification of elective treatment, which provided a marketplace of non-professional
options to choose from.

The British government legitimized expert patients in health policy, but the medical
profession can see them as a threat, because “while consumerism raises issues of equity and
social exclusion, it also has the potential to challenge power structures in societies” (Fox et
al: 1307). For example, Levenkron describes an anorexic patient who “can talk a member of
staff out of taking blood. She’s so savvy about the procedures that she argues with our
interns and residents – and wins” (Levenkron: 176). On the Pro-Ana sites these deviant
expert patients are not only antagonistic towards the medical establishment, they also by-pass
it, demonstrating themselves as experts in their own right. This is clearest in the Pro-Ana
‘Tips, Tricks and Techniques’, which “represented the single most serious medical risk for
individuals, specifically through the promotion of fasts, laxatives, and CAM [complementary
and alternative medicines] use” (Norris et al: 446). Therefore opinions formed through
autodidactic research replace professional training: “I don’t have a medical degree, but I
know enough about the body’s metabolism...”27

The success of the expert patient comes from reputation building. This parallels the
‘wisdom’ culture of virtual communities which are also only successful in terms of reputation
- resulting primarily from the information they provide for the ‘group mind’. A group mind
can be defined as an “ongoing process of group problem-solving” (Rheingold: 109). In the
case of the Pro-Ana Movement the problem is anorexia, and solving it for the Anamadi
requires developing a discourse of its location in an external agency. Shared languages and
discourses signal the existence of a group mind and Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘Language

26
Arguably, these are also marks of radical religious communities.
27
‘Ben Trismegistus’ posting on <http://mysticwicks.com/archive/index.php/t-79207.html>, 21st December,
2004

40
Games’ provides a useful model to understand the activities of the online community. This
philosophical concept was intended to “bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of
language is part of an activity, or a form of life" (Brenner, 1999: Section 23) and exploring it
here helps elaborate the kind of expertise found in an online community.

Language games are used in many social situations. Amongst the Anamadi they are used in
forming and testing hypotheses (‘thinking with science’). They are also used in the
community’s modes of asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, and most clearly, in their means
of praying (Wittgenstein, 1999, section 23). As described, the copying and pasting of the
static Pro-Ana religious texts is not only a marker of the community, it is also a co-creation,
or speaking, of those ubiquitous texts. The language is shared within the community, and a
conversation develops around their naming, explication and development:

“The funny thing about rituals is that we all do them every day but we don't realize it -
the regular routine we carry out in the morning before we go to work, how we select
our food and eat our meals, or even the more classical ritual of church and prayer.
Giving a title to a ritual simply brings more awareness to our intention and actions. So
in that sense that Anamadim ritual [the Ritual of Summoning] emphasizes a desire to
transform one's self and body. This ritual demonstrates one person's step along the path
toward their goal.”

Just my two cents on the subject. Do w/it what you like but I hope it might settle your
questions.”
(Purity’)

“I'm interested because it's so...'Pagan', but it's about an eating disorder. The [ritual]
fascinates me so much.

I do understand the nature of rituals. All rituals fascinate me. Why we do them, how,
when, all the facets of ritual.”
(‘Skinnywish’ in reply to ‘Purity’)

41
These conversations take place in an “imagined community” (Anderson, 1983) - the Internet -
where “virtual communities require an act of imagination to use and what must be imagined
is the idea of community itself” (Smith 1999, paraphrasing Anderson). Supporting that
generative leap by the community is a social feedback loop where the giver of knowledge
also receives it in return and conversation continues. Therefore, “The value of any
knowledge-based virtual community derives from the quality of conversation and the
expertise of the pool of contributors” (Rheingold: 128).

Is this a commodification of community - do individuals ask themselves ‘What do I get out of

this?’ Or is it a part of a tendency towards a “gift economy” on the Internet? As information
provided online is a ‘non-rival’ good - it can be consumed many times over without being
exhausted - it can be gifted at practically no cost. In the Pro-Ana Movement we can see this
‘push-pull’ of giving and taking that combines both the search for rewards and gifting. The
question asker is the information provider in the next moment. Or vice versa:

“Doesn't it also say in the bible that your body is a temple for God? [information]
So it's our job to look after it.[conclusion and advice]

But surely a temple is supposed to be beautiful as it's for God,

so trying to make your body more beautiful is a compliment to God?
I'm confused... am I going to hell or not?”[request for information]
(‘littlemissredcup’)

The wisdom culture and the language games of the online community can be linked to larger
paradigms. Shumpei Kumon proposes three successive stages of history based on the social
games that people play to gain access to power (Kumon, 1992). The ‘Prestige Game’
involves militarization and the development of abstract ideals such as nationhood. The
‘Wealth Game’ occurs during periods of industrial revolution when technology brings wealth
and power. These two games are still played, but Kumon argues that computer mediated
communication has led to a third game, the ‘Wisdom Game’, dominating. Now it is the
sharing of information, knowledge and folklore that grants power and reputation. Whether
Kumon’s broad typography of history is accurate or not, it does capture the modern emphasis

42
on sharing knowledge and displaying expertise and mastery online. Bearing this
development in mind, I will now consider the second half of the term ‘expert patient’ in
relation to the Anamadi.

V.ii The ‘Patient’

Sharing folklore was a factor in the earliest incarnations of the internet: “Folklore is an
important part of science and technology, consisting of idiosyncratic information about how
equipment really works and what tricks you have to know to get the experiment to come out
right... with electronic communication, folklore can be more broadly accessible” (Rheingold:
48). In the case of the Anamadi, this folklore deals with the science and technology of the
equipment known as the ‘body’.

