THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN SECULAR CULTURE: DIFFUSE COMMUNITIES AND THE SACRED LOCATIONS OF SPIRITUAL SEEKERS Unpublished: Request author for citation Dr Dominic Corrywright Oxford Brookes University Abstract: An examination of alternative spiritualities challenges standard notions of religious locations and ritual religious practice. The paper will examine the notion of place in religion, and the meaning of this in a secular context. The paper will argue that a primary typology of formal geographic locations and informal network nodes provides a clear framework for conceiving the places where alternative religiosity is practiced. The paper will examine a number of locations where discrete activities form the basis of religious practice in alternative spiritualities. Reflexively these ritual activities inform an understanding of the significance and value of the places where alternative spiritualities are enacted. The study of formal geographic network nodes reveals places of shifting identities and self-representation. But the study also indicates the vitality of formal locations as functional hubs through which informal networks coalesce and by which they are reticulated. The paper therefore argues for an application of a specific form of social network theory to illuminate a growing form of religious practice in post-industrial, secular culture. This perspective of religious rituals embedded in the everyday and conducted in manifold locations reveals a vibrancy and re-enchantment of the place of religion in contemporary culture.