The Rise of Modern Spirituality

Part 1 in the series, A Literary Search for Meaning by Karen Hughes

The dramatic rise of individualised Western spirituality in recent times contradicts the theory that urbanisation, rationalisation and modern scientific thinking must naturally result in the end of religion and spiritual belief. Scholars from a range of disciplines who promoted this theory, including leading sociologists Max Weber and Peter Berger, apparently did not foresee the “massive subjective turn of modern culture” (C. Taylor,Ethics 26) that would encourage a more personal approach, leading to new forms of spirituality with a focus on the self rather than on any institutional authority. These alternative spiritualities encourage an inward quest, placing an emphasis on

states of consciousness, states of mind, memories, emotions, passions, sensations, bodily experiences, dreams, feelings, inner conscience, and sentiments—including moral sentiments like compassion. The inner subjectivities of each individual become a, if not the, unique source of significance, meaning and authority (Heelas and Woodhead 3–4).

This does not, however, mean that the journey of the modern spiritual seeker must be a solitary one. Colin Campbell argues that the individualism and subjective mystical practices of the modern spiritual seeker are based in a “unifying system of belief”, leading to a state of “mystic collectivity” (383). This belief system is constantly evolving and stems from what Christopher Partridge calls an everyday “occultural osmosis”, whereby “a range of unexamined nonsecular knowledge becomes part of an individual’s construction of reality” (“Occulture” 327). Partridge uses the word “occulture” as a noun to signify “the spiritual/mythic/paranormal background knowledge that informs the plausibility structures of Westerners” (Re-Enchantment 1: 187). Such knowledge, comprising an eclectic hotchpotch of ideas, assumptions, rituals and myths, extracted from a diverse range of traditions and freed from the institutional binds associated with traditional religion, provides both a loose framework and a vast resource for the modern spiritual milieu.

Referencing Weber’s use of the term “disenchantment” and building on the work of Colin Campbell and Ernst Troelsche in relation to “mystical religion and the occult milieu”, Partridge describes the rise of modern Western spirituality as “the re-enchantment of the West” and attributes this in part to the process of secularisation, observing that as traditional religions decline, alternative spiritualities emerge to take their place (Re-Enchantment 1: 4; 43).

In his classic 1918 lecture, Weber drew on Friedrich Schiller’s use of the term “disenchantment” to describe a modern rational world demystified by scientific progress and enlightened reason, a world that had, in short, lost its magic:

The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the “disenchantment of the world.” Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. (155)

Like Auguste Comte and Karl Marx, Weber believed that both religion and the sacred would fade with the rise of a more educated, urbanised society based on the principles of rationalism, and it was this “secularization theory” that formed the basis of much twentieth-century sociological discussion (Norris and Inglehart 2). Secularisation originally emerged out of the separation of church and state in the West, developing through various political processes over at least three centuries in “a play of destabilization and recomposition”, essentially transforming Western society from one “in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others” (C. Taylor, Secular Age 3). While Weber’s “disenchantment” has its roots in this wider historical thesis, the focus of his 1918 lecture and much of his later writing was on the cultural implications of rational thinking and the effect that industrialisation and capitalist values might have on public religion. Other proponents of the secularisation theory applied its principles to the private sphere, maintaining that “humans would ‘outgrow’ their belief in the supernatural” and that personal spirituality, which Sigmund Freud called “the greatest of all neurotic illusions”, would end (Stark and Finke 54, 55). The declining influence of religious institutions in areas such as politics and education was cited as evidence that personal spiritual belief was also in decline.

In the last few decades, however, debate has raged about the validity of the theory—both as to whether public religion is in fact declining and, if so, whether such a decline reflects or promotes a decline in personal spirituality—to the point where Peter Berger, who wrote in 1968 that by the twenty-first century “religious believers are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture” (qtd. in Stark and Finke 58), has completely revised his position, saying: “I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s was a mistake. … Most of the world today is certainly not secular” (Berger, “Epistemological Modesty” 974). Noting this revision, Rodney Stark suggests that it is literally time to bury the theory: “After nearly three centuries of utterly failed prophesies and misrepresentations of both present and past, it seems time to carry the secularization doctrine to the graveyard of failed theories, and there to whisper ‘requiescat in pace’” (270).

Although much has been written about the re-emergence of spirituality in Western society and the rise of alternative spiritual groups, the abstract concept of spirituality itself remains vague and difficult to define. For many, the search is for something greater, for an indeterminate presence that exists within and beyond the material world. Lynne Hume and Kathleen McPhillips write that the search includes “something sacred or supernatural” and is a necessary response to our “deep inner hunger for meaning and connectedness” (xvi, citing Murchu); David Tacey argues that it is “a desire for connectedness, which often expresses itself as an emotional relationship with an invisible sacred presence” (Re-Enchantment 7); Elaine Lindsay refers to this presence as a “suprahuman force” (xiv); and others claim that it is based on a “transcendent referent” (see Mason et al. 39). This approach is effectively summed up as follows:

Spirituality is distinguished from all other things—humanism, values, morals, and mental health—by its connection to that which is sacred, the transcendent. The transcendent is that which is outside of the self, and yet also within the self—and in Western traditions is called God, Allah, HaShem, or a Higher Power, and in Eastern traditions may be called Brahman, manifestations of Brahman, Buddha, Dao, or ultimate truth/reality. Spirituality is intimately connected to the supernatural, the mystical, and to organized religion, although also extends beyond organized religion (and begins before it). (Koenig et al. 45)

With the rise of post-secular spirituality, the definition has broadened to include concepts of wellbeing and wholeness, which do not necessarily rely on supernatural or transcendent elements. Spirituality is a search for a balance and harmony within and of the self. It is a “quest for attaining an optimal relationship between what one truly is and everything that is” (Van Ness 5). The Four Domains Model, advanced by John Fisher to link spirituality with health and wellbeing, acknowledges this expansion of the term: “At our core, or coeur, we humans are spiritual beings. Spirituality can be viewed in a variety of ways from a traditional understanding of spirituality as an expression of religiosity, in search of the sacred, through to a humanistic view of spirituality devoid of religion” (1).

Many scholars argue that modern spirituality is a nebulous concept that should be “grounded in terms of the ethics of daily concrete life—human suffering, human potential, interdependencies among humans and between humans and nature” (Murray, “Knowing” 173). This more experiential humanist approach can also be seen in the rise of “embodied spirituality”, a participatory movement which advocates “integrating immanent and transcendent spiritual energies in embodied existence” (Ferrer, Participation 61). This is an approach that unites consciousness and matter, balancing the mystical with the physical, social and ecological. Spirituality, in this sense, is relational and cannot be distinguished from the holistic concepts of life and love. It refers to our experience as equal participants in an interdependent and interconnected universe.

Modern spirituality may, therefore, be defined as a subjective quest for the deeper meaning of human existence, offering a wide and continually evolving range of paths. It is exploratory, diverse and grounded in personal experience rather than any authoritative truth; and it has its basis in a collective mystical belief system that continues to develop. Modern spirituality can be described in terms which can be situated within the religious or the secular. At its heart lies a longing for meaningful connection—with others, with the land or the supernatural perhaps, and ultimately with a more expansive version of ourselves.