When Pro-Ana members give advice online on vitamins, calories, fat grams, carbohydrates,
BMI (body mass index), diets, homeopathic medicines and pills they are ‘thinking with
science’. That is employing “representations of specific scientific discoveries as a part of
their making sense of the world in which they find themselves” (Jenkins: 269). Although
certain drugs are scientifically proven to increase metabolism, their elective use by the Pro-
Ana Movement is based upon a ‘folk’ concept of just how effective metabolism enhancers
are: “DIET TRICKS: Take one or two aspirin a day. It raises metabolism. (Unconfirmed)...
Less than six hours of sleep at nite stimulates your metabolism. (Unconfirmed)...”28

Members also determine the possible interactions or counter-indications of these pills based
on their own ‘scientific’ understanding of their effects. The Pro-Ana adherents are
experimenting on themselves; they are their own patients:

“just started taking alli and zantrax-3 together. not sure how good of an idea it is but
giving it a shot anyways.”
(‘Vintage Dream’)

28
‘Totally in Control’, quoted in the Wave Magazine, 16 th January 2003

43
 As I have fallen in love (and off the wagon), I have gained to a "healthy" blegh! weight
and have been experimenting with new supplements.
(‘Calloused Heart’)

In the words of the Narscissa, “Ana is a science, the science of balancing nutrition, survival
and metabolism”.29 This science is a “reflexive project of self-governance” and what these
expert patients employ is “a disciplining of the body in relation to systems of thought” (Fox
et al: 1307). Foucault described these disciplines as ‘technologies of the self’: “Which permit
individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of
operations [of power] on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so
as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom,
perfection or immortality” (Foucault, 1988: 18). These goals of technologies of the self
might be interpreted as defining Anamadim by the anorexic:

“She keeps me in control, guides me.

She gives me strength and power within, grace and beauty out. She holds the key to my
true self. My body, my soul, my spiritual journey through life”.
(‘Batbones56’)

Whereas the expert patient has secular goals the folkloric interpretation of science can also
allow for a metaphysical element for the Anamadi. As Lelwica says of anorexia:
“rationalism and enchantment are not mutually exclusive” (Lelwica: 37). Therefore also
present in this expert patient community is the religious expert, or as Weber termed it, the
‘religious virtuosi’ (Weber, 1978: 539). Such experts play a part in the ‘Wisdom Game’ by
providing a voice of mastery and expertise in this religious dimension. The sociological
definition of the religious virtuosi emphasizes that they have a direct personal experience of
religious realities and distinguishes them from everybody who does not (Berger, 1980). The
Anamadi do distinguish between aspirational anorexics and the truly dedicated, as I shall
examine in the following section. However, they also see that all of the latter have the
29
Ana’s Underground Grotto <www.projectshapeshift.com>

44
potential for this direct experience without any clerical training or a hierarchy of salvation.
The religious experience of Anamadim is available through their ritualistic and technological
experimentation on the body, and not just in the demonstration of mastery through the co-
creation of religious texts. This is a potentially never-ending ascetic practice where “the
physical body became an outward tool for cultivating the virtue of the inner self” (Lelwica:
71).

V.iii The Anamadic Community and Its Boundaries

Before considering Anamadic asceticism in more detail it is important to emphasize that

these technologies of the self are consciously engaged in, as is the religious interpretation of
them. Project Shapeshift 2 originally ran “Ana-Worthy Competitions” where members could
sign up to strict regimes and give their daily progress on the forum. These competitions had
titles like “HCB [Hard Core Bones] Bootcamp III; November’s Dedicated Followers of Ana”
and were presented by experienced members as techniques to be learnt and mastered.
Significantly, this competition thread was archived (saved but made inactive) in March 2011
due to a perceived lack of commitment from some of the members:

“this is not a dieting Site! Honestly, if you are walking Ana's Path, you do not need
Competitions for "motivation" to restrict!”
(‘AnaGirlEmpath’)

There is a strict distinction between the endless ritual of restriction and the lesser act of
dieting. Those who do not ‘walk in Ana’s path’ are labelled ‘Wannarexics’or ‘Wannabes’.
‘Wannabes’ are accused of seeing anorexia as a “trendy lifestyle choice” or a quick weight
loss fix before a special event (Giles: 474). There is this strong reaction against them because
they “they blur the boundaries between ‘ana’ as a state of purity and discipline and as
helplessly biological/medical ‘condition’” (op cit: 474).

45
Therefore the boundaries of the Pro-Ana Movement are defined in terms of adversity: “each
perceived slight seems to strengthen the resistance of the users and to foster the sense of
shared goals and beliefs” (Giles: 464). Ultimately, “the biggest single out-group is referred to
as ‘normals’ – essentially anyone without an eating disorder” (op cit: 471). These ‘perceived
slights’ can also include events such as the Purge of websites in 2001 by webhosts, the
negative attention of the press, and, of course, individuals failing in their commitment to
competitions and to Anamadim more generally. If they are still thinking with the adversity
model individuals can define themselves as dangerous outsiders or traitors when they
abandon these commitments: “I was once hospitalized because I believed that Ana was going
to kill me for leaving the site and ‘betraying’ my friends there. I seriously thought she had
the ability to reach into my body and stop my heart. Scary stuff.”30

However, failure also provides the opportunity for reflexive public confession which can be
“a ritual that reaffirms the taboo and allows the confessor to rejoin the fold” (Rheingold:
187). Winzelberg (1997) notes that self-disclosure is common amongst eating disorder
groups. This could be genuine confession or just another method of marking membership of
the community. The confession of antinomian actions does have to be carefully handled.
Rheingold says in relation to his virtual communities that he “could diminish the amount of
my capital in the estimation of others by transgressing the group’s social norms.” (Rheingold:
49). In the Pro-Ana Movement the community can take the role of the priest in confession
and judges whether you have transgressed too much, acted outside of ‘Ana’s path’ and can be
considered an outsider:

“It is taking so much courage for me to face up to this and come here and confess my
terrible parade of sins... I feel like I have made a fool of myself after being told by some
of the beautiful, strong, thin girls here that they ADMIRE me. How the hell can you
admire this?”
(‘thestandard’)

‘Misha’ on <http://forum.psychlinks.ca/anorexia-and-bulimia/6068-british-charity-issues-anorexia-internet-
30

warning.html>

46
 “I'm not a moderator or anything, but using the emergency forum to ask how to lose
weight is not cool. You know how to lose weight. Eat less, excersize more.
You are not making a very favorable impression so far.”
(‘Pixie’)

