Along with the process of cultural globalization, there have emerged various tribalisms, through which many social actors are rediscovering their sense of life and activating mechanisms of identity and memory. At the moment when the idea of the national is diminishing because of the new political and economic order of the free market, violent manifestations of racism have increased, and so has the defense of the “proper.” Advances in technology are making unsuspected things possible: time and space–long thought to be irreducible–are bending to human understanding through virtual universes. A world in which there is already secular competence in defining the social meanings of life is seeing offers of salvation, healing, and happiness arising from all sides. Old and new magico-religious practices are setting themselves in opposition to Western rationalism, presently in crisis. Today, at the end of the millennium, belief is being established as something more than a crutch to help people bear uncertainty.
