The grand entrance, stark lighting, glorious frame, hushed tones and attendant security guards are all part of the quasi-religious theatre.

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For them, seeing the King of Pop is a quasi-religious experience, and they went into rapture when he appeared.

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The Founding Fathers Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin have enjoyed a quasi-religious reverence in the United States to which there are few parallels in any other society.

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But Koetsu ended his days in dignified security, as the quasi-religious head of a community at Takagamine, near Kyoto, part artists' colony and part monkish village.

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He also, as a former anthropology student, reflected on what it has been like to create a cultural myth which wins obsessive, almost quasi-religious interest from some fans.

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It turns natural disasters into quasi-religious occasions of national solidarity.

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In medieval mystic writings, particularly Sufi texts, it is unclear whether the beloved being addressed is a teenage boy or God, providing a quasi-religious sanction for relationships between men and boys.

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Historian Bat Ye'or has dubbed this quasi-religious creed Palestinianism.

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This is a quasi-religious belief that crosses all sectors of Palestinian society, and which is endlessly reproduced in Palestinian media, education and culture, and which is endorsed by UNRWA, the UN organ charged with maintaining health, welfare and education services for those it has deemed Palestinian refugees.

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