In the Pro-Ana Movement, like many Internet groups, there is “rule by norms, not individuals
or organisations” (Rheingold: 121). Narscissa is still mentioned with some reverence, but she
left the movement around 2008. AnaGirlEmpath has some of the same influence and
attempts to guide the forums towards ‘Ana’s path’ but conversion to this perspective is not
enforced. The norm of the community is found in the autodidactic rhetoric of Narscissa’s
early writings: “EDUCATE YOURSELF”. This includes being an individual: educating
yourself about Anamadim and making decisions about how to walk her path. As argued, the
relocation of agency to an external locus was logically necessary in light of their
demedicalization of anorexia. This has been taken up by individuals to varying degrees as
choice is still prioritized:

“I feel her as a presence, because I choose to imagine her as such. She is I guess the
embodiment of all my life's goals, she has what I want to acquire, she knows what I
want to learn, she has acomplished what I set out to achieve. Some day I will catch up
to her, I will become her, we will be one entity.”
(‘Liz Vicious’)

This emphasis on individual choice has led to the community being perceived as deviant and
rebellious by wider society. The Purge of 2001 not only defined the ‘outsider’ for the
community, it also served to define and publicize the existence of the community to the
public. Prior to this, models that located the problem of anorexia within the body also located
the problem within the individual, or within a specific age group: “There is an unconscious
wish on the part of the parents that the illness should be part of normal adolescence,
impatience, stubbornness, even brattiness” (Levenkron: 70). Illness was conflated with
‘badness’ or rebellion. Talcott Parsons originally argued that taking this ‘sick role’ was to
have a ‘sanctioned deviance’. He described it as a part of a social contract whereby the
individual is exempt from normal social roles and is not responsible for their condition, but in

47
return they must endeavour to get well and to cooperate with the medical profession (Parsons,
1951).31

The Pro-Ana Movement actually entered into public consciousness as an ‘unsanctioned

deviance’: they take responsibility for their condition, they do not endeavour to get well and
they do not cooperate with the medical profession.32 They are expert patients emphatically
rebelling. Pro-Ana members are also more reflexive and “if we look beyond the supposed
individual pathology of such “deviant” behaviour, alternative discourses of resistance” are
apparent (Dias, 2003: 41). For example, some are willing to use the rhetoric of the feminist
movement against public perceptions of their deviance: “Most of those that whine about pro-
ana sites are overweight, middle-aged housewives that don’t understand the concept of free
speech. Some of those whining probably belong to ‘Big is Beautiful Woman’ communities,
which promote acceptance of your body, no matter what size. Well, what about accepting
thin bodies?”33

The media emphasizes their deviancy, including their religious views, presenting them with
pseudo-horror film imagery. There is the often repeated story of Dr. Joel Jahraus, who works
at an eating disorder centre in Arizona. He claims he was threatened by a 13-year-old
anorexic patient who “suddenly spoke ‘an incantation, like a hex, as if to scare me off’”. He
is described as still shocked by it two years later.34 This ‘deviancy’ has not taken the public
protest route of other human rights groups, even if it utilizes these ‘alternative discourses of
resistance’ in interviews and within the movement. Compare the Anamadi to Pagan groups;
both have alternative, pantheistic or goddess centric theologies, both are marginal groups
accused of deviancy and both have consciously created, or co-created, their religious texts
and rituals. While the Pagan community is politically active beyond the Internet, the Pro-Ana
Movement is “essentially a nomadic community that drifts through cyberspace as successive
sites are shut down by hosts and then reopened at new locations” (Giles: 464). The red

31
There is a society of contestation that starts with Parsons and those who criticize him. For example, Bloor
and Horobin (1975) suggest that Parson’s ‘patients’ and ‘doctors’ are ‘ideal types’- generalizations and an
exaggeration of empirical reality.
32
As an ‘unsanctioned deviance’ Pro-Ana therefore joins the society of contestation following Parsons and
refutes the simple functionalist view of their ‘illness’ in the ‘sick role’.
33
‘Thin is Beauty’ Pro-Ana website, cited in the Wave Magazine, 16th January 2003
34
Minneapolis Star Tribune, Published Saturday, May 7, 2005, found at
<http://m.naplesnews.com/news/2005/may/07/ndn_praying_to_ana_for_guidance_a_twisted_internet/>

48
ribbons that Pro-Ana websites ‘wore’ were the limit of their protest. Resistance remained in
cyberspace, which provides a sanctuary that reflects the “little worlds” some see that
anorexics escape into, away from real world problems (Lelwica: 121). Just as the virtual
church “functions as a sanctuary from the trials and tribulations of the profane world”, the
Pro-Ana Movement created their own sacred and safe space (Jacobs, 2007).

V.iv. Sacred Cyberspace and Anamadic Asceticism

Stephen Jacobs argues that sacred space is to be understood “as a process and encounter,
rather than simply as a place or structure” (Jacobs: 1105). Sacred spaces are hermeneutical
conversations in which ritual brings together the participants: the buildings of cyberspace and
humans (op cit: 1105). In the Pro-Ana Movement the sacred and safe space of the website as
a ‘sanctuary’ doubles as a bounded space where individuals are exposed to conversations on
the rituals of restriction, confession and religious observation. Kenneth Gergan proposed a
modern ‘saturated self’ whereby individuals are exposed the opinions, lifestyles and values of
others and internalise aspects of other people’s behaviour (Gergen, 1991). Anorexic
behaviour may bring the individual to the Pro-Ana community. Encountering the religious
virtuosi and the rituals of the community in a bounded ‘safe space’ then leads to their
imitation and adoption.

