Seagoing trade made Southeast Asia a fertile meeting ground from early history, and at the close of World War II Landon aptly characterized the region as a ‘crossroad of religion’. He emphasized that up to then imported religions had been subordinated to ancestral spirit cults which were grounded in relatively autonomous villages, and noted that even the Westernized élites had adapted modern ideas with in a world-view shaped by local traditions. In the same breath he suggested that the middle of this century marked a turning point because the closing years of colonial rule and the disruptions of the war had definitively shaken the foundations of local life. Despite the range of changes since then, the region remains a site of encounter between deeply held and widely divergent world-views. A rich tapestry of ancient local traditions is still sustained with remarkable force, and significant communities derive their practices from all of the major world faiths in many of their forms. The diversity, vitality and depth of religious commitments with in the region combine so that it remains an especially rich laboratory for the exploration of religion.

The region is filled with vibrant ritual enactments, such as those in Hindu Bali, and many people routinely enter altered states through ritualized trance, as in Malaysia’s annual Thaipusam festival, touching realms of consciousness which are remote for most people in industrialized societies. Meditation practices of Javanese syncretic mystics and the Theravāda forest monastries counterpoint orthodox Islam and ritual Buddhism. Vigorous communities of new Christians exist alongside animists and some, mainly in urban contexts, who live without knowing religious meanings.