Spirituality in High-Security Prisons
The series ‘Religion in Prison’, by photographer Serge J-F Levy, captures the convicts and their religious experiences in high-security prisons.
When a criminal is accused and convicted to prison, we as a country, as a society, assume that he will experience some sort of rehabilitation. However, in most cases the reality is far from that. A prisoner will often encounter more violence and darkness behind closed walls. Therefore many convicts try to find their own rehabilitation or reconnection through spirituality as a metaphor for freedom. The photographer Serge J-F. Levy found a way into this world of mystical searches in the high-security prisons of the United States, he portrayed these personal rehabs in the series Religion in Prison. Levy says:
Without having any personal predisposition to any religious activity but having a fascination with how people can work on their spirituality and healing their souls, I was interested in how this was happening in an environment that seemed to be everything but conducive to that.
His project explores how religion has multifaceted functions: convicts adopt it as part of their identity and as an opportunity to develop their social circle; it becomes part of the art they produce and accompanies them through the darker moments in solitary confinement making sense of space and time.
Levy devoted two years of his life to this project, which led him to six maximum security prisons in different states, which included Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Louisiana. Being allowed into the prisons was not an easy task, but he was eventually granted the necessary permissions because he was not looking for “the cracks in the toilet bowl and poor inmate conditions,” instead he was looking at something that could possibly make a prison and its staff look better.
His photographs depict a wide range of religions and practices that include Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Wicca. The religious experiences that the series depicts take place in the dark and hostile environments of prisons, which endows them with an aura that unveils the convicts most solemn side.
There’s this sincere desire on the part of many inmates to try to understand the state of their soul,” Levy said. “They’re trying to understand their predicament, and I think that spirituality in prison not so infrequently dovetails with a form of analysis or therapy. I think there’s a sense of introspection and evaluation of one’s life that happens within these religious environments, especially in one-on-ones with the chaplains. I didn’t expect to see that, and it’s fascinating."
His series is extremely efficient in the sense that it shows the urgent side of spirituality and the search for the bond that ties us to something greater than the mere individual. When there is nothing else left, other than metaphysical redemption because the body is trapped, all sorts of powerful, fundamental spiritual events take place.
Related Articles
7 Recommendations for Organizing Your Library
For the true bibliophile, few things are more important than finding a book from within your library.
Red tea, the best antioxidant beverage on earth
Red tea is considered to be the most unusual of teas because it implies a consistently different preparation process. ––It is believed that its finding came upon surprisingly when traditional green
A brief and fascinating tour of the world's sands
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. - William Blake What are we standing on? The ground beneath our feet
Strengthen your memory with rosemary oil
For thousands of years rosemary oil has been traditionally admired and used due to its many properties. In the Roman culture, for example, it was used for several purposes, among them cleansing, as
Literature as a Tool to Build Realities
Alain de Botton argues that great writers are like lenses through which we can see an infinite array of possibilities.
Mandelbrot and Fractals: Different Ways of Perceiving Space
Mathematics has always placed a greater emphasis on algebra, a “purer” version of itself, one that is more rational at least. Perhaps like in philosophy, the use of a large number knotted concepts in
Luis Buñuel’s Perfect Dry Martini
The drums of Calanda accompanied Luis Buñuel throughout his life. In his invaluable memoirs, published under the Buñuel-esque title, My Last Sigh, an entire chapter is dedicated to describing a
A Brief Manual of Skepticism, Courtesy of Carl Sagan
Whether or not you’re dedicated to science, these tips to identify fallacies apply to any form of rigorous thinking.
How to Evolve from Sadness
Rainer Maria Rilke explored the possible transformations that sadness can trigger in human beings.
Alan Watts, A Discreet And Charming Philosopher Of The Spirit
British thinker Alan Watts was one of the most accessible and entertaining Western interpreters of Oriental philosophy there have been.