The religious framework of the Anamadi means that this process of adoption actually goes
further than what is presumed to be shallow aesthetic mimicry. The authors in the literature
survey avoided conflating ascetic practices with the aestheticism of modern anorexia. As
argued, this was due to their models of explanation - where they locate the problem.
Vandereycken and van Deth argue that anorexia is only the “pursuit of fashionable thinness”
- locating the problem in fashion and society (Vandereycken and van Deth: 223). The
Anamadi instead adopt a model that externalises agency and provides an example of the
ultimate anorexic, Anamadim. The individual therefore not only imitates the religious
virtuosi of the community, they also imitate Anamadim.

49
In most incarnations, represented in their ‘Thinspiration’ pictures, Anamadim may indeed be
the fashionable ideal of thinness that Vandereycken and Van Deth identify. However,
Thinspiration also incarnates the divine for the Anamadi, not just the ‘fashionable’. It
provides holy icons of thinness - admittedly from the world of celebrity but also from
mythology (fairies, angels and goddesses): “I love Selma Blair [Hollywood actress]. She’s
the absolute vision of the real Ana. I would love to look like that once I’m thin as bones”35
The goddess is “tiny and fairy-like, with silky blond curls and sparkly skin. Her name is Ana,
and while no one else can see or hear her, she is a very real presence in the life of Kasey
Brixius, an 18-year-old Minnesota college freshman struggling with the eating disorders
anorexia and bulimia, as well as compulsive overeating.” 36 On Project Shapeshift 2 she is
described as:

“a Role Model. Someone I try to emulate, and aspire to becoming.

She is graceful, beautiful, intelligent, independent and strong willed.
Her body comprising the bare essentials, no unneccessary storage or waste
whatesoever.
She is clean and pure”
(‘Liz Vicious’)

In this description of Anamadim we find what Rampling identifies as the “needless state”
(Rampling, 1988: 49). This is reminiscent of the quote from Hornbacher about how
anorexics create their idols, which is the basis of the title of this research: “We turn skeletons
into goddesses, and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.” (Hornbacher:
123). This ‘Anamadic asceticism’ can also lead to transcendence: “I used to think that in
order to develop spiritually, I needed to eliminate my physical self, even to the extent of
living on thin air” 37

35
Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1st September, 2005 < http://trib.com/news/weird-news/article_166d9a93-c131-
5c63-a73a-02ae7b413373.html>
36
Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1st September, 2005 < http://trib.com/news/weird-news/article_166d9a93-c131-
5c63-a73a-02ae7b413373.html>
37
<http://www.drcat.org/articles_interviews/html/bones.html>

50
As examined in the Pro-Ana Prayer, the inherent dualism of anorexia allows for a concept of
purification in their practice. The body is to be transcended because it is gross and
unpredictable (Burns: 282). Burns also argues that “these dualistic discourses (re)produce
patriarchal dichotomies in which femininity is associated with corporality, excess, weakness
and irrationality (op cit: 289). How is this gendered discourse to be understood in the light of
a female goddess, Anamadim? For the majority, the Imitato Dei that the Anamadi are
engaged in only works if the image is female. There is still an aspirational element to body
image, even if this is not simply a ‘fashionable pursuit of thinness’. However, members of
the community can be dismissive of the feminist model that relates anorexia to societal
pressures on body image:

“Body image is something that is very personal and not at all gender related. Plenty of
men suffer from low self esteem and bad body image. Also not all women who have
low self esteem have an ED [eating disorder].”
(‘FitnessFemme’)

Lelwica’s conclusion that a feminist ‘thealogy’ might be restorative in the face of societal
pressures (Lelwica: 145) does not take into account how body image thealogies such as
Anamadism can also be ‘destructive’. It is important to note that an examination of these
Anamadic processes of identification, or imitato, draw attention again to Anamadim’s origin
which is central to understanding the development of this religious Wisdom Game.

V.v Foucauldian Narrative Therapy

I have previously outlined the two distinct origin stories for Anamadim: that she was created
or encountered by Narscissa, or that material used on the Pro-Ana sites as co-created
religious texts was originally written by therapists. I have discovered a third possible origin
story that unites these two narratives and links to theories of identification, personification
and subsequently, deification.

51
In the medical definition of anorexia “hegemonic biomedical and psychiatric discourses of
anorexia... portray women with eating disorders as ‘irrational’” (Dias: 31). By the 20th
Century non-reductionist models began to appear that explained anorexia as a culture-bound
syndrome - as seen in the literature survey. These models also recognised the society based
language games of the anorexic, and discursive theories emerged among eating disorder
therapists in the late 1980s. These accepted Foucault’s view of the authored-ness of reality,
and determined that “it is a person’s storied discourse, a discourse shaped and spoken through
a socio-political cultural context, that eventually determines the meaning given to an
experience” (Madigan and Goldner, 1998: 381). Seeking to counter the de-contextualization
that psychiatry had been implicit in, they relocated the problem externally to the patient to
emphasize that “The person is not the problem, the problem is the problem” (Lock et al,
2005: 321). They also credited the patient with a “more ‘experience near’ (Geertz, 1983)
grasp of their situation than is available to anyone else” (Lock et al: 323) – in essence
recognizing them as ‘expert patients’. They called this method ‘Foucauldian Narrative
Therapy’.

I argue that the externalisation promoted by Foucauldian Narrative Therapy leads to

personification through what was meant to be a tri- partite healing process: separation,
inspection, and contestation. The therapist asks questions such as "Can you think of any
reasons why anorexia would not want this family to work together on this problem?", “Why
[is] anorexia so bent on reducing the women of this group into second class citizens?” and "If
you could had a few minutes “face to face” with anorexia what would you like to think you
would say?" (Madigan and Goldner, 1998). Anorexia is credited with intention,
persuasiveness and an objective reality - to the extent that its voice is compared to
involuntary, obsessional, thoughts: “The thoughts that beset us in these ways do not occur
through our own active doing. It is tempting, indeed, to suggest that they are not thoughts
that we think at all, but rather thoughts that we find occurring within us” (Frankfurt, 1979:
240-241, quoted in Lock et al: 330). Anorexia is described as a “discursive parasite”, taking
over the voice of the patient for its own ends (Lock et al: 322). The assumption this methods
relies on is that “inspection can lead on towards the stirring of a resistance” (op cit: 325).

