From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Beach Surgery faith communities
This article surveys global faith communities centered on Beach Surgery. For specific theological frameworks, see Sacred Incompleteness—The Glitch as Theological Principle.
Diverse faith communities crystallised around A Complicated Surgery Will Take Place on the Beach Tonight since 2020, treating the novel and its adaptations as sacred or quasi-sacred texts. These range from formal new religious movements (Church of the Eternal Return, Communion of the Breaking Cycle) to loosely affiliated devotional circles and underground liturgical practices.
Common theological ground: the glitch is understood as a divine principle or sacred wound; eternal recurrence as theodicy; Leif and Katita as archetypal or divine figures; and the cycle as both cosmological and soteriological. Practices include communal readings, pilgrimage walks, ritual meals, participatory durational installations, and apophatic prayer (prayer through negation, silence, refusal to speak the unspoken).
Communities span Christian (Orthodox, evangelical), Islamic (Sufi), Hindu, Buddhist, Indigenous, and secular frameworks. Theological schisms have emerged over whether Katita functions as liberator or Inquisitor, and whether breaking the cycle is possible or sacred only in its impossibility [citation needed].