In a volume, Secrecy in Religions, Kees Bolle, as editor responsible for the introduction and author of the lead essay, excoriates scholars for attempting to explain mystery that he counts as the essence of religion. He writes as if secrecy and mystery are sui generis givens and neglects the role of human agency in producing secrecy. The concepts of secrecy and of concealment differ from the concept of the unknown in that the former entails the idea of agency and mind. They are activities involving intentionality. I am one of those who believe that religion is most usefully treated in the academy as the study of human practices that involve imagining interaction with certain classes of agents, that is, gods, ancestors, saints, spirits, the world as mind and many other types of non-obvious beings. Most study of secrecy in religion has treated esoteric traditions, mysticism and social formations that feature secret knowledge. Instead, I want to think about the way that various kinds of practices involve different modes of imagining the secrets of and about these non-obvious agents.

I begin with a central characteristic of conceiving these agents across cultures that ensures a large role for secrecy in religion. Normally humans do not have full and direct access to gods, ancestors and so on, but recognize their activity in traces that the gods have left. A trace could be a strike of lightening, an illness, a bountiful crop, a healing, a heightened mood, a possessed individual, divine embodiments in plants, animals or natural features, or a deposit of divine words that needs an interpreter. One usually sees not the god but the results of divine activity as in Ps 77:19; “The rumble of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightening flashed light at the world; the earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were not seen.” Traces are partial, mysterious and require interpretation such as the writer of the Psalm and other authors are eager to supply. Most of all, traces often raise the question of divine intentions. Thus, religion has involved enormous investment in human interpretive practices.