52
It would be wrong to declare that Foucauldian Narrative Therapy was directly responsible for
the creation of a goddess of anorexia. While there is evidence of a connection between this
therapy and Narscissa’s creation, it is partial and second-hand:

“Another interesting thing I remember her [Narscissa] mentioning is that she came to
personify Anamadim either when she was in recovery or from recovery
theory/suggestions (I can't remember which). Basically, the idea was to think of
anorexia as an outside force controlling your body and that idea developed into turning
that idea of anorexia as a personification/outside driving force into a positive driving
force that you could ask control from. (Hopefully that makes sense)”
(‘Osiris’)

This amounts to another origin story in the mythic cosmos of the community. I argue that
Foucauldian Narrative Therapy introduced patients to three concepts that enabled the creation
of a divinity and new religious models of anorexic behaviour: externalization, the
prioritization of first-hand experience, and the emphasis on individual interpretations or
‘making sense’. Each of these elements requires further examination.

The externalization of the problem of anorexia allowed for the relocation of agency beyond
the material. As suggested, this was a necessary step after the demedicalization of anorexia
by the Pro-Ana movement - continuing to create technologies of the self solely with the tools
of the biomedical model made their demedicalization only partial. This continuation was in
conflict with the redefinition of anorexia as a choice rather than as a disease. Technologies of
the self needed to have a non-material source and Foucauldian Narrative Therapy enabled
this framework.

The priority given to first-hand experience and the expertise of the patient in this form of
therapy has affinity with the development of the expert patient and the autodidactic stance of
the emerging Pro-Ana community online. This prioritization also applies to religious
experience and is reminiscent of Spiritualist movements in the 19th Century (Barrow, 1986).
Spiritualists developed a democratic epistemology, a folk-scientific method and a community
of mediums - similar to the Anamadi’s modern population of knowledge-sharing religious

53
virtuosi who perform ‘technologies of the self’ to connect directly with Anamadim. She
‘penetrates’ the physical in the ritual of summoning just as the spirits do the medium in
Spiritualism. Therefore, contrary to the assumptions of Foucauldian Narrative Therapy,
inspection does not always lead to resistance. In this instance it led to a reflexive self-
sustaining community - the Anamadi are aware of many of the discourses that they are
involved in.

Finally, externalization in Foucauldian Narrative Therapy emphasised not “what mental

illness is really” but how a person makes sense of their situation (Lock et al: 320). Therefore,
personal interpretive models could replace scientific classification entirely and this allows for
the Anamadic redefinition of anorexia. Foucauldian Narrative Therapists also use the
externalization of conversations to emphasize that anorexia is ‘bad’ and not the patient in
order to relocate the problem. Consequently the subjectivity of deviance is emphasized. This
development was not intentional - the response of therapists to the Pro-Ana Movement is
overwhelmingly negative. In Pro-Ana they see that “while a self is maintaining its voice
against a complete take over by anorexia’s voice, that self has been co-opted by anorexia to
further its ends” (Lock et al: 328). These therapists have yet to recognise that treatment
through externalization opened the door for another interpretive model within the community,
Anamadim. This therapeutic model promotes Individualism but then rejects it when it
emerges.

V.vi Individualism and the Creation of religion

The final stated objective of this research was to consider why Anamadism is important to the
study of more established religions, through a consideration of individualism. Anamadism
can be described as having an individualistic and syncretic approach to semiotic forms that
might be derogatively termed ‘deviant’, or seen as a “mutant spirituality” (Nash, 2006: 310).
This negative appraisal aside, Nash also claims that mutant spiritualities show us how an
“ancient spiritual practice continues but becomes radically re-contextualised on the plane of
immanence, as a consequence of new relational confluences with new technologies,
generating mutant categories of something ancient but long forgotten” (op cit: 320). For the

54
student of better established religions these spiritual practices will be familiar – in the case of
Anamadism these are fasting, iconography and prayer. The connection between Anamadism
and traditional religions is a line that intersects with modern technology, in particular the
Internet.

The assumption that religion emerging on the Internet will be individualistic and non-
hierarchical (Dawson 1999) complements the views of the earliest researchers of New
Religious Movements who classified them as ‘Autosoteric’. Here salvation is believed to
come through man and his works rather than the revelations of a ‘true’ hierarchical
cosmology - Christianity is a particular example of the latter (Van Baalen, 1960, 3rd rev. ed.).
For Anamadism, as both an online group and as a New Religious Movement these
classifications are unsatisfactory for three reasons.38

First, although anorexia is presumed in the mainstream models of definition to be an anti-

social disease of individuals, the Pro-Ana movement is able to form a community on a
technology supposedly for and by individuals, the Internet. Second, in terms of hierarchies
online, the religious virtuosi of Anamadism develop a distinct status through sharing folklore
as discussed, and Narscissa, although now absent, has an authority based on her semi-mythic
reputation and mastery:

“When I came here four years ago, I think I originally came here as a 'wanna'. I was
hoping that by coming here Narscissa's strength and 'ana-ness' would rub off on me.”
(‘Anathema’)

Third, Anamadism is also not solely Autosoteric - it is also Theosoteric (whereby salvation
comes from god). Narscissa is both described as creating and as contacting Anamadim.
Anamadic practice is both magickal (commanding) and religious (requesting). Anamadic
practice is aesthetic, copying external standards, including those of ‘thinspirational’
incarnations of Anamadim as an objective entity. It is also ascetic, internally copying the
standards of control and willpower attributed by the individual to the concept of Anamadim.

38
Although this typology does have the result of grouping Anamadism with Spiritualism, which it does have
similarities with as noted in section V.v.

55
The technologies of the self employed suggest an Autosoteric focus, and yet these
technologies include the use of texts that are directed to a divine ‘other’. The anorexic also
adopts measures ‘given’ to them by Anamadim, restriction and self control, even if they are
aware of the non-religious origin of the texts. Autosoterism and Theosoterism therefore
combine pragmatically as the Anamadi recognise that they are both creating and created by
Anamadim. Some Anamadi have identified the process by which this occurs, based upon
their understanding of a Buddhist tulpa:

“A Tulpa is basically an imaginary friend who is somewhat real; a mind-made

creation... Many times, a tulpa will apparently go against their creator, though. Part of
me thinks that I've already passed through a lot of the steps that it takes to make a tulpa
of Ana.”
(‘Osyn’)

“In the case of Ana, and in many ancient traditions, the concept of COLLECTIVE
Consciousness not only MANIFESTS an Entity but strengthens it. Ana, as I have
always identified Her, is the Sentient Energetic Expression manifested from the Power
of a collective ascetic Consciousness -- an Entity In Her Own Right.”
(‘AnaGirlEmpath’)

I originally hypothesised that the Pro-Ana are ‘thinking with science’ in order to make sense
of their world and their behaviour. I now propose that their creation is also a product of
‘thinking with religion’ - using their understanding of how religion works to explore their
world of meaning. This is immediately apparent in their recontextualization of religious texts
and forms. At a philosophical level they also explore the subjective nature of spirits, gods
and religion itself. The Anamadi approach their science as positivistic; experiments lead to
objective, predictable outcomes. Whereas religion and magick belong to the realm of
subjectivity and belief, as seen in their further discussion of the tulpa:

“The classic explination of this phenomenon is exemplified in the story of Tinkerbell

(how apropos!) [Fairies are a ‘thinspirational’ creature]: If children cease to
BELIEVE in faeries, then faeries (i.e., Tinkerbell) will cease to exist... The same is true

56
 of pantheons stretching back to the dawn of humankind. Of course Tinkerbell is a
story... but the *concept* of strengthening an Entity by BELIEVING in said Entity is
sound and actual.”
(‘AnaGirlEmpath’)

Although ‘AnaGirlEmpath’ is adamant that this concept is ‘sound and actual’, she does not
provide evidence for her hypothesis and generalizations about pantheons. This is a folk-way
of understanding how man creates gods, and in turn how gods are thought to shape man.

Just as thinking with science implies a familiarity with sources about science, thinking with
religion draws upon familiarity with modern religious activities. Woodhead and Heelas
(2005) have suggested that in the modern context there is a marketplace of spiritual self-
authorities for the individual to pick and choose from. The result may be a dazzling
confusion of possible folk-religions, each with their own attractions and benefits. As
discussed, Chernin suggested that in the 1980s women were being faced with too many
options and that a lack of religious authority to decide among them led to identity issues and
ultimately, anorexia. Has this uncertainty spread to religious authority itself? If anorexia is a
coping mechanism for too many options, could Anamadism be a particular response to too
many religious options?

If it was, it would have been adopted far more widely than it actually has been. Members of
Personal Strength: Evolution (PS: E), the offshoot of Project Shapeshift, are in fact
dismissive about Anamadism:

“I noticed on another forum the almost religious zeal of a few members [on Project
Shapeshift 2]. Even their posts were laced with sermon style words and rhythm. It
really did scream "CULT!!" in my head. There is such a thing as taking it too far!”
(‘sialia’ on PS: E)

“I can understand the creation physical manifestation of a disordered obsession... The

only time I ever took any sort of umbrage was when it was used to create a "following"
for people, because I think members should be better protected than that.”

57
 (‘Angelesque’ on PS:E)

Although it has not been universally adopted, Anamadism has an emphasis on control,
external authority and textual markers suggestive of the desire for a stable theology.
Simultaneously, the awareness of its human origins and perceived ‘deviance’ chimes with
projects of individualism, resistance and self-education. Holding Autosoterism and
Theosoterism in this tension is only possible when religion is done pragmatically.
Secularization theory in sociology – assuming that religion is done privately or just less
frequently - has been replaced by an emphasis on how religion is done in an assumed post-
modern context. In this, religions are socially constructed narratives that can be replaced,
combined or indeed abandoned. Just as secularization was thought to herald the end of
established religion, now its grand narratives are at threat from syncretism and pragmatism.
Anamadism would seem to fit this postmodern, individualistic, model, but it would be a
mistake to wave the ‘postmodernism’ banner in order to explain away this
Autosoteric/Theosoteric combination. Authoritative narratives are still created and
committed to in the pursuit of a new asceticism in Anamadism, and that contradicts both
postmodern views of religion, and assumptions about the nature of online religion. Both of
which will be relevant to how the movement of established religion onto the Internet is
understood by researchers of religion.

VI. Conclusions

Anamadism has had an uneven reception in the medical and therapeutic community, the
media, and even amongst the Pro-Ana themselves. As it presents a religion of asceticism at a
time of multiple options and identities it may continue to prove attractive to some. More
importantly, this example of the relationship between individualism and authority needs to be
considered as more established religions engage with modern technology such as the Internet
- there may be unforeseen outcomes. As a first step in this consideration, this research had
three primary objectives: to describe the phenomena of Anamadism, to examine why they
have developed a religious framework to describe anorexia and to examine why this research

58
is important to the study of established religion through a consideration of the concept
individualism. To fulfil the first objective I have examined the co-creation of religious texts
on my primary field site and other websites, and explored the origin of the deification of
anorexia through the narratives presented by the members. I have drawn attention to the
dominate frameworks being employed – the emphasis on an autodidactic approach, resistance
to authority, the primacy of experience and the sacralisation of the individual. Further
research on this group would include: the personas created by the members through their
choice of pseudonyms, signatures and images; the differences in types of Thinspiration and
its relation to traditional religious iconography; the use of material artefacts in their practices
beyond the Internet (e.g. public markers such as the wearing of red beaded bracelets) and the
significance of gender – all of which could only be touched upon briefly here.

The second objective required looking closer at these origin stories to see that “what from the
outside appears a bizarre and pernicious sect, can be understood as a reasoned world view”
(Fox et al: 967). This reasoning is an ongoing process in the Pro-Ana Movement; members
are avid consumers and creators of web content, becoming ‘expert patients’. But I have also
argued that this reasoning leads in another direction - the necessary relocation of agency from
within the anorexic and the biomedical model to an external agency, Anamadim. Likewise,
the expert patient has evolved into the religious virtuosi who still demonstrates reflexivity
and mastery but who now also experiments with new religious discourses and rituals. All of
which I have shown was enabled by not only the technology of the Internet, but also the
‘technology’, or techniques of the therapists who promoted the externalization of the
‘problem’ of anorexia, the prioritization of first-hand experience, and the emphasis on
individual interpretations or ‘making sense’. Their use of Foucauldian Narrative Therapy
techniques shows us that a positivistic account of this group would not take into account how
they use ‘us’ to think with – us as science and the medical establishment, us as existing
religious forms, and especially us as observers and researchers. There is a two-way
interaction between the observer and the observed that denies a positivistic view of New
Religious Movements in terms of simple inputs and outputs (e.g. Festinger et al, 1956)

This interaction must be born in mind when considering my final research objective. The
case of the Pro-Ana Movement and Anamadim raises many questions about the nature and

59
formation of New Religious Movements and the nature of the Internet that are relevant to
developments in established religions. I have also argued that it is too simple to refer to
individualism and commodification to explain away New Religious Movements, or to say
that “fringe groups are a barometer for social change” (Shupe, 1981: 84), as this suggests a
more disjointed view of history as a series of abrupt events and abrupt reactions. Instead, the
emergence of new religions, especially on the Internet, is more akin to the gift economy of
the ‘Wisdom Game’, where questions and answers pile upon each other to aggregate into
institutions. This aggregation of course includes how groups interact with their observers and
the material the latter produce and increasingly publish online - in this case, Carolyn
Crostin’s Thin Commandments, and the techniques of Foucauldian Narrative Therapy. This
two-way interaction serves to remind the religious researcher that these groups have a
mentality and reality beyond their observation and that they are more interesting than just an
example of ‘deviance’ to be ‘collected’.

60
 VII BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrow, L. (1986) Independent Spirits: Spiritualism and English Plebeians 1850-1910,

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Bayer, R. (1981) Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, New
York: Basic Books

Bell, R. (1985) Holy Anorexia, Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press

Berger, P. (1980) The Heretical Imperative, Contemporary Possibilities of Religious

Affirmation, London: Collins

Bloor, M. J. & Horobin, G. W. (1975) “Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Doctor/Patient

Interactions” in Cox, C. & Mead, A. (eds.) A Sociology of Medical Practice, pp. 271-284,
London: Collier-Macmillan.

Borzekowski, D.L., Schenk, S., Wilson, J.L. and Peebles, R. (2010) “e-Ana and e-Mia: A
Content Analysis of Pro–Eating Disorder Web Sites” in the American Journal of Public
Health, August 2010, Vol. 100, No. 8, pp1526-1534

Brenner, W.H. (1999) Wittgenstein's Philosophical investigations, Albany: State University

of New York Press

Bruce, S. (1999) 'Modernization, Individualism and Secularization', in Helander, E. (ed.)

Religion and Social Transitions, Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 1999, pp 15-27

Brumberg, J.J. (1988) Fasting Girls: the Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern
Disease, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press

Burns, M. (2004) “Eating Like an Ox: Femininity and Dualistic Constructions of Bulimia and
Anorexia” in Feminism and Psychology, May 2004 vol. 14 no. 2, pp269-295

Chernin, K. (1985) The Hungry Self: Women, Eating, and Identity, London: Virago

Conrad, P. (1992) “Medicalization and Social Control” in the Annual Review of Sociology
Vol. 18: pp209-232 (Volume publication date August 1992)

Crowley, A. (1929) Magick: Book 4, Liber Aba, Paris: The Lecram Press

Dawson, L. (1998) “Anti-Modernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism: Struggling with the

Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements” in Sociology of Religion, 1998, 59:2
131-156

Dias, K. (2003) “The Ana Sanctuary: Women’s Pro-Anorexia Narratives in Cyberspace”, in

the Journal of International Women’s Studies 4, pp31-45

61
Dubrovsky, V.J., Kiesler, S., Sethena, B. (1991) “The Equalization Phenomenon: Status
Effects in Computer Mediated and Face to Face Decision Making Groups” in Human-
Computer Interaction 6: pp119-146

Evagrius (2003) Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus. Trans. by Sinkewicz, R.E.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Fairburn, C.G., Cooper, Z. and Shafran, R. (2003) “Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Eating
Disorders: a “Transdiagnostic” Theory and Treatment” in Behaviour Research and Therapy,
Volume 41, Issue 5, May 2003, pp509-528

Festinger, L., Riecken, H. and Schachter, S. (1956) When Prophecy Fails, a Social and
Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World, New
York: Harper & Row

Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the Self: a Seminar with Michel Foucault, (eds.) Martin,
L.H., Gutman, H., and Hutton, P.H. London: Tavistock

Fox, N., Ward, K., and O'Rourke, A. (2005) “Pro-anorexia, Weight-Loss Drugs and the
Internet: an "Anti-Recovery" Explanatory Model of Anorexia” in Sociology of Health and
Illness, 2005 Nov; 27(7)

Frankfurt, Harry G. (1977) Identification and Externality. In Rorty, A. (ed.) The Identities of
Persons. California: University of California Press.

Gergen, K. (1991) The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, New
York: Basic Books

Giles, D. (2006) “Constructing Identities in Cyberspace: The Case of Eating Disorders” in the
British Journal of Social Psychology (2006), 45

Goffman, E. (1957) "Alienation from Interaction," in Human Relations 10:1 (1957), pp47-60

Habermas, T. (1996) “In Defense of Weight Phobia as the Central Organizing Motive in
Anorexia Nervosa: Historical and Cultural Arguments for a Culture-Sensitive Psychological
Conception” in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. 1996 May; 19(4): pp317-34.

Habermas, T. (1989) “The Psychiatric History of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa:
Weight Concerns and Bulimic Symptoms in Early Case Reports” in the International Journal
of Eating Disorders, Volume 8, Issue 3, pp259–273, May 1989

Harding, S. (2001) The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics,
Princeton University Press, Princeton

Hornbacher, M. (1999) Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, London: Flamingo

Jacobs, S. (2007) “Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber-Rituals in

Online Spaces” in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 12, Issue 3,
pp1103–1121, April 2007

62
Jenkins, T. (2009) “Closer to Dan Brown than to Gregor Mendel: on Dawkins' The God
Delusion” in the Scottish Journal of Theology, 2009, 62: pp269-281

Jones, L. (2000) The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture, Vol. 1: Monumental Occasions,

Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press

Jones, S.G. (ed.) (1995) Cybersociety: Computer-mediated Communication and Community.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Keane, W. (2007) Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter,
Berkley: University of California Press

Keel, P, K., and Klump, K. L., (2003) “Are Eating Disorders Culture-Bound Syndromes?
Implications for Conceptualizing their Etiology” in Psychological Bulletin, 2003, vol. 129,
no.5, pp747 - 769

Kiesler, S., Siegel, J., McGuire, T. W., (1984) “Social Psychological Aspects of Computer
Mediated Communication” in American Psychologist 39 (10) 1984, pp1123-1134

Kozinets, R. (2010) Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online, London: SAGE

Kumon, S. (1992) “From Wealth to Wisdom: A Change in the Social Paradigm” in

Proceeding CSCW '92 (Proceedings of the 1992 Association for Computing Machinery
conference on computer-supported cooperative work)

Latour, B. (1993) We Have Never Been Modern, Trans. Porter, C., New York; London:
Harvester Wheatsheaf

Lelwica, M.M. (2002) Starving for Salvation: the Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Problems
Among American Girls and Women, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Levenkron, S. (2000) Anatomy of Anorexia, New York; London: W. W. Norton

Licklider, J.C.R. and Taylor, Robert W. (1968) “The Computer as a Communication Device”
in Science and Technology, April 1968

Lock, A., Epston, D. and Maisel, R. (2005). “Resisting Anorexia/Bulimia: Foucauldian

Perspectives in Narrative Therapy” in the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, Vol.
33-3, pp315-332.

Madigan, S., Goldner, E. (1998) “A Narrative Approach to Anorexia: Reflexivity, Discourse

and Questions” in Hoyt, M. (ed.) Constructive Therapies, Jossey Bass: New York

McLuhan, M. (1967) Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man, London: Sphere Books

Nash, J. (2006) “Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The 'Fasting Body' and the Hunger for Pure
Immanence” in the Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 310-327

63
Norris, M.L, Boydell. K. M., Pinhas, L. and Katzman, D.K. (2006) “Ana and the Internet: A
Review of Pro-Ana Websites” in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2006 Sep, 39
(6), pp443-7

Prince, R. (1985) “The Concept of Culture Bound Syndromes: Anorexia Nervosa and Brain-
Fag” in Social Science and Medicine, 21, 1985, pp197-203

Rampling, D. (1988) “The Asceticism of Anorexia Nervosa” in Hardoff, D. and Chigler, E

(eds.) Eating Disorders in Adolescents and Young Adults, London: Freund Publishing

Rheingold, H. (1993) The Virtual Community: Homesteading On the Electronic Frontier,

Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley

Shade, L.R. (2003) “Weborexics: The Ethical Issues Surrounding Pro-Ana Websites” in ACM
SIGCAS Computers and Society, Volume 33 Issue 4, December 2003

Sharf, B. F. (1999) “Beyond Netiquette: The Ethics of Doing Naturalistic Discourse Research
on the Internet” in S. Jones (Ed.), Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for
Examining the Net, Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London : Sage, pp243–256

Shupe, A. (1981) Six Perspectives on New Religions, Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen
Press

Skinner, S. and Rankine, D. (eds.) (2007) The Goetia of Dr Rudd: The Angels and Demons of
Liber Malorum Spirituum Seu Goetia Lemegeton Clavicula Salomoni, London: Golden
Hoard

Smith, M. and Pollock, P. (eds.) (1999) Communities in Cyberspace, London: Routledge

Turner, Bryan S. (1982) “The Discourse of Diet” in Theory, Culture and Society, vo1.1, 1982

Turner, V. (1974) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Harmondsworth:

Penguin

Vandereycken, W. and Van Deth, R. (1994) From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls: the
History of Self-Starvation, London: Athlone Press

Weber, M. (1978) Economy and Society: an Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Volume 2,

Berkeley: California

Weber, M. (1965) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Translated by Talcott
Parsons, London: Unwin, 1930 (1965 printing)

Winzelberg, A. (1997) “The Analysis of an Electronic Support Group for Individuals with
Eating Disorders” in Computers in Human Behavior, 13, 393–407.

Woodhead, L. and Heelas, P. (2005) The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to
Spirituality, Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell

64
Van Baalen (1960) The Chaos of Cults: A Study in Present-day Isms, 3rd rev. ed. Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES

The Boston Globe, 4th August, 2001: Catherine Holahan, “Yahoo Removes Pro-Eating
Disorder Internet Sites”, <http://edresources.pbworks.com/w/page/9788206/Pro-
%20Articles#Yahooremovesproedsites8/4/01>

Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1st September, 2005: Jill Burcum < http://trib.com/news/weird-
news/article_166d9a93-c131-5c63-a73a-02ae7b413373.html>

Time Magazine, 31st July, 2001: Jessica Reaves, “Anorexia Goes Hi-Tech”,
<http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,169660,00.html>

The Wave Magazine, 16th January 2003: Chris Bushnell, “The Skeleton Crew – Inside the
Pro-Anorexia Movement’s Underground Web Campaign” <www.thewavemag.com> or
<http://velocity.t-nation.com/free_online_forum/music_movies_girls_life/proana_article>

65